The Willows

by Mathew Sperle

  Making a mental note to talk with his daughter, he noticed Gwen strolling out of the stable in some sort of a daze, Lance strutting like a peacock behind her. Young Lance had obviously been busy, Jervis thought, much relieved. Unless he was badly mistaken, it was a girl who had been recently kissed.

  Greening, he dismissed his worries about his daughter and Lance. After all, what man in his right mind would risk losing Gwen for Edith? Oh, she was an exemplary daughter, and a decent cook, but certainly not the prize.

  As he looked at his niece and noticed her distraction, he decided to escort Gwen to the field. With all that was writing on today’s outcome, he dare not risk that she might panic at the last moment and runaway.

  “My, my, you aren’t a vision,” he told Gwen as he steered her toward the playing field. “You look so lovely, Gwen, your father and I will be beating the boys off with a stick.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Lance did not seem to notice.”

  Jervis frowned. “I am certain he did, honey, but his mind is on other things. Winning the competition, after all, means of winning your hand.”

  “Oh, uncle, he has to win today.”

  He put an arm around her, wondering why you must have this conversation twice in two days. “Of course, Lance will win. Don’t you worry, we won’t let anything happen to our Gwen.”

  “You do all love me, don’t you?”

  He pulled away, generally surprise. “What kind of question is that? We are your family, honey. We have our differences, like all kinfolk, but want only the best for you. And to my way of thinking, is exactly what Lance is.”

  Her smile was a lip attempt. “Maybe, but daddy is liable to be angry when he learns Lance is in the competition. What will he do if he refuses to accept our marriage?”

  He tensed, wondering if she somehow knew about the trust fund. “Is your daddy’s approval all that important?” He probed. “I mean, if he won’t accept Lance, will it make any difference in how feel about him?”

  “I suppose not.” She sighed. “I am a grown woman now, and I must make my own choices. Even if…” She touched her lips, then set them in a tight line. “I’ve sworn to marry the winner and I will, no matter what.”

  “That is our Gwen.” Patting her on the shoulder, gestured toward the grandstand now looming before them. He tried to hide his annoyance at not finding his brother there, but a good measure of it crept into his tone. “You go on and sit on your throne, honey. Looks like I’m going to have to go fetch your father.”

  “I hope he is not drinking already.”

  On the contrary, Jervis hoped his brother was, for the less John knew about what was going on, the more manageable he would prove to be. Indeed, maybe he should find him a flask. “You go on,” he told Gwen, when his mind set on getting his brother drunk. “The crowd is expecting their queen, and we can’t be disappointing them.”

  She nodded, raising her chin much like her mother might have done. Watching her walk proudly to her throne, Jervis saw all too much of Amanda in this young woman. Half the reason he wanted Gwen marrying that imbecile Lance, was to keep her from getting in his way.

  Just a few more hours, he thought, turning back toward the house.

  ***

  Gwen approach the grandstand, thoughts spreading through her head. She couldn’t be doing this… It was some dreadful mistake… If she fainted right now, maybe they would call the entire thing off.

  The crowd gathering around her was enormous-she’d been right in telling Michael everyone would be here-but contrary to her uncle’s suggestion, they did not wait for their queen. Busy milling around, chattering among themselves, for neighbors all but ignored her. Nor did it help her confidence to find so many local bachelors watching from the stands. How humiliating, all these people had gathered to watch, and no one but Lance showed up compete for her hand.

  Lance, thoughts on easily. She wish now that she’d never asked him to kiss her. Maybe Jervis was right, maybe he was preoccupied, but he could have put some life into the effort, infused it with some… Magic. Maybe then it would not have been such a disappointment.

  There, she admitted it; she had felt nothing when Lance kissed her. They could be children again, pecking at each other’s lips, for all the passion they had stirred between them. Why, she’d felt more in the arms of a rival stranger.

  Remembering just how much she’d felt with Michael, she cringed with guilt. What was she thinking of, today over all days, when Lance was about to ride into this very field, a noble knight doing battle for his lady?

  She looked at the family banner stretched across the front of the grandstand, with its huge gold crown atop the words, “honor and glory.” The first day she could remember, she’d longed to be a queen of this realm, to rule as warmly and graciously as her mother. It was every dream she’d ever dreamed, a fancy few girls could ever hope for, and today, Lance was going to make it come true.

  Lifting her chin, she climbed the three steps to the covered platform and went straight to the wooden share her uncle called a thorough. Painted a gaudy gold, its stiff back studded with glittering stones, it might look like if grown from a distance, but up close, it looked like a very uncomfortable chair. More keeping up pretenses, she thought unhappily.

  Not anxious to test its comfort, she stood at the low rail to survey the field. Three viewing areas had been set up, one on either side of the grandstand, but the larger area directly opposite. In the wide Lane between these areas, two polls had been erected, a cord strung between them. A hook dangled from the cord, holding the ring each person must snare.

  Looking about her, she cannot help but sigh. Uncle had done his best, but this was nowhere near spectacle her parents had once provided. There were too few benches in the viewing areas, and the tarps stretched over them for shade sported a good many holes since their last use. Worn, too, for the flags on the supporting poles. Once they had fluttered greatly, sporting a circus of color, but now they drooped, and waved lifeless in the midmorning sun.

  She could understand either inertia, she found it hard enough to breathe in this heat. Clicking opened her cousin’s fan to try to stir up the breeze, but even moving, the air remained hot and humid sticking It to her, weighed her down, and did nothing to brighten her mood.

  She wished she could see the competitors in the far off corner, but they’d the kept out of sight until their grand entrance. At the sound of the horn each person would be introduced, so he could come charging across the field to snare the reading and Gallup off with it on his Lance.

  The dramatic spectacle that Gwen normally enjoyed, but today she felt hot and tired, and her stomach churned with worry. It’s not help to see uncle leading her tottering daddy up the steps. John’s drunken expression warned that he had indeed found the Bourbon; fierce frown promised trouble.

  He sat on her throne, finding it as uncomfortable as she feared. Fidgeting nervously, she waited for her father’s reaction to the dress as he took the seat to her right. But aside from a grunt, he said nothing, leaving Gwen with her first real stirrings of hope. If Edith had been wrong about his reaction to mothers dress, she was probably wrong about the rest of it, too.

  Juervis kept looking about them. “Have you seen Edith?” Asked. “If she doesn’t arrive soon, we will have to start without her.”

  “Start anyway,” Father grumbled. “Let’s get the damn thing over with and done.”

  Far from pleased, uncle stepped up to the rail, raising his arms in the air. A horn sounded, weak and tiny, but the crowd hushed immediately.

  Stepping out onto the field, Thomas Perkins, the man acting as today’s Herald, gestured up to the grandstand. “Hear ye, hear ye,” he shouted. “Gather around and pay heed, for today we crowned the queen of our tournament, the lovely lady Gwen.”

  A day that was likely to be a long one, she thought with a frown as she took her seat. At a clap from Mr. Perkins, the competitors were summoned to parade, one by one, before the viewers. Her vanity
might rejoice at the number of people, nearly forty in all, but her mind did the mental arithmetic. Even if each took but a few moments to charge for the ring, first round was bound to take hours.

  Mr. Perkins introduced every contestant in turn. With each taken the identity of some fiction is night, it was understandable that she might not recognize all their names, but how daunting that she should find so few familiar faces. All had chosen crests and colors, but the effort seemed slapdash and halfhearted. And made this less romantic with every passing minute.

  Beside her, father lifted a flask to his mouth, but his eyes never left the field. Assignments, he watched each person, nodding as if counting heads, stiffening at the last was introduced. Lance, Gwen thought with an overwhelming relief. Didn’t matter who the other men were as long as he competed. Her Lancelot would rescue her again.

  A thunderous cheer went up as he dashed to the center of the field, carrying a pennant of the same silver and white as his clothing. Everything about him seem to glisten; even his horse was a pale, silvery gray. Bringing the animal up onto its rear legs, he held the pose as he saluted to the crowd.

  “Fool,” father muttered beside her. “That man could not pay off his debts. Where did he get this kind of money?”

  Gwen had no time to ponder the question, for Lance was charging toward the grandstand, holding her gaze. Even before he stopped by the rail, she realize what he wanted, the token of her favor, she thought with dismay; that was twice she had forgotten about it.

  What could she offer? Not her hair ribbon, for that was blue and Lance had asked for something white. Digging frantically in her ridicule, all she could only find was a plain handkerchief, a plain square with neither lace nor embroidery. It was not much of a token, but it would have to do.

  Lance frowned when she presented its. For awful moment she feared he had hated her offering, but he eventually took the offending cloth tied it to his spear. Bowing, he turned his horse dramatically, before charging off to join the ranks.

  Father continue to grumble, taking another poll from the flask, but Gwen let herself relax. None of these men seemed likely a night, much less a worthy rival, so she had every section that Lance would eventually dispatch them.

  The initial charges held her interests, watching horse and rider under toward that single, tiny worrying, but as more and more missed, the ineptitude grew wearying. Half those eliminated from the first round never touch the ring, and now an equal number failed to remain on their horse. How boring the contest seemed, now that’s the outcome was unforeseen conclusion.

  Only a dozen survived the second round, and by the third there were merely by. Gwen fanned herself religiously as one by one, Lance is remaining rivals fell by the wayside, until he alone prevailed. At last, she thought as he pranced on his silver horse toward the grandstand, grinning from ear to ear.

  Yet now that it was done, Gwen felt strange let down. She knew she should count herself lucky, but surely a girl could wish for something a little bit more romantic-at the least, entertaining. After future must be decided by competition, shouldn’t there be at least some excitement?

  The heat must be getting to her. Instead of complaining about silly, girlish aspirations, she should be on her knees grateful that Lance had won. It was over, her future was decided at last; she should start enjoying all the dreams Lance just made come true.

  And she would, she swore, just as soon as she had a cool bath and a reviving glass of lemonade.

  In the meantime, she must get through the ceremonies the crowd expected. As Lance trotted closer, she rose to greet him with a forced smile, her hands going to the crown at her head. Trading decreed that she grant it to the winner.

  “Not so fast,” father said, rising to his feet beside her. “Ain’t finished yet.”

  “Sit down, John” uncle hissed at her other side. “We know how you feel about Lance, but he defeated everyone else.”

  “Has he now? Then who is that?”

  A slow building murmur ripped through the crowd as they look to where he pointed. “No,” Gwen whispered, her hands tightening on the crown as she recognized the new challenger.

  There, on his huge beast of a horse, sat Michael.

  Chapter 8

  Michael? Here, now? Lance swiftly denied that he was alarmed. This was no childish fist cuffs in which an unprincipled form boy could excel; tilting was a gentleman’s game, and Lance was its master. How brash, how foolish of that no account farmer to think he could ride in and challenge him. Ordinarily, Lance would take great pleasure in putting the man in his place, but today, unfortunately, there was too much at stake. “It is too late,” he called out, annoyed by that tension Rafe received. “I have already won the competition.”

  Michael rode forward with a lack of speed, reining in his horse before them. “Funny, but I don’t remember reading anything on that handbill regarding a timeframe. According to this copy of the rules, your competition isn’t over until the Queen declares the winner.” He leaned forward, over the railing offering a slip of paper.

  With a grunt, John took the list of rules. Gwen, Lance noticed, continue to clutch the crown as if her life depended on it, her face drained of all color.

  “He is right.” Looking altogether too pleased, John waved the sheet of paper. “It also states that the Queen cannot announce the winner, until the panel of judges votes on who it will be.”

  Lance looked to Jervis, seemed equally confused. The panel had been designed to protect them, not provide openings for unimportant challengers.

  “I see no reason why this man cannot compete.” John said, leaning back in his chair.

  “I see several reasons,” Jervis said coldly. “He has not paid the entrance fee. If he had, he would be wearing a number like everyone else.”

  Lance smiled. He had forgotten about the fee-for, of course, she had not had to pay it-but they had written a rule saying that it must be paid before the competition began.”

  Michael sat compliantly on his horse. “I have a number, actually. Don’t I, Miss McCloud?”

  At first, Lance thought he meant Gwen. It took some moments to realize that Michael nodded instead at her cousin, now walking up the steps.

  “He is right,” Edith said breathlessly, waving his entry slip as she approached. “I’m sorry it has taken so long, but I had to search high and low to find your number.” She leaned over the rail to hand the slip to Michael.

  “You could have stalled a bit longer,” Lance fumed. “Five minutes more, and I’d have had the damn crown in my hands.”

  Jervis reach for his daughter’s arms “what is this?” He snagged, anger glittering in his eyes. “I don’t recall his name on the list.”

  Edith seemed surprised by her father’s reaction. “Sorry, but I must have forgotten to write it down. You know how scatterbrain I have been of lately. Why, when Michael entered the list, I told him the competition didn’t start until afternoon. Please don’t penalize him for the confusion. Not when it’s all my fault.”

  “What is this, Michael?” Jervis all but hissed. “What do think you are doing?”

  Michael stared into Jervis’s eyes. “I am here for the same reason everyone else is, to claim Queen Gwen.” Slowly, deliberately, his gaze shifted to Gwen.

  Watching them stare at each other as if mesmerized, Lance felt a vast discomfort. Silent message seemed to pass between them, a private communication from which the rest of the world was excluded. Even Lance himself.

  Gripping his reins. This was his Gwen, and had been since childhood. Never, not even during her long stint in Boston, had he imagined another man could look at her so intensely, so intimately.

  “This is absurd, “he cried out, thinking no further than that he must cut the link between them. “The competition is over. Gwen, my darling, hand me the crown.”

  She turned to him, blinking rapidly as if to break free of a trance, before looking blankly at the gold crown in her hands.

  “I say we let him compete,
” her father announced, reaching out stay her arm. “Let’s give these people what they came for.”

  “And I say the tournament has already been won.” Jervis stood, staring down at his brother as if daring him to argue.

  “Don’t you think this is a matter for the judges to decide?” Edith spoke quietly. Nodding at the crowd, watching avidly from the viewing areas, she added, “in private.”

  “Good idea.” John turned to Lance and made the shooing motion with his hands. “You go on now and leave us to our decision.”

  Stunned and outraged that he had been dismissed, Lance spoke without thinking. “Don’t I have a say in this? I’m all but family.”

  “You are not one of us yet,” John said loudly.

  Lance might yell, but he could say nothing. He could ill afford to further alienate this man, while John’s still held the reins to the Willows.

  Trotting off after Michael, Lance told himself he had no need to worry. Hadn’t they design the panel to every decision would fall in his favor? He could rely on Jervis’s support, and after the night spent entertaining Edith in the stable, she would give him the victory, too. Irrationally stubborn John might stand against him, but then, his daughter had the deciding vote.

  An easily, he remembered the look she had exchange with Michael. He ould count on Gwen... Couldn’t he?

  ***

  One listened to her vocal protests that it was too late, while Edith insisted it wasn’t Michael’s fault, but the words barely registered. She kept thinking of that adage, careful what you wish for, and oh, how she wished now that she had never asked or more excitement.

  What is Michael doing here? Her mind kept asking. This was not, she felt certain, another mirror case of nostalgia.

  Shivering, she thought of his intense gaze as he rode toward the grandstand. The closer he had, the more her heart had thundered, for Michael made her feel as if he had a claim solely for her-as if he had no other mission than snatch her up and carry her off.