Suddenly their conversation was interrupted by Jeremy’s bursting entrance into the parlor. He looked disheveled and wild-eyed.

“Jeremy?” Annabelle exclaimed in worry, jumping to her feet. “What happened? Where is Mr. Hunt?”

“Walking the horses around the square to cool them.” He shook his head and spoke breathlessly. “The man is a lunatic. We nearly overturned at least three times, we came close to killing a half dozen people, and I was jolted until the entire lower half of my body is black-and-blue. If I’d had the breath to spare, I would have started praying, as we were clearly going to die. Hunt has the meanest horses I’ve ever set eyes on, and he let out curses so foul that just one of them would have gotten me expelled from school for good—”

“Jeremy,” Annabelle began apologetically, aghast that Simon would have treated her brother so terribly. “I’m so—”

“It was without doubt the best afternoon of my entire life!” Jeremy continued jubilantly. “I begged Hunt to take me out again tomorrow, and he said that he would if he had the time—Oh, what a ripper he is, Annabelle! I’m off to get some water—I’ve got a half inch of dust lining my throat.” He rushed off with adolescent glee, while his mother and sister stared after him, openmouthed.

Later that evening Simon took Annabelle, Jeremy, and their mother to the residence over the butcher shop, where his parents still lived. Consisting of three main rooms and a narrow staircase leading to a third-floor loft, the place was small but well-appointed. Even so, Annabelle could read the perplexed disapproval on her mother’s face, for Philippa could not understand why the Hunts did not choose to live in a handsome town house or terrace. The more Annabelle had tried to explain that the Hunts felt no shame about their profession, and had no wish to escape the stigma of belonging to the working class, the more confused Philippa had become. Suspecting with annoyance that her mother was being deliberately obtuse, Annabelle had abandoned all attempts to discuss Simon’s family and had privately enjoined Jeremy to keep Philippa from saying anything disdainful in front of them.

“I’ll try,” Jeremy had said doubtfully. “But you know that Mama has never rubbed on well with people who are different from us.”

Annabelle had sighed in exasperation. “Heaven forbid that we should spend an evening with people who are not exactly the same as ourselves. We might learn something. Or worse, we might even enjoy it…oh, the shame!”

A curious smile touched her brother’s lips. “Don’t be too severe on her, Annabelle. It wasn’t so long ago that you had the same disdain for those on the lower rungs.”

“I did not! I…” Annabelle had paused with a ferocious scowl, then sighed. “You’re right, I did. Though now I can’t see why. There’s no dishonor in work, is there? Certainly it’s more admirable than idleness.”

Jeremy had continued to smile. “You’ve changed,” was his only comment, and Annabelle had replied ruefully.

“Perhaps that’s not a bad thing.”

Now, as they ascended the narrow stairs that led up from the butcher shop to the Hunts’ private rooms, Annabelle was aware of the subtle restraint in Simon’s manner, the only sign of the uncertainty that he must be feeling. No doubt he was concerned about how she and his family would “rub on,” as Jeremy had put it. Determined to make a success of the evening, Annabelle pasted a confident smile on her face, not flinching even as she heard the commotion in the Hunt residence…a cacophony of adult voices, childrens’ squeals, and thumps that sounded like furniture being overturned.

“Dear me,” Philippa exclaimed. “That sounds like…like…”

“A brawl?” Simon supplied helpfully. “It could be. In my family, it’s not always easy to distinguish parlor conversation from a rope-ring exchange.”

As they entered the main room, Annabelle tried to sort through the mass of faces…there was Simon’s older sister, Sally, the married mother of a half dozen children who were currently stampeding like Pamplona bulls through the little circuit of rooms…Sally’s husband and Simon’s parents and three younger brothers, and a younger sister named Meredith, whose dark serenity was oddly jarring in all the tumult. From what Simon had told Annabelle, he had a special fondness for Meredith, who was quite different from her rough-and-tumble siblings, being shy and bookish.

The children crowded around Simon, who displayed a surprising facility with them, tossing them easily into the air and managing to simultaneously inspect a newly lost tooth and apply a handkerchief to a runny nose. The first few minutes of welcome were confusing ones, with rounds of shouted introductions, and children scattering back and forth, and the yowling indignation of a hearthside cat who had just been nipped by an inquisitive puppy. Annabelle had every expectation that things would calm down after that, but in truth, the general upheaval continued all through the evening. She had brief glimpses of her mother’s frozen smile, and Jeremy’s relaxed enjoyment, and Simon’s amused exasperation as his efforts to settle the bedlam met with poor results.

Simon’s father, Thomas, was a huge, imposing man with features that could easily have lent themselves to intimidating austerity. Occasionally his face and eyes were softened with a smile that was not quite as charismatic as Simon’s but possessed its own quiet appeal. Annabelle managed to have a friendly exchange with him as she was seated beside him at dinner. Unfortunately, it appeared that the two mothers were not communicating well. The cause did not seem to be dislike so much as a complete inability to relate to one another. Their lives, the accumulation of experiences that had formed them and shaped their views, could not have been more opposed.