“HOW GOOD IT IS, TO STEP INTO THIS QUIETUDE.” FINDING REFUGE FROM the unusually cold November day, Katherine Dee’s words are only a whisper as she closes the heavy church door and slips quietly into the building. Still only in her twenties, she is a kindhearted but rather steady girl, wise beyond her years, glad to escape the giddy noise of the revels and the dancing of the feast-day fair on the green outside. Just for a moment she breathes in, closing her eyes, catching her breath: there is a faint smell of incense, and also of the late autumn flowers that decorate the church in celebration of All Souls’ Day. Under the great Elizabeth, the two festivals have merged into one, All Saints’ and All Souls’; but the people are still enacting the traditions of their grandparents, bringing small cakes and food gifts for the souls of the dearly departed, still offering up prayers for the faithful. This she too will do.

She thrills at the unpeopled space: busy with the activities, the food, and the music that fills the High Street, everyone has gone from here now, the service over long since. She walks quickly to the chancel steps, and kneels to lay a posy of herbs and flowers she has gathered from the last offerings in the garden of the cottage, just across the way from the church. The rosemary is still growing strongly, and a few pinks have survived—as has a late-blooming damask rose; in her late mother’s favorite shade of rich cream fading to blush pink, it has miraculously defied this morning’s early frost brought on by last night’s cold new moon.

Enjoying the serenity, she sits here in peace at her father’s feet, studies the bright new brass, recently fixed to his grave. Paid for by subscription at the wishes of her father’s good friends, it has taken months to arrive and grace the heavy tomb slab. Her father would be pleased, she decides: there is a glow of light about it, a sense of alchemy that transmutes the colorless stone beneath it into something golden and brilliant.

“Indeed, I think it looks fine, Miss Kate.”

The voice makes her jump suddenly; it is the curate, and he approaches her. She is nodding at him, reassured by his familiar face. He looks closely at the flowers.

“The pinks are for a private love,” she tells him. “Oft times I made from them the spicy sops in wine, to ease his health toward the end.”

The curate looks sadly at the girl, who has dedicated all these last years of her life to the great but impoverished man. He wonders how she fills her days now, her chance of marriage surely past. “The rosemary is for remembrance, Kate?”