“Come on,” I sighed. “Brave face.”

We skirted the pond and joined the stream of people meandering toward the canopy. I looked up at the house. The frontage had been a creamy white when we arrived from the church around three o’clock, but it was yellow now, in the early evening sun. The blinds were lowered in all the windows and there was no sign of life, unless you counted the fact that the front door was slightly ajar. It must have been cool and quiet in those high-ceilinged rooms, with just a few slivers of light reaching in round the blinds. I wondered if Stella had gone past it too, on her way to the cliffs, and if so whether she’d had room in her head for incongruous thoughts like nice house. Probably not. I wondered whether her last thoughts had touched on me—but I was always wondering that.

“Hey, watch it!” The woman I’d bumped into ran a worried hand over the back of her dress.

“Sorry.”

Everyone was walking slowly, lingeringly. Sometimes people stopped and took in the view.

“I wonder who owns this place?” someone said.

“A couple, I believe,” another replied. “Mr. and Mrs. Byrne? Or it may even be Lord and Lady . . .”

“I’d heard it was a widow, living on her own.”

“Really? Oh well, you may be right. Blue bloods, anyway.”

There was a notice in front of the porch, which read STRICTLY PRIVATE. The letters were black on a white background, large and unmissable.

“Whoever they are, they obviously don’t want the riffraff in.”

Most people laughed at this remark, though some of the effortfully dressed did not.

A tray of filled flutes stood untouched on a trestle table, so I swapped one for my empty glass as we went past. The wine was flat and warm, and even before I’d lifted it to my mouth I knew I didn’t want it, but I drank it anyway.

Dad and I had already studied the seating plan, before the incident with the hearty uncle. I was with the other bridesmaids on the top table, and Dad was miles away, on table five. He didn’t exactly complain as we parted inside the canopy; he just tightened his jaw and loosened his tie, as if he were psyching himself up for a confrontation.

The heat felt much heavier under the canvas, and it seemed to absorb and intensify all the sweaty, fumy, floral scents that a wedding party gives off. People were complaining, under their breath, that the canopy was too small, the long tables packed too closely—and they had a point, though they might have kept their voices down within earshot of the bride. Once I’d managed to squeeze myself into my seat I was effectively trapped, the tabletop digging into my ribs and my elbows pinned to my sides.

The starters were already in place, but once we were seated there was no room for the caterers to move between the tables, so everything—dirty plates and new plates, wine bottles and water jugs—had to be passed along, hand to hand. I could have done with a drink of water, but the jug disappeared to the other end of the table before I could get to it, and when it came back it was empty, except for a curl of lemon peel. A hand kept snaking round my shoulders with a bottle of red and topping up my wineglass, so I drank that instead.