It is the third weekend in May, and only a few tight apple buds remain closed on the branches, their leaves miniature and flocked, their petals veiled, snug and secretive. Most of the blossoms have opened, receding from a deep lipstick pink to a blush as the petals began to unfurl. The fully flowered blooms bear only a memory of color, faded now completely to a tender whiteness.

The sky has whitened also, become shredded with cloud cover from the east, the afternoon sun shouldering through in moments of brilliant, magnified light. A tree, or a group of trees, will brighten in a moving spotlight of sunshine, branches illuminated with almost painful clarity, ancient apple bark revealed to be curled back in brittle insect-drilled strips, edged with dying moss.

A strong breeze ripples the grasses, and suddenly a whole row of apple trees releases its shower of petals, a slant of sparkling white like a snowstorm, a drift of sun-caught flakes atomizing the orchard with their faint, poignant scent.

Sylvia regards the apple trees and the wind that has unloosed the blossoms in a burst of sunlight. Then she turns her back to the orchard, a single brown braid swinging slightly as she carefully positions the pram alongside a border of ox-eye daisies and a tangled old rosebush fat with blowsy, cameo flowers, taking advantage of the intermittent sun for the baby’s nap but shielding his face with the pram’s bonnet.

A woman has followed Sylvia from the direction of the house, the latest in a string of guests from London, company with whom to gape at Court Green’s unfolding splendors. But it’s not just a game of lady-of-the-manor that prompts Sylvia’s invitations: It’s a way for her to temper the disconcerting vividness of her days. The cooling objectivity of visitors is a relief; she takes refuge behind the scrim of their distractions.

The young couple who took the flat, the Wevills, are this weekend’s houseguests, just arrived on the train a few hours before. Assia’s slipped off her heels and walks barefoot and tanned across the lawn in paisley-patterned capri pants and a shimmery tangerine silk halter across the lawn, carrying a basket and kitchen shears, a cashmere cardigan pulled over her elegant shoulders, gold wire bracelets jangling. Assia’s long, loose, fine-textured hair is the rare spot of pure black in Sylvia’s garden; it absorbs what light there is.

Sylvia glances up from Nick’s pram, heeding the blowing orchard, sunlight catching in prismatic aureoles at the tips of her eyelashes as she focuses. “Look,” she calls to Assia. Sylvia nods toward the apple trees, whose century-old limbs creak lightly and imperceptibly sway. “There go all of our apples.” The blossoms continue to blow down, drifting in a steady westward fall across the hillside orchard, noticeably blanketing the ground.

“It’s lovely nevertheless,” Assia replies, her voice thickly glottal and very German. “Like a scene out of Tolstoy.”