About this story
Angel Clare hears your wedding-night confession and goes; the winter that follows is spent feeding sheaves to a steam thresher whose drum owns the whole day. A murder buys one week of marriage, ending on the altar stone at Stonehenge. Fifty-nine chapters carry the May dance to the black flag over Wintoncester.
Who you’ll meet
The youngest of three walking brothers is the love interest — the one who stepped off the lane to dance and left before the line brought him round — with his two clerical brothers waiting on the road and the club-walking a distant band of cream dresses and red ribbons.
How it opens
Joan DurbeyfieldEvery white dress in Marlott is moving beneath the May sun.
Joan DurbeyfieldKeep your red ribbon straight, Tess; it marks our club properly.
Your mother retied it while the other young women formed a laughing procession.
Joan DurbeyfieldEven the brass music has learned the road between cottages.
Beyond the dancers, the Vale of Blackmoor rolled outward in green folds.
Choose
The ribbon matters more to you than to the club.
Everyone will be dusty before the dance begins.
I would rather help at home this afternoon.