A Lover and His Lass

In springtime,

The only pretty ring-time. . . .

--William Shakespeare

Once upon a time there was a British Land Army girl who went to work at Castle Ashby, the many-acred estate of the sixth Marquess of Northampton. The girl's name was Virginia Lucie Heaton. She was 22, and she tucked spring flowers in her dark hair when she went into the fields. Even her sack-bottomed corduroy trousers, her straw-snagged sweater and her crushed hunting cap could not hide the fact that she was slim and pretty.

Now the Marquess was a gruff-voiced Lord-of-the-Manor type who had divorced his wife, the Lady Emma, second daughter of the Marquess of Bath. There had been a great clatter and clucking at the divorce. His Lordship did not seem to mind the talk. One of his ancestors had been a bosom friend of Henry VIII, and the men of Northampton had never bothered greatly about what others said. Their motto was "I seek only one."

One day His Lordship was making the rounds of his estate. He crushed the loam of his land between his strong fingers and he snuffed the sweet country air. When he passed Virginia Lucie he smiled. She smiled, too. For she was the daughter of an old Etonian whose name was in Who's Who; like thousands of other British girls of high and low birth, she chose to do her bit by working on the land.

His Lordship and the lovely Virginia Lucie fell in love. "I know how to milk a cow and to plow the fields and I love every bit of it," Virginia Lucie said. His Lordship was pleased. He, too, had the country heart and he dreamed of how Virginia Lucie's dark hair would shine in the candlelight at the dinner hour and how her slim legs would twinkle across the great oak floors and her laughter would drive away the shadows in the stormy nights of winter.

And so it came to pass last week at Caxton Hall Registry office in Westminster that Virginia Lucie became Lady Northampton. That day the tenants at Castle Ashby forgot about the war for one day and sang and danced and drank old ale, as tenants have done for centuries when the master takes a bride. "Be you all of good cheer," said His Lordship. "God bless you, sir, and may your line increase," the tenants cried. And then the Marquess and his Lady left for a honeymoon at His Lordship's country cottage at Loch Luichart in Scotland, and began to live happily ever after.

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