The riches of life are not silver and gold
But fine sons and daughters when we are grown old,
I pray that when years shall have silvered our hair
We shall know the delights of that old-fashioned pair!

-Edgar Guest

Once upon a time, in the sleepy little red-rose village of Rose River – no, that will never do. Any story about the Dark and Penhallow family can not be started in such a way – a way that smacks of fairyland and romance. Not that there won't be romance here – there will be – gobs and gobs of it. Only the Darks and Penhallows were not the kind of family that would ever attract anything of fairyland. Not intentionally, at least. It would be unfair to mislead you by beginning their story that way.

Rose River was overrun with Darks and Penhallows. So was Three Hills and Indian Spring, for that matter. Or – they had been. It seemed to some of the old guard that the good family stock was 'dying out.' Once it was said that if you were a Penhallow you married a Dark – if you were a Dark you married a Penhallow. To marry anyone else was simply unheard of. Why would any body do it? But the times had become shockingly modern and a vast number of 'outsider' marriages had been consummated in the last generation or two. There were any number of Mitchells, Montgomerys, and Milfords creeping up in the genealogies. It would never do, some of the old ones reflected.

The Darks and Penhallows by name protected themselves by treating these outsiders only slightly better than one would treat a convict recently released from prison. If you were a Milford nee Penhallow, you still had your place within the clan, but it was a lower place, of course. But ah! – if you were to the manner born – a true Dark, a true Penhallow – you were free to rule the earth. Or 'boss' it to death, as some other folks said. The possibilities were endless for you. Little Adrian Penhallow, according to family lore, had once asked his Sunday-school teacher if the 'Chosen People' in the Bible referred to the Darks? Or was it the Penhallows? "Both of them," the Sunday School teacher had said laconically. Her grandmother had been a Penhallow nee Dark.

Every village has a clan like this one – or if it doesn't, it should have. Someone needs to manage things, after all. There hardly seemed any reason why other families should live among them, except to be on the fringes. Peter Penhallow owned the newspaper, and so the paper staunchly refused to report on anything other than clan goings-on. They had had to make an exception for news during the years of the war, and even then Great-Aunt Thora Dark, who had gotten rather senile before her time, had asked quite seriously whether Churchill was the son of Jessie Dark from Three Hills. Great-Uncle Murray had told her 'no' – with the air of a man who thought that perhaps it would have served that gentleman better if he were. 'Uncle' Dandy Dark had somehow worked his way up to town councilman – a position of prestige that amazed even his own kin. No one had had a very large opinion of Dandy after the affair of the old Dark jug some years before. But as Kipling would say …

If you were married anywhere in the district, it was by the Rev. Arthur Dark. That is, if you were Presbyterian. If you weren't, who gave a hand who married you? It was a thing of no importance. It could hardly be said you were legitimately married at all and they were all sure to look at you askance after that.

Perhaps you had to have a dress made. If you didn't want it cheap and sleazy you called old 'Aunt' Margaret Penhallow over at Whispering Winds. Cousin James Penhallow if you wanted a good deal on an automobile. Louis Dark handled your money for you, and if you were caught up in a nasty legal matter, you called Tom Penhallow. Not his cousin, Thomas Penhallow – he had been an embezzler. Yes, even a Penhallow could be an embezzler. The Darks and Penhallows had their faults and they recognized them. The clan was not so proud as all that. All the same, where an ordinary embezzler would have been tarred and feathered and outcast into the Land of Nod, Lawyer Thomas was merely looked down upon. He was, after all was said and done, one of their own caste.

And if you had anything to do with the business of being born or dying or anything in between, from toothache to tinnitus, you called Dr. Roger Penhallow. If you called anyone else, your family should do nothing less than give you up for dead. The clan could not ever agree on much – but they all agreed in loving Roger. In recent years as the old guard began to fail and die off, he had been awarded the long-coveted position of head of the clan. The awarding of such a title had once been based on seniority but the sad fact of the times was that with age no longer necessarily came wisdom. 'Uncle' Pippin Dark, for example, was the oldest member of the family at eighty-five. But he was far from being the sharpest of them. And besides, a rumour had been started some years ago that he wasn't the Darkiest Dark of them. There was some doubt as to his patronage that had plagued Pippin in his early life. His clansmen now, because of his advanced age, afforded Pippin the respect of not mentioning it – before his face.

So Dr. Roger was at the helm. He was a splendid old gentleman – he was one of the last true gentleman of those times – he was in her late fifties. His hair had been shockingly red in his youth but had prematurely weathered to a distinguished silver. The clan was glad for that – it would have been so hard to put their fate in the hands of one with such red hair! But Dr. Roger's hair had been silver for so many years that they had almost, if not totally, forgotten the red. But even those that remembered forgave him for it. That was how much they loved Roger.

He was the richest man in a rich clan. Beechurst was the finest house in the Dark or Penhallow connections. It was very near to the junction of Rose River and Indian Spring. A white house with a Grecian-style front porch and columns. A bay-view behind it and a river view before it. Artists photographed it for post-cards, an three years ago a visiting millionaire had offered Dr. Roger an ungodly sum to buy it. Roger had refused. It was seen as the seat of all things Penhallow and Dark – it was where they held their old, traditional levees – their Christmas dinners – where they celebrated clan accomplishments and holidays. It was the only house with a grand dining room big enough to hold them all. No, to sell it would be a thing of sacrilege. Especially to a Yankee!

All the same, everyone wondered who Roger would leave it to. He couldn't live forever, you know, and though he was only fifty-nine his strain of Penhallows were known to have poor constitutions! Isn't that how it always went? Shoemakers being unshod, and all that. Dr. Roger's wife had died when her children were very young and some people said that Roger himself had never recovered. His wife had been nee Penhallow, but it had very much been a love-match between them. But you would never know of the tragedy from Roger's countenance. He was still as good-humored as ever, though the cynical quirk at the corner of his mouth which had disappeared for a time now came back and became more pronounced. He ascended to his position as clan leader good-naturedly when it was required of him, though he could be fearsome to any one of his kin who did not behave in a manner befitting those born to the purple. When Mrs. Toynbee Dark had married for a fourth time, aged seventy, Roger had been quite curt to her about it. So curt that Mrs. Toynbee had gone straight into town and had her marriage annulled out of fear of being exocommunicated by her own.

Dr. Roger had three children. They only spoke of two of them. Howie had been killed in the disastrous Dieppe Raid of the last war, and it had been a terrible blow for the family. Besides loving Roger they had all agreed on loving Howie. He had been such a jolly, golden-haired, upstanding chap! Roger went very white around the lips when he was mentioned, so the Darks and the Penhallows simply refrained from ever mentioning him. Even though they would have dearly loved to talk of certain circumstances surrounding his death – for instance, had he been engaged to Adrienne Dark? They were never able to get it out of her. She was as closed-mouthed as the grave in which they had laid her love, 'somewhere in France.' Her kinsmen and Howard's dearly would have liked to know.But it was a question that they left to the ages. That was how much they loved Roger.

Jacob was the other boy. Younger – and he hadn't been studying to be a doctor. It would have been easy for them to love Jacob quite as much as they had all loved Howie except for two disconcerting facts. Jacob worked in a shop. He had no pretensions to medicine, or the law, which were the only two professions seen as suitable for a son of Dr. Roger. Also, he had been engaged to a girl in Lowbridge before he had gone off to fight. A pretty girl – from the Blythe family. The Blythes – and Merediths – were a respectable enough clan, almost so long-established to rival the Darks and Penhallows in prestige. Any other family would have rejoiced at their house joining to that. But no matter how nice Joyce Meredith might be, she was not a Dark or Penhallow, and there was a tacit understanding that the sons of Dr. Roger, at least, must marry within their own kind. They loved Jacob, even if they could not be completely proud of him. But they all supposed that this meant he would not inherit Beechurst.

That left only Rebecca Penhallow. She was named for a certain old austere relative that the fickle family had quite forgotten. 'Aunt' Becky had been a great beauty in her day, but even those that did remember her considered that Roger's Rebecca was quite the prettier. She had her long-dead little mother's white, moonlit skin, and dusky little brown marigold eyes. Her brow was high and fine – she was said to have the finest arms in either Dark or Penhallow connections – and her hair! Oh, the clan might have disliked Roger's red hair, but how proud they were of Rebecca's! Such lovely, living red-gold hair. She had eschewed modern tradition and refused to have it cut. It fell almost to her waist and when the sun hit it, it was a living thing.

Rebecca was the baby of the family. She was twenty-five years old. There was never any report of her having a beau – the Darks and Penhallow girls still had 'beaux,' no matter what other girls may have. But Charlie Dark from Three Hills had drowned himself several years ago in the river and it was always bandied about that he had done so because Rebecca would not agree to marry him. But they could not know for sure if that was the reason. Nobody from Three Hills had any sense. And the young maiden in question would neither confirm nor deny.

When Rebecca had turned eighteen she had had her 'coming out.' During the war – if anyone else had had it would have been seen as a terrible extravagance. But they loved Roger, remember, and Roger loved his girl above all other things. Rebecca had danced with every young man between the ages of eighteen and forty and they had all expected her to be married soon after. Many an afternoon had been spent in speculation as to who she would take.

"Geoff Penhallow?"

"Too frivolous. I wouldn't want Roger's only daughter marrying such a fool. He went off to fight when he was only seventeen and hadn't even enough sense to keep from being wounded."

"Laurie Dark?"

"Laurie Dark was jilted two summers ago by Matilda Morrison. You can't expect any woman to take him after that. And she only a Morrison from Three Hills!"

"Eberhard Penhallow?"

"I've always thought he was his aunt Elaine's son, though his mother swears he isn't. But you remember how they took that mysterious trip to Boston just before he was born? And Elaine was never the same afterwards, you know."

"John Dark?"

"Which one?" Dubiously – because there were two John Darks. One was a strapping boy of twenty though his clan thought he may be a half-wit. This because he had been at Cambridge and now wrote poetry all the live-long day. The other was forty if he was a day. On further reflection, neither would do.

"Corey Dark!" This said triumphantly. Carey Dark had been neither wounded nor jilted and his parentage was not in question and he did not write poetry and he was neither too young nor too old. He would do – he would do! But then a sigh of sudden rememberance:

"Corey's engaged to his cousin Bertha Dark over in Harmony." Not that any red-blooded Dark man should not drop a Bertha for a Rebecca – and such a Rebecca! But that strain of Harmony Darks was rather peculiar and they kept mostly to themselves.

Such speculative dealings went on for many a year but to no avail, for Rebecca Penhallow reached the august age of twenty-five with nary a beau in sight. Finally the clan-gossips exhausted all the Penhallow and Dark possibilities and reflected that something must be done. For Rebecca would marry a Penhallow or Dark. It was the only thing for a proper Penhallow girl to do, even in this modern age.