The Cotswolds is the rural setting of the commitment ceremony at Dickie Carbury’s house, where Evan Duffield and Lula Landry marked their reconciliation with a private, romantic gesture. Recalled by Ciara Porter during Cormoran Strike’s investigation, the snowy gathering stands in sharp contrast to Lula’s death just days later.

Setting and Occasion

The ceremony took place at restaurateur Dickie Carbury’s house in the Cotswolds during a weekend gathering. The weather was freezing, with snow on the ground; after dinner, Evan led the group down to a lake. The landscape became part of the occasion’s intimacy and theatricality, drawing the guests away from the house for the moment he had prepared.

The Commitment Ceremony

Evan surprised Lula with matching oxidized-silver bangles from Fergus Keane. At the lake, he recited a poem he had written for her and placed a bangle on her wrist. Lula laughed, then answered by reciting a poem by Walt Whitman. Ciara remembered the exchange as both romantic and impressive, emphasizing Lula’s readiness with poetry against the stereotype that models were unintelligent.

Place in the Investigation

Ciara described Lula as happier than she had ever seen her during that last week. She and Evan had recently got back together at Mo Innes’s party, and the ceremony at Carbury’s followed forty-eight hours later. For Strike, the remembered celebration supplied a concrete account of the couple’s reconciliation and of Lula’s apparent happiness shortly before her death; its joy makes the brevity of the interval especially striking.