Air and Angels by Susan Hill

at dinner without demur, and been more than civil. The talk had grown quite lively. Florence always listening to him with careful attention,before startling him by some remark.
    But he respects her now, Georgiana thought.
    He went to the bookshelf, and took out his copy of John Clare’s notebooks, and now he read aloud from them, as they stood looking at him, his voice soft with pleasure.
    The bittern, called here around the butter bump, from the loud noise resembling that word, haunts Whittlesea Mere, lays in the reed shaws. Aboutthe size of the heron. Flyes up right into the sky morning and evening, and hides all day.
    ‘It is all very fine to play the scientific scholar.’ He looked down in reverence at the book. ‘John Clare was not a scholar. But I would give my arm to set it down as he does. And yet it is clear.’ He tapped the page. ‘The observations are exact. It is all here.’
    Passion, Florence thought, hearing him.It is simply that. And at that moment, completely understood and respected him, and recognised the truth about him, too.

9
    LEWIS AND Eleanor, late at night.
    ‘She says she had been planning to leave in any case. She had intended to tell us quite soon, but now, of course, she wants to go at once. By the next available boat.’
    ‘That is the shock. I daresay she will see things differently in a day or so.’
    ‘You really must take it seriously, Lewis. She is quite adamant.’
    ‘But these things happen in India every day.And after all, she is perfectly all right. Sadu saved her life.’
    ‘She knows that. But she says that she has hated it – India – everything about it and the life here, from the very beginning. She says she is terrified.’
    ‘Shock. Shock and hysteria.’
    ‘We cannot oblige her to stay. Oh, it is all very difficult. She has really tried so hard with Kitty, tried to find things to interest and stimulateher. She says Kitty is far cleverer than she knows.’
    ‘Perhaps …’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘If things had been different. If Kitty had stayed at school in England … But it is too late to repine about that now.’
    ‘Oh, it was my fault, I know that.’
    ‘My dear, I am not saying so. You know I have never blamed you.’
    ‘I was the one who couldn’t bear to be parted from her, who took her all the way Home and broughther straight back again.’
    Kitty had been eight years old. They had stayed in a quiet house on the Sussex coast for three months, and looked at school after school until, at last, one had seemed to suit. Eleanor had quite made up her mind. Only to realise, the day before Kitty’s first term was to have begun, and when she herself was packed ready to return, that she could not possibly leave thechild there. Nor could she herself have stayed. Other women did that, chose the children and abandoned their husbands, to a bleak life of work, the club, polo, for years upon end.
    But Eleanor had cared too much about her marriage. And too much about her child, and so, had chosen them both. She and Kitty had travelled back to India joyfully together, and shortly afterwards, the procession of governesseshad begun.
    ‘There is no question of anyone’s being to blame. You did what you felt was right.’
    ‘And you?’
    ‘If it had been a son … but Kitty has done very well, and I adore having her with us, you know that.’
    ‘But now?’
    ‘Now … I imagine she will have outgrown a governess altogether before very long, so perhaps it does not greatly matter. Her mind will be full of other things.’
    ‘Yes. Tennisparties and gymkhanas and … and chat . But we have always agreed that we wanted more for her.’
    ‘Well, I am not sure that I want a bluestocking for a daughter.’
    ‘And I do not want a butterfly.’
    ‘Well, I imagine if Miss Hartshorn seriously intends to leave and you think it best, we will find a replacement.’
    ‘Yes. Perhaps that is the answer.’
    ‘Have you something else in mind?’
    ‘Kitty is so unsettledjust now. You