Air and Angels

by Susan Hill

  Out on the fens the birds fled, or hid, huddled, and were battered about.

  And with the wind came rain, and where a slate had blown off the roof of Miss Lovelady’s house in Norfolk, the rain drove in like nails, and seeped through the ceiling, gradually staining a circle, and ran in a channel down the scullery gutter, and drip-drip-dripped steadily onto the yard.

  But who was to know or care, what had it to do with anyone at all?

  Crossing the gardens late in the afternoon, under a scudding sky, Thomas Cavendish saw, because his head was bent, aconites, yellow as butter and a clot of snowdrops on fragile stems, pale beneath the branches of the copper beech, and on the grassy rise close to the hedge. And stopped, his coat flapping in the wind, and looked down with sudden pleasure at the first faint marks of spring.

  On the table in his rooms, a private letter from Jonas Daubeney, the College Dean.

  The hotel was rather dark, with heavy oak furniture and lace curtains thick as curd cheese and drapes and covers and cloths of maroon-coloured plush.

  People spoke in low voices or not at all, only sat staring into the fire, or turning the pages of newspapers.

  Kitty was pale, almost silent. Tired. Beyond the windows in the darkness it rained a chill, thin rain. She could not believe it was possible for India to exist.

  But the dinner was good, plain and hot and substantial, and Florence encouraged her to drink a little wine.

  ‘It will all seem much better in the morning. Not so strange. And you will feel fresh again.’

  She looks like a child, she thought, is a child, among so many dull elderly people. And felt sorry for her and reached across to press her hand.

  Kitty smiled, pushed apple pudding onto her spoon. Thought, who am I? What am I doing here? And glanced round the stuffy little room in panic, searching for something familiar, recognisable, to comfort her, and unexpectedly, found it, in the sight of a small brass gong, embossed with figures, and a frieze of animals around the base of the stand.

  ‘Oh, everyone has those!’ she said to Florence, ‘they are always on the sideboard. In our houses in India.’

  But then, trying to swallow the food, she could not, because the tears spurted up, into her eyes, her nostrils, her throat, they filled her mouth and threatened to choke her.

  Calmly, gently, Florence led her out.

  It had been a long walk, longer than Georgiana had anticipated, out to the old hospital, if she had realised, she would have called a cab. Only she supposed that the exercise would have done her good. Except that the wind had beaten her about the head, pushing against it had exhausted her completely. So that, arriving in the cold, dark entrance hall, she had been obliged to sit down for several minutes on a wooden bench. She was wet, too, the wind had driven rain into her face all the way.

  She sat listening to footsteps echoing sharply down the tiled corridors, and the sound of wailing, and the incessant coughs.

  Nowhere, Georgiana thought suddenly, nowhere should be like this, so dark, so bleak, so chill. The faces she saw were hard, preoccupied, closed, they had dead eyes.

  And then, eventually, on reaching the ward, she was told simply that Mary Dundas was dead, since the previous day. Mary, who had been their housemaid all those years ago, until she had grown lame, and wayward, and unreliable, so that they had been obliged to let her go.

  And where had she gone? Georgiana thought now, and the truth was that she had never known, never enquired where, had, perhaps, not wished to be told.

  After quite a short time, Mary Dundas had been all but forgotten. But last week the letter had come, that she was old and very ill, dying even, in this hospital, and had asked if she might see Miss Cavendish.

  And now, Georgiana had come at last and sat in shame and distress on a hard chair in a cold corridor outside the door of the ward and all around her, the wails, the cries, the moaning, and the brisk, impersonal footsteps.

  Mary Dundas was dead. Were there relatives? Friends? A later employer? She did not know, could not ask.

  No one should die in such a place, in this way, she thought, and gripped her hands tightly on the sides of the chair. But how could she have prevented it? What could she have done?

  Somewhere, a bell rang, and then fell silent, and after that, for a few moments, there was only the sound of the rain pattering against the uncurtained windows, and onto the skylight above her head. Lamps were lit and glowed in the corners of the room. The fire burned, rich red at the deep heart of the coals.

  The Dean’s face was scored over with fine lines like cracks in a map. Now and again he spun the globe that stood on the table beside him, touching the tips of his fingers to the coloured countries spread over its surface. Africa. The Australias. China. The Indian Empire. Thomas followed them round.

  Africa. The Australias … and ocean upon ocean.

  As a young man, looking through the windows into this room, this scene, he would have looked upon everything he wanted.

  And now?

  The wine gleamed golden in his glass.

  ‘You are poised,’ Daubeney said, and spun the globe again. ‘But of course you realise that. Unless, you were looking to a bishopric? In which case, I would say …’

  ‘Good heavens no.’

  ‘No. I imagined not.’

  Thomas stared into the fire. Whatever Daubeney had wished to discuss with him he had not expected this. Though he supposed that, had he been asked directly, he would have agreed that the Master of the college must wish to retire some day. He had simply never given it any thought, it had not concerned him.

  ‘You would be the clear choice of the majority. That is not in doubt.’

  ‘But you yourself? …’

  ‘Will be seventy-one this year, Thomas. Besides, I have no such ambitions.’

  And have I? The fire cracked like a pistol, shooting a blazing cinder onto the hearth.

  Africa. The Australias. China. The Indian Empire. Africa. The Australias … and ocean upon ocean.

  Georgiana sat holding a new book on the history of the Trojan Wars. It was a pet subject of hers. But did not read, only walked the cold tiled corridors again in her mind. Tried to recall Mary Dundas’s face.

  But she had left her address, insisted that she wished to be informed about the funeral; at least, she had done that.

  As he walked back through the empty town streets, the wind came roaring at him down alleyways and around corners, tearing at his clothes, and along the quiet residential avenues, the trees thrashed madly together.

  It was very late. There was scarcely a light in any window.

  In the end, when the fire had almost died out, and the globe had ceased to spin, he had gone back to his own rooms, intending merely to collect some papers and his coat. But instead, had sat on in the darkness, going over what had been said, trying to come to terms with it. Only the cold, and the last clocks chiming through the courts had driven him out.

  Above all, he could not understand why the offer – or at least the suggestion of an offer – had not raised his spirits. Why he did not feel pride, vainglory even, the thrill of ambition satisfied.

  Only, looking ahead, he had seen himself in those rooms, beside those fires, for all the years to come, until death.

  But what other dreams had he? Where else would he want to go?

  The wind yowled, racing down the road, hurled itself at him and wrenched the gate from his hand, and then, for a second, the clouds parted to let out the moon, and turning, he saw some wild, fleeing figure, on the far side and ahead.

  But, trying to focus on it, looking again, there was nothing, no one.

  He let himself very quietly into the house.

  Kitty woke from a nightmare of suffocation into darkness as thick as felt. The room smelled faintly of must and moth and airlessness. She had sunk down into the depths of the feather bed and the wad of quilt lay like lead over her body.

  She had forgotten – if she had ever known, how this felt, to breathe in air tha
t was cold and damp and yet to be stifled at the same time under the weight of bedclothes.

  In India it was always hot, and the single sheet was always light (but in the hills at dawn the air was cold and fresh as spring water, and then, you woke and leaned forwards to roll up a blanket that waited ready at the foot of the bed).

  And, struggling awake from the dreams of drowning, choking, she sat up and could not make out anything around her, could not see her own hand when she held it before her face. And together with relief at being awake after all, being alive, came the thought that she must die. She, Kitty, would die, nothing more certain. The only certainty. She touched her hand to her own face. Die. Be dead.

  And what was ‘dead’? And where? How could that be?

  Miss Lovelady had said, ‘We are in the hands of the Lord. We must be on His side, on the side of the Right, we should “put on the whole armour of God”.’

  And she had responded to that, with all her heart. To take up a sword and fight on the side of Light and against the forces of darkness, to stand up, for the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the imprisoned, the sick, to do battle, to right wrong. All of that had sounded an echo in her heart.

  Now, alone in this dark room of a strange hotel, so many thousands of miles and light years from home, she felt only fear, fear and dread and bewilderment and weakness.

  And where was Miss Lovelady now? She who had spent thirty-two years of her life spreading the Gospel? Who had so stirred Kitty’s brave imaginings, who had said, ‘We cannot choose.’

  With God. So she would have said. But if not, then where? Nowhere. Nothing.

  The image of the grey bag, drifting down through fathoms of dark water, bobbed about in her mind, it was anchored there, and would never float away.

  She wanted to call out to her cousin in the adjacent room. But did not, for the cousin was a stranger still, and what would she be able to say or do? And the journey across to the window, between the humps and knobs of the unfamiliar furniture seemed too perilous to make.

  Then, and strangely, it was for the first time, she thought of her mother, saw Eleanor, standing against the light and the softly sifting curtains, smelled her as she lay on the bed beside her.

  She did not cry, but turned over into her waiting arms, and, sighing, fell asleep at once.

  But she is old, he thought, stopping suddenly in the doorway. She is an old woman.

  Georgiana, sitting beside the fire, reading, her spectacles slightly askew on her nose. The lamp cast shadows under her eye sockets, and in furrows down the sides of her mouth, and, seeing her so, he remembered what their mother had looked like, for there she was before him.

  He was shaken. For this was his sister, who had always been a child, a young girl to him. And he felt a spurt of anguish and of guilt, too, thought, what life has she had, does she have? She is alone. She will grow old, is doing so, and I have not noticed, barely thought about her. Does she worry? What does she care about? What dreams, hopes, does she still have?

  He realised that he did not know, had not known for years, nor ever thought to enquire.

  She saw him, or sensed that he was there, laid her book down. He stepped into the room.

  But did not, that night, speak of his conversation with Daubeney. He was not ready, did not know what he thought of it himself, what he wanted. He could not yet discuss it with her.

  And so they simply sat, side by side, close to the fire, and Alice brought in the tray, and outside, the wind roared and beat upon the windows, and the sudden draught made the fire blaze.

  He wondered if she would care to move into the Master’s house, in the college, to leave here, after so many years, to continue to subdue her own life to his. Did she resent him? Perhaps so. Perhaps with reason.

  But he said only, ‘So the plans for your holiday were quite abandoned.’

  Georgiana set down her book, leaned back in her chair, eyes closed.

  ‘Oh yes. Florence has gone today to fetch her niece. The ship will have docked now. I think they travel back to Cambridge tomorrow.’

  ‘I see. I had no idea how much it was all a great disappointment.’

  ‘Florence’s niece?’

  ‘The holiday in Switzerland.’

  ‘Oh no.’ She made a slight, dismissive gesture. ‘No.’

  For perhaps it would not have been very satisfactory, they would have quarrelled, or the weather would have been too cold, or else she would still not have felt completely well. Something. Anything. Perhaps it had never been a good plan.

  ‘You seem tired.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to see Hannon again? Your cough …’

  ‘Oh, that will linger until the warmer weather, you know that it so often does. I am perfectly resigned to it.’

  ‘Yes. The year is at a low ebb. But there were aconites and snowdrops out in the Fellows’ garden today.’

  ‘And a terrible wind. I walked a long way against it. I daresay that is why I am tireder than usual.’

  ‘Walked?’

  ‘To the old hospital. I was sent for by Mary Dundas.’

  ‘Mary Dundas …’

  ‘The maid. Years ago. You will not remember.’

  He did not.

  ‘But she was dead. Since yesterday. I must have meant something to her all these years, for her to send so urgently. I failed her. She was already dead.’

  ‘But you were not to know, of course, you …’

  ‘I should have gone at once. I did not, and the fault is mine.’

  Her voice was flat and dull. He recognised the depth of her self-blame, and did not try again to dismiss it. Said nothing.

  But, after a little while longer, got up and went into the conservatory, where the small birds had gone to roost, and only stirred, fluttered a little, as he entered, before quietening and settling back again.

  He closed the door, and sat down among them in the darkness. In the small parlour, Georgiana stayed on, thinking of nothing in particular, before the dying fire, too weary, for the moment, to face the effort of going up to bed.

  Adèle Hemmings walks alone through the dark avenues, past all the shuttered, respectable houses, and the wildness of the wind delights her, excites her, the wind lifting her clothes, and the rain running down her face and finding a way beneath her clothes to her body, and sliding, cold over her skin.

  For she goes out every night now, or almost, very late, after her aunt has gone to bed. And if her aunt does not want to go to bed, but sits up, demands cards and tea and the serial story read aloud to her once again, and conversation and company, then she is scarcely able to bear the frustration, she feels her restlessness like an itch, the desire, the need to be out alone in the darkness, walking, walking, blots out all other thought.

  But in the end, the old woman does go, heavily, painfully up the stairs, in the end, the lights are out, and the cats, too, slipping away from the house, down through the garden, and Adèle Hemmings is one of them, but they are intent upon their own secret, malevolent business.

  And no one sees her, no one is aware, except perhaps one man, returning late, glimpses a figure, running before the wind, or a nursemaid, up to a restless child, and, glancing between the curtains, down into the night streets.

  Or perhaps after all it is only shadows moving in the wind.

  And so she ventures further, away from the shelter of the familiar avenue, out from under the protection of the walls and overhanging trees, into the lanes that thread the town, under the old buildings, and away towards the open spaces, her feet soft on the grass, nearer to the river. Here she is not alone, here are others, hidden among the tree trunks, in the shadows, alone or together, and perhaps she sees or senses them, perhaps not. But either way, does not care, she is exhilarated simply by being here in the wind and rain and darkness, far from the stifling house and the smell of more than a dozen cats and the snores of her porcine aunt. Who, if she wakes, breathless, sweating, unwell, afraid, and fumbles for the bell t
hat is always close to hand, and rings loudly, demandingly, and calls, calls, will not be answered, not be heard.

  But perhaps, for now, she sleeps. And Adèle Hemmings walks along the path beside the water towards the mill, and her heart pounds with pleasure and the sky races ahead of the wind, and the sound of her footsteps, like the calling voice and the desperate bell, will never be heard.

  7

  THE TWO friends, Amelia Hartshorn and Marjorie Pepys, faced one another again, sitting on either side of the hearth in the cottage in Warwickshire. It was as though there had never been any interlude, any parting. Except that things were in one respect, so terribly changed.

  The room, though, was precisely the same, nothing had been disturbed or moved, been taken away or added, since Miss Hartshorn had left. And the woods still came down almost to the back door and the river ran through the water-meadows beyond the sloping front garden, as they had always done. Now, the wind crashed through the trees, and somewhere in the midst of them, ripped one, old, and weak and rotten, out of its socket, and hurled it to the ground.

  It had rained for days, the river was running fast and rising, rising up the banks.

  ‘There was no wind there. I missed the wind. Wind in the trees and rain on the roof. The sounds were all quite different in India.’

  She would have said. But did not. She found she could not bring herself to speak of India at all. The two years were blown away like scraps, flimsy and inconsequential and so forgotten, to speak of them, to try and recall, reminisce, evoke, seemed scarcely worth the effort it would cost. The things she had seen, the beauty and the strangeness, and the horror of it all to her, became like dreams or fantasies, far away and fading farther.

  ‘So, I was wrong to go, quite wrong. There was too much boredom, and too many terrible sights; the heat was too stifling, the dust too thick, the brightness glared in my eyes. I was made to feel subservient, I had no friends, I should have listened to you. I should not have gone.’