Air and Angels (22 page)

But the worst of it, this time, is not the heat. He has endured that before, will do so again. You simply get on with it. Ignore it.

The worst is the loneliness. The absence of Kitty.

He has never imagined it, nor realised, the single-minded desperation with which he loves her. Has always. He dreams of her every night, and she is always floating away from him, just
out of reach.

Once, he dreamed that she was dead somewhere, and woke, flailing, calling out in terror. Lay, hearing the thudding of his own heart, above the terrible screaming of the jackals that always fills these nights.

And once, coming home early, to change for dinner, he went aimlessly round the empty house, and, coming into Kitty’s room, had a sudden, vivid recollection of doing so once
before, when she had been a baby, a few weeks old. There had been no one else here. She had lain in her crib, under the veil of netting, awake, eyes open and following the slight movement of light and shadow. He had looked down at her and been so startled by her transfixed perfection, by the beauty of her head, her fingers, the mauve-blue of the skin above her eyes, that he had knelt down and …
what? Adored her? Prayed to her? For she had been far more to him than simply his child, at that moment.

Now, he stands in the same doorway, looking ahead into the same room. And it is empty.

Asks, where is it? That time past? And where is she? Where is
that
child? And where is Kitty?

THE WEATHER turned mild again, the wind veered and then dropped altogether. Spring returned and would, it seemed, settle.

Everything came into flower at once, daffodils and tulips together, with late blossom and early blossom, and the buds were fat and ready to burst on the horse-chestnut trees along the avenues.

But it was still too early, everyone said, it could not last, it was not natural.
The weather had been so peculiar lately, the seasons all anyhow. Because of course what people wanted was the story-book year, everything in place and as it should be, sun all summer, snow in winter, green spring, golden autumn, just as they remembered it, from childhood, when the world went aright.

The grass grew and was cut for the first time, and the whole city smelled of it, of spring.

The sun shone, gentle on the old buildings, sparkling on the water. Just as it should. And the young men rowed and the young women rounded corners, wildly, hilariously, on bicycles, skirts ballooning out.

On the marshes, the spring migrants returned, and the over-winterers were long gone to their cold northern places, and the birds paired, now, and began to build their secret nests, and the larks
sang their seamless song, spiralling upwards until they were invisible. But still heard, still heard.

And at night, in the corners of gardens, under bushes, cats yowled.

Florence went about with a great purpose, fixing up this class or that private lesson, trailing Kitty in her wake, and Kitty looked about her, and tried to make sense of it all, to understand what she would have to do. And grew
a little less pale, and blossomed, and relaxed in the spring sunshine. Saw the young women on bicycles and was stirred with her own ambition.

And from time to time, some young man became aware of her, in the street, and glanced back.

But Kitty did not notice.

A week passed. Thomas, deep in work, avoided people. Shut the door of his study, so that Georgiana sat every evening quite alone.

On
Sunday, he preached in the college chapel and, as he stepped down from the pulpit, thought, and is this death, to step down and into the abyss? Is there perhaps, no more than this? And shuddered, and at once, turned his mind away and listened to the Testament, and, later, read from it, and recited the Creed, took shelter in the familiar words. But not, perhaps, comfort.

But the work steadied
him, and he did not look beyond it, though he was aware that he had made no decision still, that his future was uncertain, and he changed his mind daily, and saw things differently. And sometimes, as he walked across the Backs, or down the tree-lined avenue, the spring thrust itself to his attention, and then he stopped momentarily, and turned his face towards it, and the vision of the marshes and
the still water came to him, soothingly.

And somewhere, too, not in his present consciousness, but hovering, waiting a little out of sight, out of reach, there was the picture of Kitty, the girl on the bridge. Or rather, not the picture itself, it was not so exact, so clear as that. Rather, it was the awareness that the picture would be there, and all the emotions that surrounded it, if he chose
to look.

But he did not.

IN THE Hills everyone dresses in the latest fashions, after the patterns sent from London and Paris, everyone promenades. And it is wonderful, they are like flowers revived, in the cool air, they sparkle in conversation, pay visits, make plans, regain appetites, with new energy and vigour. And if they ignore this or that – the bazaar, the servants, and do not listen to certain noises, they
can imagine that this is not India at all, but Home, Home.

But it is not Home, and Eleanor knows it, lying on her couch in the afternoons, listless, bored, and she does not share the liveliness, the bubbling talk and excitement, for once, she would rather have stayed in Calcutta, with Lewis. Or so she thinks.

But at last she must get up and dressed, and go to tea with Myrtle Piggerton, for they
seem to have become close friends. And they will talk desultorily, and sometimes, it is of doing something worthwhile, perhaps starting a little morning school for the native children, or some practical classes, for the women. Perhaps putting on a theatrical performance, in aid of the Mission, a play, something with a greater intellectual substance than the usual frivolous comedies that are so
popular here.

Or perhaps Lewis will take her for a week’s holiday, a river trip up-country would be stimulating.

She remembers her stay in a wooden houseboat on Lake Kashmir, years ago, before Kitty was born, remembers the pink mist over the water at sunrise, and the terraced gardens, rising up behind, the tranquillity of the place.

And Myrtle drinks her tea and chatters, chatters, to conceal
her desperate longing for another child, and her unassuaged grief over the loss of the first, and brings news of a midnight picnic, with Chinese lanterns strung about the trees, and dancing, flirtations.

But Eleanor thinks she will not go.

Says, ‘We have to do so much to please men. Why else would we be here at all? What else is there?’

And thinks of the alternative, of Miss Hartshorn, and
the whole procession of sad governesses.

And the days pass, and some have affairs. But nothing to be taken very seriously. And soon, Lewis will come, and Myrtle Piggerton’s obtuse young husband, and the Hill season will be at its height. And at the end of it, the packing, and the awful journey back, the winter in Calcutta. And so the world turns.

Eleanor thinks, I cannot bear it, I can no longer
live like this. And resolves absolutely to return to England. To Kitty.

FIRST THERE was nothing. Blackness. Complete unconsciousness. And then, as though he had walked onto a stage or into a lighted room from a dark hall, there was the dream.

But it did not feel like a dream, there was none of the usual strangeness about it, everything was as usual, and as it was in life. Almost everything.

It was spring, of course, the first day of spring, the sun shone, and
there was even a little warmth in it, though it was so early. The catkins and the velvet willow buds were out, and the crocuses, maundy violet, egg-yolk yellow and white upon the grass, and the delicate primroses hidden deep.

Thomas walked at leisure up the Avenue, slowed, taking pleasure in the sunshine. There were people about, faces upturned, smiling at one another, and at total strangers,
because of the beauty of the day.

And so, he came towards the stone bridge that curved over the water. And glancing up, saw the girl, standing still, poised as a bird in the sunlight, her head bent, looking down into the water. One hand rested on the stone, and her hair was tied back from her face.

He stopped dead.

In life she, Kitty – for, of course, it was Kitty, he knew that now – (and yet,
still it was not) had stood exactly so. And worn a pale dress.

But in the dream she was quite naked.

He came awake in blind terror. His room was dark.

Kitty, who was not Kitty, the girl, stood on the stone bridge, pale as marble.

He looked, and could not look, but the vision would not fade. The absolute beauty of it gripped him by the throat, choked and suffocated him.

He could not move.

And afterwards thought that death at that moment would have been the best, the only possible thing, would have saved all that came after.

But he could only lie on his bed in the darkness, pouring with sweat from shock and terror, unable to form any coherent thought, any words, mesmerised by the vision, by the dream that did not, would not fade, as the memory of the real sight had never faded.
But the two only merged together and were suffused in a clear light.

He did not sleep again that night. But after some time, he had no idea of how long, switched on the lamp, and made to take up the prayer book. But when his fingers touched the cover, drew back at once, and could not, dared not.

Only left on the light, hoping that the vision of the girl would somehow be obliterated.

But it
was not, it remained steady before him. The difference now was that he had no feelings of joy or peace in the presence of it, could not turn to it for warmth and comfort. There was only fear, of what lay in the depths of himself, and of what it had done, might do. And fear of his own powerlessness.

He would have read but could not, would have prayed, and dared not.

And so, gradually, the silver-grey
line of dawn crept around the curtains and into the room, and he lay revealed in it. And then for a few moments, he did sleep a strange half-sleep and held the dream again before him and wonderfully, the dread and horror were suspended, dissolved, and he knew only thankfulness and joy, and could rest a little in the light of them.

So that, opening his eyes as the sun rose, and shone onto his
face, briefly he was filled full of what he knew quite certainly was love, before the terror engulfed him again and he fell down into all darkness.

Above all, he must avoid encountering the real Kitty. (For they were separate still, the girl on the bridge, and the cousin, Kitty Moorehead, though he knew them to be the same.)

He took to staying all day in his rooms, or at least within the boundaries
of the college, and only returning after dark. And even then, took a route quite different and farther round than usual.

Georgiana, left alone, was concerned, bewildered, and went wearily back to the begging letters about the house in the country and when she raised her eyes from them, supposed that it was still the question of the mastership that troubled him. For her own part, she no longer
thought of it at all. Let it be. Whatever he decided, she would accept for herself, for what other choice had she?

‘Dear Canon X … Dear Miss de Y …’

His work he undertook mechanically, listened to the essays read aloud to him by the young men, went over their translations, explained this, emended that. Took refuge in Homer, soothed by the ancient story, which did not touch at any point upon
his real life or concerns. And the birds, late at night – for he avoided going to bed as long as possible, he sat among them for hours in the darkness, comforted.

From time to time, he took out his notes on the sea-birds, stared at them, but wrote no more. All of that seemed far away, unrelated to him. And all day and all night, went in fear, and had no ideas what he might do.

But the picture
was always there, waiting for him to turn to it. The girl on the bridge. Kitty. Not Kitty.

AND FOR the next two weeks, the dream came again and again, until he was distraught. He thought that he should talk to someone. But there was no one, it was out of the question.

Once or twice he went into the chapel. But the chapel was cold and bare and empty of all help, there was nothing for him there.

And the nights came, and after the nights, the beautiful, sunlit days, full of birdsong
and the greening of all the trees. It was full spring, but he scarcely knew it.

In the end, there had to be some resolution.

It was after nine o’clock in the evening, quite dark. The air soft, and smelling sweetly of grass.

He had dined alone, in his rooms, spoken to no one.

He came out of the shadow of the college. Walking briskly as he did he would be home within minutes.

But at the top
of the street, he veered off suddenly, cutting down first one, and then another side lane, keeping close to the high walls, until he came out again in a different part of the town.

And after a hundred yards slowed his pace.

There was no moon, and yet he was afraid of being seen. Once or twice, a cab went by and he shrank towards the hedge.

And then he saw the house. The curtains had not been
drawn, and the lamps were lit and shone softly out of the wide windows of the drawing-room.

At first, and for some time, there was no one. The house stood alone, the room empty. Thomas stood motionless on the pavement, not thinking, not knowing why he was there, or what he expected to happen. No one walked past him. If they had done so, he had not imagined what he might do.

Somewhere, a dog
yapped. Again. A door closed.

And then, a shadow crossed the light and looking up at the window, he saw her. She was standing in profile beside the lamp. Her hair was drawn back. He could not see her face.

But after a few seconds, she turned and then he did see her. And at that moment, Kitty and the girl on the bridge merged and became one, reality and memory, his dream and the picture before
him were now the same. He stood transfixed, and he knew love, pure and absolute, as he had never known it in his life before, so that he struggled to catch his breath. And then, he could only half run, stumbling, away, and after a long time, found himself walking fast down one of the straight roads that led between mean dark little houses, and so out of the town, towards the open country.