those hills (to the end of chap1)

Over there -- the next room was the antechamber to the study, where the rows of bookshelves began and went, almost interminably, into the rooms beyond. It was all in this same dark paneling, and Anna observed that the two eldest, standing against the heirloom piano and holding their liquor in very fragile glasses. She could not find Edwin anywhere.

"So you've joined us," said Chase, putting his glass down on the piano. Anna wanted to knock it off, because the wine was no good for the lacquer, but it was their house, and they could ruin a universe of Stein pianos if they wished as she stood there helpless. "Your mother did her best to make us forget about you," he said, "very charming."

Her mother had that effect on people, Anna knew.

Martin put the glass up to his lips and asked her if she was comfortable or wished for some drink.

Anna shook her head. "I do not drink," she said.

"Puritan?" Martin asked, toasting her with an obscene glug of the fermented fluid. "I'm so sorry."

"My father was." Anna colored. "Is. Mother and the Doctor believe that it is beneficial for one's health, but if I cannot keep track of my temperament if there's no control left to me."

"One's conduct in life is overrated," Martin said, "People are very forgive eccentrics, but they don't tolerate perfection."

"I agree," said Chase, "and a glass never made anybody ill; and with food the effects are nonexistent."

"Perhaps," Anna said. She did not want to upset them; she turned to ways to mitigate the effects of this awkward beginning. "Will anyone else join us?"

She looked at the tall window to her left, overlooking the tender sunset and the grass; the back of a wheeled-chair obscured much of the view.

Then she asked for Edwin.

"He's indisposed," Chase said, the smile stretching out his skin. He had done nothing but smile since Anna came into the room, and the feeling made her seek out a chair much more comfortable in appearance than in reality. He then turned to Martin and they discussed holdings they had in the West, where they had islands strung along the cost of A---. Anna found it difficult not to be transfixed by these conversations and descriptions; whatever Edwin told her about his two brothers, they were not stupid. The women were ripe and their wrappers innocently bared tanned, voluptuous bodies. Its beaches were white-salt and extended into the sea that cut the sky at a glorious unseen part of the horizon. To Anna this was being there itself, and aside from the creaking of the wheelchair, nothing distracted her from these island scents that somehow made their way pungent through a dry description of trade routes, plague and rotting shipments of lemon and bananas.

When they stopped talking they excused themselves to Anna after giving her a casual invitation to play billiards in the next room over (which she declined) and, solitary, she felt more comfortable but it was not enough to appease the loss of Edwin. So she, too went after them into the hall to search. The billiards room was further from the Hall so she followed them, and then went past that place. Ah! Now she heard voices from behind a concealed door:

"You cannot make me stay here. I will not," a man said, hotly, "After all you promised!"

Anna slammed her back against the wall. It was Edwin. And some conciliatory voice attempted to soothe Edwin, but he did not bear it. "It will not end well for you," it attempted, at last.

"How will it end?" Edwin asked. "With them dead? Bleeding? Flogged and bound to the ground until there is not one of them left? None of these people in this house know anything -- Samuel! It is true! They cannot be allowed!"

"The Good Book," the voice began, but it was piteous, and Edwin dismissed it within seconds.

"The Good Book would not tolerate genocide," he said. "nor does it condone slavery."

Anna heard the force of the man trying to get Edwin by the sleeves and Edwin wrenching his arm away. "I am sick of protecting these interests" he said, in a voice so scathing Anna felt its venom on her face. "nor do I care about my share. At least I know what I do not own!" Then, she could hear Edwin approach the door, so Anna ran back past the Billiards hall into the library so that she could appear as if she was waiting. But of course she was waiting. That was all she had been doing.

*

The dinner was so excellent that Anna struggled to remember what she'd heard behind the door. Edwin greeted her when he met up with her in the room but their conversation was perfunctory; they talked about nothing and their moment in the grass was long gone, the magic packed with it. Instead what was left was vats of buttery mashed potatoes, a rind of Whitehouse cheese, chicken tender and suffused with citrus and rosemary, wheat rolls, wine from Ibiza, and two or three more dishes of grilled vegetables and spices from the East and West Isles. This table served to prove that they sat at the eye of the edible hurricane; little was exciting or enjoyable to eat that could be found where they lived.

Mother sat, somehow, in her midnight gown that held together her untouched figure and leaned over to talk to the Doctor and Mrs. Knowlton simultaneously; the latter held her arms stiffly over her chicken and her utensils were not helpers but weapons. Chase and Martin asked Mother questions alternately and were rewarded with the brilliance of her stare and the Doctor and Mr. Knowlton kept the conversation on speculation in general, something Anna knew Edwin noticed. But he was silent, which Anna knew was unnatural. Edwin would not talk to her, instead keeping a focus on his mother, asking if she wanted her dishes replenished, checking with the servants to make sure that she was obliged and well-off.

There was no proper way for her to maintain the attention of anyone. For a moment she thought, at yet another periphery glance, she caught a carriage in the almost dark but that was impossible. No other guest was in attendance and surely the carriages had been dismissed for the evening. She felt agitated even without this sighting, twisting the cloth napkin in her fingers. Slavery. Genocide. These were such tough words to come out of his mouth, and Anna knew all to well of their source. Slavery was the last big disgrace of the empire, Edwin told Anna, but he mentioned it only once and years ago, before he went to Magdalen to study. She did not like to think on it much. The statement came at the beginning of nearly four years of separation, marked only by long letters and sporadic gifts between the two. It was something she thought about throughout, but even the relative anonymity did not afford her enough comfort to ask what exactly he did mean. She knew of slavery, but it was outlawed in this country for thirty years now. So it was not this, but something else. It made her ill enough thinking about it that even the chicken could not satisfy. Chase noticed her reticence.

"Miss Shrew," he said, "You will reduce to a bird."

Even at this acknowledgement of her, Edwin said nothing. It was to proceed like this for the whole evening, and an hour later, after they had all retired to the sitting room, Anna begged for permission to leave the Park for home. She gave up hope of attracting Edwin's solemn inattention (he sat on the windowsill bench, watching the hyacinths, his formerly happy face slashed with worry). He seemed poised to pick up and run at any moment. But she could not stand it if he should run from her, so she elected to leave first.

Mother told her she might leave a little later, and even offered to send for the carriage so that she could wait for that duration, but Anna insisted that she should leave at once as there was nothing better than a healthy walk. Chase offered to accompany her home, but she refused him and walked from the room to stem the protestations. The park's grounds were dark, and the path was not illuminated but her feet knew each square inch of the depressed dirt. The voice of Edwin's placater rang in her ears. It will not end well for you, it said ... it will not end well for you.

*

Sariah kept the gas lamps on at home, and there was some refreshment on the table in case the party food was inedible as it often was for parties other than the ones at the Knowltons. Spread out across the fresh cloths were fruit, rinds of Stilton, fresh bread and a jug of sweet lemonade. Anna knew there were a few cakes in the larder underneath their glass encasements and the knowledge delighted her slightly that she might indulge away from the watchful eye of Mother and the Doctor. She held out and collapsed into a chair. It was quiet here in the small nook facing the stalks of fragrant heather and in the night it sounded like an ocean of stalks.

She admitted now that Edwin's neglect troubled her deeply. That it was almost as if she could not breathe in that room without some recognition from him. Had they not just sat on the grass together, talking about Magdalen and those experiments and the goings-on at Parliament of which he had a sacred, intimate knowledge? When she heard those machinations explained in that gentle voice she felt she received this information as if from the eyes and ears of those walls themselves. What about their correspondence? Since that afternoon it had been two weeks since they last spoke and before that it had been a year; things could not have changed that much, but it would seem that they had. The space between the thumb and her hand were intimate with the tears she shed each time he boarded the train back to Magdalen and she ached to press her eyes against her hands again. But what was she to him?

She fell asleep against the table and awoke to the sound of others coming inside. It was even later than she suspected as the lamps were extinguished and the shuffling of servants ceased. Before she could push her chair to stand up, she felt someone holding her hands and saw that it was Edwin sitting on the chair next to her. Not an apparition, but wholly unexpected. His face was no less distressed, and his acute focus on her was even more devastating. She could not look; she had to look. She asked him, then, why he had come.

"There was an accident," Edwin began.