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2 total works
Una and her younger sister Hal have been abruptly summoned to live in New Delhi by their diplomat father Sir Edward Gwithiam. From the first meeting with their new tutor and companion, the beautiful Eurasian Alix Lamont, Una senses a hidden motive to their presence. But through the pain of the months to come, the poetry and logic of India do not leave Una untouched. And it begins with the feather, a promise of something genuine and precious . . .
In The Peacock Spring Rumer Godden evokes the magic of an India she knows so well – and all the bitter sweetness of loyalty and love. And in the preface she explains how this perennially popular novel came to be written.
The faded elegance of Les Oeillets, with its bullet-scarred staircase and serene garden bounded by high walls; Eliot, the charming Englishman who became the children's guardian while their mother lay ill in hospital; sophisticated Mademoiselle Zizi, hotel patronne, and Eliot's devoted lover; 16 year old Joss, the oldest Grey girl, suddenly, achingly beautiful. And the Marne river flowing silent and slow beyond them all . . .
They would merge together in a gold-green summer of discovery, until the fruit rotted on the trees and cold seeped into their bones . . .
The Greengage Summer is Rumer Godden's tense, evocative portrait of love and deceit in the Champagne country of the Marne - which became a memorable film starring Kenneth More and Susannah York. In the preface, Rumer Godden explains how it came to be written.
`An exciting tale, this novel has both charm and atmosphere, and Miss Godden recaptures with an easy unsentimental naturalness the unfocused vision of adolescence' Evening Standard
`One of the finest English novelists' Orville Prescott