Virago Modern Classics

''As profound as Katherine Mansfield, restrained as Jane Austen, sharp as Dorothy Parker'' Independent INTRODUCED BY NICOLA BEAUMAN The lark rose in the brilliant air, higher, higher on its spun-glass spiral of song, knowing nothing of peace or war, accepting joyously the bounty of another day. A hot summer''s day in 1946. The village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rusting coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall must find their way in an altered, shabbier world. Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. Hour by hour, as the glorious weather holds, the Marshalls and their daughter Victoria are preoccupied by the small pleasures and irritations of everyday life. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see how much could have been