‘Darling boy, at the back of the house: come and kiss your old mother.’
There had been so little notice. Of course, she’d known he planned to leave India – he’d put it to her brutally enough. But not yet. Between one mail and the next, it seemed to her, the plan had been fixed. It was true that Mrs. Hill, in whose house he had been living, had been desperately ill since before Christmas: four weeks or more really quite raving with malaria and heaven knew what else, according to Ruddy’s letters, which had shown an almost excessive degree of distress. But the idea that Mrs. Hill should undertake a long voyage as a means of recovery quite so soon appeared strange. However, the Hills seemed perfectly set on it.
‘We’re all to travel together,’ Rud repeated, eyes shining, over a late breakfast
