A Swans: Eva Ibbotson

It was a quite extraordinary kiss. Even indoors at night, where such things sometimes happened, it would have been disconcerting—but here, out in the open air in the middle of a sunny afternoon, it was unutterably shocking. This man with his silvered hair and his honorary post as Financial Advisor to the Cabinet had gathered his wife to him as if in acute hunger, then and there, for her presence. And Harriet… What was one to say of a woman close to her thirtieth year, and obviously pregnant, who stood on tiptoe in order to put up her arms and pull down her husband’s head?

Mrs. Belper stared. For the briefest of moments she remembered the opening bars of a Mozart sonata which her mother had liked to play, and that she had once thought there were angels. Remembered too Mr. Belper, who had brought her white violets when they were engaged, cupping them in an unexpected manner in his hands for her to smell, but was now dead.

Then she pulled herself together. The spectacle was a disgusting one, the sighting useless… and turning away, she retraced her steps and shooed the oncoming ladies firmly back to the house for tea.