1
" She isn't sure how long they sit like that, the two of them side by side, lost in their own thoughts, but it's a soft scratching sound that brings her attention back to the clearing. Opening her eyes, she looks across to where they had left the prone bird and is startled to see the hawk no longer lying beneath the leaf litter but standing upright, its head cocked, one beady orange eye peering at her with suspicion. "Look," she whispers, reaching for Jack's arm.
Jack follows her gaze. The bird studies them a moment then hops clumsily away through the leaves towards the base of a tree. Lillian holds her breath, watching as it half-extends one wing. It hops a few more paces but it looks off-balance, too damaged to fly; but it's as if it hears her thought and determines to prove her wrong for suddenly it stretches out both wings and, in one fluid movement, takes flight across the clearing to land in the lowest branch of a nearby tree. Lillian feels her heart beating in her chest, a heady mix of excitement and elation.
The sparrowhawk perches on the bough, its eye still fixed in their direction before it glides off the branch and sails low across the clearing in a showy swoop before soaring away through the trees and out of sight.
"Well how about that?" says Jack. "Lazarus rises. "
― Hannah Richell , The Peacock Summer
5
" A sigh leaves Jack's lips- a soft exhalation- and in that moment she is lost. There is no Cloudesley, no Charles, no ticking clocks, no past or future; there is nothing but the clearing and Jack, and their hands clasped together. When she looks up at him, his face seems closer, so close she can see the amber flecks in the slate-grey of his eyes.
It is like gravity, she thinks, as she leans in towards him, her lips meeting his. Its is a force so natural- so inevitable- so like falling- or flying- that she isn't sure she could stop their kiss even if she tried. "
― Hannah Richell , The Peacock Summer
6
" Who was it who said, 'the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance'?"
"I think that was Ruskin," says Jack.
"Ha!" laughs Charles. "There's truth in that. Could have included women, too." Charles laughs loudly at his own joke.
"Only if you're to assume a woman's sole purpose in life is to look good," counters Lillian.
"Well of course... there's looking good... and there's child-bearing," adds Charles, still looking ahead at the bird.
Lillian grips the bag in her lap a little more tightly.
If the artist seated behind them is aware of the tension, he deflects artfully. "I think Ruskin misses the point," he says. "Beauty is never useless. It has purpose. Look at us, sitting here. We've ceased all other activity just to pause for a moment and wonder at the sight of this bird. The extraordinary jolts us from the mundane and makes us feel something. It reminds us we're alive."
"Rather like art," says Lillian, after a moment.
Jack meets her gaze in the wing-mirror and nods. "Yes. Art. Music. Love."
Lillian drops her gaze, unexpected heat flooding her cheeks. "
― Hannah Richell , The Peacock Summer
9
" She is about to close the book and return it to the desk when she catches sight of a face passing on the flickering pages. She leafs her way back until she finds it again- not an entire face, but a section; an eye, the sweep of a cheekbone, the curved line of a neck observed from side-on; all illustrated as if seen in the reflection of a small, oval mirror. A car-wing mirror.
She peers at the page more closely, breath held in her chest as the moment returns to her: sitting in Charles's new car, Jack scrunched in the back and Lillian in the front, a peacock barring their path. It is exactly how he would have seen her reflected back at him in the wing-mirror.
As with the other drawings, the accuracy is remarkable. She is amazed at his ability to recall the smallest details. There is the pearl stud at her earlobe and the almost indiscernible beauty spot above her lip. Yet the more closely she studies the sketch, the more she is discomforted. It isn't just the precision of the pencil lines conjuring her on the paper- butt more the expression he has captured- a certain wistfulness she hadn't known she wore so plainly. The portrait feels so intimate; almost as if he had laid her bare on the page.
She continues to leaf through the sketches and finds a second portrait. This time she is seated in the drawing room, her face turned to the window, the skirt of her dress falling in a fan to to the floor. A third reveals her standing on the terrace, leaning against the balustrade, a long evening dress sweeping about her legs. The night of the party. The next page shows just her arm, identifiable by a favorite diamond bracelet dangling at the wrist. The last is of her head and shoulders, viewed from behind, the curves of her neck rising up to a twisted knot of hair. Looking at the images she isn't sure how she feels; flattered to be seen, to be deemed worthy of his time and attention, though at the same time a little uncomfortable at the intimacy of his gaze and at the thought of having been so scrutinized when she hadn't even known he was watching her. "
― Hannah Richell , The Peacock Summer
11
" She finds herself, by some miraculous feat, no longer standing in the old nursery but returned to the clearing in the woods. It is the 'green cathedral', the place she first kissed Jack all those weeks ago. The place where they laid out the stunned sparrowhawk, then watched it spring miraculously back to life.
All around, the smooth, grey trunks of ancient beech trees rise up from the walls of the room to tower over her, spreading their branches across the ceiling in a fan of tangled branches and leaves, paint and gold leaf cleverly combined to create the shimmering effect of a leafy canopy at its most dense and opulent. And yet it is not the clearing, not in any real or grounded sense, because instead of leaves, the trees taper up to a canopy of extraordinary feathers shimmering and spreading out like a peacock's tail across the ceiling, a hundred green, gold and sapphire eyes gazing down upon her. Jack's startling embellishments twist an otherwise literal interpretation of their woodland glade into a fantastical, dreamlike version of itself. Their green cathedral, more spectacular and beautiful than she could have ever imagined.
She moves closer to one of the trees and stretches out a hand, feeling instead of rough bark the smooth, cool surface of a wall. She can't help but smile. The trompe-l'oeil effect is dazzling and disorienting in equal measure. Even the window shutters and cornicing have been painted to maintain the illusion of the trees, while high above her head the glass dome set into the roof spills light as if it were the sun itself, pouring through the canopy of eyes. The only other light falls from the glass windowpanes above the window seat, still flanked by the old green velvet curtains, which somehow appear to blend seamlessly with the painted scene. The whole effect is eerie and unsettling. Lillian feels unbalanced, no longer sure what is real and what is not. It is like that book she read to Albie once- the one where the boy walks through the wardrobe into another world. That's what it feels like, she realizes: as if she has stepped into another realm, a place both fantastical and otherworldly.
It's not just the peacock-feather eyes that are staring at her. Her gaze finds other details: a shy muntjac deer peering out from the undergrowth, a squirrel, sitting high up in a tree holding a green nut between its paws, small birds flitting here and there. The tiniest details have been captured by Jack's brush: a silver spider's web, a creeping ladybird, a puffy white toadstool. The only thing missing is the sound of the leaf canopy rustling and the soft scuttle of insects moving across the forest floor. "
― Hannah Richell , The Peacock Summer
