The Peacock Spring

by Rumer Godden

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. ‘One of the finest English novelists’ Orville Prescott

Genres: Fiction, India, Romance, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Historical

274 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Margaret Rumer Godden was an English author of more than 60 fiction and non-fiction books. Nine of her works have been made into films, most notably Black Narcissus in 1947 and The River in 1951.
A few of her works were co-written with her elder sister, novelist Jon Godden, including Two Under the Indian Sun, a memoir of the Goddens' childhood in a region of India now part of Bangladesh.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her preface to this novel, Rumer Godden wrote:

I suppose, in a way, I am a divided person, having two roots: Sussex, England where I was born and India where I first went when I was six months old. For most of my life I have gone back and forth between them in one I am homesick for the other.

Sometimes this homesickness becomes acute …. I seemed to feel the warm Indian dust under my sandalled feet, smell flowers in sun, and other smells pungent and acrid …. I had no reason to go back to India, but the longing persisted; then, as if in answer, came a story linked to a memory of something strange and sad that happened many years before ….

This story draws on that particular memory; and it was so fortunate that it belonged to an author who knew India as a child, who saw that country more clear-sightedly as an adult, and who loved both England and India, and could see the strengths and weaknesses of both countries and what each one brought to the complex relationship between them.

Fifteen-year-old Una and her half-sister Halcyon (Hal) were happily settled in an English boarding school, after spending most of their childhood in different homes in different countries as their father’s diplomatic career, when a most unexpected letter arrived. It brought word that Sir Edward Gwithiam wished his daughters to join him in New Delhi, where he had recently been posted by the United Nations.

Hal was delighted with the prospect of a new adventure in India, but Una was desperately unhappy. She was clever, her teachers were encouraging her to set her sights on a good university, and she knew that even the best of governesses in India could not give her the education that she wanted and needed. The prospect of spending time with her adored father was little consolation.

Peacock SpringWhen she reached her father’s new home in Delhi, Una quickly realised that the reasons that her father had quoted in his letter were mere pretexts. Miss Lamont, who was to be her governess, was a beautiful woman, she held a privileged position in the household, and she was clearly unqualified to teach a well-educated fifteen year-old.

Of course Una understood what the real situation was, and why it was that she and Hal had been summoned.

Hal had never been much interested in lessons, she accepted Miss Lamont’s presence without question and happily accepted all of the lovely things that her new life had to offer.

Una resisted all of Miss Lamont’s attempts to win her over and a fierce battle of wills would develop between them. It was a battle that she could not win, because her adversary was cold and calculating, and determined that noting should prevent her from achieving her ambition, and because Una’s father shared that ambition and treated his daughter’s opposition as the behaviour of a spoilt child.

Hurt, troubled, and lonely, Una retired to the abandoned summer-house at the bottom of the garden, with her beloved books.

It was there that she met Ravi, the under-gardener. He was a handsome young man, he was an aspiring poet, and the gift of a blue peacock feather would lead to a clandestine romance.

Una was smitten with the young man and the very different side of life in India that he showed her; and of course it don’t occur to ask why someone with his education was working in a garden. Ravi’s friend Hem, a more worldly-wise medical student, knew why; and he warned him that the relationship could only lead him into more trouble, but Ravi took no notice at all.

When Una made a discovery that she knew would appall her father, she and Ravi made a desperate plan, that they hoped would allow them to escape from the worst of the fallout. It didn’t occur to either of them that while Sir Edward might be happy to allow his daughter to ‘sulk’ for a while he still considered her a child and would act as soon as he realised that anything might be amiss.

The events that played out would be a painful coming of age for Una.

I was caught up with her from the very first, I understood her feelings and her actions, and my concern grew as the story progressed. That story had a wonderful understanding of the complications of family life, the awkwardness of the stage of life between childhood and adulthood, the intensity of first love, and the pain that learning more about how people are and how the world works. I couldn’t doubt for a moment that Rumer Godden understood and that she care; and she made me understand and care very deeply.

Her characterisations were deep and complex, and this was a story of real fallible people. Even Miss Lamont, who could be considered the villain of the piece, was a woman who could make me feel care and concern. She was mixed race, she didn’t fit into English or Indian society, and so her life had been a struggle and she had to hold on to the wonderful and unexpected chance that she had been offered. In contrast, Hem was lovely. He was a little older and wider than his friend, his advice was almost invariably ignored, but he would remain the truest and most thoughtful of friends to both Ravi and Una.

The prose is rich and evocative; the attention to detail is exactly right; but above all this is a human drama, and that drama felt so real that I might have been looking into the lives of people who really lived and breathed for a short but significant spell in their lives.

[Hana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel about prejudice—or perhaps more accurately—assumptions, preconceptions and misconceptions. It is also a story about growing up. The two themes are intertwined, for part of the growing-up process is having one’s preconceptions stripped away, sometimes painfully, leaving awareness that can feel to the young like a wound from which a scab is torn.

Nearly all of the characters in this complex and moving story read each other incorrectly; slowly each person’s truth is revealed and the tale takes surprising and even tragic turns.

The book’s first scene is at a Delhi mansion, an oasis of tree-shaded beauty on Shiraz Road. The head gardener is showing his new assistant how to sow flower seeds for the summer display.

“What, more flowers!” Ravi’s expression had said. This Delhi garden was already full of them: turrets of roses, long beds of more roses all now in their second flush, borders of delphiniums and lupins, snapdragons, petunias, dianthus, stocks.

English flowers. A paradise. Already there is a hint of something false--with English flowers in an Indian garden. And Ravi himself is a mystery. Why is he doing this work? '“Beta--son,” says the head gardener Ganesh to Ravi, “You could do anything…You are educated” Ganesh says it almost as an accusation. “You are much educated.”'

There is news of unrest, riots, famine in the land, but the English ladies “still went to Connaught Place to buy cherry cake and canapés for their parties." And all seems peaceful on Shiraz Street; only appropriate as the house at 40 Shiraz Road has been let to a high U.N. diplomat, Sir Edward Gwithiam, whom “Ravi had only seen…as a small colorless man” but who seems to be a man of considerable power.

Then one day in late January news filters from the house servants to the gardeners that soon there would be a mem. “A sort of mem,” says Ganesh in horror “for a mem could disrupt even a nation”—or even the United Nations—and worse there would also be “Two miss-babies…They will be noisy and ride their bicycles over our flower beds.”

But the “miss-babies” are not babies at all. Una Gwithiam, the quiet one with brains is fifteen, studying at a prestigious girl’s school in Switzerland with hopes of Oxford in three years. Her beautiful and flirtatious half-sister, Hal (short for Halcyon) is twelve, a budding musician. Una and Hal have just been abruptly ordered to Delhi by their father even though their school term still has months to run. Una is quietly devastated; her dream of Oxford in tatters. She is only reconciled because of the special relationship she has always had with her father. But when Una hears that she and her sister are to study at home under a governess rather than attending school she confides her deepest worry to the headmistress, a sense that “There’s something in this not…straight.”

Miss Lamont, the governess, the “sort of mem” will be the catalyst for much of the unfolding drama, but this is Una’s story and she is brilliantly drawn. I felt every pang of her disappointment and frustrated young ambition; every surge of anger, resentment, rebellion, jealousy. Una is wounded, but she is also capable of savage cruelty, snobbery and sly deceptiveness. Rumer Godden shows us all these flaws in Una’s character—and yet makes her utterly sympathetic. When a new and secret world unfolds for Una in the summerhouse at Number 40, I was with her all the way despite my adult fears for what might happen.

The Peacock Spring is set in post-Independence India, sometime in the 1950s or early 1960s; the book is filled with lush descriptions, crisp dialog and a splendid ensemble cast of characters that made that place and time come alive; and there are also subtle—and sometimes devastating—insights into Indian and English class and racial distinctions.

I thought this was just a slight notch down from The Greengage Summer. It was not quite as tightly plotted and sometimes edged towards melodrama, but still, a story to read, re-read and savor, and for those who enjoy tales of India this is a must.

Content rating PG for some adult and adolescent sexual situations, mostly fade-to-black, also racial slurs.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written novel by one of my favourite authors. Rarely does RG put a foot wrong and here she is once again in complete control. This novel builds to a rather sad climax that I didn't see coming. The story lays bare a period in a family's life that will be hushed up and never spoken of for the rest of their lives... So pretty much perfect novel material!

The writing style is unique to RG and I love it, with thoughts being uttered by the characters as though they were dialogue. Sounds confusing but it works well and is easily followed. It's a useful technique for gaining access to the characters' inner lives. The writing throughout is sharp, compassionate and entertaining.

So if you like crisp, literary novels with decent plots and characters you care about, RG is a go-to author. Enjoy.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right from the outset, this novel crackles with dramatic tension, driven by the personalities of the characters, especially of Una and Alix. Even though Una is only fifteen years old, a contest of wills ensues between her and the much more mature, crafty and determined Alix. There seems to be no escape for either of them as their deep animosity builds and each new event further aggravates their troubled relationship — and all the while Edward, Una’s father, despite his exalted position and seeming sensitivity, remains oblivious to the battle that is taking place within his household. And surrounding all of this drama, Godden infuses the story with the powerful presence of India in all of its faded grandeur, poverty and chaos.
It is also a story about the pain and the ecstasy of first love, about prejudice, about the pressures of social change. And above all, the trauma of having to grow up.
In her parsing of the poetry of Ravi, Una’s young lover, Godden most powerfully captures the aura of India. Ravi’s poems spoke of plain, intrinsic and indigenous Indian things, as much as if they were made of India’s fine cotton, pure wool, real silk; her wood, strong as teak or resilient as bamboo.
….In these poems were Indian sounds to which Una was growing accustomed: the creaking of bullock cart wheels beside motor horns and the light hiss of bicycle tires; the clinking of bangle against bangle; the chants coolies used as they strained at their loads; the plod and pattering of hooves, big and little, buffaloes or goats, in the dust; the cheap tinkle of a temple bell, or the minute silvery clash of a pair of rare cymbals; a baby’s wail; the callousness of a monkey-man’s drum.
Godden spares us nothing of either the lure or the misery of India:
There was the smell of sweat and hot dust, of dung smoke from fires or, acrid, from burnt leaves: of Ravi’s own hair oil and the heavy night-flowers.
As Una read, she saw flat-topped houses, huddled as in the city or lonely in the plain; she saw thatched huts, clay-walled; palm trees and flowering trees; a sky of paper kites….. A corpse lay, lonely and small, on the bank while the mourners picnicked round it, lighting their own small family fire before they set the pyre alight …..
There was the feel of a girl’s wet hair, the wet clinging cloth of her sari as she came from bathing. There was pain, of bellies swollen by starvation; the rack of fever, of bleeding from sores, human and animal; the shriek of pain when a bird seller put out a bird’s eyes to make it sing more beautifully.
There’s more of a robust physicality in this novel than in most of Godden’s work. And although it never ascends to the literary heights of A Fugue in Time, in many ways it can be seen as Godden’s most mature work, in large part because it so fully captures Godden’s personal history of living in two worlds.

[Hella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het is zo heerlijk om schrijvers te hebben op wie je kunt terugvallen als je even niet meer weet wat je moet lezen. Dat geldt voor Jane Gardam, en ook voor Rumer Godden. Tot nu toe vond ik al haar boeken schitterend. Ze heeft een wonderlijke stijl, waarin ze alles doet wat verboden is bij Creatief Schrijven, zoals bijvoorbeeld headhoppen en binnen 1 alinea (zellfs binnen een zin soms) vooruit en achteruit springen in de tijd. Veel van haar boeken spelen in India, ze weet de sfeer treffend neer te zetten, niet alleen de schoonheid maar ook de armoede en de lelijkheid. Ze zet ook het expatleven herkenbaar neer, de roddels, de regels, de verveling, en hoe het is voor kinderen.
Dit boek gaat over Una (15) en Hal (12) die van hun Engelse kostschool weer naar India gehaald worden om daar door een gouvernante geschoold te worden. Onzin natuurlijk, merken ze al gauw. Ze zijn er voor het decorum. Hun vader, weduwnaar en gescheiden van zijn tweede vrouw, is verliefd op de mooie, euraziatische (het boek speelt na de onafhankelijkheid van India) Alix Lamont.
De meisjes worden min of meer aan hun lot overgelaten en vinden hun weg in de verschillende gemeenschappen elk op een geheel eigen en overwachte manier. Hal is een luchthartige spring-in-'t-veld, Una is leergierig, eerlijk en loyaal, en juist haar overkomen daardoor de ergste dingen.
Het boek gaat over zoveel: eerlijkheid, vertrouwen, loyaliteit, verschillen tussen arm en rijk, en ook de schoonheid van het land.
Er was een scène waar ik omwille van de spoilers wat raadselachtig over moet doen, maar die zó precies verwoordde wat ik zelf ooit gevoeld heb, voor het eerst slapend in de woestijn van Oman: […] but the loneliness came back and, as night came down and she saw the train as a tiny lit caterpillar crawling across the plain, an infinitesimal dare to the uncaring stars above, the loneliness, the sense of abandonment grew.
Die onverschillige sterren.

[Amanda (Mandy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books as a teenager. I saw a bit of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre movie of it, and then managed to track down the book. It's about a forbidden romance between a fifteen-year-old English girl from a British elite family living in Delhi, attending boarding school, and an Indian boy who works in her family's garden. It's very sensuous.

[Margaret Wichorek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is one of Ms. Godden's best novels. I got it on my Kindle and it happened to be one that missed reading when it first came out. Publishers must be reissuing her books as most have been book bargains that I, of course, could not resist getting. If you are looking for a really good story, with some wonderful characters, you should definitely read this one.

[Mariangel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written, but a sad story of what differences in upbringing and caste do. It has unexpected moments, because nobody is as good or as bad as they seem at first, and all characters are shown with compassion by Rumer Godden.

[Nancy Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

2 English sisters, sent for to live with their father in India. The eldest is serious, smart, plain; the youngest beautiful, guileless and funny. This is a story about the eldest, as well as the father and his half-caste mistress he takes on as governess for the 2 girls.
Beautifully written. Rumer Godden has become one of my favorite authors. Her portrayal of human nature and conflict is about as sharp as it gets.
Vastly entertaining and poignant.

[Zen Cho · Rating 3 out of 5]

An absorbing read -- I started and finished it in one day -- but even though Godden's prose is beautiful and her characters are all fully-fleshed people, I was, inevitably, uncomfortable with how the race issues were handled. It's like when I read The Diddakoi (oh, hm, I haven't done a review of The Diddakoi yet) -- anyway, obviously The Diddakoi was from the point of view of Kizzy and it was all about discrimination is bad etc. etc., but I felt it was basically flawed by the fact that Godden, all unconscious, did actually think gypsies were inferior. It was obvious from a couple of throwaway remarks, the way she distinguished between her main character and, say, the gypsies who come when her grandmother's passed away. (There's one line where she talks about the ingratiating tones that gypsies can always adopt, something like that, and all my hair just stood on end.)

Here I got mad annoyed because the sanctimonious little white girls and their UN dad are all, oh, we accept Alix Lamont's mom, all this stuff ~doesn't matter~, and it's implied they're like this because they're so enlightened. More like because they live in a bubble of privilege. There's no acknowledgment in the text that the reason why Alix strives as she does and indulges in all her shifts is because of the massively imperialist, institutionally racist society that's ranged against her, and Una and Edward and Hal are so incredibly sheltered from the ugly side of that -- in fact, they actively benefit from it. Of course, Hem and Ravi do tell Una off when she's being all "~but Indians are so simple and beautiful~", but end of the day, it's just -- it's all personal. I think Godden's position prevents her from having the clarity about the system that's really required to write this and not have it be cringingly awful in places.

(Also, does Una really mean what I think she means when she mentions Alix's brown diamond and says "We don't have many diamonds in the family, especially brown ones"? Because URGHHHHH!)

Anyway -- yeah. An interesting book by a talented writer, but profoundly flawed IMO.

[Robin Reynolds]

DNF. Thirty or so pages in and I just cannot get into this book. The writing just does not appeal to me at all.

[Paige Cuthbertson| Turning_Every_Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

Godden’s storytelling is unique and very interesting, which bumped my review up to 2 stars. I will most likely check out more of her work!

But this story was so problematic and I didn’t enjoy most of it. It had a very slow, boring start; once we were finally “into” the story, I was very interested in it! But the second half of the book took a sharp turn, full of unrealistic events and so much melodrama.

Also, the fact that Ravi is a college-age adult and Una is only 15 sort of made me sick.

And that ending was just… wut?

CW: frequent mild language, sexual situations involving a minor, physical abuse

2 ⭐️

[Pip Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m rereading my Rumer Godden books & enjoying the just as much the second time.

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

A diplomat takes his two daughters out of school in England to be with him in India. Once they get there however, he spends almost no time with them and it transpires that they are merely cover for his affair with a Franco-Indian woman he has employed as their governess. The younger daughter, Hal, settles in and makes the best of things, but the elder daughter, Una, is desperately unhappy and lonely. Alix, the so-called governess, is insufficiently educated herself to teach Una, especially in the advanced mathematics she was studying at school. The stage is set for Una to strike up a relationship with Brahmin gardener Ravi.
Alix is an unpleasant woman, a manipulative, vindictive, dishonest social climber, but Rumer Godden shows how the society she has to live in might have contributed to her character, so she is not totally unsympathetic. Una's story is tragic, but this is not Alix's fault, everyone Una should have been able to trust or rely on lets her down.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Rumer Godden, but I was disappointed in this novel. It was still slow going in the middle but I kept plodding along. Finally, the story picked up and something interesting happened to the characters. Two English schoolgirls summoned to live with their father in India. Upon arrival they find his girlfriend is appointed as their tutor; conflict. The oldest daughter, Una, discovers love, disappointment, betrayal and grows up in the process. I was so bored by most of the book that I didn't really care much what happened to any of them.

Rather than this novel, I would recommend Rumer Godden's "Black Narcissus," "The River" and "Kingfishers Catch Fire."

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a surprise to me, starting out feeling like a safe and standard book about schoolgirls and then quickly taking a leap into something much more adult. This has made it stick with me much more than if it had stayed a book about schoolgirls and family dynamics. The complexity with which Godden treats the girls' (and adult women's) feelings and thoughts is admirable.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

People Judging People

I chose the title because it seems that everywhere people tend to discriminate. Why don’t we realize that we are all one people? And this read points out that even though royalty may be sympathetic, they don’t want the inconveniences of the poor. The characters were well developed. I learned things I didn’t know about India which I enjoyed.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe three and a half? I remember liking this when I read it about the time it first came out, but it has faded on me rather, or maybe I have just read more of Godden's work and note the repetition of certain themes and character dynamics. Also, ending a bit of a cop-out.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heartbreaking but predictable story. I love Godden’s writing as a rule but this was not one I would read again.

[Madame Mim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5
-"LA PRIMAVERA DEL PAVO REAL" de Rumer Godden-
.
En mi afán constante de buscar libros olvidados, me topé con este título, ambientado en La India, de la escritora inglesa Rumer Godden; vieja conocida mía por sus libros "El río", y "Flores entre ruinas", y a la que después de leer esta novela, empiezo a tener como una de mis autoras de cabecera.
.
"La primavera del pavo real", nos cuenta la historia de Una, de quince años, y de su medio hermana Hal, que debido a la carrera diplomática de su padre, han pasado la mayor parte de su infancia viajando por el mundo. Al comienzo de la novela, ambas se encuentran establecidas en Inglaterra, pero un día, les llega una carta de su padre, en la que les dice que deben trasladarse a vivir a Nueva Delhi con él, y estudiar allí con una institutriz.
.
Tras la noticia, Hal está encantada con la idea de ir a la India, pero Una por el contrario, está muy disgustada, y no quiere interrumpir sus estudios en Inglaterra. Finalmente, las perspectivas de pasar más tiempo con su padre, la animan a a ir, aunque todo se complica cuando al llegar allí, se da cuenta de que su padre está menos interesado en ella que en la institutriz, y que la señorita Lamont ocupa una posición privilegiada. Así que mientras Hal acepta la presencia de la señorita Lamont, Una la rechaza, y ambas se ven enfrentadas.
.
Terriblemente sola, y buscando consuelo, Una conoce a Ravi, un brahmán, y poeta, que trabaja como jardinero en la casa, y con el que Una descubrirá un mundo nuevo, que cambiará su vida para siempre.

En "La primavera del pavo real", la autora inglesa Rumer Godden (1907-1998), se basa en los recuerdos de su propia infancia, y su vida posterior en la India, para plasmar con gran delicadeza la transición de la niñez a la edad adulta. Además, su amor por su país adoptivo es evidente en cada línea, y su prosa hermosa y sensual, da vida con exuberantes detalles las vistas, sonidos y olores de la India. Sin embargo, y de manera clara y eficaz, también critica el racismo inherente a las clases altas angloindias.

[Alesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sensitive novel set in post-WWII India with fascinating character development, unexpected plot twists and great cultural insights.

Una and Hal are at an English boarding school when their diplomat divorced father sends for them to join him in Delhi. He has hired a governess for them who Una (the viewpoint character) instantly hates and resents. Alix, the governess, is mixed-race, gorgeous, clever, but also not entirely honest. The father is infatuated with her, but we suspect that she is not all that she appears to be.

We see India through the innocent eyes of a 14-year-old as the nation struggles with post-colonial racism, classism, caste and more. Una is thoughtful and really smart; she sees through the governess but isn’t sure why. Meanwhile, she is increasingly attracted to the gardener’s assistant, who is improbably a well-educated Brahmin; we have to wonder what he’s doing there. The author is much too astute, and too familiar with India, to have placed him there as a mistake.

We see the obstinance of a teenager when confronted with a stepmother figure, chafing with a yearning for independence, confused by the hypocrisy of the adult world, plopped into a culture that she does not yet understand. It’s a brilliant way of showing how India herself is like a motherless teen, baffled by how to handle age-old prejudices and mores.

I can’t wait to read more of this author’s work. She’s a true genius at articulating the female expat experience, as well as the complexity of familial dynamics when faced with change.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two young girls are at boarding school in England when their much loved father asks them to join him in India where he is a diplomat with the UN. They have no mother. Fourteen year old Una is dismayed as she is working towards a Maths scholarship to Oxford and fears she may not get the appropriate teaching in India and she is right. Twelve year old Hal is eager to see India. Their father has a governess for them who is young and beautiful and fun but Una is suspicious of her and realises she is not able to keep up with the standards that Una has already achieved.

We see India through the eyes of these two young girls and it is lovely with colours and smells and tastes that even win Una over. But we are also privy to other conversations that allow us to realise that Una’s apprehensions have some basis.

As well as fascinating sights India is at an interesting stage. This was written in the 1970s. There is no Raj and the father Edward lives and works and socialises with local people from India which has been self governing for over ten years. There is a grand house and servants but they are all part of the UN and Edward and the girls find it a bit embarrassing and would prefer simpler living circumstances.

In their openness to India and its charms, both Edward and Una cross a line which leads to unwanted consequences. There is a dark turn and then a darker one. These people who are all nice are in an awful predicament but somehow we are taken through a part solution to a satisfactory ending.

I loved this. Everything is full of wonder. Rumer Godden takes us around the India she grew up in and loved.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel set in post world War II India, after independence was declared, examines the complexities of culture, caste, and the clashes that occur between the old and the new, and the young and the old in a changing society.

Teenaged Una and pre-teen Hal (Halcyon) are English girls whose father, Edward, works at a high post in India for the United Nations. He abruptly sends for them from their English boarding school so that they can live with him in Delhi, where they will be schooled and supervised by Alix, who will serve as their governess.

Alix has another role, however. She is involved with Edward, but is waiting for her divorce to become final. Una's mother, Edward's first wife, died when Una was very young, and his second short-lived marriage to an American produced Hal but ended in a tense divorce, though Edward has custody of Hal.

Unexpected events will ensue when the girls arrive, including tension between Una and Alix, an inappropriate romance for Una, a flirtation for Hal, and more.

The story is told with Rumer Godden's usual mix of evocative description of the setting, and her way of pitting delicacy and sensitivity towards her characters with biting criticism of their moments of unkindness and the immorality.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of young love. Set in Delhi at the end of colonial times. Against this background a number of tensions are explored. That between the ruling elite, both British and Indian and the native masses. That between races, white, mixed and native. That between servants and their employers. And that constant of good intentions versus pragmatic solutions when challenged. It is not surprising then to find that our young lovers, faced by these ongoing tensions, find that the path of true love is beset with pitfalls.

Written from her own experiences, the author's descriptions of the beauty of India capture the imagination. I confess to a little bias having spent some time holidaying in Delhi. Memories of this and as well as visiting some of the famous historical sites described, enriched my reading.

[Jane Naylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book - Rumer Godden's childhood and later life in India gave her an insight into Anglo-Indian relationships and the characters are believable if, at times, one wants to slap them. In this book she deals with a 15 year old girl discovering sex and a small reference to Indian politics, plus the girl's father, obsessed with his Anglo-Indian mistress who he tried to pass off as Governess to his daughters despite the fact that she is poorly educated. The story is at times uplifting and at times sad, I found it difficult to put down. I have read almost everything Rumer Godden wrote and find her writing style delightfully unique, whether writing a novel or telling of her own life.

[Mike Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fine Rumer Godden work in which smart, insightful children lay bare the flaws and hypocrisies of the adults around them. Fifteen-year-old Una is a terrific character, preferring math to needlepoint and other ladies' activities, and the Indian poet gardener on her father's estate to any of the English boys she meets while in New Delhi. The pacing is quick but allows time for Godden's luxurious descriptions of India to shine through. I felt the final chapters were a little rushed and pushed the limits of credibility at times, but all in all this twist on the Romeo and Juliet story is a lush, powerful read.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to give this only two stars, but I realized that was because I was not the correct audience for this very finely written book. It describes the fascinating country of India so evocatively that you can almost smell the aromas and odors, and see and feel the colors and fabrics. India is a fascinating country, but unfortunately it is not a country that fascinates me. Nor am I a young adult and I suspect it would be a terrific book for a 13-17 year old girl. That's why I can't understand why a book club that I am considering joining is meeting on this book this month. I may have to reconsider the book club.

[Roseyreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I simply could not decide how many stars to give this book after finishing it. I have decided to give it four stars because it is by Rumor Godden. She's my new favorite author. I like her writing and her stories are compelling. The stories may not always be pretty or happy but the characters are realistic and the setting is easy to picture in your mind through her descriptions. I just finished watching the movie, "Enchantment", which was taken from one of her novels and that has led me to give this book four stars. Next movie to get "Black Narcissus".

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a classic Rumer Godden I had not yet read so I got the e-book on sale and added it to my 2023 list of books. As always, I love her style of pulling in voices from the past and future but you really have to read each book more than once to understand where the voice comes from and I'm not sure I would read this one again. I have not read many of her works set in India and she makes it sound both wonderful/magical and deeply depressing but you can feel her love for the country. And her characters are, as always, very real, flawed human beings.

[Lindsey Albers · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t waste your time with this one. Life is too short and there are too many other good books out there. The characters are neither likable nor relatable. The paragraph long run on sentences with multiple quotes, excessive commas, and oddly placed hyphens in a single sentence make it terribly difficult to keep track of what is happening. I’m trashing the book rather than donating it because I don’t want the guilt of knowing someone else paid money for it. I’m not sure anyone could convince me to pick up another Rumer Godden book other than her children’s novels.