Page 37 of A Thousand Painted Hours

My father said, “Have you been as ill as that?”

“I am much better,” Mother said, waving a hand. “You know the heat sometimes wears on me.”

“Indeed. All the better—”

Mother interrupted. “All in good time,” she said. “Elsie, have you been sketching?”

I stabbed a chunk of melon. “Gurdaya and I walked to the lake.” I pulled my book from my deep pocket and flipped through to show a drawing of a red-billed magpie in all its drama. “The birds are beginning to migrate, so we saw quite a few things. We saw stilts, too.”

“Such an eager naturalist,” my father said. “I was the same as a boy.”

“Were you?” He rarely shared anything about his life. “Did you like birds?”

“Indeed.” He gestured for his plate to be filled with roast mutton. “My favorites were the swans and ducks. There are a lot of ducks at Herewich.”

“The estate where you grew up?” The melon barely dented my thirst, and I drank water greedily. “I’ve seen a painting of it.”

“Yes, it’s quite beautiful, and old, for England, anyway. It was built in 1532.”

“That’s old,” I agreed, “but not as old as the maharaja’s palace.”

“It’s far older than the palace.” He looked at my mother, and I suddenly felt a warning.

“Elsie,” Mother said. “Your father has had some news.”

I looked at him, feeling the pit of my stomach give way.

He cleared his throat. “My brother, the earl, has been killed in a hunting accident.”

“Oh no! Father, I am so very sorry.”

“Yes, well. The second part of the news is that I am now the Earl of Herewich.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?”

My mother said, “We shall be returning to England forthwith, Elsie.”

The words made no sense. “What?”

“I’ve booked passage from Bombay on the third of October,” my father said. “That will give us time to pack both houses and wrap up our business here in India. My replacement will need to be trained, and I’d not like to leave that for some imbecile who understands nothing of the delicacies of the position.”

My mother patted his arm approvingly.

I continued to stare at him. What language was he even speaking? What was he talking about? “Leave India?” I said at last. “I don’t want to leave India. This is my home.”

“I know it will be a challenge,” my mother said, “but it’s time.”

Something in her gentle gaze made me think she knew my secret, that she was relieved that we would be leaving. “You’ve never lived in England!” I cried. “This is your home, too.”

“India is trying to kill your mother,” Father said. “The climate in England will be so much better.”

A howl whirled around my spine, gathering power until it tore from my throat. “No!” I cried. “No. I won’t go. I will not leave my friends and the landscape and—everything.” I stood up, and my knees caught the seat of my chair, sending it backward. The violence of my move knocked the table, too, and a glass of wine spilled red over the flowers and vines of the tablecloth. “I won’t.”

“Sit down,” my father said, as close to a shout as he ever came.

It startled me enough that I took the seat a servant had righted.

“Youwillbe going to England with us, your parents. And you will learn to live the English way, as befits the daughter of an earl. Do you understand me?”