The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf

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IT WAS CHILLIER THAN SHE EXPECTED THAT MORNING, and a stiff wind shuddered through the apple blossoms — penetrating even to the desk in the Lodge at Rodmell, where she preferred to write. The wind formed a background to her stuttering thoughts, not unlike the sound of airplane engines cutting out overhead — there had been so many engines in recent months that she’d stood beneath them as they passed, her bony fists clamped to her jutting hips, staring upwards from the back garden. So many planes. So many bombs, that one had actually fallen near the house when she wasn’t looking. The river dykes were smashed and the water crept over the flat Sussex meadows as steadily as infantry.

She had hoarded poison against the coming Germans and made death pacts — she would not be taken alive. But by winter the planes had dwindled, predatory birds bound for harsher climes. Leonard hid the poison very secretly while she was in London one day.

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