A Quiet Tide

DUBLIN, IRELAND

MAY 1803

ONE

Though four storeys of solid brick, Dr Stokes’s townhouse gave the impression of lightness.

Wide steps led to the front door. Pillars either side of the door supported a soaring glass arch above. Tall windows reflected scudding cloud. The window rails were of wrought iron, scalloped to look like lace. Standing on the street and tilting back her head, Ellen’s eyes flowed upwards into the sky.

Inside the rooms were ordered, the furniture polished and shining. Each room had been decorated with a predominant colour – the hallway red, the drawing room light blue, the dining room green. The large windows and many mirrors threw dazzling light around the upper floors. The ground level was darker and damp but she would have no reason to go there. Unlike at her boarding school – where the few servants scurried non-stop from basement to first floor to second floor, and where the pupils did much of the household chores, dusting, sweeping, making beds – in Dr Stokes’s house a different servant appeared for every required task, moving as if oiled, their eyes lowered. A stout manservant opened the front door; a young footman shouldered away her trunk; a thin, pock-faced girl took her bonnet and travelling coat.

Mrs Stokes – Louise – showed her to the room where she was to sleep. The single window faced west and would let in the evening sun. Leaf-green striped wallpaper, a small bed of dark wood, white counterpane and pillows. A rug beside the bed in dark blue and gold; Louise tapped on it with her foot, showing her leather slipper. ‘Persian,’ she said.

‘Very pretty, ma’am.’ Ellen said, blinking at its dazzling pattern.

‘Come have tea.’

In the drawing room, Dr Stokes stood by the mantelpiece. The manservant was setting out a silver teapot and china cups.

‘Alas, I cannot stay, Miss Hutchins. I must leave you in my wife’s hands.’ His voice held a practised kindness, gentle authority. Despite his long, rather morose countenance, he was fresh-faced, his eyes bright behind heavy lids like a woman’s. His hair receded over a high forehead. He wore a coat of black-brown, sober cloth, with plain, silver buttons.

When as a little girl she’d met him, years before, she’d marvelled at his boots, how long and shiny they’d been. And his hand: sinewy and smooth, depositing in her own little paw a thumb-sized piece of sugar. She saved the nugget for days, licking it furtively until it disappeared, to her confusion and sorrow. She’d thought him old. In fact, he must have been in his prime, for he now looked to be in the forties.

He glanced at his wife, as though asking her permission to go.

‘We will be quite all right, husband,’ Louise said. She sat down on a pale yellow sofa. ‘Miss Hutchins and I will become acquainted.’

He closed the door behind him as though afraid of breaking something.

Louise handed a teacup across. ‘Do you hear from your brother Emanuel regularly?’ She had a serene expression, as though she eked out the movements of her face. Younger than Dr Stokes; red hair under her white cap, blue-green eyes like chinks of glass. So far she had been attentive, gracious, rigidly polite, if unsmiling. She was dressed in dark blue silk; a muslin shawl covered her bosom.

Ellen perched on the edge of a chair, her back straight. ‘He’s busy in London, practising law.’

‘When did you see him last?’

She feared her clumsy fingers might snap off the teacup’s pretty, fine handle. ‘Some years ago,’ she said. He’d visited her in school. She’d been completely overawed by his gruff manner and hadn’t managed more than a few stuttered words. He patted her head, called her by her childhood pet name, Ellie.

‘How many siblings do you have? My husband couldn’t recall …’

‘Four brothers: Emanuel, Arthur, Samuel, Jack.’

‘Which one lives with your mother in Cork?’

‘Jack,’ she said. ‘He’s … incapacitated. Due to an accident.’

‘You have no sister, then?’

‘Katherine died when I was four.’

‘Oh. She was what age?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘In her prime. A shame.’ Louise busied herself with the teapot. She held the spout over Ellen’s cup, though Ellen had hardly yet taken a sip.

‘You don’t like tea?’

It would be rude to say she found it bitter. ‘I’m not used to it. We didn’t get tea in school. Only milk, or whey. Chocolate, at Christmas.’

‘Social life in Dublin, as elsewhere, revolves around tea. It’s an essential luxury.’ Duly rebuked, Ellen obediently drank. Louise held out a plate. ‘Have a sweet biscuit, Miss Hutchins. You’re too thin.’ Ellen blushed, startled. Louise watched until she’d taken one and nibbled at its edge. ‘What was the food like in your school?’

She swallowed. ‘Good, ma’am.’

Louise’s eyes narrowed to a glint. ‘I doubt it. You look half-starved.’

‘I’ve been ill …’

A colourless woman in a grey dress and long apron entered the room, shepherding three children. Louise gestured: ‘Harriet, Minnie, Charles – come closer and meet our guest.’ Charles, the baby, fair and red-cheeked, tottered towards his mother. The nursemaid seized Harriet and Minnie’s shoulders and steered them forward.

Harriet had Dr Stokes’s round chin and protruding lower lip. The hair peeping from under her cap was the same red as her mother’s. Ellen guessed her around five years old. Minnie, a year or two younger, stood behind her sister.

‘Harriet,’ Louise said. ‘Take your thumb out of your mouth, you’re too old for such behaviour. We will dip your thumb in vinegar, would you like that?’

‘No, Mama.’ A shining thread of drool had settled on the child’s chin.

‘Dunne, see to it she stops.’ The nursemaid jerked Harriet’s arm down. ‘Well, then. Miss Hutchins might teach you French if you are good.’

‘Certainly I will,’ Ellen said.

‘Soon a tutor must be arranged. But not yet.’ Moments passed. Somewhere in the large room, a clock ticked against the silence. The little girls stared at her with bright, round eyes. Ellen realised she was expected to say something.

‘Do you like to draw?’ she asked. ‘Have you paper, pencils?’

‘Of course,’ Harriet said, in a clear voice. ‘Our papa gives us whatever we ask.’

‘Well, then. We can draw together.’

‘You are kind, Miss Hutchins,’ Louise said. ‘But remember, you are here to recover.’ The nurse led the children away. Harriet looked back over her shoulder, her fingers already creeping to her mouth. Ellen determined to make friends with all three. Surviving a large household depended on finding allies, from the lowliest members to the highest.

Left alone to rest, she explored the room of striped wallpaper. She couldn’t think of it as hers. Not yet.

Pegs on the wall, where her dresses had already been hung, a washstand and basin of white china painted with yellow roses. A chest of drawers, ample, sturdy, with dark oak knobs, smooth to the touch, and – wonder of wonders – a small looking glass. There had been no looking glass at school. Madame Praval said that contemplating your own image led to vanity, and discontent. With something like shock Ellen now regarded herself. The combination of pale skin and fair hair made her look bleached, bloodless; fortunately her blue-grey eyes – the colour of the sea on a cloudy day – had depth, the possibility of sparkle, as when sun breaks on water. She felt along the sharp bones of her cheeks, lifted her chin to study the line of her jaw, fascinated. Then she started and caught herself, moved guiltily away.

The mirror winked light, unblinking as a silver eye.

Her trunk had been unpacked, her petticoats, shawl; the parcel Madame Praval had given her placed neatly in the drawers. ‘These are the things you brought with you as a child,’ she had said as Ellen stood waiting for Dr Stokes’s carriage. ‘Take them now. You’ve outgrown the clothes, of course. They can be sold, or cut up for some useful purpose.’

Now Ellen untied the string and flattened out the paper, revealing two stained and tattered child-sized dresses and a pair of worn sheets wrapped around solid, awkwardly shaped objects. A pewter fork, knife, drinking mug and a silver spoon, that she’d used at every meal for the last thirteen years. She could hardly bring them to table here, in this elegant house where there was surely an abundance of everything. She lifted the spoon, fondled it in her palm.

It came from Ballylickey. Leonora, her mother, had taken it from the dresser, a monumental block of furniture that had occupied Ellen’s imagination like a magic mountain. Leonora held the spoon to the fire, her eyes reflecting its shine. Then she muffled it away in a piece of old fabric. ‘Leave your other things packed in the bottom of your trunk,’ she said. ‘But keep this spoon inside your clothes, even when you sleep, until you arrive at school. It’s of the best quality.’

The servant Annie spoke from a dark corner. ‘The people you’d meet on the road would take the eye out your head.’

‘That’s enough,’ Leonora said. Her fingers plucked at the neck of her dress. ‘Stay close to Annie, Ellen, and don’t speak to strangers. I wish I could go with you, but I’m not fit for the journey.’ She bowed her head for a moment, then grabbed Ellen by the shoulders. ‘You know why we’re sending you to school?’

‘To learn how to be a lady.’

‘We advertised for a governess, asked all your father’s old friends … But it seems we’re too wild and lonely here for an educated French or English woman to want to live amongst us.’ She passed her hand over Ellen’s hair. ‘Anyway, you should be with girls of your own class.’ She lowered her eyes, light sparkling under her pale lashes. ‘And there’s too much sadness here, for a five-year old child.’

‘I understand, Mother.’

She didn’t. Why could she not continue to run wild in the fields, around the yard, in and out of the sheds? Always something to discover – puppies tumbling in a basket, a new horse whinnying in the stable. Chirping sounds in the cool, sour-smelling scullery, calling her to a box of flustery yellow chicks. The sea, its shifting colours, how the mountains floated in Bantry Bay like syllabub in sweet wine. On rainy days she climbed into the cupboard in the back hall and hid amongst the mildew-stained cloaks, shut out the rough voices, the slamming doors and stamping boots, the dead pheasants and ducks strung up in the scullery, glassy-eyed, blood crusted on their beaks. When they were home from school and university, Emanuel and Arthur – close enough in age to fight and conspire like twins – swore, knocked her aside, pinched and bruised her with careless fingers. Leonora didn’t stand in their way. She stayed mostly in her room with the shutters closed and the curtains drawn. Birthing twenty-one babies – most of whom didn’t survive beyond infancy – and early widowhood, had left her wrung out, hollow as a burst seedpod.

Of the journey from Cork to school in Dublin, Ellen remembered little. Annie, muttering – ‘Lord save us, Lord save us’ – fingering her funny wooden beads, clutching at Ellen for all two hundred miles. The coach hit a rock in the road and she was thrown to the floor, where she lay on her back amidst the shuffling boots of the other travellers, like a flipped over beetle unable to right itself. During a stop along the way she looked out the window and saw a gentleman relieve himself in the hedge, heard a gush of water and grunts of relief. He turned around, shaking drops of water from a fat, pale worm that protruded from his breeches, and smiled at her.

‘Poor creature!’ her friend Caroline said when she heard these stories. She had never been farther than Clontarf on the coast, and then in her father’s jaunting car on a summer’s day.

Ellen gathered the old clothes, the sheets and towels, into a bundle. When the servant came she would tell her to take them away. She hid the spoon at the back of a drawer, inside a petticoat. Then she pulled off her slippers and lay on the white counterpane. A new ceiling, with its pattern of fine cracks in the whitewash, little rivers carved across a barren landscape.

It seemed impossible that it had only been the night before that Caroline had entwined her fingers in her own, as they sat on the edge of Ellen’s bed in the school dormitory. ‘Your last night,’ she said. Her voice was bleak. ‘So? Are you going home to Cork?’

‘No,’ Ellen said. ‘I’m to live with Dr Whitley Stokes, a friend of my brother Emanuel.’

‘Why?’

‘My brother cannot come for me.’

Caroline frowned. ‘Has Dr Stokes a house in town?’

‘Number 16, Harcourt Street.’

Her eyes lit up. ‘Close to St. Stephen’s Green … When I get home to Henrietta Street, I can visit you. Or you can come to me, if I’m not too unfashionable now you’re to live at such an elegant address.’

‘I don’t care about elegance.’

‘Of course, my father might drag me back to his estate in Kildare.’ Caroline chewed her lip, thinking. ‘Your brother must hope you’ll meet a husband in Dr Stokes’s house.’

‘Who knows? I can’t think beyond tomorrow.’

Caroline leaned her temple against Ellen’s. ‘Will you tell me what happened?’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Dr Stokes came to visit me. You know I’ve been unwell.’

‘Yes, but why had you to lie down afterwards? Madame warned us not to disturb you, to stay out of the dormitory.’ She leaned closer. ‘Is it true he went upstairs with you?’

‘Madame was there also,’ Ellen said.

‘Yes, but … did he examine you?’

‘I can’t remember.’ She shook her head. ‘I fainted, they said.’

‘You fainted.’ Caroline sounded breathless.

‘Yes, in Madame’s study. When I woke I had been carried upstairs.’

‘By whom?’

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

‘It was Dr Stokes, surely. Madame wouldn’t let any of the male servants do it. What happened, after you woke up?’

Madame Praval had stood by the bedside, holding a basin. Ellen stared at the ceiling. A sharp sting, as Dr Stokes drew the blade across her arm. The harsh clatter of drops hitting tin. She heard Madame breathe, ‘Mon Dieu, Doctor.’

‘Beneficial, I assure you, Madame.’ Ellen focused her gaze on the creases around his eyes, the whorls of hair in his ears. Afterwards he bound the wound with boiled rags. It throbbed still, under her sleeve.

‘Nothing happened,’ she said. ‘He asked me some questions, laid a cold cloth on my forehead.’

‘Oh.’ The light leaked out of Caroline’s eyes. As always, she burned for the out-of-ordinary, the potential for drama, however slight, her defiance against the mundane. She shrugged, squeezed Ellen’s fingers. ‘Well. We must make the best of our lot, I suppose, I without a mother and you without a father. At least it’s almost over.’

‘What is?’

‘This waiting, for life to begin.’

In the strange room of striped walls, Ellen rubbed away the beginnings of tears. Weak. Ungrateful. Imagine Caroline, instead: here, with her as she had almost always been. Describe for her Louise Stokes, her blue dress, red hair and precise, cool speech. The perfect, pale yellow of the sofa, like sun on a frosty morning.



‘Miss Hutchins.’ Dr Stokes’s voice. ‘Are you awake?’ She crossed to the door and opened it. He stepped back, cleared his throat. ‘Ah, you’re up.’

‘I was resting, sir.’

His eyes flicked over her shoulder to the rumpled bedclothes. ‘Very good. You need rest, and quiet, until you feel stronger.’ He peered at her. ‘It also occurred to me that you might need amusement.’

‘I’m content, sir, thank you.’

‘Nevertheless, distraction is good. Do you like to read?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Come with me.’ She followed him downstairs, down the corridor, past the drawing room. He stopped at a closed door and produced a key from his pocket, which he wagged at her. ‘To keep the children out. You may ask for it whenever you please.’

Behind the door, a large, dim room. A desk covered in papers, two easy chairs. She squinted upwards. The shelves were packed with books, the titles blurring as they rose higher.

‘Had you access to books in school?’ Dr Stokes asked.

‘Much of the library was falling to dust, eaten by moths and silverfish. Old French literature and poetry, mostly.’

He had taken a book down from the shelf and caressed the binding. ‘I take precautions against such damage,’ he said. ‘It’s essential to have the room aired and dusted, lay arsenic if necessary.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now, literature, this side – poetry farther down, by author, of course – science over here – consult with me first, that subject is so broad … have you any interest in science?’

‘I cannot say.’

His face creased, surprised and amused. Had she been impertinent? ‘What did you study, all those years at school?’

‘French, of course. Drawing, sewing, dancing, literature. Some geography …’

‘Latin? Mathematics?’

‘No, sir.’

‘None of the natural sciences? Biology? Botany?’

‘No, sir.’ She looked at the floor. ‘Madame Praval said young ladies should to be taught to be useful.’

He grunted. ‘Whatever that means. I suppose half an education is better than none.’

‘I like to draw flowers,’ she said. How limp, how girlish, that sounded.

‘Well, that’s a start. Drawing is a most suitable pursuit for a lady. Are you proficient?’

‘Tolerably, sir.’ Bolder, ‘It was my best subject.’

‘You’ll find illustrations here worthy of study.’ He ran his finger along the row. ‘And I have some fine volumes on antiquities. Ah!’ He found what he was looking for, plucked it from the shelf, tapped the cover. ‘Here it is. Rousseau’s Letters on the Elements of Botany, Addressed to a Lady. I purchased this translation for Harriet to read later on. But why preserve it until then? You are his precise intended audience. Have you read him before?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Of course, you’ll have read all the great writers in French … but not Rousseau’s treatise on botany? Well, let us speak when you’ve read it.’ He paused. ‘You’ve no objection to my recommending books to you?’

She blushed. ‘I’m obliged to you, sir.’

He waved this away. ‘If you’re interested, there’s much here for you to discover. Unless you’re content to sit and stitch all day like my wife …’ He stopped, frowned. ‘Like other ladies.’

‘My needlework is so poor, sir, I fear there would be no benefit to anyone if I did. I never acquired the skill, no matter how many hours I cramped my neck over it.’

‘No one will force you to sew anything here.’ He pulled out another volume. ‘Mrs Wakefield’s An Introduction to Botany. Interesting to read a female perspective. But start with Rousseau, I say. If nothing else, his expression is elegant, his theme diverting and eminently suitable.’

That word again. Always a judgement. Or its opposite, unsuitable, a condemnation. Look away, Miss. Danger here. ‘It’s a wonderful library, sir.’

He shrugged. ‘Of course, it’s not always possible to get the latest publications in Dublin, but I have a seller in London who can source particular volumes if needs be.’ He placed the key on the desk. ‘I’ll leave you to make your own discoveries. There are subjects other than botany, after all. My own particular passion: I’m inclined to proselytise. Forgive me.’ He peered at her. ‘Your colour is suddenly high, Miss Hutchins. Are you tired? Overly excited?’

‘No, sir.’ Not tired. A strange, not unpleasant feeling of blood bubbling through her veins and rushing in her ears.

‘I want to take your pulse, Miss Hutchins,’ he said. ‘Do you remember when I did so, yesterday?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Give me your arm.’ He pulled a watch from the fob in his breeches and clasped her wrist between his thumb and third finger. His head bent towards hers. Like a sudden ringing noise, she became aware of his smell, a peppery tang of soap and wool. Warmth and a numbing tingle spread along her arm. He stared at the watch, increased the pressure of his fingers.

‘What is it, sir?’

He let go of her wrist. ‘Sit, my dear. I’ll ring for water. You’re still weak.’

Later, helped back to her room and once again lying down, she opened the book he’d given her: The principal misfortune of Botany is, that from its very birth it has been looked upon merely as a part of medicine. This was the reason why every body was employed in finding or supposing virtues in plants, whilst the knowledge of plants themselves was totally neglected: for how could the same man make such long and repeated excursions as so extensive a study demands; and at the same time apply himself to the sedentary labours both of the laboratory, and attendance upon the sick …

She tossed all night on the cushioned mattress, under cotton sheets; she had become used to thin bedding, rough blankets. Her mind played over the last moments of her schooldays.

They had filled the front hall, a huddle of pale-faced girls: tall, thin, small, dimpled, standing straight as rushlights, hands neatly clasped. When they heard the sound of wheels crunching on gravel, the younger girls began to sniffle. Caroline made no effort to wipe her eyes, catching the tears on her tongue as they dribbled past her mouth. The tightness in Ellen’s throat made it difficult to swallow. She blinked furiously, looking upwards.

‘Stand up straight, Mademoiselle Hutchins,’ Madame Praval said. ‘You will not make your height any less, only appear as if you are hunchbacked.’ With her sharp nose, tightly wound hair and dark dress she resembled a watchful crow. That morning she’d called Ellen to her study. ‘I never asked you to leave.’

‘No, Madame. But my fees have not been paid this quarter. Twenty pounds, you said.’

‘Dr Stokes has promised to settle them.’

‘I’ve lived on your goodwill long enough. It seems I must now live on someone else’s.’

‘You’re content with this arrangement?’

‘Content to do as I am bid, Madame,’ she said. ‘I will try and make myself agreeable.’

‘You have always been that. Agreeable, if unremarkable, without a defined personality. I say this to your credit.’ Madame’s eyes, dry, black as coal, fixed her like an insect under a glass. ‘You know, I have tended you as if you were my own child. No mother could have done more.’

‘I know, Madame.’

‘I hope you will think on that, and speak well of us when you’ve gone.’

‘Yes, Madame.’

The lines at the corner of her mouth flexed and softened. ‘Bien.’ She stood from her desk, came close to Ellen and stretched to rap softly against her forehead with her knuckles. ‘Somewhere in here, there is confusion. I see it.’ Ellen said nothing. Madame nodded. ‘You know what I mean. You must strive to curb it. Accept what is around you. Do not fight.’ Her breath smelled of coffee and warm decay. ‘You will wear yourself out, you will fade to nothing, Mademoiselle. Quietly, politely. And no one will notice.’ Ellen’s eyes misted; Madame’s face blurred to a pale cloud. Outside in the garden, a blackbird sang. ‘So, you won’t speak. But I know you understand me. With those searching eyes, you see all.’

In 16 Harcourt Street, Ellen turned over once more on the fat mattress, listening in vain for the sound of familiar breathing in the dark. With no one to witness, she put her thumb in her mouth and held it there, wondering if it might bring comfort.

TWO

‘She barely eats,’ Louise said, frowning as she tugged a thread through the silk.

‘Who?’ Dr Stokes held a book in one hand and absentmindedly toyed with the paper knife with the other.

‘Miss Hutchins, of course.’ Louise used her voice as a musician might an instrument, accelerating, pausing, cutting from legato to staccato; she played the pianoforte in the evenings – hymns, sentimental ballads remembered from her girlhood. ‘She crumples a bit of bread, sips at a cup of whey. Her hands shake, her teacup rattles in the saucer. Her wrists are mere twigs.’ The needle flashed in, out, in, out. ‘I know it’s in fashion for young ladies to pick at their food …’ Dr Stokes raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s true, I heard it from Mrs Langley, she despairs of her own daughters. But Miss Hutchins seems so modest. There’s nothing in the least fashionable about her.’

‘She’s not been nourished properly. I suspect an underlying ailment.’

‘Something serious?’

‘A weakness of the nervous system, maybe. She’s highly strung, like many young women. She may grow out of it.’ He closed the book. ‘I think she should stay with us a while longer.’

Louise’s brow puckered. ‘Is that necessary? Would she not fare better with her own family? Her mother?’

‘I don’t think she would survive the journey to Cork.’

She stared at him. ‘As ill as that?’

‘I fear so. The roads, even now with the fine weather – the pestilent inns, the ill-cooked food … she isn’t strong enough to endure it.’

‘This household is full as it is. I don’t have time to nurse an invalid.’ Her face remained calm, but he recognised the rigid set of her shoulders.

‘I couldn’t leave her in that place, in that condition,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t require nursing, simply rest and comfort. We can offer her regular family life. She hasn’t known much of it. The headmistress at the French school – a strange woman called Praval – says she’s quiet and respectful.’ Still she frowned. His final effort: ‘She’s used to children and could help with the little ones. Didn’t you say she’s offered to draw with the girls?’

She pursed her lips, her mind ticking over. Finally, primly, she said, ‘God has directed her, through your intercession, to our care.’

‘Her mother will be grateful.’

‘And her brother?’

‘Of course.’ She said nothing, smoothed her hand over the taut fabric. Louise thought ill of Emanuel Hutchins. Dr Stokes had not shown her Hutchins’s letter.

… I have not yet decided what my sister Ellen’s immediate future is to be. As you know, our father died when she was two years old; thus the responsibility falls to me. Though my mother is desirous of her company, I wonder as to the wisdom of dispatching her to our lands in Cork so soon. She is more likely to form advantageous connections in Dublin. Besides, I am told she is delicate. Could I presume upon both your medical expertise and your judgement by asking you to visit her on my behalf? I can’t leave London at present and my mother could not possibly make so long and arduous a journey. I will take your advice on the matter. She could, perhaps, make a useful companion to some lady of your acquaintance … As for me, I go along here tolerably well. As disenchanted as I was with Ireland at the end, now that I am away I am torn between despair and affection for the place. I am destined to never feel completely at ease wherever I go. When I was in Dublin, I longed for Cork and our estates. Do you ever see any of our old friends – those that survived the madness? Your obliging friend, Emanuel Hutchins.

Acknowledging his responsibilities as the head of the family, at least. Yet also a touch of the old brooding introspection. Five years before, Dr Stokes had feared for Emanuel Hutchins’s sanity. When last they’d met he’d been seeking comfort at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Now he appeared to have settled: a man of the law, of all things. How long would it last?

He sighed. ‘I thought the girl might have recovered some of her appetite by now. The food here is surely preferable to what she got before.’

Louise clicked her tongue. ‘Molloy is offended, she’s taken great pains. She ordered chicken particularly. You must tell the girl to eat, sir.’

He leaned his head back. The curtains hadn’t yet been shut; he could see into part of the drawing room opposite. An elegantly dressed woman stood near the window. Her lips moved, she laughed and shook her head at someone out of view. A play performance, without words.

‘If one is queasy, or unwell, an abundance of food is overwhelming,’ he said. ‘She’s not used to jellied pigeon and sweetbreads. Have some morsels placed in her room. Not a tray, but a choice dish of something light, appetising. Tell the servant not to speak of it, but to