Outside the station a number of people had collected under a sign that read ‘Portcarrow Bus.’ Jenny watched them as she waited for Patrick to fetch his car. They looked, she thought, a singularly mixed bunch and yet there was something about them – what was it? – that gave them an exclusive air, as if they belonged to some rather outlandish sect. The bus drew up and as these people began to climb in, she saw that among them there was a girl wearing a steel brace on her leg. Further along the queue a man with an emaciated face and terrible eyes quietly waited his turn. There was a plain, heavy youth with a bandaged ear and a woman who laughed repeatedly, it seemed without cause, and drew no response from her companion, an older woman, who kept her hand under the other’s forearm and looked ahead. They filed into the bus and although there were no other outward signs of the element that united them, Jenny knew what it was.

Patrick drove up in a two-seater. He put her luggage into a boot that was about a quarter of the size of the bonnet and in a moment they had shot away down the street.

‘This is very handsome of you, Patrick,’ Jenny said. ‘And what a car!’

‘Isn’t she pleasant?’

‘New, I imagine.’

‘Yes. To celebrate. I’m eating my dinners, after all, Jenny. Do you remember?’

‘Of course. I do congratulate you.’

‘You may not be so polite when you see how it’s been achieved, however. Your wildest fantasies could scarcely match the present reality of the Island.’

‘I did see the English papers in Paris and your letters were fairly explicit.’

‘Nevertheless you’re in for a shock, I promise you.’

‘I expect I can take it.’

‘Actually, I rather wondered if we ought to ask you.’

‘It was sweet of your mama and I’m delighted to come. Patrick, it’s wonderful to be back in England. When I saw the Battersea power-station, I cried. For sheer pleasure.’

‘You’ll probably roar like a bull when you see Portcarrow and not for pleasure, either. You haven’t lost your susceptibility for places, I see. By the way,’ Patrick said after a pause, ‘you’ve arrived for a crisis.’

‘What sort of crisis?’

‘In the person of an old, old angry lady called Miss Emily Pride, who has inherited the Island from her sister (Winterbottom, deceased). She shares your views about exploiting the spring. You ought to get on like houses on fire.’

‘What’s she going to do?’

‘Shut up shop unless the combined efforts of interested parties can steer her off. Everybody’s in a frightful taking-on about it. She arrives on Monday, breathing restoration and fury.’

‘Like a wicked fairy godmother?’