Even when Zelda’s letters had been suitably restrained and only about domestic matters, there had never been much information about Lotti. It had always been about Claus.

‘Hope the little mite is all right,’ her father had said, trying to read between the lines as to why Zelda so rarely referred to her daughter.

Vicky didn’t need to read between the lines. She was willing to bet that Lotti was a dark-haired, dark-eyed dazzler. And if she were, Zelda’s disappointment in her would be intense.

All through May and June the weather was hot. Day after day, beds were trundled out onto the terrace and the sound of male voices, laughing and bantering, could be heard as far as the river.

That her patients were able to enjoy such perfect surroundings gave her deep satisfaction. Even the blind were given pleasure, for her father’s roses were in full bloom and the air was heavy with scent.

Climbing high all along the walls of the house was Zéphirine Drouhin, a Bourbon rose covered in wonderful clusters of rosy-pink blooms, and intertwining with it was Veilchenblau, an orange-scented rose whose small flowers were so dark as to be almost magenta when they opened, but then turned to a heavenly violet-blue streaked with white. Neither rose had thorns and their clusters of flowers bobbed in at open bedroom windows and hung in cascades around the French doors.

Whenever anyone asked her what it was called, she didn’t give it its German name. ‘Blue Rosalie,’ she would say, hoping Herr Schmidt, its breeder, would forgive her. ‘It’s a rambler and the bluest rose I think there is.’

‘This is a little piece of heaven on earth, Mrs Remer,’ Will Patchett said to her as she changed his dressing. ‘If I still had two arms I’d ask if I could stay on here as a gardener.’

Vicky put his soiled dressing in a bag for disposal and then helped him back into his shirt. One sleeve, the sleeve he no longer had cause to use, was permanently safety-pinned so that it wouldn’t flap. It was his left sleeve. ‘With a little practice I imagine rose pruning can be carried out with one hand, Will. Would you like to give it a try?’

‘Not half, I wouldn’t!’

She grinned. ‘I’ll go and get Paul’s pruning knife. He’s almost as mad about roses as he is about rugby and my father gave him a very neat knife for a birthday present.’

A month later and the war news was, if possible, worse than it had ever been.

‘Dear God in heaven,’ her father said devoutly, staring at the front page of The Times with disbelieving eyes. ‘Just listen to this, Vicky. Just listen to this and weep:

‘They came up to the Front during the night singing a music-hall tune. It was the biggest British army yet sent into battle, 26 divisions on a 15-mile front. At 7.30 a.m. they went over the top in waves, their aim to seize 4,000 yards of enemy territory. In the first five minutes of the battle thousands were cut down by relentless enemy fire. By nightfall many battalions numbered barely a hundred men. The success was limited to a few miles. British casualties were 60,000.’