The sister at the entrance desk stared at her and her violin case. ‘Miss d’Arányi?’ she echoed when Jelly gave her name. ‘I saw you play at the Winter Proms. You did the Bach Double Concerto, with Adila Fachiri. It was amazing! Please come with me, I’ll take you up to Miss Robertson.’ She scrambled to her feet. Jelly was happy to see that she had already brightened someone’s day, and she hadn’t yet played a note.

Here, the day needed brightening. In these labyrinths, your footsteps resonated back through your head, and people passing kept their voices low, as if at a funeral. Though the windows were plentiful, the smog seemed to press in against the glass. She followed the nurse along a corridor, passing several wards where long rows of beds stood in ranks.

At last they turned a corner into another ward and stopped beside a partially curtained booth. Anna lay on the bed within, curled into a foetal position under a starched white sheet, her light hair wispy on the pillow. Jelly, her heart cracking, hesitated, remembering how infectious consumption was. Still, it was a little late to worry; Anna had been working in their house for several years.

She crouched beside Anna and spoke her name softly. The girl, who looked almost too weak to move, visibly brightened at her voice.

‘Jelly? You came to see me?’

‘The fog is foggy, but it doesn’t stop me.’ She sat on the edge of Anna’s bed. ‘I thought I’d play you something.’

‘Here?’

Jelly followed Anna’s gaze around the ward. Some patients lay asleep or listless, others were coughing and shivering visibly despite the lack of air, while screens of buff-coloured curtains shielded the most serious cases from sight, though not always from sound. She could feel many gazes upon her as she unpacked her violin. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘here.’

‘Oh, Miss – Miss d’Arányi… ’ The ward matron spotted her and marched over. ‘You can’t play the violin in here. This is a hospital.’

‘All the more reason to do so,’ Jelly smiled.

‘But it’s forbidden.’

‘Really? Just a little music to cheer people up?’

‘Let her play to us?’ came a voice across the ward.

‘Please – we would love it,’ Anna said. A chorus of further pleas around them seemed to take the matron by surprise.

‘Hmm.’ She cast a sceptical eye around her charges. ‘All right. Just a few minutes.’