She excused herself and wandered away with Margareta, asking her about her small children. A portion of her mind stayed with the refugee musician.

It wasn’t long before Erik appeared beside them with a gentle cough. ‘Papa!’ Margareta gave him a kiss; Erik, returning it, lit up with pride and love. Jelly tried to deflect a brief stab of longing that her own severe-natured father might ever have taken such pride in her.

‘Jelly, I have to tell you something. It was too noisy earlier.’ He drew her by the elbow into the hallway. ‘Listen, we have been talking again to Schumann.’

This man had held the missing manuscript in his hands, yet he couldn’t sing her one melody from it. Jelly waited.

‘He begs us to tell you not to forget. So we absolutely must write to Eugenie Schumann. If anyone can have it released to us, it is the composer’s own daughter. She lives in Interlaken in Switzerland and I have her address. But, Jelly, the letter must come from you. You are the musician, you are the one she will respect. I know it’s been a difficult and hectic summer for you, but now we know where the manuscript is, it’s time to try… ’

‘She must be very elderly now. Isn’t there someone who can be a go-between? Does she have children? Or a husband?’

‘Neither.’ The baron smiled into his moustache. ‘She is a lady who prefers to stay with her own kind.’

‘How do you mean?’

Erik whispered in Jelly’s ear: ‘Eugenie Schumann is a daughter of Lesbos.’

Jelly tried not to shriek aloud in delight. This was, after all, the daughter of Robert Schumann himself and the eminent Clara; a woman who had been dandled, as a toddler, on the knee of the youthful Brahms. She loved to hear about individuals who went their own way, regardless of convention or censure, people like Ethel Smyth, the composer who was once jailed for throwing a rock through the window of a patronising cabinet minister, and who had written her a concerto for violin and French horn just five years ago.

‘In that case,’ she declared, ‘I shall write to her tomorrow.’

*

Schumann’s daughter! Jelly wished she could summon the important-sounding tone of a diplomat like Erik or a wise academic like Tovey. After she had used up ten sheets of paper scrawling words that she suspected were illegible, she asked Alec for help. The letter was finished within an hour.