The weather held fine and the following day Clorinda and Aisling made their way over the dunes, where samphire used to grow, down to the wide strand, to see the Atlantic tides come roaring in. At the sight and sound of the sea, Aisling held out her arms, in the manner of a flying bird, and began to run in wild circles, then she cast away her boots, held up her skirts and pelted to where the ocean came sliding in over the sand. She let the water drench her feet, bringing her gifts of tiny stones and shells and drifts of bladderwrack. She let escape from her throat long-frozen cries of joy and Clorinda was able to see in that instant a different girl from the one she had known in the city. It was as if the person she had been, the facial expressions she had adopted all her life had been a mistake, a distortion of her true self, and now she had decided to become someone else.

Clorinda was just beginning to blame herself for what she had done, taking her niece away from the confined existence to which, in a mere few days, she would have to return her, when she saw Elizabeth and Maeve McKinnon coming towards them, carrying all the paraphernalia of a picnic. They stopped and laughed with delight at the figure of Aisling communing with the sea, then began to set out the picnic.

‘There is elderberry cordial for the child,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and ginger beer for us. And cold mutton with relish and lettuce from our patch.’

‘And apples from our ancient tree,’ added Maeve, ‘which we store all winter long in the outhouse, just as your grandfather used to do. When you and Aisling taste our apples, you may both feel that you have come home.’

A MAN WHO DISLIKED RIDDLES

Sir William hadn’t accompanied Clorinda to Dublin, not only because he felt that he would not be welcome in Michael Morrissey’s household, but also because he knew that he had neglected his patients of late and he was resolved to make amends to them now.

No sooner had he made this resolution, however, than a letter arrived from Ashton Sims, informing him of Jane’s suffering, apparently from a bad fall. Sir William knew that he couldn’t possibly remain in Bath when something terrible had happened to his daughter. According to Sims, Jane was ‘so very much weakened by blood loss that my wife and I still fear she will not pull through, unless, perhaps, you come quickly to her side, to save her.’

Consulting his medical journals, he found scant new remedies for severe haemorrhage, only those he already knew: the exhortation to let the patient rest, the suggestion that a cocktail made from ‘strong spirits, yolk of egg and mustard seed’ could be beneficial to the body’s ability to ‘fashion blood’. Red meat, eaten raw, was also recommended, as was the ‘slow chewing of spinach leaves’ and these things he tried on his patients, with some small success.