She now asked Jane if she liked the portrait and Jane said, ‘I think I am going to like it as I like myself: on certain days not at all and at other times I am going to adore it immodestly.’

‘Good!’ said Emmeline. ‘As long as those days of adoration occur quite frequently, I am happy! And now, Jane, we must talk about the future.

I believe it is time for you to go back to Bath.’

Jane walked away from Emmeline and went to the window, looking out at the sunshine falling upon Tite Street. She thought, I have begun to adore everything here. I adore the grey pavement.

‘Are you tired of me, Aunt?’ she asked after a moment.

‘No. You’re not a person of whom I could ever tire. I am happy and amused in your company. And I love you very much, as I hope you know. But I have given much thought to the shape of your life, Jane. You are twenty-five. If it’s in your nature to love women—’

‘I don’t know if it’s “in my nature” to love women. I have never thought about it before. I only know that I’m enslaved to Julietta.’

‘I understand that. Most people are “enslaved” at some point in their lives. But do you want to repeat my life? I have lived so much of it alone because the man I was enslaved to wouldn’t marry me. There was a kind of bargain between us and then it ended. I was left with very little except this house. And it has been wearisomely hard and lonely. If Julietta is all you live for – a woman you can never be husband nor wife to – then your life will be hard, too.’

Jane said nothing. In these moments, she recalled the feelings that she’d had about her own loss of being in her surrender to the extreme pleasure she’d felt with Julietta, as though she no longer existed outside her lover’s embrace. Did erotic love of a certain kind rob the self of part of the self?

‘Listen to me, Jane,’ said Emmeline. ‘I know your mind isn’t tending this way. But you have found somebody – the doctor whose name you mock, this poor Valentine – who seems to love you distractedly, from what you’ve told me. Your father writes to you that this would-be suitor is ill and I’ll wager it is your rejection of him that has made him so.’

‘I very earnestly doubt that is the case, Emmeline.’

‘Well, I do not doubt it for one second! So please hear me out. If you are clever and make the right accommodations with this person, you will have a full and pleasant life. You would resume the nursing work you are so good at. You would stay near to William. You would have children of your own.’

‘But Aunt …’

‘I don’t underestimate your passion for Julietta one bit. Do not think that. Did I not see it in both your faces? But you and she are resourceful people. Remember, she is married to Ashton Sims. She has borne him a child. But he seems unaware of – or else is blithe about – her trysts with women. I’m sure, if she can do this, then it is certain some meetings between you and her could be arranged, either here at Tite Street or in Bath.’