At lunchtime, when Jane returned to Henrietta Street, the smell of stewing meat drew her down to the kitchen, where she found Clorinda Morrissey taking a great golden pie from the oven.

‘The Lord be praised,’ said Mrs Morrissey, when she saw Jane. ‘You’re here at last! I can’t tell you how much your father has longed for this day.’

‘Well, Mrs Morrissey,’ said Jane, ‘I cannot tell you how many words he wrote to me while I was away about your pies and puddings. I had no news of anything but these!’

‘Oh get along now, this is simple food …’

‘Which is what Sir William likes. And I couldn’t help but notice how one side of his waistcoat now has some difficulty reaching the other side.’

At this, Mrs Morrissey let forth a delighted peal of laughter and Jane thought the sound rather marvellous in this house – a strong woman’s laugh, where there had been only men and their work and their silences, and sullen little Becky chivvied like a mouse from floor to floor.

‘I do hope,’ said Jane, ‘that my father’s demands haven’t made the running of your tea rooms too difficult for you.’

‘No, no. Not at all.’

‘Now that I’m back, I can start looking for a permanent cook, if you wish …’

Clorinda Morrissey snatched up a dish cloth and began wiping her hands on this. After a moment she said, ‘the truth is, Miss Jane, Sir William has asked me if I would consider a … permanent arrangement. And, well, he is so kind and thoughtful … it was not very difficult for me to agree. I am saving up to buy him a new waistcoat!’

Again came the laughter, this time accompanied by a blush which Mrs Morrissey was unable to conceal and which, Jane decided, might have been the most interesting blush she had ever witnessed.

AFTER THE RAINS

Sir Ralph and Leon had spent three days and nights in Taminah’s house, while the sky above them, deep purple in its darkness, had let fall a deluge into the Sadong and the surrounding forest that seemed to have no end.

Braving the rains, Leon had crept through the trees to the river which had risen by more than the height of a man, drowning the trunks of the mangroves, covering boulders, behaving like an inland sea, where waves formed in wind-whipped crests. He carried a sharpened stave and wanted to spear fish, to silence the hunger they were suffering, but even he, who knew the Sadong in all its moods, could see that the current of the river was running so fast that it might easily sweep him away.

And Leon didn’t want to die. He planned to make himself the manager of the cannery, overseeing all its construction work and then putting himself first in line to make money from it once it began exporting its tinned fish. He had dreams of these tins being shipped, not just to China, but carried north-westwards into Russia. He’d heard that people were poor there. He imagined them seated in the snow, eating turtle meat from Borneo and praising its quality and its freshness in a strange language.