While at her serving counter, with her young helper, Mary, preparing food for her other customers, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing, from time to time, at Dr Ross’s table. She saw Miss Jane pour out the tea and then begin eating her toast rather hungrily. (Mrs Morrissey wondered whether that large frame of hers might need a lot of food to sustain it.) Ross took a piece but did not eat it. Jane seemed to be talking quite fast, but her companion only looked at her anxiously as he sipped his tea.

Then, when Jane had finished her toast, Dr Ross moved the cake stand aside, so that he might have a better view of his guest. He reached a hand across the table, as though he wanted to take hold of Jane’s hand, but she moved hers away and helped herself to a slice of lemon cake. Now, Mrs Morrissey saw Ross begin to talk very earnestly, seeming to convey important news.

The little scene at the tea table, Clorinda Morrissey sensed, had all the makings of a drama, quite as gripping as any she had attended at the theatre in Dublin, but afraid to be seen observing it too closely, like some uncouth groundling gaping at the actors, Clorinda Morrissey turned back to her work and sailed forth into the room with an order of iced buns for the proprietor of Tilney’s Department Store and her friend, Mrs Earle. She exchanged a little conversation with these two ladies on the subject of the new French fur muffs, sable and mink, which Tilney’s was now acquiring ‘before the winter comes upon us’.

‘A wonderful Christmas gift,’ boasted Mrs Tilney, ‘or why don’t you pop into the store and buy one for yourself?’

‘Ah,’ said Clorinda. ‘Well, of course I would prefer to receive such a lovely thing as a gift, but alas, I do not have in mind an appropriate giver.’

This made the ladies laugh, but the laughter did not quite cover the noise of a chair being pushed back violently and when Mrs Morrissey turned, she saw that it was Miss Adeane’s chair that had been moved and that Jane was now standing and tugging on her coat. Valentine Ross was looking up at her great height with an expression of profound dismay. On Miss Jane’s plate lay the uneaten slice of cake. She turned to nod politely at Mrs Morrissey, then made her way to the door and shot out of it very fast, as though afraid she might be pursued up the street.

THE ANGEL OF THE BATHS

There was something mythic, something almost ghostly in the name by which Miss Jane Adeane had become known in Bath. She was described as ‘The Angel’, or sometimes as ‘The Tall Angel’ or ‘The White Angel’ or, more frequently, as ‘The Angel of the Baths’. It began to be said that, if you could hire Jane as your personal nurse, then your search for a cure in the city would be successful. Men, in particular, were susceptible to this superstition. To be led to the waters by Jane’s strong arm was to feel almost like boys once again, surrendering to a mother’s care. Sometimes, the touch of her hand on their foreheads could make them weep.