Jane got up from the table and went to her father and kissed his cheek. She told him she could imagine ‘no greater happiness’ for him than this and that she and Clorinda would be ‘the best of friends’.

‘There is just one more thing,’ he said. ‘I must go to Dublin with Mrs Morrissey without delay. Clorinda’s niece is in need of a difficult operation and I have agreed to perform it, without charge. It seems it may be a matter of life and death.’

‘In that case,’ said Jane, ‘of course you must go.’

‘I will not be away very long. You will keep the house while I am gone?’

‘I will,’ said Jane.

‘You may be a little lonely,’ said Sir William. ‘I had thought Doctor Ross would have returned by now. But I have a letter from him, postmarked in Devon, in which he says he is making his way to Plymouth, in search of a ship to take him half across the world to join his brother in Borneo.’

‘Is he really going there?’ asked Jane blankly.

‘Yes. I believe he is. He says he will endeavour to use his doctoring skills among the native people. It is a noble aspiration, but of course we will miss him here, will we not? He will be very hard to replace.’

‘Yes,’ said Jane, then returned silently to her chair.

MAGIC FROM UNDERGROUND

The moment Jane had taken in the news of her father’s trip to Dublin with Mrs Morrissey, she sent an urgent letter to Julietta, telling her that she would be alone in the house for at least one week and that she would introduce Julietta ‘to the wonder of the Baths and to all that might follow from your exquisite immersion’.

As she wrote, she asked herself in what state her feelings towards Julietta now stood. Though she had initially been dismayed to find herself back in Bath and had often been choked by desire for her lover, she realised that she had, in fact, slipped back into her old life with quiet ease. She had succeeded in ameliorating the pain suffered by Latimer to such a degree that he had declared himself capable of ‘cracking the whip upon my painters and plasterers once more’, and had fallen to his knees with gratitude towards Jane, clutching the hem of her white robe and pressing it to his lips. This little performance, though embarrassing at the time, together with her tender care of other patients, had brought back to Jane the idea that she did, in truth, possess healing powers beyond those the waters could give. And these feelings of mastery of the nursing art, of becoming once more the Angel of the Baths, calmed her longing to be elsewhere.

Now, however, turning her imagination to all that she might do with Julietta in Bath, she felt a veritable desperation to see her come upon her. When Julietta did not immediately respond to her letter, she sent a second one, begging her to appear ‘on Tuesday evening and no later’ – by which time Sir William and Clorinda Morrissey, now officially designated his fiancée, would be safely in Dublin, or if not quite there, then at least well embarked upon the Irish Sea.