‘Plants and insects?’ said Julietta. ‘What a peculiar idea. Where is he intending to find them?’

‘I believe he is headed for the Malay Archipelago.’

‘Oh good gracious!’ said Julietta. ‘Where on earth is that?’

‘The Far East: the other side of the world.’

‘How vexing. You mean we shall not see him?’

‘None of us will see him,’ said Jane.

When, the following morning, Julietta and Ashton arrived at the Baths, to be met by Jane, they were accompanied by their five-year-old son, Marco and his Nanny, Miss Paley.

Struck by the beauty of Marco, who much resembled his mother, Jane knelt down and asked him whether he was looking forward to his immersion.

‘No,’ said Marco, ‘because I am a bit afraid of water, aren’t I, Mama?’

‘Just a little,’ said Julietta, ‘but I will hold you up, and Jane, who is known as the Angel of the Baths, will watch over you.’

‘Oh, and more than this!’ said Jane, taking Marco’s little hand in hers, ‘for I will tell you a secret, Marco. Come closer and let me whisper it. The water here is not ordinary water; it is magic water. The moment you get into it, you will start to feel very warm and happy.’

‘Will I? Why is it magic?’

‘It’s very hard to tell, because it comes from deep under the ground. We can’t see its magic; we can only feel it.’

‘How will I feel it?’

‘Well, I think you may feel it in your toes, like a lovely tingling feeling, and then in your legs and then it will creep upwards and upwards until you feel it everywhere in you – even on the tip of your nose.’

Marco laughed. He touched his nose, which Jane saw was a small and very perfectly formed little nose. She realised that she felt an instant and profound tenderness towards this boy and when he asked her if she would be the one to hold him up in the ‘magic water’ she felt that she couldn’t refuse him.

So it was that, instead of standing on the edge of the Hot Bath, Jane found herself wearing a cotton shift, side by side with Julietta in the translucent warm bath, holding Marco in her arms. At first the boy clung to her very hard, but then he told her that he was starting to feel some ‘magic’ in his feet and began to reach out with his arms, so that he could feel it ‘everywhere’. Jane let him lie just under the surface, holding his head up and keeping him aloft but letting him splash out as he wished, and he began laughing with joy.

Julietta moved alongside them now. Her hair, piled up on her head with a slippery comb, began to fall free and streamed about her shoulders, and these floating tresses, together with the way her soft shift clung to her body under the trembling light and shadow on the water gave her the appearance of a mermaid, and Jane thought that she would carry in her mind this vision of her lover all the way through her life. A violent yearning to be with her absolutely, to kiss her and hold her risked taking hold of Jane and make her weak with longing, but she fought it off because of the boy, because the moment belonged to him, because the boy was a wonderful being who was now invaded by the ‘magic’ Jane had evoked and was finding the courage to embrace the element that had once made him afraid.