What happened next was like a nightmare in a fever. I woke one time to find Emily washing my face with some cool scented water. I pulled away from her touch. My skin was so sore and so burning that it stung when she touched me. She said, ‘Beg pardon, m’m,’ in an undertone and made a few more ineffectual dabs at me.

I was sweating still – burning up with fever. My bedroom door beyond Emily opened, the white paintwork seemed to shimmer as I looked at it, and Lady Clara came in. Something about her face struck me, even in my heat-tranced muddle. She looked determined, her mouth was set, her eyes, as she glanced to the bed, were as hard as stones I think I shrank back a little and looked to Perry.

He was ill from one of his drinking bouts, his, face was pale, his hair curly and damp from a wash with cold water in an effort to sober in a hurry. But most of all I noticed his clothes. He usually wore riding dress in the mornings, or one of his silk dressing gowns over white linen and breeches. But this morning he was dressed immaculately in pale grey, with a new waistcoat of lavender and a pale grey jacket. In one hand he carried pale grey gloves.

I think it was the gloves which made something in my mind click like a clockwork mechanism. I heard my old voice, my worldly gypsy-child’s voice say: ‘Damn me, they’re going to marry me as I lie here dying!’ and a sense of absolute outrage made me sweat with temper and made my eyes go bright and dizzy.

Perry came to my bedside and looked down at me.

‘Not too close, Perry,’ his mother said.

‘I’m sorry about this, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I did not mean it to be like this for us. I really wanted us to marry and make each other happy.’

His anxious face was wavering as he spoke. That burst of temper had tired me.

‘You’re dying,’ he said bluntly. ‘And if I’m not married to you I’ll be ruined, Sarah. I have to have my fortune, please help me. It will mean nothing to you when you’re dead, after all.’

I turned my face away and closed my eyes. I was black with rage. I should do nothing for him, nothing for them, nothing.

‘She should have some laudanum to soothe her,’ I heard the doctor say. They were all here then. Emily’s nervous pulling at my shoulder raised me a little and I opened my mouth and let the draught slide down. At once I felt a golden glow inside me. It was far stronger than usual. It was strong enough to make me drunk with it. Clever Doctor Player was earning his fee – the Wideacre Dower House which belonged to me. My sense of anger and my panic-stricken scrabble for life eased away from me. My rasping breath grew quieter and steady. I was getting less air, but I minded less. I would have protested against nothing while the drug worked its magic on me. It all seemed a long way away and wonderfully unimportant. I felt easy; I liked Perry well enough, I did not like to see him look so afraid and so unhappy. He should have his fortune, it was only fair.