That Catherine was Joanna appears from this recollection I have of Catherine when I was eight years old. She had taken me with her into a church in France which, because of some festival was crowded with worshippers. Just inside the door an extremely shabby man blew his nose on a dirty rag, thrust it into his pocket and sank down, quite alone, in prayer. Catherine sank down behind him and gently picked his pocket of the rag, which she replaced, with equal gentleness, by a completely clean handkerchief from her handbag, neatly folded. Through it all he remained, I am sure, quite unconscious of what was happening. Taking me by the hand she led me out of the church, and when the door had closed behind us said, “I hope he’ll think it was a miracle. He needed one so much.” That was Joanna speaking.

John Carswell

BOOK I

… Open the door and flee

2 KINGS ix 3

CHAPTER ONE

I

For Juley Bannerman to leave home was in any case a heavy undertaking. Even without her four children, even with the admonishing help of her husband, the occasion was one for which complicated plans – gallant but not availing – had to be laid weeks beforehand. And on this morning neither alleviation was hers.

As always she had done her best, of course. The night before she had not undressed, had not so much as taken the hairpins from her aching head. Then since breakfast her two daughters, aged twelve and fifteen, had rushed about the house, strapping and unstrapping luggage, and exhorting her. Her confused servants had done what they could. Even her little sons had tried to help, and as the four-wheeled cab went lumbering over the granite setts of the city, they strove unskilfully to knot up her bonnet strings between them.

But it was all no use. The morning express from Glasgow to Edinburgh, said the porter, had been gone these two minutes. Now there was no train until ten minutes past twelve.

Smarting, not for the first time, under this kind of public ignominy, the children precipitated themselves upon the pavement before Queen Street Station, and Georgie, the eldest, a stout and lively girl, addressed herself with violence to the open door of the cab.

“It’s always the same when Father isn’t here,” she stormed. “I told you we’d miss it, didn’t I?” In her rage she could have struck her mother.

It exasperated the children that the culprit still stayed sitting in the cab, untying and retying the black ribbon strings of her bonnet with a little defiance in her face; and they knew she was avoiding their eyes when she leaned forward smiling at the porter, seeking his sympathy, speaking in her warm, pleasant voice.