‘I always wanted to thank eer father, but I never saw him again. Right sorry I am to know that he’s gone.’

At this Paulette’s composure dissolved and her story came pouring out: she told Fitcher that her father’s death, in Calcutta, had left her destitute; she had decided to travel to Mauritius, where her family had once had connections and had succeeded in smuggling herself on to a coolie ship, the Ibis; the journey had been calamitous in many ways but because of the kindness of a few crew-members she had been able to make her way safely ashore; the vessel’s second mate, Zachary Reid, had lent her the clothes she was wearing, but he was now under arrest and soon to be shipped off to Calcutta to stand trial for mutiny; finding herself penniless, she had walked to the Botanical Gardens, where her father had once worked – but only to find it abandoned; having nowhere else to go she had taken shelter in the abandoned cottage and had spent the last few days there, foraging for food.

‘So what will ee do now? D’ee know?’

‘No. Not yet. But I have managed well enough so far, and I do not see why I should not get by for a while longer.’

Fitcher coughed, cleared his throat and turned around to face her. ‘And what if – what if I were to offer ee something better, Miss Paulette? A job? Would ee think of it at all?’

‘A job, sir?’ she said warily. ‘Of what kind, may I ask?

‘A gardening job – except that it’d be on a ship. Ee’d have eer own cabin, all fitted out for a young lady. Ee’d have a bosun’s pay, and nothing charged for the victuals neither.’ He paused. ‘I owe it to eer father.’

Paulette smiled and shook her head. ‘You are very kind, sir, but I am not a lost kitten. My father would not have wanted me to take advantage of your generosity. And for myself too, sir, I must confess that I have grown weary of living on charity.’

‘Charity?’

Fitcher was suddenly aware of a strange bedoling in certain parts of his body: it was as though he were being assailed by an unfamiliar illness, with symptoms that he could not remember having experienced before – a strangled feeling in the gullet, a palsied shaking of the hands, a fierce itching of the eyes. Sinking into the chair he raised his fingers to his throat and was bewildered to find drops of moisture dripping off the end of his beard. He looked at the wet ends of his fingers as though they had metamorphosed into something inexplicable – like tendrils sprouting on the ends of thorns.

Fitcher was not the kind of man who wept easily: even as a boy he had been able to endure dry-eyed any number of blows, cuffs and kicks. But now it was as if a lifetime of anguish was pouring out of him, streaming down his face.