Nevertheless, she was certain what she’d seen had been real. The memory was bright and clear, not fuzzy and fading the way dreams were. When she sat down for breakfast with her father, she became doubly sure. He was acting normal, but it was an act, a little too sincere to believe.

‘Earthquakes again,’ he said, paging through The Times. ‘First New Zealand, now Managua. Thousands dead, it says.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Alice said, because she knew it was expected of her. She was trying to keep from staring at her father’s face. He’d washed and shaved since last night, of course, but there was still something tight around his eyes. It wasn’t a dream, she thought. I’m sure of it.

‘Something ought to be done about it,’ he said, turning the page. ‘And still fighting in Spain. Seems like the whole world’s coming to pieces.’

‘You always say they only print the bad news,’ Alice said.

Her father looked up and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Cooper, her father’s man, appeared with a plate of toast and jam. Properly speaking, it wasn’t his job to serve at table, but Alice’s father had been forced to give the last of the footmen the sack when they’d caught him stealing from the pantry. Cooper insisted he didn’t mind. In this day and age, he said, a man ought to be grateful to have work at all.

Her father put the paper aside and went to work on the toast, all in silence. Alice took a slice herself and carefully covered it with jam, right to the edges, working carefully with the butter knife to spread it evenly. The longer neither of them spoke, the more the silence grew and grew, like some monstrous thing squatting on the table between them. When her father finally cleared his throat Alice gave a little start.

‘Alice.’

‘Yes, Father?’

‘I’m going on a trip.’ He paused, and took a deep breath. ‘Something’s come up. It’s important, I’m afraid.’

‘When?’ Alice said. ‘And how long will you be gone?’

‘I’m catching a steamer tonight.’

A ship? Her father’s business took him all over New England, and occasionally as far as Chicago or Washington, DC, but he’d never been gone for more than a week, and never on a steamer. ‘And where—’

‘Here.’ He folded the paper and pushed it over to her. ‘It’s the Gideon, bound for Buenos Aires.’ The schedule, a set of stops all down through the Caribbean and South America, was printed in a neat box beside the ticket prices and number for enquiries. ‘This way you’ll be able to keep track of me.’

Alice put one hand on the paper and swallowed hard, trying to sound as normal as she could. ‘When should I expect you back?’