‘Oh Doug, that’s terrible. And you were only ten.’

‘According to my father, not too young to develop a stiff upper lip. I made the mistake of shedding tears when I heard Mama had died. My father struck me and told me to show some backbone. After that, I spent all the holidays at school. Even Christmas. He couldn’t bear the sight of me.’

Evie reached for his hand, but he drew it away and rolled onto his side. ‘Goodnight.’

After a few minutes he was asleep, but she could find no such solace herself.

18

One Sunday in early January, Mary Helston offered to take Evie, with Jasmine and her school friend Penny, to swim in the Jungle Pools at Taiping on the mainland. It was Evie’s first trip across on the ferry since arriving in Penang. Mary had borrowed her father’s motor-car and Evie was glad to escape from George Town and to do so without the company of Benny. Evie felt constantly under a microscope worried that the servants compared her with Felicity and found her wanting. And while the Malayan was always courteous and correct, Evie had never managed to accustom herself to being driven about in a large car by a servant. She felt out of place and uncomfortable, remembering her own years as a paid companion. Today would be a relaxing change, and she approached the trip with excitement and a sense of liberation.

It took almost two hours to get to the Taiping Jungle Pools. The place was in a magical setting in the hills, in the midst of thick rain forest. It was a marvel of Victorian construction – a series of three pools built into the hillside, connected by concrete steps and walkways and fed by a natural waterfall. The colonial administration had created it to keep civil servants, planters and other Europeans entertained and able to relax, away from the suffocating heat of the coastal plain. Up here, the water was cool, in contrast to other swimming pools where it was always tepid at best – although at times it could appear a little murky.

There was a water chute that older children took great delight in sliding down, diving boards and a third smaller, shallow pool for children where the two little girls could play more safely. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees, dappling the lush ferns and glinting off the surface of the water. The joyous whoops of frolicking children and the chatter of adults mingled with birdsong, the trilling of insects and the sound of water rushing over the falls.

After a leisurely swim, Evie and Mary sat down on their towels on the wood-topped concrete parapet that ran alongside the children’s pool, watching the two girls splashing about. Evie was glad to be in her friend’s company. Mary had never again mentioned the loss of her fiancé. While her eyes sometimes betrayed that her sadness was still close to the surface, she had found a way of keeping it concealed.