What she had discovered was the smell of the sea, the sea she had never seen, and perhaps barely heard about.

It was on the small ship crossing to Liverpool that Mrs Bannister and Esther achieved their first communication, their first direct signal. It seemed to Mrs Bannister that Esther should be able to indicate when she wanted to go to the toilet, and that it should be by some kind of sound, rather than by the crude pointing gesture she had been taught to make. When next Esther pointed, Mrs Bannister led her to the toilet, as usual, but once there she brought Esther’s hands together in a single clapping motion, and then dropped them. After she had done this on two or three occasions, the girl understood that there was henceforward to be a connection between her needs and the clapping of her two hands … Next morning, when she clapped her hands of her own accord, and Mrs Bannister led her straightaway into the toilet, there formed upon her face so enchanting a smile, so contented a look, that Mrs Bannister could only stare at it in wonder.

It must be, she realized, the very first time that Esther had been able to ask for something, and find that it was immediately given to her.

She pressed the girl’s hands in her own, moved and made happy by this thread that stretched between them already.

England was less satisfactory – as Mrs Bannister, drawing on caustic memories, had known it would be. They had a suite in the Adelphi Hotel at Liverpool, and there they stayed for nearly three weeks, while Mrs Bannister battled for her two impedimenta – her Cadillac, and her ward. As regards the former, there had developed some sort of crisis over the customs: the travel agents in New York seemed to have neglected some vital piece of paper when the car was shipped to England, and the result was suspicion and official horror when the time came to ship it out again. The British customs authorities, bogged in tradition as usual, could not see their way clear in any direction: Mrs Bannister begged, cajoled, banged her money on the table, called for Consular help – all to no avail. She even went so far as to hint at bribery – a gross error which, warned by a pair of frosty eyes on the other side of the desk, she retrieved just in time. Apparently they had a tradition about that as well.

But then, just when all seemed hopeless, the piece of paper was discovered and forwarded, and officialdom lowered its guard. The car could leave after all. But before that happened, there was still Esther Costello – and she was something else again.

What was she, in fact? What was to be her classification, this helpless child, if and when she was cast upon the shores of America? Was she an immigrant? Was she a visitor? A holidaymaker? A displaced person? There were many other questions, probing the past and the future. How long would she stay? Who would be responsible for her, if Mrs Bannister died or went mad? Would she become a charge on the public funds? Had her parents given their full consent to the journey? Who was to be her legal guardian? What was her health like? Was she literate? Would she seek gainful employment? Would she try to overthrow the Constitution? Had she had mumps? Measles? Yellow fever? Might she not, behind that blind façade, perhaps be a lunatic?