I don’t want to tie this with religion, she thought. It wasn’t a miracle, anyway. But a platform was a platform, an audience an opportunity. It would be nice to show them … It would be nice to show them, not that Esther was a miracle, but that she represented four years of the hardest, most complicated work that anyone could undertake.

“She’s just sixteen,” she repeated. “I’d bring her in to meet you, but she’s resting right now.”

“The darling,” said the old nun. She looked at Mrs Bannister. “Will you come and speak to us, on the Day, then?”

Mrs Bannister, crossing to her desk, made a show of consulting her engagement pad. Then she turned, and said: “Yes, I’d like to do that. And Esther can come along, too. But you must tell me exactly what will happen.”

“We’ll do that,” said the old nun.

“God will bless you,” said the young one.

Later, after settling the preliminary details, Mrs Bannister saw them off from the front door. They drove away in a gleaming new Chrysler station wagon labelled: ‘St Joseph’s Convent School.’

The young nun called out: “We’re just running it in!” and the old one added: “Thanks to St Christopher,” as they drove off.

She wished Paul Marchant had been there to hear that.

Mrs Bannister was never to forget that ‘Day’ at the convent. Not only was it the turning point in her joint life with Esther Costello, marking the hour of which she could say afterwards (though only to herself): “That was when it all started”; but it was a deep emotional experience as well, shattering in its revelation of how the human heart, though wrung and torn by pity, can transform these into a fearful joy in a single uplifting moment. The way in which she and Esther were received, and the way in which their presence worked upon all those that watched, so that in the end there was nothing in the whole vast reception hall save an embracing love for the two of them – these things dictated the future even while they took shape themselves, as decisive as birth and death within a small family.

They arrived early at the convent, to be met first by an attendant frieze of nuns big and small, and excited children peering round corners at their approach, and then by the Mother Superior, a gracious personage on whom the habit of command sat conspicuously well. Mrs Bannister had coached Esther very carefully, not only in what she would have to do – which was simple – but in the sort of things which would be going on around her from moment to moment; the girl seemed entirely happy at the prospect, and her manner as they sat in the Mother Superior’s office was perfectly composed. It was only later, when they were in isolation on the platform, and Esther was involved in matters too strange for her small ability, that things went wrong – and then, in the end, wonderfully right.