A while later, it was an Australian voice that spoke to me, and I felt my hands gripped tightly. But I couldn’t respond.

I was told afterward that I’d slept most of the journey back to England. Because of that, and the fact that in Somerset it had been raining for a week or more, it was decided that the longer journey home would be too much for me. Instead as soon as we landed in Dover, I was settled into a motorcar amongst a mountain of pillows and carried by easy stages to Eastbourne, on the southern coast of Sussex. There my father had taken rooms at the Grand Hotel.

I was aware in Dover-only just-of my mother’s hands touching my face and her voice saying, “My darling!” and then my father telling her, “Don’t cry, my love, she’s safe now.”

And Simon’s voice said, “She was exhausted to begin with, even before she was taken ill. It will be some time before she’s herself again.”

I hoped I wasn’t dreaming in delirium, that they really were there.

I awoke one morning in a lovely room filled with sunshine, the sound of the sea rolling across the shingle strand a soothing backdrop to living in the present once more. As I opened my eyes, I found it difficult to imagine where I was. Not at home. Nor in London or France. Not even in the cramped little stateroom on a crossing. Around me now were the elegant furnishings and high ceilings of a first-class hotel. Or was it an hotel?

India? The Maharani’s palace? But I was lying in a bed, not on silver-shot silk cushions.

Just then my gaze found my mother’s face. Surprised, I said, “Hullo.” My voice sounded rusty from disuse. All the same, I could almost watch the strain fade as she smiled at me.

“My darling girl,” she exclaimed, and her fingers reached out to brush a strand of hair from my forehead. “Could you drink a little more broth, do you think?”