“Shall you be glad to go home?” asked Zillah.

He looked at her almost slyly. “Well, there are temptations to stay, but alas …”

“And you sail … the day after tomorrow, is it? So it is hail and farewell. How sad.”

“I agree … wholeheartedly. Well …” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll see you on board, Miss Grey.”

“So that is Roger Lestrange,” said Ninian when he had ridden off.

“He seemed to be a most interesting man,” added Zillah.

Then we rode back to the vicarage and the next day we left for London, Tilbury and the Queen of the South.

As SOON as I stepped on board I felt a sense of irreparable loss. Melancholy took hold of me and I was sure that no exciting new experience could dispel it. This was largely due to having said goodbye to Ninian. I had taken this step and there was no going back.

Ninian and Zillah had travelled to the ship with us. So, Zillah had said, that she could spend every possible moment with me. She constantly expressed her sorrow at my departure, but I could not get rid of the notion that she was rather relieved. Perhaps she was thinking what was best for me and was fully aware that while I remained in England I should be constantly on the alert for someone to recognise me. That was no way to live and a sacrifice was worthwhile to change it.

I had to keep remembering that and then I could be reconciled to leaving everything that was familiar to me and going off into the unknown.

I did have a short time alone with Ninian. I think Lilias helped to arrange this by making sure that she kept Zillah away. My spirits were lifted because I sensed that this was what Ninian wanted, too.

He talked seriously about my future.

“You don’t need to look on it as permanent,” he stressed. “You will come back. But for a time I believe this is the best thing to do. I want you to promise me something.”

“What is that?”

“That you will write to me and tell me everything … however seemingly trivial. I want to know.”

“But surely … ?”

“Please,” he said. “It may be important.”

“Do you still regard me as ‘a case?’ “

“A very special case. Please, I am serious. Give me your word. I know you will keep it.”

“I will write,” I said.

“I shall want to know about the school … and the Lestranges … and how everything works out.”

I nodded. “And you will let me know what happens at home?”

“I will.”

“You sound so serious.”

“It is very important to me. And there is one thing more. If you want to come home, let me know. I will arrange it.”

“You … ?”

“I shall see that you get a passage home at the earliest possible moment. Please remember that.”

“It is comforting to know that you are so concerned about me.”

“Of course I’m concerned about you … Davina.”

I looked at him in alarm.

“I can’t get used to that other name,” he said. “I always think of you as Davina.”

“Well, no one can hear now.”

“One day you will come back.”

“I wonder’”

“You will,” he insisted. “You must.”

I remembered that conversation for days to come and it brought me comfort.

We were on deck as the ship sailed out. The hooters were sounding all round us; the quay was crowded with the friends of passengers come to see the last of them. It was a moving scene. Some people were weeping, others laughing, as slowly the ship glided out of her berth and sailed away.

Lilias and I stood there waving until we could no longer see Ninian and Zillah.

I SHALL NEVER FORGET those first days on the Queen of the South. I had not dreamed of such discomfort. In the first place we had to share a cabin with two others. The cabin was little more than a large cupboard and there were four berths, two lower and two upper. There was one small cupboard for the use of the four occupants and there were no portholes. We were shut in with many other similar cabins and the noises around us never seemed to cease. We were at the after end of the ship and there were barriers to prevent our leaving that section.

Meals were taken at long tables. I suppose the food was adequate, but eating in such conditions was far from pleasant and neither Lilias nor I had much appetite for it.

Our section of the ship was overcrowded. Washing was not easy. There were communal quarters for this and little privacy.

I said to Lilias: “Can you endure this till Cape Town?”

“We must,” she answered.

When the weather turned rough, as it did very soon, this was an added trial.

The two women who shared our cabin were prostrate in their bunks. Lilias felt queasy, too. She could not decide whether to venture out on deck or withdraw to her bunk.

She decided on the latter and I went on deck. I staggered along as far as the segregating barrier and sat down. I looked at the grey heaving waves and wondered what I had let myself into. The future seemed bleak. What should I find in this country to which we were going? I had been a coward. I should have stayed at home and faced whatever I had to. People would say that if I were innocent I should have nothing to fear. I should have held my head high, faced whatever was coming and not hidden behind an assumed name.

And now here I was, in a condition of acute discomfort, being carried over this turbulent sea to … I could not know what.

I was aware of someone on the other side of the barrier.

“Hello,” said Roger Lestrange. He was looking down on me over the top of the fencing which separated us. “Facing the elements?”

“Yes … and you, too?”

“You find this uncomfortable, do you?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“Mildly. Nothing to what it can do, I assure you.”

“Well, I hope it doesn’t attempt to show me.”

“I didn’t see you when you boarded. You had friends to see you off, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“That was nice. How are you liking the trip … apart from the weather?”

I was silent for a while and he said quickly: “Not good, is it?”

“It’s hardly luxury.”

“I had no idea you would travel in such a way.”

“Nor had we. But we did want to do so as cheaply as possible. Miss Milne has a horror of debt. How is Mrs. Lestrange?”

“Laid low. She does not like the weather.”

“Who does? I am sorry for her.”

“We’ll soon be out of this and then we’ll all forget about it.”

I had been standing up while I was talking to him, and a gust of wind threw me against the deck rail.

“All right?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks.”

“I think you should go below,” he continued. “The wind can be treacherous and one really shouldn’t face the decks when it is like this.” He smiled wryly. “I’m sorry I can’t conduct you to your quarters.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll go down. Goodbye.”

“Au revoir,” he said.

And I staggered down to the cabin.

LATER THAT DAY the wind abated. Lilias and I were alone in the cabin. The other occupants, feeling better, had gone out, as they said, for a breath of fresh air.

One of the stewards came to our cabin.

He said: “I’ve got orders to move you.”

“Move us?” we cried simultaneously.

“Some mistake, I expect. You shouldn’t be in this one. Get your things together.”

Bewildered we obeyed. He took our cases and told us to follow him. We did so and he led us through the ship, opening one of the dividing doors. He took us to a cabin which seemed magnificent after the one we had just left. There were two bunks which served as sofas by day, a fair-sized wardrobe, a washbasin and a porthole.

We stared at it in amazement.

“That’s it,” he said, and left us. We could not believe it. It was such a contrast. Lilias sat down on one of the beds and looked as though she were going to burst into tears, which was extraordinary for her.

“What does it mean?” she demanded.

“It means that they made a mistake. They should never have put us in with the emigrants.”

“But we are emigrants.”

“Yes … but here we are. Isn’t it wonderful? I feel dignified. I don’t think I could have borne much more of that.”

“Yes, you would … if you had to.”

“Well, don’t let’s worry about that. Let’s rejoice.”

“I wonder how it happened,” said Lilias.

“Doubtless we shall hear.”

We did ask the purser, who told us there had been some mistake and we were so relieved we did not take the matter farther than that. All we knew was that we could now continue the rest of the voyage, weather permitting, in a comfort we had not dared hope for.

EVERYTHING CHANGED after that. We were often in the company of the Lestranges; and it was during that voyage that I began to know Myra.

She was a self-effacing person, rather timid, in contrast to her mother. I often wondered whether having spent so much of her life in close contact with such a woman had made her as she was, for in such a presence even the most confident people must be aware of their shortcomings. I grew to like her. She was rather withdrawn in the presence of her husband, and rarely spoke unless addressed. I noticed that he often finished a sentence with “Is that not so, my dear?” as though trying to draw her into the conversation. “Yes, yes, Roger, indeed it is,” she would invariably reply.

“She’s completely subservient,” said Lilias.

“I think she wants to please him. After all, he is always kind and courteous to her.”

“Well, if he likes absolute obedience, she must suit him very well,” was Lilias’ rather terse rejoinder.