I think I managed very well. We had pleasant travelling companions; the weather was benign. Gertie and I usually went ashore with a party from the ship. The story of our getting lost in Suez was related with much hilarity and it struck me afresh how time turns disastrous happenings into comic adventures. However, there was a great deal of laughter about the two little girls who had climbed a rope-ladder to board the ship.

Suez, it seemed, was a place where things happened to us, commented Gertie, for, as we were about to board the launch which was to take us back to the ship, I saw a man who seemed familiar to me.

I stared. Then I recognized him.

“Dr. Emmerson!” I cried.

Gertie was beside me.

“It is!” she exclaimed.

“Really, here of all places!”

He was a little disconcerted. During the passage of time, girls of eleven change more than men in their twenties or thirties. He stood looking at us, faintly puzzled. Then enlightenment dawned.

He laughed.

“Is it really Carmel … and Gertie?”

“Yes, it is,” we cried together.

“Lost in Suez,” he said.

“What a business, getting you on board.”

“With that rope-ladder,” gurgled Gertie.

“Still, we did it. And you are travelling on this ship?”

“Yes. Home.”

“What a coincidence. So am I.”

We chattered as the launch took us out. He told us he had been in Suez for the last two weeks talking to the doctors there. He had a practice in Harley Street and was attached to a London hospital.

“When we last met,” he said, “I was going out to Suez to study at a hospital there. Well, I did all that, came home and settled, as it were.”

“Do you often go to Suez?” I asked.

“No. Not now. I just happened to pay this flying visit, doing a talk on some new development.”

“How strange that you should be on the same ship as we are, going home.”

“Things happen that way sometimes.”

The voyage changed after that. We saw a great deal of Dr. Emmerson. He seemed to seek me out. At first Gertie was with us, but one of the new arrivals at Suez was Bernard Ragland, and he and Gertie liked each other from the start. He was interested in medieval architecture, and was attached to one of the London museums hardly the kind of subject to attract Gertie, but she suddenly became interested in it.

Dr. Emmerson knew about the shipwreck and he under stood what the loss of Toby meant to me, so I was able to talk frankly to him. I found that a relief and would sit on deck and chat for long stretches at a time. He told me of his life and career, how he had worked for a time in Suez. He spoke of the suffering he had seen there among the poor, and somehow he drew me away from my personal tragedy as no one had before; and he made me see that Gertie was right when she had said that I had indulged too much in brooding on my own misfortunes.

Looking back on that voyage, I see that a great deal happened during it and no one could have said it was uneventful.

The sea had been especially kind to us, even in those areas where it could be notoriously unpredictable. We had sailed smoothly; we had met pleasant acquaintances some of whom we had made tentative arrangements to see again, which would most likely never materialize; in fact, it had been a trip like many others superficially, but it was to be important, not only to me, but to Gertie.

As soon as I stepped ashore in the company of Dr. Emmerson, Gertie and Bernard Ragland I knew that I had passed an important barrier. I had set a distance between myself and the past.

Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Harold were waiting to greet us. Gertie rushed into Aunt Beatrice’s arms.

“You’re here, you’re here!” cried Aunt Beatrice. She was plump and rosy and rather large. Uncle Harold was thin and slightly shorter. He stood looking on, faintly embarrassed, but pleased and as welcoming in his way as Aunt Beatrice was in hers.

“This is Carmel,” Gertie announced.

“You’ve heard about her. And this is Mr. Bernard Ragland,” she went on with pride, and Aunt Beatrice seized his hand and shook it warmly. Then Uncle Harold did the same.

“And this is Dr. Emmerson.”

“So pleased to meet you,” said Aunt Beatrice.

“It’s wonderful to be home,” said Gertie.

Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Harold exchanged glances of gratification, which implied that Gertie should never have gone and how wise she was to come back.

And soon after, Gertie and I went off with her family and Dr. Emmerson and Bernard Ragland their separate ways. They had already made promises to see us again.

And there we were, on our way to Kensington, while Gertie and Aunt Beatrice chattered all the time and Uncle Harold and I sat listening and smiling.

Those first weeks in London were full of experiences and time passed quickly. There were long periods when I did not think of Toby and I realized that, if I allowed myself, I could be very interested in what was going on around me.

Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Harold-Mr. and Mrs. Hyson -were completely hospitable. The family house was comfortable. I was sure they would have made the most loving parents. They were devoted to Gertie and clearly enjoyed having her with them. And they welcomed me, too.

The house was in a square, in the centre of which was a large and well-kept garden for the use of residents of the square. The key to the gates of this garden was kept hanging just inside the back door and I took the opportunity of going there to sit now and then. It was very peaceful to be shut in among the trees, through which one could just get a glimpse of those tall houses, standing like sentinels guarding the peace of the square.

The house was roomy; at the top was that part which had been intended for the children who never arrived. Those apartments were now given over to Gertie and me. Gertie was familiar with them from the days when she and James used to visit the house. There had been their playroom, and in the large cupboard were games draughts, chess, jigsaws, snakes and ladders and ludo.

It should have been rather sad to contemplate the dreams of these two pleasant people which had never materialized, but somehow one could not, for they had not become in the least embittered: and now that Gertie and I were here, they seemed entirely reconciled.

“They are a wonderful pair,” Gertie told me.

“It was a blow to them when my people decided to go to Australia. Now, here I am and it’s good to be back. They’re a lesson to us, those two. Don’t you agree?” she added pointedly, and I laughed, because I knew she meant that the lesson was chiefly for me. I thought then that it is indeed a boon to get a glimpse of ourselves as others see us.

The Hysons liked to entertain and having Gertie with them gave them excuses to do so.

They had some spacious rooms which were suitable for this and they determined to make good use of them. Within a week of our arrival, Dr. Emmerson whose name I had by now discovered was Lawrence and Bernard Ragland had been asked to dinner.

We had a very pleasant evening together and the episode of our rescue in Suez was related once more, although I am sure Gertie had told them all about it in her letters.

Gertie listened as though enraptured to some details about the differences between Gothic and Norman architecture and how, in the early fourteenth century, builders were not content with the simple styles and sought some thing more decorative. I was amazed to see her so earnest.

I thought then: This is Gertie in love.

Lawrence was beginning to think of him as Lawrence by this time did not talk intimately of his profession. I supposed diseases of the skin would be a less welcome subject at the dinner-table.

I was becoming very interested in Gertie’s relationship with Bernard Ragland and so were her aunt and uncle.

Aunt Beatrice said to me one day when Gertie was out:

“What do you think, Carmel? Gertie seems to be getting very friendly indeed with that nice Bernard.”

I agreed.

“Well?” said Aunt Beatrice.

“She hasn’t known him very long.”

“Ships are different from ordinary life,” said Aunt Beatrice sagely, although I believed she had never sailed on one.

She paused.

“Romantic, somehow. I wonder…” She lifted her shoulders.

I guessed she was seeing a wedding, organized by herself . the young couple settling into a nice little house not far off. And then the nursery . Aunt Beatrice being at hand to help . taking over the duties of a mother.

It startled me a little, but it did seem to me that Gertie was in love. I could imagine the scorn she would once have poured on a conversation about linenfold and the advantages of stone over brick which she now seemed to find entrancing.

Lawrence had become a frequent visitor, too, and I wondered whether Aunt Beatrice speculated on our relationship as she did on that of Gertie and Bernard. Surely not. Lawrence was a good deal older than I. He must be over thirty, whereas Bernard would be in his mid-twenties, perhaps a little more but not much.

Sometimes I took Lawrence over to the gardens and we would sit there and talk. On one occasion he mentioned the shipwreck.

“I often think about it, Carmel,” he said.

“It stunned you, didn’t it?

You were so devoted to him. “

I agreed.

“You’d rather not talk about it perhaps,” he said.

“No … no, I don’t mind with you.”

“You’ve got to start living, Carmel.”

“That’s what Gertie tells me. She has been so good for me.

“You are just preserving your grief. He wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. He was so lighthearted by nature. He would have wanted you to be the same.”