This was their first sea voyage and neither of them had felt ill once since leaving Bombay. Life on board ship, what was more, had been interesting enough to alleviate the boredom which might otherwise have attacked them, and, so far as she could judge, homesickness had not troubled them either. Not, reflected Hester now, that she had a home in India any longer, for she could scarcely count the large house in which Mr Hetherington-Smith held sway. After her father’s death some three months previously, Mr Hetherington-Smith had approached Hester, the child of his best friend, and suggested that unless she had other plans, she might move into his house and begin to get to know his small daughter. He had explained that he meant to send Lonnie home to Liverpool in England, to live with an aunt, and he would like Hester to take charge of her. Hester had known that her father, Trevor Elliott, had meant to accompany his only child to England one day. Her mother, Kia, who had died when Hester was ten, had been anxious that her daughter should return to their home country when she was an adult.
