On that morning, 11 March, she had caught the train from Victoria. She bought a newspaper, then stumbled – no hat on, gripping an ochre suitcase – along the platform and into the carriage, upholstered corner seat, with a book. Under a grey lamb coat, a gift from her mother on her twentieth birthday, she wore her one and only black suit. She had £5 in her pocket, borrowed from a friend. The train journey – second-class, to Newhaven – was tedious. She cleared a patch on the pane and stared out in detachment at the green fields, struggling to break her connection with the past. The fields threw her back against her will to another spring day and SPB seeing her off at Newhaven – alone again – on the French steamer. But it hurt Priscilla to think of her father. They were too similar, as her mother kept pointing out. Always remembering and regretting mistakes. Priscilla drummed with her fingers on the window – another of her father’s traits. She had wanted a child so much. She felt sick and young and very frightened.
