“Quite right,” Ester said, in a somewhat inflated tone, as if Judah were preaching high philosophy. “There’s no room for melancholia here, I simply could not bear it,” she said, pasting a broad smile to her face, her best catlike grin. “And you could not be unhappy with your lot, for now you have met me,” she teased, and then languidly pulled herself to her feet, to rummage in a drawer.

“But if you are ever in need of a little nudge towards bliss, you can always come to me,” she murmured, producing a bottle of gin and then comparing a medicine bottle of laudanum and one of wine of coca in her hands, trying to decide which high she fancied to ease any shadow of misery and pain lurking outside the door.

She inclined her head at Judah in idle offering. “Can I tempt you to anything?”

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