Gwenda Reed stood on the quay shivering slightly. The docks, the customs sheds, and everything English she saw swayed gently. And at that moment, she made her decision, a decision that was about to lead to such monumental events. She would not take the train from the port to London, as she had planned. Why would she, after all? No one was waiting for her, no one was eager to see her. She had just disembarked from a ship that groaned and creaked (they had encountered bad weather during the three days crossing the Bay of Biscay and heading towards Plymouth) and the last thing she wanted was to get on a train that would groan and sway. She would go to a hotel, a nice, stable, sturdy hotel that stood firmly on the ground. She would sink into a nice, strong bed that would neither creak nor sway. She would fall asleep and the next morning... well, of course, a splendid idea! She would rent a car and take a slow, unhurried tour of southern England looking for a house, a nice house, the one that Jill and she had planned to find. Yes, it was a splendid idea.
That way she would see a few parts of England, an England that Jill had told her about and which she had never seen; although, like most New Zealanders, she considered it her home. For the moment, England did not seem particularly attractive. It was a gray day, rain was about to fall, and a strong, annoying wind was blowing. Plymouth, Gwenda thought as she obediently moved forward in the line for passport control and Customs, was probably not the best part of England. The next morning, however, she felt completely different. The sun was shining. The view from her window was pleasant. And the universe in general was neither waving nor swaying. It had stabilized. This, finally, was England, and she was Gwenda Reed, a married young woman of twenty-one traveling.