London serves both as the Clintoffs’ home and as the place Louisa must leave behind when her family migrates to Australia. Through her recollections, the city is more than a point of departure: its Greenwich house, garden, and star jasmine hold the couple’s shared history, while the crowded streets frame the last, unsettled stage of their journey toward a new life.

Home at Greenwich

The Clintoffs live in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, near the boundary by the bend of the Thames opposite the Isle of Dogs. Nate inherited their two-storey house; before Louisa joined his life, it had been a bachelor’s home, sparsely furnished and kept behind closed curtains. During their courtship and marriage, she gradually made it feel like a shared home, adding warmth while respecting that it had first belonged to him. The parlour still reflects Nate’s preferences, while Louisa’s own feminine touch gathers around the bay window overlooking the back garden.

The garden gives Louisa one of her most personal ties to London. At Lisbeth’s suggestion, she planted star jasmine against the garden’s old sandstone boundary wall. She and Nate would sit outside when it flowered, and its scent could drift from the back garden through the parlour toward the dining and sitting rooms. Louisa pruned the vine as a form of meditation, especially when she was blocked as a writer or needed to think. Nate watched from the verandah and teased that she would cut through the wall one day. The plant thus marks both her solitary routine and the easy intimacy that brings her back from it.

Leaving the City

On the morning of departure, Louisa wakes before dawn, excited and frightened. Her son Samuel Adrian Clintoff has slept between her and Nate, while his cot and room have already been packed. The family’s move is a major break: Louisa’s father calls it foolish to travel to Australia during a global economic depression, but the Victorian government has guaranteed their safe passage, and Nate hopes to find work beyond his British Army administrative career. Louisa loves London and knows she will miss it, especially the garden and jasmine.

After breakfast and their preparations, footmen arrive to load the remaining trunks and the family into a horse-drawn carriage. They are to travel about sixty miles from London to Portsmouth, where they will board the SS Aberdeen for Melbourne. Louisa rides perched at the window, feeling that the city has taken on an unfamiliar energy: its buildings seem less oppressive, and the people in the streets appear unusually cheerful as the carriage moves over the cobbles. Her anticipation changes the way she sees the city even as she prepares to leave it.

Streets, Detour, and Danger

The family’s route through London is interrupted when a cart overturns ahead, scattering produce and leaving someone injured. They could wait for the obstruction to be cleared, but the delay might endanger their timely arrival for the ship’s departure. Nate explains that the alternative runs through a district associated with robbery, although the early hour seems to make the risk less immediate. They choose the back roads and lanes rather than wait.

Louisa studies the route beyond London as a way to steady herself. Their passage will go down Africa’s west coast, around the Cape of Good Hope, then east toward Australia and on to Melbourne; with favourable winds, the voyage will take about eight weeks. The family travels first class through arrangements involving the British Army and the Victorian and New South Wales governments. The SS Aberdeen is scheduled to sail whether they arrive or not, so the detour is made under the pressure of a fixed departure and Louisa’s mixture of excitement and fear.

The lanes bring a more immediate danger. Their carriage is stopped by men’s voices. Nate passes Samuel to Louisa, draws the blinds, tells her to get down and stay down, and leaves the carriage. She hears an exchange she cannot make out, followed by movement and a struggle outside, but remains inside with the child. The account does not establish the full outcome of the encounter in this scene; it emphasizes Louisa’s uncertainty and her decision to stay put because Samuel depends on her.

Memory, Departure, and Narrative Contrast

London is presented through Louisa’s attachment to domestic particulars rather than as a detached city portrait. The inherited house bears the history of Nate’s former solitude and the home they made together; the jasmine turns a garden chore into a recurring practice of thought and shared affection. Leaving therefore means more than exchanging one country for another: it means parting from the setting in which their marriage and family life took shape.

The city’s atmosphere also shifts with Louisa’s state of mind. Before departure, she anticipates missing its garden and living with the fear that the move may reopen her own darkness. Yet on the morning journey the streets seem brighter and their inhabitants more buoyant than usual. That contrast makes London a threshold in the narrative: it remains the beloved home Louisa is relinquishing, while the carriage carries her family into an uncertain passage toward Australia.