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said at last, handing Dorothy the crumpled paper.
    She nodded, unable to speak.
    ‘Keep it. I would like you to have it.’ Dorothy folded it into the pocket of her pinafore, and much later, she took it out and read it again.

6
    Miss Byrne came from County Cork. Perhaps it was the harsh winds of her native coastline that had fashioned her looks, but the stern façade belied a warm and generous heart.
    ‘I’m from the bogs of Ireland and that’s where I’ll be returned if you are a bad girl,’ she would say, her brown eyes playing behind her wire spectacles.
    ‘No, Miss Byrne, no!’ Dorothy would reply in mock horror, and Miss Byrne would scoop her into her arms and they would laugh. Dorothy would feel the prickles of Miss Byrne’s rough woollen dress against her face, and she would smell the lavender on the lace handkerchief pinned to her chest.
    If she cried at night, the governess would enter her room and take her gently by the hand. ‘You had better be coming along to my little room. Up with the stars, so it is, and I’ll read to you if you can find my story book.’ Dorothy would follow her up the attic stairs, her misery forgotten. With small, skilled hands she would pull the large, leather-bound journal from its hiding place beneath the floorboards; she would leaf through the pages, hoping Miss Byrne had added a story in her neat handwriting. By the time Dorothy was old enough to read them herself, the book was half filled.
    ‘Why do you keep it beneath the floor?’ she once asked.
    ‘Because this is private, young lady, and we would not be wanting the prying eyes of anyone else to see it, would we? Now, where shall we begin?’
    Before the accident, when children from the neighbouring estates came to see them, Dorothy and Thomas were allowed to roam the gardens and woodland on their own. Children loved coming to Norton, because of the unusual freedom they were allowed. Miss Byrne said that it would stimulate their minds and develop their independence. The estate woodman built a tree house in the branches high above the Dark Coppice. A stream ran below the tree, and a ladder hung from the steps. Climbing the ladder without getting wet was a delicate manoeuvre.
    When young men came to see Elizabeth, Dorothy and Thomas would spy through the banisters in the galleried hall. When their sister looked up they would run away giggling, but they were never quick enough, for they were always caught by Miss Byrne.
    ‘What would you be doing, now? Give your sister a bit of peace; she does not want you lot ogling her all the time. Away with you.’
    Those carefree days were so far away, Dorothy wondered whether they had happened at all.
    Elizabeth was the only person to even mention the past.
    ‘Do you remember when Papa organized a race in the Long Meadow with the local children?’ Elizabeth’s voice was wistful. ‘Come sit here, Dotty; I have the best view of the garden from this window.’
    Dorothy sat beside her. There was an unfinished watercolour on the easel in front of her, and an unopened book in her lap. ‘I can’t seem to read today; I can’t seem to do anything,’ Elizabeth said at last.
    Dorothy was drawn to the small scar on her sister’s cheek – she was unable to check her dreadful memories. ‘Of course I remember the race. I coveted your prize so much that you gave it to me, as I knew you would.’
    Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, remembering her small triumph, and the beautiful cherry-wood box. The estate carpenter had made it, Donald with the shortest legs and the widest smile. ‘Miss Elizabeth,’ Donald told her, ‘I know that sister of yours has taken it, so she has. I’ll make you another one, and it will be a better one, miss, much better.’
    When Donald completed the specially adapted chair with large wooden wheels, there were tears in his eyes. ‘I never thought to make you this,’ he said, ‘but I’ve made it with my heart.’ She now ran her hands along a polished