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arm, remembering his kindness.
    She was distracted when she looked outside. The two rose beds each were split into four quarters, separated by a central gravel path. It’s curious, she thought, I’m sure the layout of the rose garden has changed.
    She looked away and took her sister’s hand. ‘I know you are angry with Papa, but don’t be. He hasn’t abandoned you, he is just suffering. He will come back to you, just give him time.’
    Dorothy looked at her sister. ‘Am I that easy to understand?’
    ‘To someone who loves you very much, it is not that difficult.’
    ‘I will try to forgive him, but he is not the same.’
    ‘None of us are, my darling. None of us.’ She ran her hands through her hair, letting them rest at the back of her neck.
    When Elizabeth looked out of the window again, the gravel path had disappeared. The four single rose beds were set in a tidy line.

7
    Dorothy relied on Miss Byrne for a sense of normality. When she refused to eat, Miss Byrne coaxed her, and when she screamed Ophelia’s name, she wrapped her in her bony arms. ‘Hush there, child. She’s up with the unicorns, can you not see her?’
    But Dorothy could not.
    Her early morning visits to the stables had stopped. Peter, the little grey pony, was neglected. Sometimes Dorothy watched him from her window as he paced along the fence line, his coat long and his mane untrimmed. Occasionally he would stop at the gate, his small head tilted as if listening for a familiar voice, but then he would lower his head and his pacing would continue, as he waited patiently for John’s return.
    Each day was a merry-go-round of misery. They would sit at the family dinner, waiting for Sir William. He was always late. To pass the time, Dorothy would watch the clock, and as the hands slowly turned, she would remember fragments of happier times, a moment in a dinner full of laughter, or a particular instant in the entertainment afterwards. In those days there had been plays after supper performed by the children. Elizabeth dressed as Titania would play the Fairy Queen with more beauty than skill, and Thomas as Oberon, would play his part with a solemnity that made the adults smile, while she, Dorothy would dance, with Miss Byrne accompanying. Sometimes John would dance with her. Now, only a year later, the harpsichord was silent, the laughter gone. As Dorothy sat at the long oak table, amongst the panelling and the tapestries, she longed for the forgotten evenings, and for the current one to end.
    One night, in an unusual display of frustration, her elegant mother banged her fist on the table. Everyone turned to look at her.
    ‘Is everything all right, my lady?’ Thomas Whitstone sprang to her side.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘It is not all right, but I would be grateful if you would serve us. We can wait for Sir William no longer.’
    ‘Yes, my lady.’ How Dorothy resented the sympathy in Whitstone’s eyes.
    An hour later her father arrived, agitated and confrontational. He ate quickly.
    ‘Is it too much to expect my family to wait for me?’ He drained a glass of wine and reached for the decanter, the sleeve of his velvet coat trailing across his plate.
    ‘Excuse me, sir.’ The footman deftly removed his plate, but not before Sir William had shouted at him.
    ‘Leave it, can’t you see I haven’t finished?’
    But he had finished, and when Dorothy looked at her father she was disgusted. His face was bloated and his eyes bloodshot. His once immaculate clothes were soiled and his jewellery had gone. Only the small snake ring with the ruby eye now bit into his puffy flesh.
    Later she could hear his shouts and her mother’s sobs. When the front door slammed behind him she rushed to the window. He banged on Lorenzo’s door.
    ‘Get me Apollo,’ he ordered.
    ‘It’s late, sir, he is sleeping.’
    ‘I don’t care if he’s bloody sleeping! Get me a horse, any one will do.’ Not long afterwards they were gone, horse and rider galloping into