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bad?’
    ‘Oh, you had a splendid time in the dining room, drinking port and smoking cigars, while we languished in the drawing room. Do you know, your mother and her sisters are going to hold a
séance here at the castle? They’re a trio of witches. It’s absurd.’
    ‘Oh, leave them to their fun, my dear. How does it affect you if they want to communicate with the dead?’
    Maud realized her argument was weak. ‘It’s ungodly,’ she added tartly. ‘I don’t imagine the Rector would think much of their game – no good will come of it,
mark my words.’
    ‘I still don’t see how it affects
you,
Maud.’
    ‘Your mother is a bad influence on Kitty,’ she rejoined, knowing that Kitty’s name would carry more weight.
    Bertie frowned and rubbed his bristly chin. ‘Ah Kitty,’ he sighed, feeling a stab of guilt.
    ‘She spends much too much time talking nonsense with her grandmother.’
    ‘Might that be because
you
don’t spend any time with her at all?’
    Maud sat in silence for a while, affronted. Bertie had never complained before about her obvious lack of interest in their youngest. Besides, it was customary that young children should be kept
out of sight and in the nursery with their governesses. Then it came to her in a sudden flood of pain: Grace Rowan-Hampton must have mentioned it to him. By keeping her enemy close she had allowed
a spy into her home.
    The carriage drew up in front of the Hunting Lodge and stopped outside the front door. It was lightly drizzling, what the locals called ‘soft rain’. A strong wind swept over the
land, moaning eerily as it dashed through the bare branches of the horse chestnut trees. The butler was waiting for them in the hall with an oil lamp to light their way upstairs. Feeling more
discontented than ever, Maud followed her husband up to the landing, hoping he would notice her silence and ask what was troubling her. ‘Goodnight, my dear,’ he said, without so much as
a glance. She watched him disappear into his room and close the door behind him. Furiously she went into hers, where her lady’s maid was waiting to unhook her dress. Without a word she turned
her back expectantly.
    The following morning Kitty breakfasted with Miss Grieve in the nursery then dressed for church. The Sunday service, in the church of St Patrick in Ballinakelly, was the only
time the family all gathered together. The only time Kitty really saw her parents. Miss Grieve had put out a fresh white pinafore and polished black boots and spent much longer than necessary
combing the knots out of her hair without any consideration for the pain she caused. But Kitty fixed her stare on the grey clouds scudding across the sky outside the window and willed herself not
to shed a single tear.
    While her parents and grandparents rode in carriages, Kitty and her sisters sat in the pony and trap with Miss Grieve in the front beside Mr Mills, who held the reins. Victoria was pretty like
her mother with a wide, heart-shaped face, a long, straight nose and shrewish blue eyes. Her blonde hair fell down to her waist in lustrous curls as she sat with her back straight and her chin up,
much too aware of her own beauty and the admiring looks it aroused. Elspeth was more modest and less attractive than her elder sister. Her hair was mouse-brown, her nose a fleshy button, her
expression as submissive and dim-witted as a lap dog’s. The older girls ignored Kitty completely, preferring to talk to each other. But Kitty didn’t mind: she was much too busy looking
around at the fields of cows and sheep. ‘Mother says I have to have new dresses made for London,’ said Victoria happily, holding her hat so it didn’t fly off in the wind.
‘She has already sent my measurements to Cousin Beatrice. I can hardly wait. They’ll be the most fashionable designs for sure.’
    ‘You’re so lucky,’ said Elspeth, who had a tendency to elongate her vowels so that her voice sounded like a whine. ‘I wish I