reading

RHCP DIGITAL

RHCP Digital is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

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First published RHCP Digital, 2018

This ebook published 2018

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-448-19807-8

All correspondence to:

RHCP Digital

Penguin Random House Children’s

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

To Cate and Nash of Much Ado Books

‘I HAVE A little present for you, Rose,’ said Papa.

He handed me a rectangular package tied with string that looked promisingly like a book. I love reading more than anything else, especially the books in Papa’s studio. He doesn’t know that I borrow them secretly. I don’t bother with Mama’s books in the cabinet in the drawing room as they are silly romantic tosh.

I opened my package eagerly, though I feared it would be a Mrs Molesworth or a Miss Yonge, the sort of authors considered suitable for a girl of thirteen.

But it wasn’t a novel at all, for children or adults. It was a sketchbook, every page blank.

‘I thought this would be a good time for you to start sketching seriously, sweetheart. I know you’ve been feeling rather mopey since Rupert left for school,’ said Papa.

I didn’t know what to say. He was trying so hard to cheer me up. And it’s not as if I don’t like drawing. I’ve spent half my childhood drawing witches and dragons and mermaids and tigers and goblins. Goblins are fun because I give them the faces of people I particularly detest. When my brother Algie crayoned all over the pages of my book of Tennyson’s poetry, I created an entire community of grotesque goblins with his features.

I also like drawing girls. Not pretty girls with long brushed hair and demure dresses. Wild girls who have cut off their curls and tucked up their skirts or borrowed boy’s breeches. They climb trees and leap streams and teeter on the very edge of cliffs. Sometimes I draw them being chastised. They are sent away in disgrace. They don’t care!

Mama always tuts when she sees my drawings. She doesn’t approve of them at all. Papa laughs and thinks them funny, but he says that I should start drawing seriously now. He is hoping that I have true artistic ability. It’s not just because he is an indulgent father (though he is!). He’d like at least one of his children to have inherited his talent. Rupert is the eldest but has never had the patience or indeed any natural ability at art. I am his twin and only fifteen minutes younger, so now Papa is pinning his hopes on me.

‘I love your drawings, Rose. They’re very lively and amusing, but I think it’s time for you to learn to sketch properly. You should draw from life,’ he said now, unusually serious.

‘Not still life, Papa?’ I groaned.

Our governess, Miss Rayner, sometimes arranges odds and ends that she feels are ‘artistic’ for us to paint with our shared box of Winsor & Newton watercolours. Last time she gathered a blue and white striped milk jug from the kitchen, a garish china couple won at a fairground, a bowl of fruit and a posy of violets in a pink pot. I tried reasonably hard, but the milk jug tilted alarmingly, the china couple looked drunk, the bowl of fruit wouldn’t stay circular and the posy wilted before I could finish it.

‘I know you find still-life compositions boring, Rose, but they teach you observation and perspective and shading. They will bring your sketches to life, so that they seem realistic representations.’

‘I don’t care for real life, Papa. I prefer living in my imagination,’ I said.

He laughed at this. He doesn’t mind if we argue with him, so long as we do it politely. He actively encourages us to discuss and dispute.

‘I do sympathize, Rose,’ he chuckled. ‘But sometimes we have to do things we don’t care for. I spent my first year at art school copying plaster casts. It was deadly boring but it taught me a great deal.’

‘Then send me to art school, Papa!’ I said.

He laughed again. ‘Perhaps, when you are eighteen or so, I might send you to Paris to be properly trained, though I know Mama will object!’

‘Mama always objects,’ I said. ‘In fact, one could say that Mama is objectionable!’

‘That’s enough, Rose,’ Papa said firmly. He lets me argue with him, but he will never allow me to criticize Mama.

‘How can I wait five whole years anyway?’ I said instead. ‘Couldn’t I go to a boarding school where they have a good art teacher?’

I’d read about girls’ boarding schools. I longed to go to one. I imagined charismatic teachers and intelligent girls having lively discussions in classrooms. I saw myself strolling through rose gardens, arm in arm with bookish girls, sipping cocoa together in our nightgowns, confiding secrets.

I knew I was wishing for the moon. This was another tired old argument, and one that involved further criticism of Mama. She had no qualms about sending my brother Rupert away to school, but she refused to even consider my education. I have to make do with Miss Rayner in the nursery schoolroom.

Sometimes I find it very hard indeed to like Mama. However, I love Papa and I will try to learn to sketch properly for his sake.

‘May I sketch you, Papa?’ I asked.

‘Certainly! And I will sketch you simultaneously, Rose!’ he said, very pleased.

It was companionable sitting in Papa’s studio. We had a delightful conversation about artists too. They seem to live the most interesting and unconventional lives. I would very much like to be an artist – but I don’t really like doing art. I tried so hard to do a good sketch of Papa, but it was a complete failure. He went lopsided like the milk jug, and I made him look incredibly fierce when he’s the most amiable man I’ve ever met. Not that I’ve met many men. I sometimes think a nun in a convent has a better social life than me. If only I could go to school. Rupert is so LUCKY!

When I’d finished sketching, Papa wanted to see my portrait, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want him to see what a failure I was. He is always hopeful that one of us will show artistic talent. He does his best to be encouraging. He praises Algie’s scribbles even when they’re in inappropriate places like the whitewashed nursery cupboards or the hall skirting board.

Papa’s praise obviously means a great deal, because he is the painter Edward Rivers, well known in artistic circles. He is a follower of the great Pre-Raphaelite painters, and when he was a young man he was considered equal to them in talent. He was also wild and bohemian. He even had a pet wombat, just like his hero, Rossetti.

How I wish he had a wombat now! Our pets are nowhere near as exotic. We have Mistletoe, a large white cat who sleeps all day on his rocking chair by the kitchen range, and Alphonse, Mama’s tiny Mexican dog, who snaps a great deal, and shivers when Mr Hodgson takes him for his daily walk.

Alphonse will be tucked up with Mama on the chaise longue in the drawing room, both of them staring into space with their beady eyes. How strange that it is called the drawing room when no one ever draws there, not even Papa. Now that I’m in my teens and considered a young lady I’m allowed to sit in the drawing room. Not that I want to! It’s not at all comfortable, though the chairs and sofas are cushioned and well sprung. Even Papa seems out of his element there, though he sits dutifully beside Mama for half an hour every day, resolutely keeping her company.

Mama suffers from ill health. She’s been poorly ever since my youngest sister, Phoebe, was born, and is forever resting. Phoebe is a delightful baby sister, the roundest, rosiest little dumpling. She has such a sunny nature, all chuckles and smiles. By contrast Mama looks pale and unappetizing nowadays, like Cook’s vanilla shape. She has grown much fatter since Phoebe, and has had to order a dozen new gowns, though I’m sure she could simply have had her old ones altered. Mama cares terribly about clothes. It irritates her enormously that I don’t give a fig about my appearance.

‘You dress like a hoyden, Rose! How can you wander around barefoot, like a ragamuffin off the streets? Have you even brushed your hair this morning? Stop frowning at me like that! Your forehead creases in such an ugly fashion. It’s because you always have your head in a book! You will end up having to wear spectacles like a frumpy old spinster.’

I rather fancy wearing spectacles. I think they might make me look scholarly. I cannot see why being a spinster is so scorned anyway. Miss Rayner is a spinster and she seems perfectly content, humming hymns and sucking fruit drops and tapping her foot merrily when the little ones pipe on their penny whistles. She doesn’t appear to mind that she only has three frocks and they’re all patched and darned, even her best black silk. She seems a happy soul.

Mama is the lady of the house and has a distinguished artist husband and seven children and a beautiful home in London and a wardrobe full of new gowns, and yet she’s as miserable as sin.

She makes everyone else miserable too, even Papa, though he tries to ignore her complaints.

‘For pity’s sake, Edward, I wish you’d stop doing these sordid urban sketches. Who on earth wants to see pallid drawings of street children? I wish you’d never agreed to do the illustrations for Sarah Smith’s wretched little books. I know she does charity work for destitute girls, but I really don’t see why you have to be involved. Why don’t you do proper oil paintings again?’

‘I don’t feel inclined,’ Papa said stiffly.

‘Because you’ve lost your famous muse,’ said Mama, with an edge to her voice. Papa used to do portraits of the Honourable Louisa Mayhorne. His most famous is the one where she’s wearing a low-cut evening dress with one black strap slipping off her pearly shoulder. It caused a scandal, but everyone agreed that it was a wonderful painting. Perhaps Louisa didn’t care for the attention, because she doesn’t pose for Papa any more. I wish she did. She always winked at me and called me Chickie, and once gave me a little box of rose creams.

‘Why won’t you take on respectable commissions for portraits? If you’re tired of London Society, perhaps you should try in Scotland. You know very well that my father would be delighted to introduce you to the members of the Caledonian Club,’ Mama needled him.

‘I’m afraid I’m not inspired by whiskery old gentlemen with bulging waistcoats and tartan trews,’ Papa said.

‘I dare say those waistcoats are bulging with purses of gold coins,’ Mama responded tartly. ‘It would be a great help if you cared to contribute to the household finances.’

Poor Papa. That is the trouble. He really is poor. He makes very little money from his art, especially nowadays. We live in The Lion House, one of the grandest houses in Kensington, but it’s actually Mama’s, not his. Well, Mama didn’t contribute the money herself. She’s never done a stroke of work in her life, but my grandparents are very rich. They disapproved of my father but, when it became plain that Mama was determined to marry him, they couldn’t bear the thought of their only child living in some ramshackle artist’s garret. They gritted their teeth and provided the couple with a house.

Then Rupert and I were born, and the grandparents were delighted, in spite of everything. They were especially pleased to have a grandson to inherit their business.

We travel up to their huge country house near Dundee every New Year’s Eve. They call it Hogmanay and it is a very grand occasion, with dinner and dancing and drinking – a great deal of drinking. When twelve o’clock strikes, Grandpapa sets off fireworks in the garden. We wake up and watch from our bedroom windows, though Sebastian puts his hands over his ears and poor Beth cowers in her bed.

Last year Rupert was allowed to stay up and help Grandpapa light the fireworks. I am exactly the same age bar fifteen minutes, but I’m not allowed anywhere near a match. Grandpapa quotes the poem about Pauline from that silly nursery book Struwwelpeter. He relishes reciting: ‘Her apron burns, her arms, her hair; she burns all over everywhere.’ Grandmama frowns and wags her finger in warning. She is even stricter than Mama.

Grandmama always looks as if she is sucking a lemon. She smells of citrus too, because she douses herself liberally in lemon verbena. Rupert and I have a theory about this. Grandpapa likes to behave like landed gentry but he’s actually made his money from trade. He owns the biggest jute mill in Dundee. We were once taken there as a special treat. The mill was quite extraordinary. It was the noisiest place in the entire world, with the machines setting up such a clatter that everyone has to gesture, proper conversation quite impossible. But it wasn’t the noise that was most memorable. It was the smell.

Jute is a plant grown in India. We have many plants in our back garden, and some of them smell, but sweetly, especially the honeysuckle and jasmine. I don’t know what jute smells like in its native state (neither does Miss Rayner, because she’s not very well informed, even though she’s a governess), but when jute’s being manufactured for sacks and carpet backing, it smells utterly disgusting. It’s a sour, rancid, cloying smell, so astonishingly strong that, a full day after our visit to the mill, Rupert and I still reeked of it.

I thought of the workforce toiling away for twelve hours a day in this nauseating stench. Some are girls my age. It makes me feel ashamed. Our grandmother once worked in this very mill. Not as a mill girl, but in the accounts office, filling little brown envelopes with wages for Friday payday.

She didn’t tell us this, of course. While Grandpapa was sorting out some problem with a mill hand, the foreman took Rupert and me for a cup of tea and a slice of Keiller’s Dundee cake. He asked after our grandmama and told us that he’d known her when she was ‘a wee lassie working here’. We boggled at the thought, but neither of us quite dared question Grandmama about this later. Rupert suggested that she wears such strong perfume now because she’s determined to smell sweet.

Oh, I do miss Rupert. He is by far my favourite brother. We are not at all alike even though we are twins (Rupert is very good-looking and I am not), but when we were little Papa called us Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We went everywhere together and frequently spoke in unison. We weren’t interested in our sister Beth when she was born. We couldn’t be bothered with any other playmate. We were an entity unto ourselves.

Everything started changing this past year. Rupert has suddenly grown much taller than me and has become rather a dandy, growing his hair a little longer than usual, and he’s particular about his clothes. He’s very proud of his brocade waistcoat, and is desperate for a pocket watch and chain to wear with it. He’s had a pair of boots specially made to wear at school, fine leather with jet buttons.

Papa suggested that the cobbler should add special steel caps to the toes. ‘That way they’ll be all the better for kicking,’ he said. ‘They will be Rupert’s secret weapon when it comes to fighting.’

‘There won’t be any fights!’ said Mama. ‘This is a school for young gentlemen!’

‘Which means that fights are a certainty,’ said Papa.

He spoke with authority because he’d been sent to Kilbourne himself when he was a boy. He didn’t want Rupert to follow in his footsteps, even in his steel-capped boots.

‘Public schools are dire and degrading, worse than any prison,’ he said. He knows about prisons too, because when he was young he was rather wild, and after an evening of drinking and tomfoolery he’d once spent the night in a prison cell. That is meant to be a deadly secret, but I’m actually rather proud to have a father who was once a criminal.

Mama hadn’t minded Papa’s wild ways when, as a youth, he travelled up to Scotland to paint the mountains and lochs, paying his way by doing portraits of aristocratic lairds or rich industrialists. He painted Grandpapa, and then he painted Mama, who was his only child, a young girl of seventeen. And during those sittings they fell passionately in love.

That portrait of Mama is in the drawing room now. It is a shock comparing that soft rosy girl with shining eyes and dimples in her cheeks to the wan and irritable invalid on the chaise longue.

She wouldn’t listen to Papa, and insisted that her sons had to be properly educated, which meant sending them to Kilbourne. Grandpapa insisted too, though he didn’t go to public school himself. Grandpapa generally has the final say, because he is the provider. Papa calls him the Great Provider. He doesn’t say it in a very Christian way.

The day before Rupert left for school Grandpapa sent him his own gold watch. I loved that watch. When Grandpapa was in a good mood he let me play with the chain and listen to the steady tick. I had always hoped he might one day give it to me.

I expect I will inherit Grandmama’s pearls and her jet locket and her collection of Cairngorm brooches. I’m afraid I think they’re all hideous. Perhaps she will leave them to Beth or Clarrie or little Phoebe instead. I’d much prefer the gold watch.

I hoped it might be thought too precious for Rupert to take to school. I planned to sneak into his room and dangle the watch by my ear, listening to its tick, tick, tick. But Rupert begged to take the watch with him.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rupe,’ said Papa. ‘It’s an enormously expensive timepiece with any number of jewels, according to your grandfather. It will get broken in the hurly-burly of Kilbourne.’

‘But Rupert loves it so, don’t you, darling,’ said Mama. ‘He must take the watch! My father gave it to him because he wanted him to take it to school. I’m sure the other boys will be impressed.’

‘The other boys will think Rupe a show-off,’ said Papa. ‘Why will no one in this family listen to me when I’m the only member with previous experience of public school?’

‘Now who’s being a show-off?’ said Mama, her cheeks going pink.

Papa looked stung. When it comes to boasting about his background he’s the precise opposite of a show-off. Grandmama and Grandpapa had looked down on him at first, but they’d had no inkling that he came from an aristocratic family. I think his cousins might even be lords and ladies. His parents have a huge country house as big as a palace. When I was little, I imagined it like the pictures in my books of fairy tales: high on a hill, all gothic towers, with attics full of servant girls spinning straw into gold, and underground tunnels chock-a-block with goblins mining for jewels. For all I know it really might be like that. I’ve never been there, never met a single one of Papa’s relatives. He fell out with them long ago because of his dissolute conduct with his art-school friends.

Anyway, last week Rupert went off to school with his trunk and tuck box – and the gold watch on a chain in his brocade waistcoat pocket. Once again Papa tried to persuade him that this wasn’t a good idea, but Rupert still wouldn’t listen.

‘What’s the point of having a splendid watch if I can’t wear it, Pa?’ he said.

‘Look, Rupe, I just want you to fit in at school.’

‘I don’t see why you’re getting in such a fuss about it. I’ve never had any problems fitting in with any of the chaps round here.’

It was true. All the boys in the streets around us want to be Rupert’s friends. The girls too, actually. When we play cricket in Kensington Gardens, everyone wants to be on Rupert’s team. He is always the captain. I have always been so proud that he is my brother.

I miss him so. I’ve written to him every single day, but he hasn’t written back to me once. He has simply sent a short note to Mama and Papa, with a tiny afterthought to me: P.S. Say hello to Rose and the others.

You see, not even my own message! I have to share it with my brothers and sisters. I felt like bursting into tears.

‘Don’t pull that face, dear,’ said Mama. ‘You can’t expect Rupert to write you great long letters. He’ll be terrifically busy with his lessons and his sporting activities and his new friends.’

Papa took me to one side. ‘I’m sure Mama is right,’ he said quietly. ‘But I remember writing letters home when I was at Kilbourne. We were crammed into the common room and there was no privacy whatsoever. We were all required to send a brief letter home to the parents, but any boy writing to his sister would have been mocked and ridiculed. Boys can be very harsh with each other, especially when they’re feeling lost and unhappy.’

‘Do you think Rupert will be feeling lost and unhappy?’ I asked.

‘Of course he will. He’ll be missing home desperately. And I know he’ll be missing you especially, Rose, because you matter so much to him,’ said Papa.

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Do you really think so?’

So I wrote Rupert an even longer letter telling him how much I missed him. In fact, on the back of it I attempted a comical picture of our entire family assembled in the garden. It was quite a struggle fitting everyone in. I put Mama reclining on a garden chair with Alphonse on her lap at one end, and Papa at the other end, sketching. I assembled us children in age order, leaving a little gap beside me where Rupert belongs. I drew me waving, Beth clutching her favourite doll, Sebastian holding up his pet mouse, Algie sticking out his tongue, Clarrie making a daisy chain, and Nurse cradling baby Phoebe. I drew the servants standing in a row behind: Mr Hodgson the butler, Mrs Harrison the cook, Edie the parlourmaid, Maggie the housemaid, Jack the boot boy, and little Mary-Jane, the general skivvy. I even put Mistletoe the cat up a tree.

Halfway through my hand started aching terribly, but I carried on as a labour of love. Then I begged an envelope from Papa – a large one so my picture wouldn’t get creased. I addressed it to Rupert at Kilbourne and wrote in capitals on the back STRICTLY PRIVATE AND PERSONAL so that no boys would look at the contents and mock or ridicule him.

I’M NOT MAKING any progress with my sketching. I carry the drawing book around with me so it looks as if I’m applying myself, but the pages remain blank.

Papa saw me with it and smiled. ‘How are you getting on, my dear?’ he asked eagerly.

‘Very well thank you, Papa,’ I said. I couldn’t bear to disappoint him.

‘Can I see?’ he asked, holding out his hand for the book.

‘I’d sooner not show you,’ I mumbled.

‘Don’t worry. I understand perfectly. In fact, I like to keep my own sketches to myself,’ said Papa. ‘Still, is it stopping you missing Rupert so much?’

I shrugged. ‘A little.’

Of course, it is having no effect whatsoever. I’m still missing Rupert terribly. I suppose it’s not surprising. In thirteen whole years we’ve never spent a day apart.

‘I wish you wouldn’t fret so, Miss Rose,’ said Nurse. ‘It’s silly moping after Master Rupert. Anyone would think he was your sweetheart, not your brother.’

Nurse had once had a sweetheart – the under-butler from a grand house. He came courting every Sunday, very red in the face, as if he’d scrubbed himself vigorously with carbolic soap. But Papa’s mama had put a stop to Nurse’s outings because little-boy Papa ran away when the housemaid took him to the park and he wasn’t found until after dark. In those days Nurse was the only one who could control him.

Nurse is long past finding a sweetheart now – if she ever truly had one. She rambles a lot, and sometimes I think she makes things up, though the scrubbed red face sounds convincing enough. Poor old Nurse. She certainly won’t be up to looking after our children when we’re grown up. So what will happen to her?

I asked her if she had any savings, and she said, ‘That’s none of your business, Miss Rose. Ladies never discuss money matters, in any case. Now why don’t you please your papa and do some sketching?’

‘I’d sketch Rupert if he were here,’ I said, sighing.

‘Why don’t you sketch one of your other brothers?’

‘Sketch me!’ Algie demanded.

‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘Who would want to draw an ugly little goblin like you?’

Then he kicked me, and I smacked him, and he roared and then bit me. He ended up in the nursery corner and I was sent to my room in disgrace, which infuriated me.

I lay on my bed in a sulk until I heard a whispery little voice in the corridor going, ‘Montmorency! Come here, Montmorency! Where are you, Montmorency?’

I opened my door. My middle brother, Sebastian, was creeping along the corridor, his long pale hair in his eyes as he peered at the floor.

‘Have you let Montmorency Mouse out again?’ I asked.

‘He was squeaking so in his cage, wanting to be petted,’ said Sebastian. ‘I told him I wasn’t allowed to let him out any more, but he wouldn’t listen. I asked him to be a good boy and not try to escape, and I thought he promised, but when I opened his cage he just darted out of my hands and ran out through the door before I could catch him. I’m so worried that Mistletoe will see him and not understand that he’s part of the family.’

‘Mistletoe hardly ever comes upstairs. And he’s too fat and lazy to bother with Montmorency,’ I said, hoping I was right.

I joined Sebastian on his mouse hunt. Luckily Montmorency hadn’t got far. We found him hiding behind the thick velvet curtains at the landing window. I grabbed him quickly and we got him safely back in his cage.

‘You are a true heroine,’ said Sebastian. ‘We are so grateful, aren’t we, Montmorency?’

‘Grateful enough to keep very still while I sketch you?’ I asked.

‘Well, I can try,’ said Sebastian, adopting a pose.

I tried too, but it didn’t work. Sebastian looked more like my sister than my brother. Still, I suppose he does in real life too.

I knew that Papa would find my portrayal of Sebastian upsetting, even though I hadn’t drawn him lopsided and his limbs looked the right length. Papa prides himself on being open-minded and unconventional, and he doesn’t give a hoot that his family disapprove of him, but he still has rigid ideas where his children are concerned.

‘I want you to be free to express yourself, my chicks!’ he says, but in practice this simply means letting Algie and Clarrie romp about. It doesn’t mean letting Sebastian wear a ribbon in his hair or dress up in Clarrie’s frilly pinafores, as I suspect he would like to. And it certainly doesn’t mean letting me stride about in breeches and boots or go to a proper school like Rupert.

‘Don’t you want me to be educated, Papa?’ I asked him last night, exasperated.

‘Of course I do! That’s why we employ the redoubtable Miss Rayner,’ he said.

I sighed. When I was Clarrie’s age, Miss Rayner had seemed a sparkling diamond mine of information. I learned all about wild beasts in Africa, and Queen Elizabeth, and caterpillars turning into butterflies. I thrilled at the stories of Noah’s Ark and Moses and the Burning Bush and Daniel in the Lions’ Den. I wrote my own little stories about ‘A Day in the Life of a Penny’ and ‘A Robin’s Nest’ and ‘The Naughty Little Puppy’ (Miss Rayner supplied the titles). I added and subtracted and multiplied and divided, and gloried in the ticks and stars on each page of my exercise book.

Miss Rayner praised me unstintingly, which must have been irritating for my siblings, especially Rupert. He’s very clever, but he’s quick and careless and often makes mistakes. I wonder how he’s managing at school. He will badly want to be top of his form.

I am top of Miss Rayner’s class, but there is no competition now that Rupert is away. Sebastian and Algie and Clarrie are much younger than me. And Beth doesn’t attend to lessons at all. She generally sits in a corner and counts, in her own little world.

Poor Beth. I don’t know how to describe my sister. I think she is quite clever, but Mama says she is backward.

Papa hates her using that word. ‘Beth is simply her own splendid, remarkable self,’ he insists.

He tries so hard to make her happy, reading to her and plying her with presents. Beth still cries a great deal. She frequently has tantrums, even though she is a great girl of ten. Nurse has given up trying to chastise her, because Beth just flings herself on the floor and screams and kicks.

I can never make up my mind whether Beth is deliberately naughty or simply can’t help it. I don’t really know her properly, not like my other siblings. I know what she looks like, of course, and I know what sets her off, and I know the few things she likes (dolls, sparkly things, counting, rocking, repeating what we say) and all the things she doesn’t (too many to list). But I don’t know what she’s like inside. She has such a pretty face, with big blue eyes and long shining dark hair, and when she’s still and silent she looks beautiful. But she is usually shouting and struggling or crouching in a corner, head bent, eyes closed, refusing to communicate at all.

Papa is her favourite. She dislikes Mama. I’m afraid she dislikes Nurse too. Beth doesn’t seem to think much of her brothers and sisters either, not even little Phoebe. Rupert can occasionally charm her. She won’t allow any of us to touch her, but she will let Rupert play Round and Round the Garden with her, and when he tickles her she creases up, squirming and spluttering. It’s the only time she ever laughs.

I wondered if she was missing Rupert as much as me and went to see if she felt like talking about him. When I opened the nursery door, she looked up at once, clapping her hands.

‘It’s just me, Rose,’ I said, sure that she had hoped I was Rupert.

‘Rose. Rose, Rose, Rose!’

‘Oh my, someone’s getting a fancy welcome,’ said Nurse. ‘There now, pet, don’t get over-excited.’

She smiled at Beth anxiously. Nurse has always prided herself on being able to control us. She can usually even bring Algie to heel. But Beth defeats her.

‘I’ve never known such a child,’ she complains. ‘There’s no reasoning with her. I never thought I’d be struggling with such a difficult little girl at my age. She brings shame on my nursery. I hardly dare take her out in case she has one of her turns in public.’

Beth has frequent turns in the nursery. She refuses to share and doesn’t play properly. She commandeers all the bricks and won’t build a castle or a row of houses or a fort – she wants to balance them one on top of the other, placing them with exaggerated care, muttering, ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.’ She makes such a performance of this that I can understand why Algie is often tempted to knock her bricks flying.

She likes building towers with books, though she’s strictly forbidden to do this now because when they fall down, the spines break and the pages scatter. But Beth doesn’t just like building with books, she likes to read them too. I used to think she was only pretending she could read. Miss Rayner gave up trying to teach her because she was so disruptive in the classroom. But when I wandered into the night nursery one day, I discovered Beth sitting cross-legged on the floor reading Pilgrim’s Progress. She was truly reading it, muttering passages to herself while pointing along the lines, so engrossed that she didn’t hear me coming in.

I was amazed. I have been reading fluently since I was four and a half and can tackle most adult books now, but I find Pilgrim’s Progress very heavy going. I can never read more than a page or two at a time, though I like the strange illustrations and I’ve pored over the maps of Christian’s journey.

I marvelled that my strange sister could master the story. Perhaps she liked the sound of a City of Destruction. She’s the source of much destruction in our own house, and she’s certainly often stuck in a Slough of Despond.

I knelt down beside her on the rag rug.

‘I was wondering, Beth. Are you missing Rupert?’ I asked her.

‘Rupert,’ said Beth, looking miserable.

‘I’m missing him terribly too. Do you remember – he’s at school now,’ I said.

‘At school now,’ Beth agreed.

‘I wish I could go to school,’ I said.

‘Go to school,’ Beth said, as if she wanted to go too.

‘It’s not fair. We can’t help being girls, can we?’

‘Can we,’ Beth echoed.

‘I wonder if you really understand or whether you’re simply copying me,’ I said, reaching out and gently pulling her long shiny hair.

I didn’t realize that Beth would count this as touching and start moaning and shuddering.

‘Oh no! I’m sorry. Please don’t start. You mustn’t have a turn because Nurse will get cross,’ I said.

‘Nurse will get cross,’ said Beth mournfully.

‘But it’s your fault, Beth. Why do you always have to make such a fuss?’

‘Make such a fuss.’ She stared down at her hands and then started licking her fingers, counting them under her breath. I tried to work out what she was doing.

‘Are you licking yourself clean like Mistletoe?’

‘Like Mistletoe,’ said Beth. She got up and went over to her row of dolls, which were carefully arranged on the windowsill, and started licking their china fingers too. They sat in size order, from the tiniest thumb-size doll’s-house doll up to big Marianne, who had once been mine. I was long past playing with dolls, but when I looked at Marianne’s blonde curls and blue eyes I felt nostalgic. I used to like lying her down so that her eyes shut with a little click and then sitting her up so that they opened and she smiled at me.

‘Dear old Marianne,’ I said, going over to the windowsill too. I remembered when she’d been nearly as big as me. I’d had to drag her around, her toes trailing on the floor. Now I could lift her up and hold her in my arms comfortably.

‘No!’ said Beth, getting agitated because I’d moved Marianne. ‘No, no, no!’ It was the only word she ever initiated.

‘Don’t get her started, Miss Rose,’ said Nurse.

I ignored her. I felt I was getting on famously with Beth today. ‘I think Marianne’s horribly stiff from sitting on that hard windowsill day after day. She wants to have a little walk around,’ I said, demonstrating by moving the doll’s legs. I hoped it would amuse Beth, but it made her even more upset.

‘No, no, no!’ she shouted, trying to wrestle the doll away from me.

‘For goodness’ sake, Beth!’ I said, struggling with her. ‘Careful! Watch out or—’

And then it happened. Marianne fell on the floor and banged her head hard – and her eyes disappeared. They fell right into the depths of her china head and rattled there, leaving two dark scary holes in her face.

Beth screamed. She went on screaming and I couldn’t calm her. Neither could Nurse or Edie or Maggie. Mama couldn’t be disturbed because she was entertaining Lady Mirabelle Robson. She’s an interfering, whiskery old woman with the yellow eyes of a goat, but Mama likes her simply because she’s a Lady.

They sent for Papa instead. He thrust Marianne into a cupboard where Beth couldn’t see her, and then tried to comfort her, but she squirmed and kicked, her eyes closed and her mouth square.

‘Dear, oh dear, what a to-do!’ Nurse said. ‘Really, Miss Beth, you’re going to be the death of me. I’m too old for your tricks. Please stop that screaming, for pity’s sake.’

Beth didn’t seem to have any pity. The more Nurse and Papa and I tried to placate her, the harder she screamed. Edie came back in to say that Mama wanted to see me in the drawing room. Lady Robson had departed rapidly. Mama had the curtains drawn and was lying on her chaise longue, a cologne-soaked handkerchief clutched to her forehead. I could barely make her out in the gloom, but there was no mistaking the anger on her face.

‘Edie told me what happened. How could you upset Beth in such a manner? You’ve ruined that beautiful French doll with your carelessness!’ she said.

‘I didn’t intend to upset Beth. We were having a lovely time until I started to play with her doll. I wanted to amuse her but it just went wrong. I’m terribly sad about Marianne – she was my doll too, and I used to love her enormously. Perhaps we can put a bandage round her eyes, and then she can be like Mr Watts’s painting, the one he calls Hope,’ I said. Papa had taken me to see it and I had secretly thought it rather dreary, but pretended to admire it all the same. ‘Please don’t get so upset, Mama.’ I was trying to be reassuring, but everything I said only seemed to infuriate her.

‘Don’t speak to me in that patronizing manner, Rose! I wish you’d learn your lesson and keep away from Beth – you always upset her. It was particularly embarrassing this afternoon, with Lady Robson visiting. I was hoping she’d invite you to tea with her granddaughter. You really must start making some proper friends, Rose. We were getting along splendidly until Beth started that terrible shrieking. I didn’t know where to look. “What is that banshee wailing?” she said. Those were her exact words. And now I’m sure Lady Robson will tell all her society friends about the incident, and they will think me a terrible mother for having such an uncontrollable child,’ Mama said, mopping her forehead.

‘Well, what do we care about an old nanny goat like Lady Robson!’ I said without thinking.

I got sent to bed, though I was too old for childish punishments and it was only halfway through the afternoon. I decided I didn’t care in the slightest. I read for a long time, until my head started aching too, and then I studied Papa’s book on the great masterpieces of art. Masterpieces. Why are there no Mistresspieces?

I wasn’t even allowed to go down for dinner. Nurse brought me a bowl of bread and milk instead – nursery punishment food. She tutted at me too.

‘Poor Beth!’ she said. ‘She was in such a state! I was worried she’d start fitting. I’m not sure she’s out of the woods yet.’

I lay worrying until, at long last, it was dark and Papa came in to say goodnight.

‘I didn’t mean to upset Beth, Papa,’ I said miserably.

‘I know you didn’t, my pet,’ he said.

‘She will be all right, won’t she, Papa?’

‘Of course she will, silly girl.’

‘Mama was so hurtful. She said I always upset her.’

‘Your mama isn’t very well at the moment.’

‘You always stand up for her, Papa.’

‘That’s my job. I am an English gentleman,’ said Papa, standing up straight and thumping himself on the chest. ‘I stand up for my wife and children.’ He clicked his heels together.

‘Oh, Papa. You’re always joking,’ I said.

He held my chin very gently. ‘Perhaps you should try to joke too, Rose. You take life so seriously. I wish you were a little happier.’

‘I am happy sometimes! I’m just missing Rupert so.’

‘I think we all are.’

‘Beth’s missing him too. Oh, Papa, promise she’s not going to start fitting.’

‘Of course she won’t.’

‘She’s so sad about poor Marianne. We’d better keep her in that cupboard now she looks so upsetting.’

‘I’m going to take her to a doll’s hospital tomorrow,’ said Papa.

‘Is there truly such a thing, or is that another joke?’ I asked.

‘There is, truly, and I have a hunch they’ll be able to help Marianne make a full recovery. If she has to stay in hospital for a long time, I might see if I can find another pretty doll to keep Beth company in the meantime.’

‘You spoil Beth, Papa. In fact you spoil us all.’ I looked at him. I couldn’t see properly by candlelight, but he seemed particularly tired and careworn. I thought of all the tales of Papa’s youth. ‘Do you ever wish you were still single, free to paint as long as you like without a care in the world?’

Papa smiled wistfully. ‘And what should I do with you and all your siblings? Put you in the cupboard with Marianne? Go to sleep now, dear.’

‘I think I’ll go and kiss Beth goodnight and tell her I’m sorry,’ I said.

Papa hesitated. ‘Better not. You don’t want to wake her up if Nurse has got her to sleep at last.’

‘I suppose not,’ I said. I tried to settle, but I kept thinking about Beth. Long after Papa and Mama had gone up to bed I crept out of my room and tiptoed along the corridor to the night nursery, where Nurse was snoring, and Sebastian and Algie and Clarrie were tucked into their little brass cots. At the end was the bed occupied by Beth.

I hovered over her, peering at her in the dark. Her head was deeply buried in her pillow, her hair in a long plait coiled like a snake about her shoulders. I held my breath because she was such a light sleeper. I listened to her breathing. It was soft and regular, such a great relief.

I reached out and very lightly patted Beth’s shoulder. It was the only time I could actually touch her. She stirred and I bit my lip, but she didn’t wake.

‘Sleep well,’ I whispered. Beth murmured something indistinctly, as if she were wishing me the same.

BETH HAS A new nurse. She comes on Lady Robson’s recommendation.

‘My daughter-in-law had a little trouble with my third grandchild, Marmaduke. He was so strong-willed I thought we’d never break his spirit. But I took it upon myself to hire this magnificent trained nurse and, in a matter of weeks, we saw such a difference in the little boy. He became so tranquil, so obedient. I highly recommend Nurse Budd, Mrs Rivers. She will make all the difference to your troubled daughter, I promise you. She comes with the very best references,’ she told Mama.

‘A simple recommendation from you is all the reference she needs, Lady Robson,’ said Mama sycophantically.

She was given Nurse Budd’s particulars, who came straight away. I don’t like her one jot. I feel so guilty because it’s all my fault for upsetting Beth when Lady Robson was here. Nurse Budd is as narrow and rigid as a drainpipe, though she pretends to be a soft, simple creature who loves all children. She refers to her charge as ‘my dear little Beth’. I don’t think Beth is fooled. Neither is Nurse.

‘I don’t care for that Nurse Budd, for all she’s got a special nursing certificate. I don’t like this talk of “training”. I won’t let her beat my Beth. I won’t stand for any child in my nursery being whipped.’

As far as we can tell, Nurse Budd has never raised a finger against Beth. She doesn’t raise her voice either. But Beth’s behaviour has started to improve. I don’t know how she’s done it. Nurse Budd insists on having special quarters for her and her charge, so now they share the big green guest room. Nurse Budd says they need privacy to work on Beth’s training.

I hate not being able to see Beth whenever I want. Nurse Budd scolded me when I burst into their new room without knocking.

‘Now now, Miss Rose. I don’t want you disturbing my Miss Beth,’ she said in a silly, syrupy voice. ‘She’s having a little lie-in. Off you pop now.’

I refused to pop. I was worried about Beth. She scarcely stirred when I talked to her. Her eyelids fluttered and she murmured something, but she wasn’t properly awake.

‘I think you tired her out yesterday, Nurse Budd,’ I said accusingly.

‘Sleep is nature’s remedy, Miss Rose. Miss Beth needs to rest as much as possible. Half her trouble is simply that she’s overtired. Now run along and stop trying to teach me my job. I am a trained nurse, you know.’ She nodded at the certificate she’d pinned up on the wall.

I didn’t know what to do. I went to consult Nurse.

‘There you are, Miss Rose! Dear goodness, you haven’t even brushed your hair yet. Miss Rayner’s in the schoolroom already. Hurry up now. And look at those muddy boots! You didn’t put them out for young Jack to clean.’

‘Who cares about my stupid boots! Nurse, Beth’s still asleep and Nurse Budd doesn’t want to wake her up. Don’t you think she should?’ I asked.

‘I’ve always taken pride in having my lambs up and washed and dressed by eight,’ said Nurse. ‘But that stuck-up Madam Budd clearly has other ideas. Can’t be bothered, most like. And there she is telling me Lady Robson’s daughters have much better-run nurseries.’

‘Come with me to wake Beth up please, Nurse,’ I said.

‘Well, I’ll try,’ she said. ‘But Nurse Budd won’t thank me for interfering.’

We went together, Nurse carrying baby Phoebe on her hip.

‘Oh my goodness, more visitors!’ said Nurse Budd, frowning. ‘Keep quiet now! I don’t want my little patient to wake up before she’s ready. She needs her beauty sleep.’

‘Let me have a look at my Beth,’ said Nurse, refusing to be intimidated. She tried to shake Beth awake. Beth moaned sleepily.

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t wake her like that!’ said Nurse Budd.

‘She looks very flushed,’ said Nurse. She put out her hand and touched Beth’s forehead. ‘She could be feverish.’

Phoebe started whimpering, wanting her milk.

‘Nonsense. She’s simply warm from being tucked up in bed,’ said Nurse Budd. ‘I’d attend to your own charge if I were you. Miss Beth is no longer your responsibility. You couldn’t handle her, could you?’

Beth moaned and drew up her knees as if sensing their hostility in her sleep.

‘Please don’t squabble – you’re upsetting Beth,’ I said.

That made them both pick on me instead, suggesting I should mind my own business. I was sent off to the schoolroom with a flea in my ear.

Miss Rayner’s morning lessons seemed more tedious than ever. She asked me to write a story called ‘Tales of a Bunny Rabbit’ and then to work my way through two pages of long division.

‘A bunny rabbit?’ I said. ‘I’m thirteen years old, Miss Rayner! And I mastered long division when I was eight.’

She blinked at me nervously, but she didn’t tell me off for my outburst. ‘You’re right, Rose,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I’ll set you some more appropriate work.’

She suggested an essay on ‘A Young Lady’s Duties’ and then asked me to add up invented pages of ‘Housekeeping Accounts’. Both tasks were extremely boring. Perhaps the tale of the bunny rabbit would have been preferable.

I’m afraid I didn’t take my new work very seriously. I suggested that, with such tiresome duties, all the young ladies should cast aside their frocks and pinafores forthwith, clothe themselves in sturdy breeches, tie up their treasures in a red spotted handkerchief and stride off to seek their fortunes instead. I scored through poor Miss Rayner’s copperplate accounts of two and three quarter yards of blue ribbon priced at five pence a yard and a dozen and a half yellow roses at a ha’pence a bloom, and suggested that fancy ribbon was superfluous, and buttercups were prettier than roses and could be picked in any meadow for nothing at all.

Miss Rayner sighed. ‘You’re not being very cooperative this morning, dear,’ she said reproachfully.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be horrid to you, Miss Rayner. It’s just that I’m so wretched now that Rupert’s at school and I’m not. I feel so left behind. I’m going to be stuck at home like this for ever and ever,’ I said. I had a lump in my throat and was on the brink of tears.

‘I do understand how you feel, Rose,’ said Miss Rayner. She glanced at the little ones, who were now working on a bunny-rabbit frieze for the nursery wall. Sebastian’s mouse was sitting on his shoulder, daintily nibbling on a chunk of cheese filched from Cook in the kitchen. Seeing that they were all occupied, Miss Rayner sank onto the sofa and patted the cushion next to her.

I sat beside her, though it was a very uncomfortable sofa, demoted from the drawing room. It sagged rather because Algie bounced up and down on it so often.

Miss Rayner patted my hand. ‘There now, Rose. Of course you’re missing Rupert. We all are, he’s such a dear boy. But you mustn’t think that your life is over! My goodness, it’s just beginning! When you’re a year or two older, your mama and papa will find a tutor to teach you a foreign language and give you proper singing and piano lessons so that you become even more accomplished. Before you know it you’ll be seventeen and presented at Court and then, my word, won’t you have a wonderful time going to balls in pretty gowns and meeting dashing young gentlemen.’ Her eyes shone at the thought in a wholly generous manner.

I wondered if Miss Rayner had ever longed for balls and young gentlemen herself. Of course, that would never have been possible. Miss Rayner had been poor, with elderly parents, and when they both died she’d had to scrape a living as a governess. I wouldn’t want to swap places with her. How terrible having to cope with Algie every day! Clarrie can be difficult too, and Sebastian is challenging in his own demure way. And of course I’m a trial nowadays, moping about the house and rebelling in my half-hearted fashion.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Rayner,’ I said. ‘I know I must seem very selfish and spoiled.’