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  The doorbell rang and a minute later Mary appeared to summon Mamma. With a sigh, she put down her mending.

  As soon as she left the room, I said, "Let me play, Tom. I know what to do." I'd been secretly practising, doing it the right way, with the thumb, just as Tom said.

  "Pooh, I doubt it. Girls can't play marbles."

  I glared at him. He was always saying things like that. "Well, I can. Look, I'll show you." And I joined him on the floor.

  When Mamma returned, Tom and I were in the middle of a fierce argument.

  "I hit it, so it's mine," I said.

  "No you didn't," said Tom.

  "I did."

  "Caw, caw, Miss Beaky!"

  Tom knew that nickname annoyed me. He always said my nose looked just like a crow's beak.

  "That will do!" said Mamma. "If you can't play without squabbling, the marbles will be put away." She didn't come back to her seat by the fire, but went over to her writing desk and started sorting through some papers.

  She hadn't forbidden me to play marbles so I seized the disputed one, with a triumphant glare at my brother. Tom frowned but, glancing at Mamma, he didn't say anything. I knew he was angry, but I didn't care. At least he wasn't ignoring me.

  We played on in silence, until at last Mamma closed the bureau lid. "Time for bed, Louisa. Make sure you pick up all your toys."

  We started gathering up the marbles. I'd given up arguing about the unfairness of having to go to bed before Tom—I knew that Mamma would say: "When you are ten like Tom, you can stay up longer."

  "What is your doll doing on the floor, Louisa?" Mamma's tone was sharp.

  I started guiltily. I'd forgotten about Evelina. I picked her up. And then I saw it.

  "Oh!"

  "What's the matter?" Mamma bent to look.

  One side of Evelina's face, the side that had been nearest the fire, had melted: from the corner of her eye, her face sagged in folds, her red cheek had slipped and her mouth was distorted into a grimace. Tom pushed in to look and I pressed Evelina to my chest. I didn't want him to see.

  There was a horrible silence.

  Mamma said, "Oh, Louisa, how could you be so careless! The doll is ruined. And it was so expensive."

  She pried the doll out of my arms. Studying its face again, she shook her head. Then she said, more to herself than to me, "What will your aunt say?"

  I started to cry. I didn't want Aunt Phyllis to suppose I was ungrateful. And what would Grace think of me?

  Through my sobs, I watched Mamma, waiting for her to pronounce sentence.

  At last she said to me, "Go to your room and wait for me to come."

  As I went past Tom, unseen by Mamma, he stuck his tongue out at me, gloating.

  In my bedroom, I waited for Mamma, wondering what my punishment would be. She came in looking grave, but she didn't mention Evelina. I undressed, washed and put my nightgown on, while Mamma watched. I said my prayers and climbed into bed, then waited to hear what my punishment would be.

  "Tomorrow you will stay in your room. You can contemplate what your thoughtlessness has led to and resolve to be more careful in future."

  I let out my breath. Not too bad.

  Looking at me sadly, Mamma said, "Goodnight, Louisa." She didn't kiss me.

  As soon as we were alone, I told Annabel what had happened.

  "It's that stupid doll's fault. Fancy being made of wax."

  I kissed Annabel's dear cloth face and hugged her until I fell asleep.

  ***

  I stared at Evelina. Her black eyes, unblinking, stared back at me out of her ruined face. I sighed. What would Grace say if she could see her?

  To distract myself from my uncomfortable thoughts, I looked about for something to do. Evelina and Annabel lay on the bed, side by side.

  "Aren't you glad you've not got a lacy dress on?" I said to Annabel. "It would be so hard to keep clean."

  She smiled back at me.

  I turned back to Evelina, an idea forming in my mind. Papa had told me about scientists, people who asked questions about the world and investigated it to find out what it was like. I wanted to be a scientist, to find out what Evelina was like.

  Picking the doll up, I untied her bonnet and laid it down. Then I started to examine her dress. It was fastened with tiny hooks and eyes. I undid them and pulled off the dress. She was wearing a pair of cotton drawers. I took those off too. Her body and the tops of her arms and legs were made of cloth, stuffed with something soft.

  "She's just like you underneath," I told Annabel.

  The bottom half of her arms and legs were made of kid leather, like my best shoes. I studied her face. Where the wax had melted I could see something else underneath. I looked round the room. I needed a knife. Tom's penknife. He wasn't allowed to carry it about with him, so it must be in the nursery.

  I opened the door and listened. I couldn't hear anything. As fast as I could, I tiptoed along the landing, into the nursery, and opened the drawer where Tom kept his treasures, all jumbled together. The knife was there, half-hidden under magnifying glass and a lump of sealing wax. I seized it and ran back to my room.

  My heart was thudding and I had to wait a moment until my hands felt steady. Then I opened the knife carefully. I picked up Evelina and laid her on top of my chest of drawers. I hesitated: it seemed cruel to plunge the knife into her head but I told myself not to be silly.

  "I don't love her like I love you," I said to Annabel. "And Papa said scientists have to be bold sometimes."

  I put the tip of the blade against her forehead and pushed. It went in easily. I cut along above the eyebrows and down the right side of her face, making a flap which I pulled open. The wax was just a coating. Inside was a lining of papier-mache.

  The eyes were glass balls. I pulled one out. It was like a marble. I extracted the other one, too.

  Having gone this far, I thought I might as well continue. I cut the arms and legs off at the elbows and knees, where the kid leather covering ended. Next, I split open the body from top to bottom. The stuffing started to come out. It was stiff and dark: I thought it was horsehair.

  There was no more to see.

  "Well," I said to Annabel. "What shall we do now?"

  The door opened.

  "It's time to wash your hands for—Oh, Miss Louisa! Whatever have you done!" Mary's shocked face peered down at me, and the remains of what had been Evelina scattered across my bedcover. I swallowed. There was going to be trouble.

  ***

  "What did you think you were doing?" Papa looked at me gravely. He was sitting at his desk in his study, which was also his consulting room. The smell of tobacco smoke and medicines tickled my nose.

  I wriggled uncomfortably.

  Mamma had been speechless when she saw what I'd done. She'd stared at my handiwork, while I waited for her to say something, my heart thumping like a drum. Eventually, she'd looked at me and said very quietly, "I don't understand you, Louisa. I don't understand you at all." Her voice was like a grey shadow and I felt more frightened than if she'd shouted.

  She'd left me sitting on my bed all day until Papa came home.

  He was still waiting for an answer.

  "I—" I faltered. "I wanted to see—" I stopped.

  "What?"

  "I was being a scientist. I wanted to see how the doll was made."

  Papa had an odd expression on his face, as if he'd swallowed something too quickly. After a moment he coughed and said, "But you've ruined a very expensive present."

  "It was spoiled anyway!" For a moment I felt almost cheerful. And then I remembered it was my fault the doll was spoilt in the first place. I hung my head. Papa was hardly ever angry, but this was different. This was very bad.

  "Louisa." Papa's tone was quite unexpected. I looked up at him. "What are we going to do with you?" He was shaking his head and almost— smiling?

  I was mystified.

  Papa coughed again. Now his face was serious. "So—for your punishment..
."

  I waited, holding my breath.

  "I think you should write a letter to your Aunt Phyllis, telling her what you've done."

  I swallowed. "All of it?"

  Papa nodded. "Yes, every bit of it. You can write it now." He stood up.

  I thought of sitting at the big table where we did our lessons and trying to write the letter, with Tom watching me and laughing.

  "Papa—"

  "Mmm?"

  "May I write it at your desk?"

  He looked down at me for a moment, then patted my head.

  "Yes, you may."

  I sat down in his chair with the carved wooden back. My feet didn't reach the ground. He pulled the silver inkpot towards me and put a piece of paper in front of me.

  "Be sure to use your best handwriting."

  "I will, Papa."

  He went out of the study. I heard Mamma speaking to him in the hall and I tiptoed over to the door and put my ear against it. I heard Papa say, "But it was just natural curiosity, Amelia, not naughtiness."

  Mamma replied, "You're too indulgent with her, Edward.

  It's not good for her to think she can do as she likes."

  The parlour door closed and I couldn't hear any more so I went back to the desk. I stared at the three wooden owls on Papa's pipe-rack. They stared back. I dipped the pen in the inkpot and bent over the paper.

  "Dear Aunt Phyllis—"

  I sighed. This was going to be very hard.

  Weeks ushers me into a high-ceilinged, narrow room with a stone floor. It has a row of windows like slits, high up in one wall, and along the opposite wall are shelves stacked with linen. A musty smell pricks my nose, a smell of unwashed clothes and damp.

  Weeks gestures towards a wooden bench. "Get undressed."

  I stare at her, too astonished to speak.

  "You must have a bath."

  "But I'm quite clean."

  Weeks frowns. "It's the procedure." She has a London accent but speaks in a strange, slightly stilted way, as if she's trying to sound like a lady.

  "But I'm not dirty. I—" I see the look in her eyes. She's not that much older than me, I am at least a head taller, yet I don't dare to defy her.

  My hands move of their own accord, taking off my gloves and my hat. I hesitate and Weeks nods at the bench where I lay them down with my wrap. I turn my back on her, unbutton my bodice and step out of my skirts. All the time, a small voice in my head is saying, Why are you doing this? You don't have to do this. But I have the feeling that if I don't do what I'm told, something bad will happen...

  "All of your clothes, Miss Childs."

  She is not speaking to me.

  She is speaking to me.

  I undo my corset slowly, hook by hook. I've always hated its whalebone ribs but now I don't want to lose its protection. When the last hook is released, I hold the corset to me for a moment before dropping it on the bench. I take off my petticoats, unlace my boots and pull them off, rolling down my black stockings. When I have nothing on but my drawers and chemise, I stop.

  "Those too." Her voice is expressionless, but her eyes insist.

  Naked, I turn at last, my hands across my breasts. There is nowhere to hide.

  "Give me your jewellery." She's looking at my locket and my jet ring. I cover them protectively.

  "Come, I must have them."

  "But I never take them off. They mean a lot to me."

  She frowns. "All the more reason for me to keep them safely for you."

  I hesitated and she takes a step towards me. What is she going to do? Take them from me by force?

  Reluctantly, I undo the clasp of the locket, slip the ring from my finger.

  "And have you any money? Or a watch?"

  I nod.

  "I must keep them for you too."

  "What if I need some money?" My voice is too loud. It bounces off the walls.

  "You may keep a few shillings. You don't need much money here, for there's nothing to spend it on." Her mouth twists in a spiteful smile.

  I won't be needing much because I won't be here for long.

  I fumble at my gown, unpinning my watch. A gift from Papa. Papa...

  Weeks takes the watch and my purse and counts out some coins. She lays them on the bench. "When you need some more, I will give it to you."

  She doesn't know that sewn into the waistband of my gown are some folded notes, a precaution Mamma insisted on before I ventured out into the dangerous world.

  "What about my box?"

  "It's quite safe. If you want anything from it, you only have to ask."

  I stare at her. I don't believe her. I open my mouth to say something, but a shiver shakes me.

  "You are cold, Miss Childs. Come for your bath."

  ***

  Under Weeks's watchful eye, I sit in a few inches of greenish water and soap myself with carbolic. Afterwards I dry myself as best as I can on a thin towel the size of a napkin. Back in the room where I left my clothes I go to put them on but Weeks stops me.

  "Your clothes will have to be marked with your name."

  I stare at her. "But I—"

  A flash from her dark eyes and my voice falters.

  Don't antagonise her. You don't know what she might do.

  She continues as if I haven't spoken. "You'll get them back. In the meantime, you may borrow some."

  She hands me a set of underclothes then glances at the watch fastened to her bodice by a chain. Her lips tighten. I try to hurry, my fingers fumbling with tapes and fastenings. With each garment, I feel stranger and stranger. Bit by bit, I am losing more of myself. Soon I won't exist.

  At the bottom of the pile, I find a flannel nightdress and one pocket handkerchief.

  Weeks goes to the cupboard and takes out a dark dress. Involuntarily my hand goes towards my gown then I stop myself.

  Don't give the game away. The money might still be safe.

  The dress Weeks gives me is made of coarse cloth, linsey-wolsey, perhaps. I draw it over my head, smell someone's else's perspiration. Whoever it was, she was larger than me; even buttoned up, the bodice hangs on me in folds, the high neck is loose, the sleeves flap at the wrists.

  "This is too big."

  "Better that, than too small," says Weeks, tartly.

  She gives me a cap. I take it reluctantly—I hate having my hair covered, but I can see from her expression that I have no choice. When I've put it on, for the first time she gives a thin smile of approval.

  ***

  More corridors. Through an open door comes the hiss of hot metal meeting damp cloth and I glimpse women wielding irons amongst piles of linen in a laundry. Next door, in clouds of steam, more women, red-faced and with bare arms, are thumping possers in vast coppers. The smell of carbolic follows us.

  Another locked door. When Weeks opens it we are in a different world. A carpeted hallway stretches in front of me with wicker chairs set at intervals, pots of ferns between them. On one side is a row of doors, on the other a long stretch of windows overlooks the grounds. The silence is thick, as if everything is holding its breath. And then a sound shivers the air, a low keening from somewhere close by. The hairs rise on my neck but Weeks takes no notice. She beckons me towards a door. "This is where you'll sleep."

  In the weak daylight I see five iron beds with neat white covers spaced out on the linoleum. They are all empty. If this is a hospital, where are the patients?

  Above each bed is a shelf. Weeks gestures at the nearest bed. "Yours," she says coolly.

  Mine. But I don't belong here. Now is the moment to speak.

  But I don't. What is preventing me? I am caught up in events I can't control; it's like being trapped in a nightmare where you try to cry out but no sound comes out of your mouth.

  With a touch on my arm, Weeks signals that we are to move on.