She shakes her head abstractedly. The dull brocade of her dress clings to her knees and ankles and above that she is naked as the moon, her nipples the most delicate azure against her powdery skin.

‘I can only see you once a week,’ she says patiently. ‘Only on Thursdays. Only here.’

‘Why?’ Anger spills out from me like acid. ‘I pay you, don’t I? Where do you go for the rest of the week? Who do you go with?’

Flawed Columbine smiles gently among her damp ringlets.

‘But I love you!’ Hapless now, clinging to her thin arm tight enough to raise bruises, and hungry, so hungry. ‘I lo-ove…’ (Revelation.) ‘I love you!’

A shift in the light; chloral eyes reflecting my pleading face. Her head tilts slightly, like a child listening.

Flatly she says: ‘No. You don’t love me. Not enough. Not yet.’

She cuts off my anguished negative with a gesture, beginning to pull on her discarded dress with graceless grace, like a spoilt child dressing up in Mother’s clothes. ‘You will, Henry,’ she says softly. ‘Soon you will.’

For a long time I am alone in this blue room, coiled tightly around my longing. She has left a silk scarf lying on the floor at my feet; I crush it and twist it in my hands as some primitive in me would like to crush and twist her pale throat…but Scheherazade has gone with her wolves at heel.

Marta. Marta. Marta! I could drive myself mad with that name. Marta, my penny succubus; my waxing, waning moonchild. Where do you go, my darling? To some dim underwater crypt where undines drift? Some stone circle, to dance till dawn with the other witches? Or do you go to the riverside with your mouth painted red and your dress cut low? Do you roll in filthy alleys with the dregs and the cripples? What do you want of me, Marta? Tell me what it is and I’ll give it to you. Whatever it is.

Whatever.

We were alone together, quite alone as Henry rattled about the house like a grain in a gourd, knowing only his own wan dreams…We were alone together.

She followed me like a flawed reflection in a cat’s eye, pale retinal imprint of myself, whispering to me in the dark. Marta, my sister, my shadow, my love. At night we talked softly underneath the blankets, like children full of secrets; by day she followed me invisibly, taking my hand under the dinner-table, murmuring reassuring words into my ears. I did not see Mose-he thought that our meeting might be dangerous to his plans-but I was not lonely. Nor was I afraid: we had accepted each other, she and I. For the first time in my life I had a friend.

I faked illness so that we could be together, taking laudanum and pretending to sleep. My dreams were magical ships with sails like wings high in the clear air. For the first time in years I felt free of that hateful, anguished edifice of guilt Henry had constructed around me, free of Henry, free of myself. I was clear as glass, pure as spring water. I opened the windows of my chamber and felt the wind whistle through me as if I were a flute…

‘Why, ma’am!’

Tabby’s voice jolted me from my euphoric reverie and I turned, feeling suddenly dizzy and shaken. She put down the tray she was carrying and ran towards me; in the abrupt doubling of my vision I could see she was shocked and concerned. Her arms locked around me, and for a moment I thought she was Fanny, come to take me home, and I began to cry again.

‘Oh, ma’am!’ Supporting me with one arm around my waist she half carried me towards the bed. ‘Just you lie down here for a minute, ma’am. I’ll have you right in no time.’ Clucking to herself in tones of dismay she had the window closed in an instant and was heaping blankets over me before I could say a word. ‘Fancy standing there in the cold, with hardly a stitch on-you’ll catch your death, ma’am, your death! Just think what Mr Chester would say if he knew-and you’re so light, just like a feather; you don’t eat enough, not half enough, ma’am, why, just-’

‘Please, Tabby!’ I interrupted with a little laugh. ‘Don’t worry so much. I feel quite recovered now. And I like the fresh air.’

Tabby shook her head vehemently. ‘Not that nasty blustery air, you don’t, ma’am, begging your pardon. It’s fatal to the lungs, just fatal. What you need is a nice cup of chocolate and some food, not what that Dr Russell of Mr Chester’s says, but some real old-fashioned country food-’

‘Dr Russell?’ I tried to keep the edge from my voice, but I heard my words rising shrilly, helplessly: ‘He said he wouldn’t send for a doctor! I’m quite well, Tabby. Quite well.’

‘Don’t take on so, ma’am,’ said Tabby comfortably. ‘I dare say Mr Chester was anxious about you, and called for the doctor for advice. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.’

‘Oh yes, Tabby, you should. You were quite right to tell me. Please, what did the doctor say? When did he come?’

‘Oh, yesterday, ma’am, when you were asleep. I don’t rightly know what he said, seeing as Mr Chester talked to him alone in the library, but he just told me to make sure you kept taking your drops, and to give you plenty of hot drinks and light food. Chicken broth and jelly and the like. But to my mind’-here her face darkened again-‘it’s good nourishing food you need, nice puddings and red meat and maybe a glass of stout with it. That’s what you need, not broth and jelly. That’s what I told Mr Chester.’

‘Henry…’ I murmured, trying to quell my agitation. What did it matter that he had spoken to the doctor? Soon it would be too late for him to do anything. All I had to do was to stay calm, not to give him any excuse for dissatisfaction. Soon Mose would be ready to put his plan into action. Till then…

(Shhh…sleep. Shhh…)

Tabby was holding out a cup of chocolate. ‘Shhh, ma’am. You drink this and lie down. It’ll do you a power of good.’

I forced myself to take the cup.

‘And your drops? Have you taken them yet, ma’am?’

In spite of myself I smiled. The thought of not taking them was, suddenly, hilariously funny. I nodded, still smiling. ‘You’ll have to go to the chemist’s soon, Tabby, to buy some more. I’ve almost finished the bottle.’

‘Of course I will, ma’am,’ replied Tabby reassuringly. ‘I’ll go this very morning, don’t you fret. Now you drink that chocolate and I’ll bring you up some breakfast.’ With mock severity: ‘And see that you try to eat some of it this time!’ I nodded again, closing my eyes as a sudden wave of weariness broke over my aching head. I heard the door close after her and in a moment I opened my eyes again. Tizzy jumped lightly on to the coverlet beside my hand and I reached out mechanically to stroke her. Purring, she came to curl up on the pillow as close to me as she could manage and for a time we both slept.

I awoke to find my cup of cold chocolate and Tabby’s promised breakfast tray beside me on the bedstand. Tea-long since gone cold-and toast with bacon and scrambled eggs. I must have slept for at least an hour. I poured the tea out of the window and gave the eggs and bacon to Tizzy, who ate them with delicate relish-at least poor Tabby would be pleased that for once my plate would not be sent back untouched. I dressed myself in an old grey housedress, pushing back my hair under a white cap; then I washed my face, noting in the mirror how pale and worn I looked. Even my eyes seemed colourless, and the bones in my face seemed to stand out with unaccustomed sharpness beneath the severe cap. I didn’t care. I never thought of myself as beautiful, even in the days when I was Mr Chester’s Little Stunner. Marta was always the pretty one. Not me.

Henry was at his studio as usual: he was spending almost all his time there nowadays. The Card Players was finished and had already received praise from Ruskin-he had recommended that Henry exhibit the painting at the Royal Academy, and had promised to write a glowing article on Henry for the newspapers-but Henry seemed distant, almost uninterested in the whole thing. He told me he was working on a different project now, a large canvas entitled Scheherazade, but he was oddly reticent about it. In fact I noticed that he was reticent about everything: our meals were eaten mostly in silence, the sounds of cutlery against china horribly amplified in the echoing dining-room. Several times I pleaded indisposition to avoid these terrifying meals, Henry chewing, my nervous fingers tapping my glass, my voice scratching at the silence in a desperate attempt to break it. A few times Henry emerged from his blank contemplation to launch into a violent, unsolicited tirade and for the first time I actually understood Henry Chester: I knew that he hated me with a bleak, hatefully intimate passion beyond reason or logic, something as elemental and unconscious as a swarm of wasps mindful only of the overpowering urge to sting…And in my new-found understanding I realized something else: Henry didn’t know that he hated me. It was latent in him, something which grew in darkness, biding its time…I hoped Mose would act soon.