‘As you like,’ Lou said.

Leaving mother and daughter to their coffee, Lou made her way into the deserted hall. But just short of the stairs, a movement in another downstairs room caught her attention. Edward was slumped in a chair beside a billiard table, his head in his hands. Mrs Hart perched on the arm of the chair.

‘Oh, my darling, what is wrong? This is so unlike you,’ Mrs Hart said. ‘You seemed so happy this morning when we were out on our walk. What can have changed in these few short hours? Has something occurred to make you feel lost, is that it? You must find something to occupy your time. It’s not enough for you to stay around the house all day. Why don’t you write to your old headmaster? I am sure he would be only too happy to have a bright young man like you on the staff at Harrow.’

‘It’s not that.’ Edward shook his head. He took his hands from his face, removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s … it’s … I can’t eat, I know I shan’t be able to sleep. I can’t bear it. I don’t want to live anymore.’

‘Please, my darling,’ Mrs Hart said, ‘don’t talk so. You make me fear for you.’

‘She’s gone. We were supposed to meet in the library. I went looking for her in all of the places where she might be. She’s gone. I can feel it.’

‘Who, Edward? Who has gone?’

With a sob, Edward collapsed on to Mrs Hart’s shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and held him as he wept.

In an attempt to put a stop to this young man’s pain, Lou closed her eyes. Since this was her dream, surely, she should have some level of control over it? But when she opened her eyes, she saw that Edward was still there, his tears darkening the shoulder of his aunt’s dress. Gathering up her skirt, Lou ran up the stairs to her room. She had barely caught her breath when Sally appeared to help her undress. Lou sat listless as she was unpinned, unfastened, unhooked, and a heavy linen nightdress was slipped over her head. When she proved unresponsive to conversation, Sally diplomatically fell silent. Like a child, Lou gave in to Sally’s tender kindness. She was clearly a nurse whose responsibility it was to administer care.

After Sally left, Lou lay in the darkness, the orange embers of the dying fire glowing in the hearth. Eyes open, eyes closed, all she could see was Dean and Stephen sitting at the kitchen table that morning. Like Edward, Dean had seemed so lost, his heart breaking. In the real world, were her brothers sitting beside her hospital bed, talking to her, willing her to wake from her coma? Or were they thinking how, in the long run, it would be better for them all if she never woke up again?

She rolled on to her side and hugged her knees to her chest. She didn’t deserve this dream world where she dressed in fine clothes and feasted on fluffy biscuits and melon balls. Of course, it was all just her overactive imagination reacting to the drugs, taking her to the kind of world she had always wanted to inhabit. She was escaping – if only for as long as she remained in this dream – while her brothers were left at home. They were the ones who deserved a holiday from the awful lives she had thrust them into. It was her fault that Mum was dead, and here she was, escaping the fallout. Guilt churned in her stomach like curdling cream. That was the single thing she would never escape. Guilt. It would follow her wherever she went, even into her dreams.