‘And the dress,’ said Alice, ‘the dress must be taken off and put back on its dummy.’

‘I want to keep the dress,’ said Ruth. ‘I want to wear it.’

‘Oh no, no. Whoever heard of such a thing? Such dresses are kept only for the special day, You wouldn’t want to spoil the lovely dress?’ AUce fluttered in astonishment.

Ruth looked at Alice and abruptly radiated a beam of pure hatred.

Of course, she had been baulked. No Adamus, and now no dress. They were stripping her role from her. Another child would have thrown a tantrum, but this child had learned early that to make a fuss gained nothing.

Whatever else, Alice cringed before Ruth’s eyes. She turned to Peter and besought him, ‘It’s always been done. She doesn’t know. Do you remember when Jessica tore her dress and it had to be stitched as she wore it, sewn on around her, and then cut again to get it off.’

Peter nodded.

Ruth said, ‘It’s only an old dress.’

She shocked them. They were used to seeing her as a child but receiving the replies of a responsive adult. They did not know what to do.

Rachaela said, ‘All good things come to an end.’

Ruth glanced at Rachaela. She had never looked for anything good from Rachaela, and so did not hate her for providing nothing good.

Everyone left the table, and some of the old women took Ruth away to denude her of her finery.

It was three in the morning.

In the drawing room Rachaela approached Anna.

‘You should have reassured Ruth. She’ll see him tomorrow, for the usual piano lesson.’

Anna embroidered a peacock.

‘But she won’t, Rachaela. He won’t be teaching her any more. Jack has repaired and re-tuned the piano in the music room. Ruth can practise there.’

‘So he’s tired of the novelty already,’ said Rachaela. A warm pain lit up the centre of her body.

‘He doesn’t communicate easily,’ said Anna, as she had once said before. The last weeks have been something of a strain for him.’

‘You used him to seduce her,’ Rachaela said, ‘not literally perhaps, but fundamentally all the same.’

‘Ruth will have to be patient.’

‘For three years? Ruth is eleven. Three years will seem a very long time.’

‘Ruth is Scarabae.’

‘So you keep saying.’

‘It is a fact.’

Rachaela turned and went out of the room. The first thread had been pulled from the scarlet tracery. Now all the rotten fabric might come undone.

Rachaela the witness watched Ruth the betrothed.

The days grew very hot and the shut house was like an oven, burning colours coming in from its windows, an airless bath of dyes.

The Scarabae went to ground in their dyed rooms, lying in their chairs, hunted by their enemy the sun.