“Are you? Golly.” She looked at me in silence then said, “At least you’re young and pretty and healthy. Someone will marry you. No one will ever want to marry me.”

“Oh, surely—you mustn’t think like that.”

She tossed her head proudly. “Who’d want to marry a penniless cripple?”

“You may walk again.”

“Mummy has heard about a doctor in Switzerland who can work miracles with cripples like me, but it costs an awful lot of money and Uncle Cedric won’t pay for it.” She turned to stare out of the window. “So there’s no hope, really.”

I wanted to say something encouraging but I couldn’t think of any words that would ring true to her. I was in a similarly hopeless situation myself, except that I could still use my legs and I did have Darcy.

Suddenly she leaned forward as a man came running up the hill toward the house. He was dressed like a countryman—old corduroy trousers, a jacket patched at the elbows, a shapeless cloth cap on his head and big boots. When he came close to the house he stopped and looked up at it, frowning. As we watched, the butler came out to him. We couldn’t hear voices but the young man was obviously in a state of great agitation. He waved his arms a lot while the butler tried to put a calming hand on the man’s shoulder. He shrugged it off, turned away and stomped off down the driveway.

“What was that all about, I wonder,” I said.

Sissy shook her head. “I’ve no idea. I couldn’t see him clearly but I think it looked like William, who was one of the footmen here. He was very angry, wasn’t he?”

We went on talking for a while, about how she’d loved to ride and hunt and the ways that she filled her days since the accident. “Mr. Carter tries to teach us science, of course,” she said. “Nick and Kat are quite keen on doing horrid chemistry experiments but I’m useless.”

Her loves were literature, languages and painting. She showed me some of her watercolors, which were good.

“You should show these to your uncle,” I said. “He sees himself as a patron of the arts.”

She laughed. “Oh, I’m afraid my tame little efforts are not what would impress him at all. He likes modern art with great splotches of color. You know, they look like a spilled nursery meal. Or what he really likes is to take strange photographs of people’s nostrils or toes.”

There was a tap on the door as we watched Cedric and his retinue return to the house, and in came a well-padded and pleasant-looking nanny.

“Ready for your tea, Miss Sissy?” she asked, then stopped. “Oh, I see you’ve got company. How lovely for you.”

“This is Lady Georgiana, Nanny. She’s going to be staying here.”

“What a treat,” Nanny said. She turned to me. “Miss Sissy gets awfully lonely stuck up here.”

“I suppose there is no lift to take you downstairs?”