Morning was only beginning to colour the garden. The house was still dark, except for a single wavering light in the topmost window above the kitchen. If Lizzie looked out, she would see me. I could almost feel the weight of the trunk as I dragged it from under her bed.

But Lizzie and the trunk were as far away as Scotland. Not seeing them before I left would be my punishment.

April 1898

Da visited Cauldshiels during the Easter break. He’d had a letter from his sister, my real aunt. She was concerned about me. Had I always been so reserved? She remembered me differently, full of questions. She was sorry she had not visited earlier—it was difficult—but she’d noticed bruises across the backs of my hands, both of them. Hockey, I’d said. Rubbish, she wrote to Da.

He told me all this on the train back to Oxford. We ate chocolate, and I told him I never played hockey. I looked over his shoulder at my reflection in the darkened window of the carriage. I looked older, I thought.

Da was holding both my hands in his, and his thumbs were circling my knuckles. The bruises on my good hand had faded to a sickly yellow, barely visible, but there was a red welt across the back of my right hand. The puckered skin always took longer to heal. He kissed them and held them against his wet cheek. Would Da keep me? I was too scared to ask. Your mother would know exactly what to do, he’d say, and then he’d write to Ditte.

I took my hands from his, then lay down along the carriage seat. I didn’t care that I was as tall as an adult. I felt as small as a child, and I was so tired. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. Da draped his coat over me. Pipe tobacco, darkly sweet. I closed my eyes and inhaled. I hadn’t known I’d been missing it. I pulled the coat closer, buried my face in its scratchy wool. Beneath the sweet was sour. The smell of old paper. I dreamed I was under the sorting table. When I woke, we were in Oxford.

Da didn’t wake me the next day, and it was late afternoon when I finally came down the stairs. I thought to spend the hours before dinner in the warmth of the sitting room, but when I opened the door I saw Ditte. She and Da were seated on either side of the hearth, and their conversation froze when they saw me. Da repacked his pipe and Ditte came over to where I stood. Without any hesitation she wrapped her heavy arms around me, trying to fold my gangly frame into her stout one. As if she still could. I was rigid. She let go.