Rosa saw that she had fallen behind the group and hastened to catch them up. She emerged from the hedgerow and found herself in the middle of the supper booths. They were located in a grove of plum trees, their slim trunks topped with bursting crowns of flowering blossoms that shone with a vibrant light of their own against the deep winter sky. There was every possible shade of purple there – swirls of amethyst, speckles of periwinkle and bold strokes of violet. There were several signs warning guests not to eat the plums themselves.

Please beware: one does not consume the plums – the plums consume you.

There was a cluster of tables covered in pristine white cloths and laid out for tea, set in the snow within the orchard. Strangely, a whole canopy of parasols hung from the branches of the trees, attached by their opened-out tops, creating a ceiling of silk and lace, walnut handles and velvet tassels. There were folding-handled carriage parasols and gentlemen’s walking umbrellas, children’s black mourning umbrellas and cream lace bridal brollies.

It was an odd sight, and Rosa wondered what the point of them could be. It was far too cold to rain, after all, and they would prevent the person seated at the table from looking up at the purple blossoms. Perhaps, at last, she’d found a design flaw in Beatrice’s garden, but it hardly detracted much.

Great blooms of strange blue flowers surrounded the supper booths, rising up on stalks almost as tall as a person, their heads leaning down towards the tables slightly, as if they meant to eavesdrop on the conversations. Shafts of purple light pushed through between the gaps in the parasols, shining like spotlights upon a stage, and several more of the white spiders she’d seen previously spun their golden webs between the umbrellas.

Now that she could see them more clearly, Rosa realised that the webs were far more intricate than ordinary ones, with the most exquisite designs woven into them, as if the spiders were artists and the spider thread was their paint, creating artwork just as remarkable as those adorning the booths at Vauxhall. Many of the webs had intricate flower designs, but there were a few that had tried something different: a lady’s winter gown, a castle, a reindeer, a star, a sleigh decked out in ribbons and bells.

Most of the guests were already seated, but a waiter was just showing one couple to their table when the lady noticed the webs and gave a whinny of distaste. Her companion promptly used his cane to destroy the web – which had contained a detailed image of a tiger – and the spider fell to the floor, narrowly missing getting stamped on as it hurried away in search of cover.