Burnt Norton by Caroline Sandon Page B

had gone, Thomas caught up with his sister. ‘What’s going on? Why do I sense an atmosphere?’
    ‘I’m not aware of anything,’ Dorothy replied evasively.
    While Thomas went to his room, she collected a coat and shawl and took refuge in the garden. She leant against the wall, letting tears of self-pity and frustration stream down her face. It seemed that even now, after well over two years of absence, her brother’s thoughts went first to Molly Johnson. She looked up as the back door opened.
    Her father came outside dressed only in his shirtsleeves, his eyes like a madman’s. He grabbed an axe from the woodpile and disappeared towards the wild garden. Dorothy couldn’t help but follow.
    Outside the white gate the woodland he had planted only two years before flourished. The fifty saplings had survived their first harsh winters, but they would not survive Sir William’s self-loathing. He lifted his axe and drove it into his precious trees. Dorothy watched in horror until he finally exhausted himself and sank to his knees amongst the ruin.
    Dorothy tiptoed back through the gate until she was certain her father couldn’t hear her, and then she started to run. She didn’t stop until she reached the sanctuary of her bedroom.
    Molly had longed and prayed for Thomas’s return, but now she hid in the shadows. When he came near her that evening, she tried to slink away, but he caught her arm.
    ‘Molly, you evade me. Come, and let us talk.’
    ‘No, sir, I have to go,’ she answered, aware of his new masculinity: the rich voice, the shadow on his chin.
    ‘You did not answer my letters. Don’t you care for me? Have I no hope?’
    As she hurried away from him, she wondered what he meant. ‘What letters?’ she whispered. ‘There were no letters.’
    That evening, Thomas joined Elizabeth and Dorothy on the half-landing. Elizabeth was wearing a white dress, her fair hair secured with combs. ‘You look beautiful, Lizzie.’
    ‘Thank you, Thomas.’ She pointed to her shadow moving on the wall behind her. ‘Can you see my shadow floating?’
    ‘I certainly can,’ he replied, kissing her forehead.
    ‘I think that when I die it will be like that. I shall be free at last.’
    ‘Don’t talk of death. You are still so young.’
    ‘Forgive me, Thomas. I don’t mean to be morbid. Please . . . tell us about your time at school. We have read your wonderful letters, but let us hear it from your lips.’ Thomas sat down, and with his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders he told his sisters anecdotes about his days at Windsor. As they chatted in the candlelight the melancholy mood broke.
    Elizabeth turned to her sister. ‘Dotty, please will you pass me Miss Byrne’s book? It’s there, on the window seat. I’d like to show Thomas my drawings. I believe they are passable.’
    Thomas stood up and leant over her shoulder. ‘Look at John – such a likeness. That’s how I remember him.’
    ‘That’s exactly how I remember him too,’ Dorothy said.
    Elizabeth clasped her sister’s hand. ‘Dotty, when I am gone, will you look after the book?’ She closed the cover, speaking quickly and earnestly. ‘It has become my life’s work. It’s the one thing I am proud of.’
    ‘Now, now. We have banished any sad thoughts.’
    ‘But listen. I have a request. If for any reason our family leaves this house, will you return the book to its original home? I’m convinced Miss Byrne would approve. I dream of it hidden beneath the floorboards, waiting to be found in hundreds of years from now.’
    ‘I give you my word,’ she replied.
    Thomas kissed her on the forehead. ‘Come on,’ he said, lifting Elizabeth easily into his arms. ‘Let’s go to dinner.’
    Dinner that night was a strange affair. The wine, the finest from Sir William’s cellar, was drunk liberally, and the footmen, dressed in their new livery of burgundy and gold, hovered respectfully, but it was not the celebration Lady Keyt had intended. Though