he went when he left her. She suspected, but would never have asked him.
She said nothing to him as she got up, left her jewelry on her dressing table, and walked slowly into her bathroom. She remembered everything that had happened the night before, particularly the part after he left, but there was nothing unusual about it, nothing worth commenting on now. She had nothing to say to her husband.
Gabriella was still in her room when Eloise went downstairs to make breakfast. The housekeeper had stayed to help the caterers clean up the night before, and she was off now because it was Sunday. She was a quiet, unobtrusive woman, who had worked for them for years. She didn't like Eloise, but was civil to her, and Eloise liked her because she minded her own business. Although she silently disapproved of it, she never interfered with Eloise's disciplining of Gabriella.
Eloise put a pot of coffee on, sat down at the breakfast table, and picked up the paper. She was reading it, sipping coffee in a Limoges cup, when John finally came down and joined her, and asked about their daughter.
“Where's Gabriella? Still in bed?”
“It was a late night for her,” Eloise said in a chilly voice, without looking up from the paper.
“Should I go and wake her?” Eloise said nothing and only shrugged in answer. He poured a cup of coffee for himself, took the Business section of the Sunday Times, which Eloise never touched, and read for a half hour before commenting again on Gabriella's absence. “Do you suppose she's sick?” He sounded worried, it didn't occur to him what had happened the night before, although it should have. He didn't realize that Eloise always took it out on her when he left at some ungodly hour after an argument. He should have suspected instantly, but as usual, he didn't really want to know. It was nearly eleven when he went upstairs to find her.
He found her changing her bed, moving with the awkward stealth of someone in great pain, but still he seemed not to see what had happened.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Her eyes bulged with unshed tears as she nodded. She'd been thinking about Meredith, her doll, and she felt as though someone had died the night before. And someone had. Not only the doll, but she had. It had been the worst beating ever administered by her mother. And it had dissolved whatever small hope she had had left that she might survive her life here. She had no further expectation of that now. She knew it was only a matter of time before her mother totally destroyed her. She had no illusions anymore, no dreams, nothing at all, just the unbelievable pain in her side, and the memory of her doll being pounded against the wall, just as she knew her mother would have liked to do to her, but had not yet dared to.
“Can I help?” He offered to put the blanket back on the bed with her, but she shook her head. She knew only too well what her mother would say if she found them. She would accuse her of whining to her father, or manipulating, or trying to turn him against her mother. “Don't you want to come downstairs to breakfast?” The truth was, she didn't want to see her mother. She wasn't hungry anymore, might never be again. She didn't care if she never ate, and every time she breathed it seared her like fire, and twisted a knife of pain in her rib cage. She couldn't imagine being able to get down the stairs, or sitting next to her mother at breakfast, let alone eating.
“It's okay, Daddy. I'm not hungry.” Her eyes were huge and more sorrowful than usual. And he told himself she was probably very tired. He refused to see the awkwardness with which she moved, the place where her hair was still matted with blood, the lip that was still more than slightly swollen. He told himself fairy tales about all of it, just as he had from the beginning.
“Come on, I'll make you pancakes.” As though he had something to make up to her. As though he knew, which he would have insisted he didn't. If he allowed himself to think of what Eloise had done to her, it would have made him feel far too guilty.
He walked slowly into the room, and saw that Gabriella had a sweater on over her dress. That was