‘I suppose so.’ She held the empty watering can out for a second refill. ‘But I won’t forget you said that.’

*

Ann grumped her way through breakfast the next morning.

‘What on earth has got into you?’ Ursula asked.

‘I don’t feel well. Maybe I should go back to bed.’

Ursula put her hand on Ann’s forehead. ‘I don’t think you have a fever and you aren’t vomiting or shivery.’

Ann slumped her shoulders.

‘I think you are well enough to go out. Now off you go and put your shoes on. I need to collect a few things at the dry goods store up at Church Hill and you can come with me. Your father says we should get them delivered but it’s a lovely day and I would like the fresh air.’

Ann pushed her chair back. ‘Finlay,’ she began, and then she saw his face, not pleading exactly, but wary. ‘Finlay is going to take me to Portobello for an ice cream before I go back to school.’

He frowned.

‘That’s what you said, Finlay, isn’t it?’

He gave in and nodded. ‘I think it will be a nice afternoon trip.’

Satisfied, Ann walked up the stairs to her bedroom, and no one except Isobel, who was rubbing the brass door handles and finger plates with Bluebell metal polish, noticed that Ann’s lips moved with every step.

*

When they eventually got back from the grocery shopping, which had taken far longer than expected, Ursula said she was going to a meeting. Everyone else was out. Finlay was seeing Daniel, Father was at work and Isobel was nowhere to be seen. Ann really didn’t feel well. Her belly was uncomfortable and she had little stabby pains deep inside. She went back into the garden and watered her herbs, but it was too hot to be outside for long. She headed back upstairs, her lips moving as she climbed.

‘Oh!’ she said, as she walked into her bedroom.

Isobel was sitting on the bed with Ann’s jewellery box beside her.

‘Isobel! What are you doing?’

The necklaces Ann had been given after her mother died, which she had expressed no interest in wearing, were set out across the counterpane. They had been carefully arranged by colour: pearls, then coloured beads, then jet. And beneath them on the next row there were the rings, all of them still too big for her.

Isobel looked up and glanced at the alarm clock. ‘Oh, Miss Ann! I didn’t know you were back.’ She got off the bed, scooped the jewellery into the box and closed the lid. ‘I’ll get back to my cleaning.’

‘I don’t feel well and I am going to lie down for a little while. Why were you looking at my . . .’

But Isobel was gone, leaving the door to swing closed behind her.