Marnie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she had, though I certainly didn’t think so at the time – but then I was seeing her through a child’s eyes and to me she just seemed . . . old. But what you call “presence” – that she certainly had. Everyone was aware of her and it got up my pretty mother’s nose that all the staff in the hotel paid far more attention to the Contessa’s wishes than to hers.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I do remember that she smelt of violets. Children notice that sort of thing. What about her Italian husband? Did you ever meet him?’

‘Husband?’ Evelyn raised her eyebrows. ‘He didn’t become her husband for a very long time – that was the trouble. Not, I believe, till well after the war, not till the wife he’d deserted for Lucy-Anne died. It broke her parents’ hearts. “Living in sin” is what it was called then and they never forgave her. Your generation wouldn’t understand what a shocking thing it was perceived to be in those days and not only by her parents but of course in Catholic Italy as well. I imagine they were ostracised by both their families. It’s rather wonderful to hear that their love endured through all that. I believe there was a child too?’

‘A baby boy,’ said Marnie sadly. ‘He died the day he was born. I know that from her diaries, but I didn’t know that she and her Carlos weren’t married then. How awful that her parents never forgave her – awful for her and awful for them.’

‘It was all very tragic. Their only son, Lucy-Anne’s older brother, joined the RAF at the outbreak of war, became a fighter pilot and was killed in the Battle of Britain. Eilean Dobhran, like so many big houses, was requisitioned by the army and was left in a bad state of disrepair after the war. The old Drummond-Grays lived on for a bit in one corner of it while everything became increasingly dilapidated, but everyone said they’d lost the heart for living, and soon after that they died within a few months of each other. I heard the estate, or part of it, was sold to pay off debts and I think the remainder went to some distant cousin who’d emigrated. I don’t know what’s happened to it now. I believe the house was a hotel for a time and then I think a nursing home or something like that, but whether it was let or sold I’m not sure. I’ll show Isobel exactly where it is on the map so that you can make enquiries locally. I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more.’