Marnie sat up, and hugged her knees. She felt as disorientated as if she had returned from a long journey, or woken after a particularly vivid dream and was still in the half-world between two realities. She gazed out over the unfamiliar Perthshire woods and fields. Wind-flowers, the tiny white wood anemones which still starred the grass in shady places, danced in the breeze and clumps of primroses nestled in the mossy bank above the rushing burn – but she half expected to see larger, more exotic flowers and hear the roar of the ocean and the clattering of the wind in the palm trees.

‘So you never saw the old contessa again after you’d gone back to the States?’ asked Louisa.

‘Nope,’ answered Marnie sadly. ‘I never saw her again and it’s a big regret – but she kept her promise. She did write to me. She went back to Italy after we left St Matt’s. I had three letters from her after she got home. I’ve kept them all.’

She looked at Louisa, speculatively, as though assessing her trustworthiness as a future friend. ‘She did more than write,’ she went on. ‘She left her diaries to me in her will. But they’ve only recently come into my possession so I’m still trying to piece her story together and learning things about her life. It’s real difficult because she obviously wasn’t a dedicated diarist and only wrote it spasmodically – and, as far as I can make out, quite randomly, for no obvious reason. She’ll start on something interesting and then just stop. Her writing’s also extremely hard to read, not to mention the fact that some of it’s in Italian. There appear to be huge gaps. It’s tantalising but up to now I haven’t wanted to let anyone else look at it. It may sound stupid but I’ve felt as if I’d be betraying a confidence, although I’m definitely going to need help. All the same, with what I have managed to make out, I get a feeling of what she must have been like. Headstrong, passionate – obviously capable of giving and inspiring great love. Courageous too – I think she had a tough time in the war. I guess she was pretty impossible to deal with if she didn’t want to cooperate. Surprisingly funny – her comments about other people are sharp and hilarious. I’m totally fascinated by her.’

‘When did she die?’ asked Louisa. ‘I imagined from what you said that she was quite old and ill when you met her.’