Etta has still not decided what to name this rickety structure that she sits in. It is something more than a cabin and yet, in many ways, much less. Built from scrips and scraps of wood, it is more like a beached ship than a proper outbuilding and yet it is, she thinks with satisfaction, the one place that is entirely her own. The cracked pane through which she peers, looks out onto the darkening south Shropshire hills, bracken, gorse and broom jostling for position amongst the trees. She is high up here and, on a clear day, can see some considerable distance. In front of her, a series of small plants crowd the shallow, painted windowsill. They are to overwinter here as best they can – Kniphofia uvaria, Verbena bonariensis, Macleaya cordata cuttings and a handful of small Lunaria albiflora plants, a favourite of hers that she forgot to sow earlier in the year. Their tiny leaves reach towards the light as she brushes them with her fingertips, feeling the fragile strength of each plant in turn. Scout lays his head on her knee and she pats his black-and-white velvet head, tickles his soft ears.

Behind where Etta sits, the wooden walls of the cabin are covered with sketches, notes and uneven shelves crammed precariously to breaking point with finds from her meanderings: birds’ eggs and tiny fossils; unusual pebbles of all colours and patterns; dried flowers and leaves pressed flat into heavy books waiting to be added to her herbarium; and a whole raft of books, periodicals and other publications she has devoured over the years. There are small paper packets of seeds saved from past experiments or collected from the wild (and occasionally, illicitly gathered from over the wall of someone else’s garden). Fennel sits next to forget-me-not and foxglove, lupin next to lunaria, each twist of paper, each packet neatly inked and labelled in Etta’s clear and precise handwriting, filed according to her own, rather irregular, system – her whimsical and deeply personal preference for the musicality of the name in Latin or English. She knows neither her father nor her old friend Matthew Lawley would have approved of such a scheme, but it works perfectly well for her – and besides, they are both no longer here to reprimand her.

Today has been a most excellent day, for Etta has recorded a sighting of Pinguicula vulgaris, known more commonly as butterwort, at the head of the beautiful and often muddy Mary Knoll valley. It is something else with which to arm herself against Reverend Grant, botanist, snob and general irritant. He dismisses all of Etta’s finds, despite her dogged persistence in trying to convert him into seeing her as an asset rather than a rival. I shall write to him tomorrow, Etta thinks, taking out her notebook and looking at the rough but competent drawing she made of the delicate, pale purple flower earlier. Bringing the lamp nearer to her, she carefully copies the sketch, improving it as she does so, for this is the version that will be sent in the morning to Henry Underwood. Dear Henry. He is compiling a list of county flora for Shropshire and Herefordshire and she is sure he will be interested in her latest discovery.