Mr Graves gave a quizzical smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I was speaking figuratively – about you St Kildans as a whole. I didn’t mean you personally, Miss Gillies.’

‘Oh.’ She stared at her plate. The pie was only half touched but she suddenly felt sickened by the rich palate. Overwhelmed. The room felt airless, friendless. She pulled at her collar and stretched her neck. It was so hot in here. Wasn’t it hot in here? She pressed her feet to the floor, wanting to feel the ground, to root herself as images began flashing through her head again, but the leather soles of her boots were too thick to allow anything but a dull resistance. The walls of the room seemed to be pressing inwards, the floor beginning to spin. She closed her eyes, but that only made the visions more vivid. She felt so hot. So— She retched suddenly and the company around her flinched as one, like a shoal of fish.

‘Miss Gillies!’ Mrs McKenzie cried as though this was some sort of game.

Effie couldn’t reply. With her hand pressed to her mouth, she roughly pushed back her chair and ran through to the large kitchen, disgorging the contents of her stomach into the copper sink as Mrs McKenzie and Mrs McLennan followed, furiously scolding behind her. But her body was in revolt. She retched and heaved till only bile came up, her hand reaching blindly for the tap as horror washed through her.

‘Miss Gillies, what on earth has come over you?’ Mrs McKenzie demanded. ‘You must compose yourself!’

Effie, her head hanging down, watched as the bright morsels of carrots and beans began to swirl before her watering eyes, circling the drain, her breath coming fast and shallow. Frank Mathieson was still missing? It couldn’t be.

‘For heaven’s sake, child!’ The cook suddenly placed her firm hands on Effie’s skinny arms and roughly moved her two paces to the side. ‘You’ll block the pipes and then we’ll have no end of bother.’

The tap was turned off amid a flurry of tuts and God’s truths. Effie was trembling, her body enslaved to the whip-cracks of her mind. It couldn’t be true . . .

‘Well? What have you got to say for yourself?’ Mrs McKenzie demanded, folding her arms across a pillowy bosom. ‘Making a scene like that.’

Effie desperately tried to gather her thoughts, scattered though they were like broken glass. ‘The food was too rich for me,’ she whispered, scarcely able to get the words out. ‘Please excuse me.’ And she stumbled from the room, leaving the servants gawping in her wake.