It was impossible to write with full honesty, Effie knew that. She could imagine how her own reply would read when she put pen to paper, for on the surface of things, life appeared to be on the up. Mr Felton had taken to dropping in most days as he passed and often she would find him sitting with her father, talking in Gaelic together, as she came back in the evenings. She sensed that it would be the gamekeeper who would be the most comfort to her father when the time came for her to leave and she felt a growing affection for this man who made him smile. But not only him. The gamekeeper would bring the dogs with him and every time Effie would scoop Slipper into her arms and cover her head with kisses, loving the warmth and weight of her. It was blatant favouritism, but she missed Poppit so much, it made her stomach ache. Some days the gamekeeper dropped around a fresh pheasant for them to hang by the door; on others, Mrs McLennan would send Billy over to the cottage when he was passing on his bike to run errands in the village, putting a small pie of leftovers for them in the basket. Such were the green shoots of new friendships and they were a solace to her that she had been right to stay here after all, to defy Sholto’s wishes and lay the foundations for a new life for her father at the very least.

Everything was for him now. She had stopped eating in the servants’ hall and even at dinner – in the middle of the day and when she was working in the big house – she would walk back to the cottage and dine with her father; unable to converse in English, there would be no companionship for him around that long, bustling table and she didn’t like to think of him spending his entire days alone.

She missed her meals with the servants – though they had not passed without incident in the time she had stayed in the house, the gossip and chatter of a body of people who dined together three times a day had given her a fleeting sense of community that she had lost upon leaving St Kilda. But a perpetual sense of dread hung over her as she awaited her fate and she would not willingly put herself in Mr Weir’s path.