Effie turned back into the cottage. Now that she mentioned it, she did feel out of sorts, somehow both agitated and worn out. She felt . . . edgy. But why? She had done her job well today. She hadn’t liked the taking of the bird eggs for mere possession, it was true; but they had had plenty of ornithologists come to the isle before and do just the same. And she had never earnt so much money so easily. Uncle Hamish was always saying that the more they – the villagers – could earn on their own through the tourists, the less they would have to rely upon the factor to trade for them. That had to be a good thing.

A pan was on the stove, a broth bubbling away and filling the room with a damp steam. She peered in at the bones, her tummy rumbling. She’d not eaten a meal since her oats this morning, although the earl had produced some apples from his bag and given her one. The sweetness had made her mouth water and the two men had been openly surprised that she had never eaten one before. They seemed to forget that to have an apple, one must first have an apple tree and there wasn’t a single tree – apple or otherwise – to be found in the whole archipelago.

She walked into the closet that sat between the kitchen and main bedroom. Her room. It was tiny and had no windows, with just enough room for a narrow bed and a chair. It had been John’s when he was alive – she’d always slept in the byre next door with Poppit and their cow – but after he’d died, it had been a comfort to smell his hair on the pillow. (She could still remember the stabbing guilt the day she’d pulled on his clothes and realized they no longer smelt of him but of her, as though she had overwritten him. Perhaps she had. She wore his clothes, slept in his bed, did his chores. But she was still never enough.) The cupboard room always had an immediate calming effect upon her, like putting a bag over the bull’s head, and she lay down on the bed – but a minute later she was up again, wringing her hands.

‘Where are you going?’ Mad Annie asked as she strode back out into the sunshine.

‘To take in the laundry,’ she said over her shoulder, jumping onto and over the wall and walking down the plot to the washing line. Poppit was by her side again, tail up and bounding over the grass.

‘Definitely a fever,’ she heard Mad Annie say to her father as she began unpegging the shirts.

‘Miss Gillies!’