Netta was far too like Jeanie Kirkpatrick for Peg’s comfort: the same red-gold hair and tall graceful figure. ‘A race horse out of a stable of nags,’ Angus had laughed, describing Peg’s second cousin. He was proud of his beautiful wife and pretty daughter which made Peg all too aware of her own dumpy figure, the dark brows which almost met over the bridge of her nose and double chin. Peg had learned early that plainness was her lot but that didn’t make her useless and fragile like poor Jeanie who, for all her beauty, was weak in her chest. Peg had proved to be the sturdier of the two, a reliable workhorse. She had been glad enough to escape the drudgery of life in Kilmarnock even if it was only exchanging one kitchen sink for another, and that isolated down a track two miles from Stratharvar, the nearest village.

No one could ever fault Peg’s housekeeping. You could see your face in her polished surfaces and her thrift in the darned heels of Angus’s stockings. She kept hens and ducks, helped with the cheese making, scoured the dairy and kept bees. Each Sunday she warmed the pew in the parish kirk and was a stalwart of the Ladies’ Guild. Had she not answered the call of war duty by taking in evacuees from Glasgow? What she had been called to do in the name of mercy was above the call of Christian duty. And was it not she who kept all those toerags up to scratch with moral lectures, meals and motions? Peg firmly believed in regular bowel movements as the key to health and happiness: Beecham’s Pills, Syrup of Figs, Sennacot tablets… she was a martyr to them all.

What was that stampeding above her head, enough to wake the dead? She would have to rise and give that girl a piece of her mind, disturbing them at this hour! There was no making any sense of Netta. What a disappointment to her father she had proved; a thorn in their flesh right from the start. After all they had done for her, still she kept wanting more.

Peg spied her photograph in its silver frame on the windowsill. The child had spoiled that portrait with her scowl. Resentment still festered like a pimple on the chin. Netta had even spoiled their wedding day, the minx, with all that business with the beads! How would Peg ever forget the scene?

September 1937

Peg ordered the party dress from Wee Alec Kerr, the travelling outfitter, from their Children: From Cradle to Young Miss Galloway catalogue. It was to be Peg’s own special surprise for Netta to soften the blow when she told her the news. Peg had even collected the outfit from the store herself, packaged it in brown paper and left it on the table for the girl to find after school.

‘What’s this? It’s no my birthday…’