‘Greer was but six or seven, a wee girl then. Mr and Mrs Gillies let her come to work with her mother. Iskar is such a big place and Greer was a quiet, easy little thing in those days.’

I reached out and took her hand. ‘Please, Mrs Lenister, please tell me. Something is amiss with Greer. She means Mary and myself harm. You told me once that you knew everything that went on in this house. You must know she’s not right.’

A flicker of fear hovered in her eye but she did not reply.

‘She’s like Hettie, isn’t she? Does she believe she’s a witch?’

‘Well, I cannot say that I know that to be true.’

‘Can you account for her dislike of me? It is no common dislike – it is stronger than that.’

Mrs Lenister wiped a hair from her brow with the back of a forefinger. ‘I thought at first it was envy of you: a young woman with education, a good background and nice clothes, but perhaps it is more than that,’ her tone was cautious.

‘She liked Hettie, didn’t she?’

Mrs Lenister gave a nod. ‘They were an odd pairing.’

All the further things I knew, felt too unsafe to say. I remembered Mrs Lenister’s sharp retort when I had suggested ghosts. If I spoke my mind now, would she tell Miss Gillies? Miss Gillies might think I was as mad as Mary. And so I lay back against the pillow and closed my eyes again.

I started to drift and thought that Mrs Lenister must have gone when her voice lifted me from sleep. ‘Morvern, her name was,’ she was reflective. ‘Greer’s mother. She worked below stairs.’ She paused. ‘She wasn’t … she wasn’t quite right.’

‘How was she not right?’ I tried to sit up but the pain had me lie flat again.

‘She was an unfortunate creature. A childhood accident had taken an eye and she was a nervous, quiet girl but also slow in her mind. There was a big staff in those days and, I’m sorry to say, they treated her very badly.’

Through the window, the scene was wintry. ‘What did they do?’

‘She was given the worst jobs and teased horribly. They gave her tasks that brought lots of scolding. She was very unhappy. Mrs Jeffrey, who was housekeeper then, did not keep them in order as she should have done.’

‘Miss Gillies said it was an accident. Are you suggesting that she killed herself because she was unhappy?’

Mrs Lenister shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Did the Gillieses know about Morvern’s treatment by the staff?’

‘They won’t have concerned themselves with below-stairs matters like that.’ But there were things that she was not saying, I could see it in her eyes.

‘What is it? Mrs Lenister?’ I shifted up the sheets. ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’