‘Go slowly, your stomach is not used to food.’

Her eyes watched the spoon as it went from bowl to lips, and with each mouthful, I read her approval. Afterwards she took the tray and laid it on the table and then fussed at the pillows and covers, but in all her movements, there was some urgency of purpose beyond the taking care of me.

Finally, she turned from straightening the curtains. ‘You asked me once if there were ghosts.’

Her weight creaked as she sat beside me. ‘I hardly dare say what I am going to say, but I feel I owe it to you. I have seen your fear and I have not taken a share in it. You deserve better from me. So I’m going to tell you what I have felt.’

I was not alone and I could have wept with the relief of it.

‘I smelt her perfume.’ She twisted her hands nervously inside each other. ‘Hettie’s scent – it was always the same, always. After she had left, I would come across it in the air. But I thought it must be my imagination – or perhaps – I don’t know what I thought then.’

I recalled the stale odour that sometimes accompanied Hettie’s visitations. ‘How often did this happen? Where were you when you felt her?’

Mrs Lenister looked wary. ‘From time to time. I may have been taking feed for the hens, cleaning the silver or cooking, and it would be around me and a strange feeling.’ She put a hand to her chest. ‘Then there was that time you asked me about your shoes.’

I recalled that first morning that I had found them that way. The curiousness of it.

‘That was her way. She always did that. We used to tease her about it. When you told me – I knew then that she came to you also.’

I felt dizzy.

‘Mary. Mary sees her, doesn’t she?’ Her cheeks were flushed. ‘Hettie. And William, too. I’ve seen you watching her – chattering away to the air. Miss Gillies, how she hates it. At first, we all thought it was an imaginary friend to make up for William’s going, but she’s too old for them, isn’t she?’ Mrs Lenister leaned so close that I could number each blunt eyelash. I felt her fear.

She sat back and gathered herself. ‘When I first began to smell Hettie or hear her step – her quiet, quick way of walking – I told myself it was my imagination because I did not know then. Did not think –’ Her face creased with fear. ‘We had not learned that she was dead then. We believed that she was on the boat or making trouble elsewhere.’

For a moment I thought that she might cry. A shadow passed over her features.