I tried to imagine what it would be like once Mary and I had gone. I could see Miss Gillies ordering Angus to take the portrait down, and later, clearing out the playroom and bedrooms. Before long nothing would be left of them and Iskar would return to its ticking loneliness – the wind and the soft creak of wood breaking upon its silences and Miss Gillies sitting alone in the drawing room by the heat of the fire, a whisky in her hands, growing older as Iskar grew older about her.

That evening, we dined with Miss Gillies.

We ate mostly in silence, the cold curling on our ankles, but I was transfixed with Miss Gillies as she drank her wine, the way the dent at the base of her throat moved when she swallowed, how her fingers curved on the glass and how, every now and then, her gaze slid to Mary and dislike came down upon her eye like the third membrane over the cornea of a bird.

And I knew that I had been right – that Mary’s aunt, had I told her what I knew, would not have troubled herself to listen or pay heed.

In the silences, I tried to imagine London, the sound of carriage wheels and the call of flower girls. In my head I calculated my funds, mapped our journey, and I think part of me had already left Skelthsea.

In bed, my thoughts drifted back to Swan House, a place that seemed so distant now as to be a dream. I remembered the smell of the meadow clotted with buttercup and cuckoo flower, and heard the saw of crickets in the grass.

It hurt, but I did not resist and allowed the memories to roam as they pleased. I recalled the minutiae then – the chip in the sideboard where Barbara had dropped a jug, the photograph of my parents on a punt in Cambridge, and I knew that if I did not keep remembering, the day would come when I would forget. Already, it seemed that those easy days had slipped behind a door that could never be re-opened. My heart was here, with Mary who lived and breathed.

The morning brought the beginning of strong weather; wind buffeted the panes and beyond the glass the sea tore at the edges of the island. After a brief walk that left us shivering, we returned to an empty house. The servants were helping Miss Gillies with her quarterly tenant visits, armed with food parcels, and I was grateful not to have the scrutiny of others – surely my nervous excitement would be there for all to see. I suggested a game of hide-and-seek.