Dinner was taken with Miss Gillies but my mind was so busy that I was hardly aware of that final meal until Mrs Lenister came in with her smile and placed a bowl upon the sideboard. The candle flames bowed to her movement. She smelt of herbs and something sweet. Miss Gillies turned her cuff and looked up. ‘Is that the last of the plums?’

‘Good crop, but that’s the lot until next year.’

‘How quickly winter always comes,’ Miss Gillies said. ‘Before you realize.’

‘Aye, that’s the truth, but spring arrives as quickly too. I made the sponge you like for the fruit.’ A warmth passed between them, so fast it could easily have taken place unnoticed, and I realized then all the kinder notes inside the phrases that I had missed.

When I put Mary to bed, the words about our escape were on my tongue but I found that I could not utter them. I would wait until the moment we left. And if she already knew, then she could ask me, I reasoned.

As I sat later with Miss Gillies, I allowed myself to drift in the quiet of the room, in the fire’s flickering shadow and the tick of the clock. I found myself looking with a different eye upon the birds in their case and the porcelain vases, and I realized that I was committing them to memory and that one day, long into the future and with enough distance, I might relive the time that I had spent here, might even dream that I was sitting upon this very chair with this very book I had with me now.

It grew late and I stood; Miss Gillies had fallen asleep. I walked to the door, but as I touched the handle she stirred and woke, and I turned.

She tried to mask a yawn. ‘Is that the time already? I must go to bed too. Goodnight, Elspeth,’ and there was a pause behind her words and my thoughts softened. It was a final goodbye.

41

Upstairs, there was no time to ponder my decision. It was too late now and I must see it to the very end. I pulled out a chair and took a case from the top of the press and laid it on the bed. It did not take me long to pack – I had so little that could not be easily replaced. I waited, listening, and then I crept to Mary’s room and took the clothes and the toys that she most valued. And even when I had finished, the case was but three-quarters full.

The air smelt of damp satin and leather and I closed the clasp and waited, reminded of that day that I had stood on the pier at Mallaig and watched the boat slice the waters. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was not the person I had been then. I was finally fully grown.