As I stared, I had an instinct that my scrutiny was returned. I stepped quickly back into the room, where I sat, my heart pattering as though I had been caught out in some misdemeanour. When I stood and looked again, there was no light, and the figure was gone.

10

The next day brought more rain and after a morning in pursuit of a jigsaw that was clearly uninteresting to both myself and Mary, I suggested a game of hide-and-seek. She brightened a little and went off first to hide. I sat on one of the chairs in the great hall and tried to trace the direction of her footsteps, having instructed her not to use either her aunt’s or the servants’ quarters.

I closed my eyes and duly counted to one hundred and then, calling as I went, climbed to the first landing and began to explore. As I opened each door, I announced myself with a, ‘Now I wonder if someone might be hiding here?’ And as I crossed the rooms, walking deliberately heavily, I whipped away valances, yanked curtains and opened cupboards with a flourish, sending dust flying into the air.

I was struck again with how little remained to demonstrate that William had once lived here. After Papa had died, his pictures stayed in their frames and the rooms my lost family had inhabited were left to grow dusty but unchanged after their passing. To sit in Papa’s chamber and to gaze at the familiar objects – to run a hand along a swathe of tweed or open the bottle of cologne and remember his scent – was a profound solace. I could conjure my father’s voice from his ivory shaving set or the slant of his handwriting on the nature notes left on the nightstand. All ashes now.

In spite of a thorough search, Mary was nowhere to be found, leaving only the old nursery rooms and Hettie’s bedroom. I paused at the bottom of the garret stairs and listened. Silence. My chest was tight as I climbed. The schoolrooms contained no place in which to conceal oneself. From the windows the island blurred in the rain and gulls circled low over the valley. The air was smoky and dense.

The only place left now was Hettie’s bedroom. My feet resisted the exploration, did not want to witness again the aged comb and the faint scent that remained. In the corridor outside, I called out, ‘Coming to get you.’

Then it came – the clatter of feet and the lightest of sounds that could have been the readjusting of a body in its hiding place. I thought, with relief, that at least the displeasure of revisiting where Hettie slept would signal the end of a game that had become laborious, so I threw open the door with something like triumph.