A gust of wind found an aperture in the window and grabbed the curtain, throwing it against the wall and causing a slight banging. I recalled a trick of my aunt’s and went to explore the hem where some of the stitching was loose. As I felt the fabric, I came across whatever it was that had been hidden there. I widened the gap in the seam. Inside was a brooch in the shape of a dolphin. The jewel of its eye shone in spite of dust. Why would Hettie have been so keen to keep this from the reach of scrutiny? It was not a cheap object, yet she did not value it enough to take to America – or had she forgotten it in the haste of her decision to leave? With it was a letter.

Dearest Hettie,

Promise me you will always be mine.

I recalled what Mrs Argylle had said about Hettie’s various alliances and wondered who this had come from. The island men did not have wealth, as a rule. Carefully, I put the things back.

As I left, there was a beat of sadness upon the air. I tried to dismiss it but it came stronger, pressing at my heart until I could not move. I turned, and for an instant I thought I saw her in the dressing table mirror, her face twisted with grief, but it was so soon gone that I was not sure it had been there at all. Even so, I ran from the room and to my own where I waited for my heart to stop its frenzied beating.

In the drawing room, I sat in the faded grandeur and waited for lessons to finish. I heard them before they entered, Miss Gillies’ clipped shoes upon the tiles and the shush of Mary’s slippers. And then Miss Gillies’ voice like the lash of a whip. ‘Wicked, wicked girl,’ she hissed. But I was unsteadied by the morning’s events and had no energy left to defend my charge. I did not want to be found, did not want Miss Gillies to know that I had heard her chide her niece, and as their footsteps faded, I fled upstairs until tea time.

Mary was alone when I returned to the drawing room. ‘I will have to speak to your aunt about Gulls Cry,’ I said gently. ‘An intruder must have opened the door.’ Her brow rose in a spasm of anxiety.

‘I will not tell her that you wrote William’s name,’ I said, ‘but if you saw who was really there, you might write it for me now.’ But even as I uttered this my thoughts drifted back to the sound of young steps and the noise of an engine being pushed across the floor of an empty room. And my words felt like a betrayal.