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this lane was more than likely Mr Hemingborough – for he was too well turned out to be a labourer and who else would be heading away from his farm in the morning with a cartload of turnips – which probably meant that Mrs Hemingborough was at home alone.
    I dressed rapidly and waved my hairbrush around my head in a token gesture at a toilette – in fact, whenever Grant sends me off on an overnight stop without her, she sets my hair so very firmly the day before that it would take far more robust a tool than a mere hairbrush to make a dent in it – and skipped downstairs hoping that breakfast in the manse was a brisk affair and I could soon escape.
    The sight of Lorna beaming behind two enormous teapots and Mr Tait in a cardigan jersey and with a napkin tucked in at his neck soon did away with any thoughts of a hasty exit from the morning gathering of the little household however. Not wishing to be rude, I settled myself for the duration.
    ‘I really should apologise for my father, Mrs Gilver,’ said Lorna, once the fuss of setting me up with my desired breakfast dishes was behind us. ‘He’s always so very keen to protect me from nasty things, I swear he must still believe me to be a child.’ Her smile faded for a moment then reblossomed as she carried on in a rather too hearty voice: ‘When in fact, of course, I’m comfortably old enough to take all manner of things on the chin.’
    ‘And are you old enough to talk about your father in thon disrespectful way?’ said Mr Tait, twinkling at her. ‘I told you, my dear. Mrs Gilver was a nurse in the war and last night young Jessie Holland was in such a state of shock I thought a nurse was called for. Mrs Gilver did not mind.’
    He turned to me, inviting me to agree with him, and I nodded, although I was tackling some ferociously thick porridge and could not, at the moment, answer. I never do remember when away from home but still in Scotland, how long it took me to coax my own cook back from the excesses of Scotch habits, so that my winter days could begin with the soothing, creamy treat I expected and not the vile, salty lump which passes for a good plate of porridge around these parts. Once, I witnessed Hugh dig his spoon into the edge of his porridge only to have the whole thing shoot away up the far side of the dish and land, all of a piece, on the tablecloth. Yet still he has the cheek to prefer his to mine.
    ‘Of course I didn’t mind,’ I said at last. In fact, had young Jessie really needed a nurse I should have minded like anything, and I should have been quite useless, my nursing duties at Moncrieffe House having been confined to playing cards, lighting cigarettes and muttering the occasional ‘there, there’.
    ‘Such a shocking thing to have happened, though,’ I went on. I knew that Mr Tait did not want Lorna in the thick of it, but it would have been beyond peculiar not to discuss the matter at all.
    ‘It is,’ said Lorna. ‘A very nasty affair. We had hoped, hadn’t we, Father, that it was all behind us. I know Miss McCallum and Miss Lindsay will be very sorry to hear of last night’s trouble. They’ve worked so hard to get the Rural off the ground.’
    ‘And truly no one has any idea who might be behind it?’ I said. ‘There’s no one around the village who’s known to be a little odd? It must be a local chap, don’t you think, if the trouble’s confined to Luckenlaw again and again.’
    Mr Tait and Lorna looked as uncomfortable as might be expected to have a guest in their house thus impugn the neighbourhood, and Mr Tait in addition began to frown at me. I had, I realised, begun to betray a little more knowledge of the facts than Lorna could suppose me to have come by and I swept on with a change of subject before she could begin to wonder.
    ‘I can’t help admiring your lovely brooch, Lorna,’ was the best I could come up with. She was wearing the same rose, ribbon and love-heart as the day before and I realised just too late