PROLOGUE

‘A month, hey, Doctor?’

‘I’ll no gi’ ye more than five weeks, Mr. McGowan, nor promise the end willna come sooner.’

‘Bah!’ The old man snorted with surprising vigour, considering his cadaverous face and the skeletal hand plucking at the patched counterpane. ‘Niver kenned a doctor yet wha’d commit himsel’ one way or t’ither.’

His lips pursed, the doctor picked up his black bag and turned to the grey-haired, dowdy woman who stood at the foot of the four-poster bed. ‘I s’ll write twa prescriptions, Miss Gillespie, for the pain and to help your uncle sleep. And I’ll drop by next week . . .’

‘That ye’ll not!’ Alistair McGowan snapped. ‘If there’s nowt to be done, I’ll no pay a guinea to hae ye not do’t.’

The doctor shrugged. ‘Verra weel. I’ll see ye again when I write oot the death certificate. Good-day tae ye, sir.’

Julia Gillespie led the way out of the gloomy, chilly, cavernous bedchamber into the equally gloomy and chilly if less cavernous passage with its threadbare carpet. As they descended the magnificent Jacobean staircase, she noted with distress a thin layer of dust on the carved oak balusters. It was impossible to keep the house decent when Uncle Alistair refused to hire more than an absolute minimum of staff, but at least the front stairs should be clean.

‘A month?’ she said, the news at last beginning to sink in.

‘Thereabouts. Ye’ll be sending for the family?’

‘Not unless Uncle Alistair tells me to. I shouldn’t dare. A month!’ A tiny smile lightened her careworn face. ‘It’s a shocking thing to say, Doctor, but I can’t wait to shake the dust of Dunston Castle from my feet. I shan’t stay a moment longer than I must.’

‘Ye’re provided for?’ he asked gruffly.

‘A hundred a year, enough to live on if I’m careful, and I’ve practice enough at that.’

‘Imphm.’

Julia saw the look in his eyes: genteel poverty, it said, but was that not how she had lived for nearly a quarter of a century now, in this year of 1923? Twenty-five years ago, before the turn of the century, the family had collectively made up its mind she was the one to be sacrificed on the altar of duty. Uncle Alistair’s older daughter, Amelia, was married. The younger, Geraldine, had run away, disappeared beyond all ken. Somehow Julia had had no choice.

‘The wife sent her greetings,’ the doctor said now, ‘and she expects ye for coffee the morn’s morn as usual.’

‘Thank you. Yes, I’ll try to be there.’

He wrote out the prescriptions and took his leave. Julia hurried back up to her uncle’s bedroom.

‘Whaur the de’il hae ye been?’ he greeted her. ‘I’m cauld. Draw the bed-curtains and bring anither quilt.’

‘I’ll have a fire lit, Uncle.’

‘In April? Hae I no taught ye yet that a bawbee saved is a bawbee earned?’

Under her breath, Julia rebelliously muttered his other favourite maxim, ‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.’ But in this case he was the only one to suffer, so she did not make even the feeblest effort to persuade him.

She drew the faded brocade draperies on both sides, handling the worn, fragile material with care. As she reached for the curtain at the foot, he stopped her with a gesture of one claw-like hand.

‘Wait. Write to my solicitor today and tell him I want to see him. Donald Braeburn o’ Braeburn, Braeburn, Tiddle and Plunkett. Ye’ll find the address in my desk.’

‘You want Mr. Braeburn to come all the way from London?’

‘I pay him, don’t I?’ the old man snarled. ‘And a pretty penny it costs to keep a Scottish lawyer in London, but almost worth it sin’ he’s bound to outwit the Sassenachs. Then write to a’ the family and tell them to be here next Monday wi’out fail. Every single one, mind.’

‘But suppose they cannot get away?’

‘They’ll come, if ye tell ’em Braeburn’s on his way.’ He chuckled nastily. ‘Half o’ them’ll hope I’m going to change my will, and t’ither half’ll hope I shan’t. Dinna fash yersel’, they’ll come running all right.’