Page 76 of Journey to the Scottish Highlands

Cayla.

Just like this poor Florence, whom Louise had mentioned. Also a keen actress, who had worked here at The Ramblings before being sacked for something she didn’t do.

My hand stilled as I unzipped the main section of my case to start packing up my clothes. Montgomery Johnson’s journal sat on my bed, enticing me over.

I stopped packing, flopped onto the bed and picked it up.

I eased it open with the utmost care and began to read. His words about Florence’s vulnerability and her struggle to throw off the shackles of being a servant gnawed at me: the stigma of being blamed for stealing a vase from this very house and how that had overshadowed the rest of her brief life.

Her desire to be an actress.

Her tragic and untimely death at eighteen from pneumonia after having had to clean people’s steps in the freezing, damp cold when she lost her position at The Ramblings.

I forgot I was supposed to be packing and got lost in the contents of the journal and the tragic recollections of Florence and her past. I was catapulted back in time to the draughty Ramblings, imagining Florence’s raw hands as she cleaned and her love of the theatre with its mixture of jolly performers and the smartly dressed, moustached men of the orchestra.

I turned page after page, devouring the account Louise’s father had put together in so much detail.

My mind drifted from Florence to Cayla again. If the two of them had met, I bet they’d have hit it off; two young women, keen to reach their theatrical potential, but finding themselves held back by injustice in Florence’s case and jealous school bullies in Cayla’s. I reckoned Florence would have had more luck talking Cayla round than I had.

I stopped reading the journal and fiddled with the zipper of my case beside me on top of the bed. Even though I had no idea what she’d looked like, my imagination conjured up pictures of Florence with long, conker-coloured hair and a dash of freckles over her pert nose. She was dressed in an ankle length, grey, cotton dress overlaid with a white apron. Her hair was secured underneath it at the nape of her neck in a tight bun.

Beside her appeared Cayla looking pretty, young and trendy with her loose, strawberry blonde hair and cropped jeans, decked out in a sparkly T-shirt and platform trainers. Both young women from very different times, but both chasing the same dream.

I gazed down at my case and then back at the open journal in my lap, the pages fluttering in the spring breeze.

Wait a minute.

I had a thought; very much a fledgling of an idea, but what triggered it had been Florence. It would capture a time in The Ramblings past.

The more I turned it over in my head, the more it took flight. This could work and bring in some extra income for The Ramblings.

It could be a regular event.

With growing excitement bubbling inside me, I picked up the journal and made for my bedroom door.

I dashed back downstairs.

I needed to speak to Louise, Alison and Bennett right away.