RATING: GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
Vespasia and Isobel travel to Scotland, but Gwendolen's mother is not in the village near Inverness, so they decide to continue their journey to try to find her. In Ballachulish they are told that Mrs Naylor is gone, and she is now in Glen Orchy, a area difficult to reach in December. Vespasia and Isobel don't want to return, so they hire a guide and continue travelling.
On their way there Vespasia and Isobel talk about Gwendolen. She lost her husband when he had an accident in Scotland. Gwendolen saw how the horse which pulled the carriage where her husband and her mother were got out of control. It was Mrs Naylor who managed to grab the reins and control the horse. Isobel also knows that Mr Kilmuir didn't treat Gwendolen well. He started a relationship with Dolly Twyford, thinking that he would get the child that his wife hadn't given him.
Isobel and Vespasia reach Glen Orchy and Mrs Naylor is there. It seems that she and a man called Finn are in a relationship. Isobel tells her about Gwnedolen's death and her catty remark, which may have sent her to the edge, and she gives her the letter. Mrs Naylor is upset to learn about her daughter's death and expresses her feelings about what Isobel has confessed, but she is not so cruel as to ask her to leave when it is freezing outside.
Mrs Naylor agrees to go with them to London to pay her respects to the grave of her daughter. At some point they have to hire a carriage and Vespasia realises that Mrs Naylor can't drive a carriage, which means that the person who was with Mr Kilmuir when he died was her daughter, and Gwendolen caused her husband's death. And that is the thing that weighed on her conscience when she killed herself.
I enjoyed the novella. It was not really Christmasy but I liked to see Vespasia as a young woman.
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