Her heart sank when Elspeth walked to her side, reached down, and picked up the mirror. The other woman didn’t look into the reflection. Instead, her fingers fingered the diamonds on the edge of the mirror.
“It’s the Tulloch Sgàthán,” Elspeth said, her voice amazed. “I haven’t seen it since I was a little girl.”
“The Tulloch Sgàthán?” she asked, motioning to the adjoining chair. Elspeth took a seat, smiling down at the back of the mirror.
Veronica was vacillating between disappointment she hadn’t seen anything in the reflection and a surge of excitement that the mirror had been identified by Elspeth, of all people.
“Although I can’t remember all these bright stones,” Elspeth said. “It may not be the same one.” She glanced over at Veronica. “It belonged to my grandmother, Mary Tulloch.”
“You’re not looking in the mirror, Elspeth, why?”
The other woman smiled, looked down at the back of the mirror before handing it back to her.
“It’s the Tulloch Sgàthán,” Elspeth said, as if that were enough of an explanation.
“Does it tell the future?”
Elspeth smiled. “My granny said the mirror showed a woman a path. It was up to her whether to take it. So, I guess it does tell the future in a way.”
She stared down at the mirror.
“The stones are a new addition,” Elspeth said. “It didn’t have them when I was a child.”
“Have you ever looked at it?”
“I did, once, when I was a little girl. I saw myself as I am now, only a little older.” Elspeth’s smile broadened. “I had two little ones with me. It was enough of a look for me.”
She kept the mirror face down on her lap. “I can’t see anything anymore.”
Elspeth reached over and patted her on the knee, a curiously maternal gesture.
“If you can remember anything she might have said about it, please let me know.”
“You might ask her yourself, Your Ladyship.”
Startled, Veronica stared at her. “Your grandmother is still alive?”
Elspeth nodded. “She was on my last visit home. One of my brothers or sisters would have let me know if she’d died. She’svery old, but she’s spry. She lives outside Kilmarin, near Perth, where I was raised.”
“I thought you were from Lollybroch.”
Elspeth smiled and shook her head. “No, that’s my Robbie’s family. My own comes from Perth, and it’s homesick I am from time to time.”
“I know how that feels,” she said, remembering the two years in London.
“How do you come to have the Tulloch Sgàthán?” Elspeth’s cheeks flushed. “Begging your pardon, Your Ladyship, it’s not my place to ask.”
“It was by way of being a wedding gift,” she said, stretching the truth a bit.
“Have you never seen anything in it, Lady Fairfax?”
“I did, once,” she said. “Not now.” She placed the mirror back in the bag, pulling the drawstring tight. “I think, perhaps, for me it’s just a mirror.”
The other woman didn’t say anything. What could she say? That Veronica was being foolish? Or would Elspeth say, if she’d felt the freedom to do so, something like the expression often quoted by her father? The worth of a thing is known by the want of it.
Veronica wanted, very much, to see something in the Tulloch Sgàthán, and for that reason, it was priceless.
Chapter 18
