Colonel Fraser is no less the showy sunset than he was on the journey north. On entering the room he booms, ‘Mrs Moore,’ as if announcing her name at court. ‘I’m early I know,’ he says before she can berate him. ‘I heard about your bereavement and knowing you’ve no acquaintances in Edinburgh and no family other than your late great aunt, I wanted to offer my condolences and any assistance you might require.’
‘How kind,’ Araminta replies, for what else can she say?
‘When will the funeral take place?’ The colonel’s tone is earnest.
‘Tomorrow morning at St Cuthbert’s,’ she says, realising as the words come out of her mouth that the day is coming round fast and she still has no idea where St Cuthbert’s is. ‘It was my great aunt’s favourite church,’ she adds, as if she knew Great Aunt Eilidh’s religious preferences. As if she’s been in Edinburgh for longer.
Fraser adopts a grave expression. ‘You’re quite alone, madam?’
Araminta nods. He’s trying to be kind but she wants to direct him to the map. This is a man, after all, who knows the castle. He can surely identify the spot Eilidh marked. ‘I’ve inherited this house and everything in it,’ Araminta gestures round. ‘I’ve been exploring the library. Do you know, I found an old map that includes your castle.’
She leads Fraser to a side table and lays out the parchment. ‘It’s detailed,’ she adds cheerily. ‘The individual buildings are sweet little squares. I wonder what they all are.’
Fraser peers. She knows he’ll enjoy being the expert. It’s a role men fall into easily whether they are experts or not, and three days aboard a ship with the colonel made it clear that he likes to talk. ‘This old map must be, let me see, almost a century old. How fascinating. Drawn in the 1740s,’ he proclaims.
‘No New Town at all!’ Araminta encourages him. ‘Just fields for miles on the north side of the old loch,’ she points. ‘Farmland!’
Fraser chortles. ‘Good Lord. And someone has stuck a pin in our garrison chapel.’
Araminta acts nonchalant. ‘Perhaps it marks some ancient treasure. Might I offer you a drink, Colonel? Brandy?’
Fraser acquiesces and Araminta pours a glass. ‘Do soldiers still worship in the chapel?’ she asks.
‘Indeed, though oftentimes I walk down to St Giles’ on a Sunday. If I feel the need of a larger space.’ Fraser gesticulates to indicate that the spirituality of a man such as himself can hardly be contained. ‘Of course, I’m Church of England for preference,’ he adds. ‘That was the joy of being back in London. A proper service.’
Johnathan would never be so bluff. So obvious, she thinks.
‘But the chapel in the castle must have been there for some time,’ Araminta continues.
Fraser nods. ‘I should think so. The castle’s been a stronghold for centuries, some parts are almost a thousand years old.’
‘And at the time of this map?’ She lays a finger on the spot.
‘After the Jacobite uprising it was used mostly as a prison,’ the colonel says, taking a sip of the brandy. ‘Prisons across the nation were full of treasonous Jacobites.’
Araminta pours herself a glass to join him. ‘My goodness. I’d no idea. Captured soldiers, was it?’
‘Renegades,’ Fraser almost spits the word. ‘Curs.’
The day he received news of his posting to Scotland the colonel had dinner with the major general at a military club in St James. The Jacobite uprisings are long quelled but, as the major general pointed out, it does no harm to pay attention. ‘Rebellious Scots to crush, eh?’ he had said. In Fraser’s mind, the Stuart faithful remain a threat.
‘The Pretender’s mistress was kept in the castle. She raised his standard at Glenfinnan,’ he adds.
Araminta takes a sip of the brandy. ‘How interesting. And the chapel would still have been...’
‘In use I’m sure,’ he concurs.
Do you speak Gaelic, Colonel?’ Araminta enquires. It would be good to learn to say her family motto. She can’t recall how Great Aunt Eilidh pronounced it, just that once.
The colonel laughs. ‘Not a word,’ he admits. And then, after he’s downed his brandy, he takes his leave, promising to attend the funeral.
Araminta retires upstairs to wash in the warm, scented water Eleanor provides from the kitchen; sweet gorse oil threaded through the steaming porcelain jug. The young maid fusses, freshening her mistress’s mourning dress and pinning up her hair. Araminta wonders if her mother ever lived here, on Glenfinlas Street with Eilidh and her sister. Around her, the bedroom’s pale green walls are restrained, the paintings are of landscapes with which she is not familiar. Eleanor stands back to survey her work, a complicated bun today. Araminta can’t help wonder if her McKenzie forebears offered such services to ancient queens?
‘This house has been in my family since it was built, I should think,’ she says.
‘We might ask Mr Brodie,’ Eleanor suggests.
But Araminta doesn’t feel the need to ask. She somehow knows it. The furniture, the paintings have been here for decades, brought from a house in the Highlands or perhaps somewhere else in Edinburgh, when number four Glenfinlas Street was built. This bedroom is the sanctuary Sister Winifred once abandoned for another, more holy place. Getting up, Araminta opens the wardrobe. Next to her clothes, which Eleanor has carefully unpacked, is a green velvet cape and some pale-green dresses, now out of date but well cut. She moves on to the drawer beneath and finds a jade mohair wrap with a silver clasp. And beneath these a treasure that makes her gasp.
