Araminta makes the kind of noise one might emit when offered a slice of particularly sumptuous cake, but she makes no move towards the door.
‘This room is terribly ancient,’ she says. ‘Fascinating.’
‘It’s only an old store,’ the colonel replies, in disbelief that Mrs Moore is interested in such a dowdy part of one of Europe’s oldest castles when there are battlements and royal reception rooms, not to mention a collection of bona fide royal jewels.
She doesn’t correct him. Instead, she checks over the windows and is rewarded with a thin line of writing scratched into a stone sill at the far end.Draw the pearl’s seat to the jeweller’s crown,it says. Araminta looks up furtively.Draw the pearl’s seat to the jeweller’s crown,she memorises, almost afraid that her mind is moving too quickly to retain these eight simple words. The colonel clears his throat. She curses her great aunt who said that she would know when she’d found the clue, and has just been proved right.
‘How fascinating,’ she says. ‘The Honours of Scotland. I oughtn’t put you to it, Colonel. I know how tourists frustrate you.’
The rest of the visit passes in such a flash that Araminta doesn’t notice Eleanor and the lieutenant eyeing each other as they wait on their elders and betters. In the jewel room, she hardly takes in the crown when it is fetched with an old leather belt and a ceremonial golden staff. She feels as if a child is showing her treasures from his toy box. The colonel, pleased as punch, revels in telling the story of the jewels. Araminta echoes his words, simply to move things on. ‘Walled up? Really? Sir Walter Scott. Good heavens.’ After another scalded brandy and the minimum possible time by the fire, she takes her leave.
When they emerge onto the Esplanade, Great Aunt Eilidh’s old carriage feels like a deliverance. The coachman has waited inside the box, the window down as he smokes a cheroot. When they appear, he opens the door and throws the stub to the ground. The women climb in. Araminta could not be happier as she bids the colonel farewell; the door is slammed and the horses make off across the Esplanade and down the Lawnmarket. It is the most thrilling thing she’s ever experienced, as if someone has whispered a secret into her ear and she has made off with it. Not someone random, either, but her own great great grandmother. A woman she can now put a name to. Berenice McKenzie.
At Glenfinlas Street she leaves Eleanor to deal with their wet things. The hem of the cape drips onto the flagstones as the maid folds it over her arm. Araminta does not even think to issue instructions about the drying of the velvet and instead takes the stairs to the drawing room, where she closes the door and makes for Great Aunt Eilidh’s desk. It isn’t until she sits down that she realises she has no idea what the eight words mean. A pearl has no seat and all crowns must be made by a jeweller. She glances at the wall of books, hoping for inspiration, but her foremothers remain disturbingly silent.
She’s almost glad when Brodie comes up. ‘Might I fetch you something, ma’am? Luncheon perhaps?’
Araminta picks up the map that started things off and puts it down again. ‘Fish,’ she says, surprising herself, for she seldom asks for seafood.
‘Fish, Mrs Moore? I shall check with Cook.’
Araminta gets up and stands at the window. The rain has relented slightly, the grey cap over Edinburgh now streaked with blue. She wonders when Sister Winifred will make the next arrangement. She cannot tackle this alone.
Chapter Twelve
For nine months as an infant, Eleanor was sent to the small school attached to St Mary’s Church in Wimbledon, but she didn’t learn to read. She knew, even at the age of seven, that her school fees stretched the household budget, so she tried her hardest but still the letters bounced as if possessed by the devil. The school master, a tough-faced old minister called Reverend Lindley ruled the classroom with the aid of a thick tawse, and Eleanor was called to the slate board almost every day to be beaten for her failings, which included not memorising her letters and continually leading with her left, or ‘sinister’, hand. ‘You must work harder, Eleanor Thrale,’ the minister snarled. Eleanor’s older brothers had distinguished themselves in the same classroom, one even securing a position as a junior clerk at the docks. Eleanor, unable to sound the letters, was left with no illusion that she was the Odd Thrale Out, as the reverend put it. ‘Quite a disappointment.’
Tramping along Princes Street now in the dark, Eleanor feels the same as she did walking up to the slate board to be punished. Today, in addition to the unwelcome demands of the gentlemen, the girl is further perturbed by her mistress who, it seems, is no longer behaving in a logical fashion. The changes in Mrs Moore’s routine, Eleanor realises, are not down to the location. Her mistress remained regular on the ship and during holidays with Mr Moore. Here, however, she’s suddenly up all hours, reading musty old books, consulting maps, making unexpected requests of the kitchen and deciding spontaneously to visit a castle. It wouldn’t surprise Eleanor if Araminta McKenzie Moore has no intention of going home to Richmond. She seems to be enjoyingherself. This, of course, is exactly what the gentlemen require Eleanor to report. But Eleanor has decided that she will not do so. She is at heart the same stubborn seven-year-old who would not explain to her teacher that the letters kept moving. She must somehow get out of her current fix and do so without further betraying Mrs Moore. Her first thought remains to run, but she hasn’t the heart for it, given what the mistress said after the funeral. She can think of no easy way out as she cuts up South St David Street and turns into the back entrance of Mr McGhie’s shop on Rose Street Lane. She pauses before giving a sharp rap at the door, and the gentleman from Kew answers.
‘Miss Thrale,’ he says, ‘come in.’
In the backroom Mr McGhie has clearly taken a good deal to drink. As Eleanor enters, he flings himself into a wooden chair as if this were a feat worthy of a circus acrobat. A hunk of bread lies on the table with a few shucked oysters and three bottles of Bordeaux, only one of which remains upright. The gentleman from Kew sips from a thick glass. Eleanor, like all good servants, can sense an atmosphere. The gentlemen have been quarrelling. She must be conciliatory.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t get away earlier.’
‘What has your mistress been up to, girl?’ the gentleman from Kew snaps, clearly uninterested in pleasantries.
‘Nothing, sir,’ Eleanor replies steadily. ‘We cleared my lady’s great aunt’s clothes into chests. She plans to remake some of the dresses.’
‘Who has she had contact with?’
Eleanor shakes her head. ‘Nobody, sir. She’s hardly so much as written home since the day we arrived.’
The gentleman’s eyes are hard. He’ll not be taken on a jaunt around the houses.
‘So where did you go this morning, Eleanor?’ he asks. ‘In the carriage. In the rain.’
Eleanor’s lips tighten. They’re watching the house then. There’s nothing for it but to admit at least some of what Mrs Moore has been up to.
‘My lady wanted to return the colonel’s visit from the other day. The one I told you of. He gave her a tour of the castle, though tourists are not allowed.’
The gentlemen’s eyes meet. ‘What sights did Colonel Fraser show your lady?’
‘Witches were burned on the Esplanade, sir. She saw where that had happened. And some kind of mess, is it called?’
The gentleman nods. ‘Anything else?’
‘The garrison chapel, sir.’
