Eleanor shakes her head sadly. ‘No, ma’am.’
Araminta takes this in. She draws herself up, putting away the personal sleight in favour of the greater cause. The girl is a pawn, that’s all.
‘You’ll not get out of this so easily, Thrale. You can’t quit, and I won’t dismiss you. We must seek to misdirect these devils and you are my tool for that job. This game,’ she adds coolly, ‘I mean to win it.’
Eleanor isn’t sure what the mistress is talking about but the atmosphere in the dark office shifts. A grin spreads across Sister Winifred’s face as the old nun suddenly has a sense of outrunning the chase – a fire she thought long quenched. Eilidhshouldered ten years alone at the McKenzie’s duty. She outfoxed her pursuers and solved several of Berenice’s clues – a worthy legacy. Now Winifred will have another shot at the duty she abandoned and beside her this time a great niece with admirable spirit. Damn the past and all its ghosts. ‘By God,’ the old nun exclaims. ‘You’re a McKenzie after all.’
*
Outside, in a doorway at the bottom of the lane, Mr Brodie shifts. Earlier tonight, there were a number of matters troubling him, among them that twice now he had noticed the maid making her way into the house late from the direction of the mews. So, a few minutes ago, he waited silently in the hallway downstairs, in the shadows. Past ten, the mistress slipped down, not with Eleanor, but followed by her. Brodie’s interest piqued, he loitered in the vestibule, listening as the women’s steps receded up the hill, then he sneaked after them into the darkness. He was just in time to see a flash of apricot turn right down the lane on the north side of the church. A few minutes later, from a vantage point on the corner of the square, he witnessed Eleanor pulled inside by Sister Winifred. He considered that the nun might not be Saoirse McKenzie. After all there must be a thousand sisters in the city. But the truth is he knew it was she. Brodie never identified his lovers by their fancy clothes or the curl of their hair. Not even by their smiles or the scent of their bathing oil. Saoirse had the most elegant deportment in Edinburgh in her day, straight as a cypress. Still the same, it seemed. Even in the dark. Even at a distance. His cheeks flushed like a schoolboy. His heart leapt and crashed into a pool of sadness somewhere in his belly.
Cautiously, he checked the church windows for any indication of what might be happening inside. There was a vague light through one of the windows but it was impossible to hear what was being said. Moving on, he sheltered in a door at the top ofCharlotte Place and waited again. He’s spent the last ten minutes there with his hands shaking, feeling sick.
Now Brodie hears the side door open and peers out, making sure to loiter in the darkness of the doorway. The mistress and Eleanor disappear up the lane. Once they’ve gone, the lit window darkens and Sister Winifred steps onto the flagstones. She locks the door and puts the key in her pocket. Brodie feels his heart turn over. He watches, rapt, as she walks past him, unaware. She’s still elegant, though she must by now be in her seventies, ten years older than he is. At Queensferry Street she mounts a Clydesdale tethered at the mounting bar. Brodie smiles. Her frame is tiny by comparison to the carthorse, but up she goes, fearless. As she rides away sidesaddle, he takes the risk of stepping out to stare at her receding figure. The first time she went, he didn’t get to see her go.
‘My God,’ he breathes, once the street is empty. And then, lower, ‘Mo ghràdh.’ My love.
When she’s gone, he turns his mind to what on earth is going on. Perhaps the maid isn’t having an affair. Mrs Moore keeps saying she’s winding up her aunt’s estate, but as far as he can see there’s been little progress. The family lawyer hasn’t returned to the house since the funeral. Araminta has given no orders to pack Eilidh McKenzie’s possessions. She doesn’t write to her husband, as far as he can make out; certainly not on the daily. And, it seems, something has transpired between her and her maid. Eleanor arrived plump, pleasant and curious about the household, but the last day or so the girl has hardly put a spoonful across her lips, not even last night when Cook made custard. How does Saoirse McKenzie fit into this? Did Eilidh leave private instructions – something to be undertaken by her sister and her niece? Brodie takes a deep breath of freezing air. He won’t sleep tonight but seeing Saoirse again has been worth it. He glances behind, as if she might appear once more. ButCharlotte Place is deserted, only one buttery window above with a light still burning. Nothing on Melville Street beyond. Turning, he slips into the mews and takes the garden gate resolving to find out what on earth is going on, and to help with it, if he can.
Chapter Fourteen
The following morning, Araminta wakes at the turn of the handle on her bedroom door. She thinks fondly, under the warm covers, of Eleanor coming with her breakfast tray. Then she remembers the girl has betrayed her. Eleanor draws the curtains and the mistress sits up and takes a piece of toast from the rack. ‘I’ll dress myself,’ she directs, and Eleanor disappears. It takes a while and she can’t wear the dress with the covered buttons, but Araminta finds this more tolerable than falling into her erstwhile comfortable routine. ‘I’m a Jewel Keeper,’ she recalls with a streak of pride to temper the sadness. Going downstairs she sets out alone to see Mr Drummond, or rather, she takes the carriage in the direction of Heriot Row before directing the driver to her true destination, up the hill and over the High Street, to the bowling green before Heriot’s Hospital. Here, beyond the city limits, she takes a stroll to make sure she hasn’t been followed. She is a different woman this morning to the woman she has ever been before, for she has a mission.
It’s cold but bright today and three pupils aged no more than ten years are kicking an old leather ball on the grass in front of an impressive building. Beyond, the sound of masons and carpenters refitting the school’s chapel floats on the air. The building is pristine, the old frontage recently clad in sandstone. In fact, it looks rather grand with Edinburgh Castle behind like a painted backdrop.
Araminta hardly slept last night, sitting up late to study this place; the subject of the ninth clue. The hospital was founded in the early seventeenth century, predating, she noted, Oliver Cromwell’s invasion of Scotland and the McKenzie women’sstewardship of the queen’s crown, which, she realised after several hours of searching, is not mentioned in any of the history books in Aunt Eilidh’s library. A true secret then. She’s decided that the next time she sees Sister Winifred she’ll ask for a description of the item. Surely the old lady must know what it looks like. Araminta feels the weight of her duty but still, there’s ballast to it – her new-found sense of pride.
As she strolls confidently across the grass and round the school building with its balustraded terrace, she comforts herself that she isn’t being followed. She was careful, and she didn’t tell Eleanor where she was going. She recalls Mrs Rundell’s wise words that a lady should never fully trust her staff. She’s been foolish. She tries not to think of it.
As she rounds the corner of the terrace, her attention turns to the school which, from reading Great Aunt Eilidh’s papers, she knows was founded to educate orphans. Cut out, in a file, there were a couple of recent articles from Edinburgh’s broadsheets suggesting that these days, most of the pupils are drawn from needy families. ‘The jeweller’s crown,’ she muses out loud. The school certainly seems a crowning achievement. She wanders into the inner quadrangle, nodding at a workman who is unloading wooden chairs from a cart marked Mssrs Trotters & Co. Above, between two first floor windows, there is a statue of a man she takes to be Mr Heriot. The initials G. H. above his head confirm it and an inscription in Latin which she translates easily as ‘This statue represents my body, this school my soul.’ This she thinks was a good place for Berenice to leave a clue. It had been built more than a century before she died, and schools, like churches, are unlikely to be torn down.
A young man in a teacher’s robe emerges onto the quad, his nose pink in the cold.
‘Madam?’ he addresses her. ‘Are you looking for someone?’
Araminta smiles. ‘I apologise. I’m visiting Edinburgh from London. I’d heard of George Heriot and wanted to see the statue.’ She gestures upwards. ‘You must be proud. Quite an achievement.’
‘Proud? Yes.’ The teacher’s shoulders slacken. ‘The boys decorate Heriot’s effigy with garlands on founders’ day. In June,’ he adds, lest this adventurous lady expect this is any time soon.
‘Goodness,’ Araminta remarks. ‘How ever do they get up there?’
‘Ladders,’ he advises good-naturedly. ‘Some of the flowers are placed through the window.’
‘It’s such fine work,’ she muses, gazing upwards as if George Heriot were Michelangelo’s David, which he certainly is not. It is, Araminta thinks, the most likely place to have drawn Berenice’s attention. ‘Do you think I might get closer? I’d love to inspect him properly,’ she enthuses.
The young man looks flustered.
‘Not up a ladder,’ she assures him. ‘I’d like to look out of the window, however. If you’d be so kind.’
‘I suppose I might take you up.’
‘Thank you.’
Inside, the school smells of iron ink and butter on the turn; the smell of schoolboys. Out of the bright sunlight the corridor feels stone cold. The floor is tiled in black and white and at intervals there are wooden boards painted with the names of the prizewinners. In Mary-le-Bone, Araminta’s school was formed of two large townhouses knocked together, the old morning rooms and drawing rooms becoming classrooms that boasted wide fireplaces and fancy cornicing. One dining room was used as a library. The other was retained so the young ladies might eat there and thus be taught how their staff ought to keep the silverware. The school looked like someone’s home, withembossed chintz curtains and comfortable chairs. This place is more functional.
‘How many pupils are there here?’
‘Over a hundred,’ the young master avers.
