‘Yes. Then these men of yours shall try to find out who this lord might be, and Edinburgh being the town seat of a great many aristocrats, it will take a deal of time.’
Araminta feels pleased with herself. Eleanor less so.
‘And you were summoned?’ she confirms.
‘By a missive that came this morning, upon which you did not lay eyes. But by which I was exercised. Excited, you see.’
Eleanor nods slowly.
‘You will also tell them that I’ve enquired after our passage back to London.’
‘We’re going home?’ Eleanor feels her shoulders relax.
‘No. But they needn’t know that. You may tell them that I’ve said my business is almost done. You can go now.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Eleanor gives an odd little curtsey and takes her leave. This story feels wrong. She wouldn’t believe it. It’s like something out of a book in which the mistress is a scatter-brained heroine. The maid cannot quite resign herself to simply doing as she’s told, when what she’s been told to do niggles. Besides, something deep inside Eleanor Thrale wants to recapture Araminta’s trust.
Downstairs, Hester has finished cleaning and the scent of vinegar lingers in the hall. She and Agnes are now engaged in energetically blacking the fireplace in the dining room, which Araminta has yet to put to use. Eleanor tarries in the doorway.
‘Are you idling?’ Agnes spots her.
Eleanor shakes her head. ‘I’m on an errand. I’ll fetch my coat.’
‘You seem sad today.’
Eleanor bites her lip. ‘The mistress is awful cross with me,’ she admits.
‘Mess up her ribbons did you?’ Hester jokes. ‘Mislace her stays?’
‘It can’t be all that bad,’ Agnes adds, a smudge on her cheek. ‘Wear everything you’ve got. It’s cold out.’
Downstairs, Eleanor doesn’t remove her linen apron. She pulls on her coat, then her scarf and hat. As she emerges from the basement door the freezing air stuns her lungs. She stares up at the long drawing room windows with tiny, ornate, cast-iron balconies. The glass shines like mirrors in the sun. It’s not that she objects to lying to Mr McGhie and Mr Thom, but Araminta’s story is as irritating as a scratchy, old semmit. It takes her back to the day in Richmond months ago when there was uproar in the kitchen over a pie that was taken from the pantry and Eleanor knew, without reasoning it out, that the first footman must have snatched it, for he was courting a maid at a house by the river and it had been that girl’s monthly day and a sunny one besides. Eleanor can’t read books or letters but she’s good at reading situations; her current fix notwithstanding.
Now she looks up and down the street to check if anyone is watching the house but there’s nobody in her line of view. She starts to walk and checks again, for once she reaches the corner, anyone watching number four Glenfinlas Street would have to show themselves. But still there’s nobody. Not behind her nor ahead, on the square. Suddenly, it pops into her brain that the house is not being watched; not exactly. Not from anywhere outside. The truth must be that she isn’t the only member of Mrs Moore’s staff on the gentlemen’s payroll. There’s a reason the gentlemen knew she and Mrs Moore had gone to the castle but didn’t know what had happened inside. Yes, she thinks, there can’t be a person on permanent watch. They’d never follow quickly enough to fall in behind the carriage. Besides, CharlotteSquare has scarce a nook or a cranny to hide in. The gentlemen’s informant has to be someone working at number four Glenfinlas Street, and, she reasons, given they knew where the coach had gone, that member of staff has to be the coachman.
If Eleanor continues blindly with the story Mrs Moore has just planned, the coachman will not back it up. Pausing, the girl takes stock. Mrs Moore is distrustful of her and rightly so, but that does not cancel Eleanor’s moral duty to do the right thing. She wishes, in fact, that she’d come clean to Araminta earlier, without the nun having to pinch her by the ear. Then, perhaps, there’d be a better chance of redeeming herself. Now she must do what she feels is best and present the mistress with a job well done. So, instead of heading to Princes Street, Eleanor slips down the side of St George’s and into the mews. On the far side of the courtyard, the door to the McKenzie stable is closed. She doesn’t knock, but instead creaks open the latch.
‘Does she want me again?’ the coachman asks, scarcely looking up to see who’s come from the house.
Eleanor shakes her head. ‘I’m Eleanor,’ she introduces herself. They’ve nodded at each other, but never properly met.
The coachman raises his eyes and leans forward on the stool beside the stove where he’s been polishing the carriage brasses. The English maid calling on him is a promising development. He likes a girl with green eyes. ‘Davey,’ he says, putting down the woollen cloth that buffs up the shine.
Eleanor closes the door. She’d give this man all her savings if he’d treat with her for what she wants. But she knows the deal she makes has to win him over for goodness, or at least something that speaks to the person he wishes to be. Money won’t be enough.
Davey smirks. ‘Would you like a cup of barley wine, lass? Cook keeps me well supplied.’
Eleanor ignores the offer. She waits a moment. ‘They’re giving me two shillings a visit,’ she says. ‘The gentlemen, that is. Tell me, Davey, how much are they giving you?’
Chapter Fifteen
The last time Sister Winifred came across one of the Thoms was more than twenty years ago at a dinner she and her sister had thrown. It was the first social engagement at number four Glenfinlas Street that they organised. Eilidh and Saoirse having lately lost their sister Aoife and their niece, Grainne, Araminta’s mother, in suspicious circumstances, had found themselves in sole possession of the tightly bound knot of clues left by Berenice McKenzie decades before, enjoined by a note their mother had left that merely saidAd libertatum, ‘Towards freedom’. Aoife had solved the first clue shortly before her death, almost by accident, buried on the side of Arthur’s Seat, where an old cairn had been resited. The sisters had expected to unearth the crown that day. Instead, Aoife had dug up a manuscript which laid out the unexpected promise of a dozen more of Berenice’s clues. With these puzzles ahead of them, the remaining two McKenzies felt the weight of family responsibility. Both Eilidh and Saoirse understood their limitations especially as, where their forebears had failed, they now had to succeed twelve more times. Family duty demanded it. In response to this challenge, Saoirse had taken to hours of silent contemplation, on her knees in the family pew at St George’s. It was, she always insisted, a good place to think. Eilidh, however, was insistent they must be sensible. A change was required. ‘Progress in technique,’ she said.
In 1816 or 1817 – Winifred cannot recall – Edinburgh was peopled by the world’s brightest and best. Mr Hume, the great philosopher, was dead by then. Adam Smith too. But there remained an array of geniuses residing in the capital –mathematicians, antiquarians and gentlemen of science. The medical school was world-renowned. The Royal Society of Edinburgh was chock-full of natural scientists and landscape painters. ‘We need help,’ Eilidh had said, ever practical. ‘Your endless devotion is not bearing fruit,’ she scolded her sister. ‘We must bring other, greater minds to bear. Gentlemen, of course, but we’ll also invite women. We’ve some fine bluestockings. And poets. They too may be of use. It shall be a dinner,’ she declared.
Saoirse at first hadn’t seen the sense of it. She considered her younger sister overambitious. Flighty even. Mother had always intimated as much.
‘We must focus, Eilidh,’ she insisted. ‘It’s our duty to find the jewels. It’s our fate. If we’re meant to solve the clues, we shall do so.’
