Prologue #2
‘All of it!’ Walter declares triumphantly. ‘The crown, the sword and the sceptre. Cached in an oak chest, Lottie. Walled up in an old strongroom!’ He clasps his wife, lifting her off her feet.
Eilidh and Saoirse clap obligingly, their kid gloves emanating an enthusiastic pitter-patter. Thomas lets out a whoop and the soldiers cry, ‘Hurrah!’
Walter continues. ‘His Royal Highness will be delighted. I’ve sent a missive to Leith for the next sailing.
We’re bound to have him up now. In time we may even have a Scottish coronation,’ he exclaims. Walter is not indiscreet enough to mention his expectation of an honour.
The women know, however, that this means the elevation of the Scotts to the peerage.
‘It started with you, Miss McKenzie,’ Walter adds generously, kissing her gloved hand.
‘That wonderful old letter you came across.’
‘It was your hard work, sir, which truly uncovered the treasure,’ Saoirse bats back.
‘Well done, darling.’ Charlotte returns to her seat and coolly lays an ace onto the baize.
The Scotts’ butler arrives with a tray of glasses; balloons of Armagnac for the men. ‘None of that ghastly bubbling brew of yours,’ Scott teases his wife. ‘This is a proper celebration. We shall announce it at the Assembly Rooms this evening. All Edinburgh must know.’
The afternoon continues in this vein. More New Town worthies arrive.
Scott tells the story over and over, adding poetic details about the billowing dust raised by the soldiers breaking through the wall.
‘The regalia is the very soul of our nation,’ he says.
‘I may write a poem.’ Nobody doubts it. More Armagnac and he moves on to the condition of the artefacts which have survived all this time.
‘Perfect as the day the wall was closed.’
Nobody mentions why the honours were walled up in the first place.
Scott has uncovered an act of quiet rebellion over a century old.
Like the ascension of the Hanoverians, the Act of Union is only ever spoken of as a joyous event, if at all, but there is always that rumble.
Bought and sold for English gold, as Robert Burns had it.
Today, however, dissent is not on the agenda and toasts are raised to Walter’s intellect in making the discovery, then toasts to the honours and intermittently the king, the regent’s father, who is mad and currently confined in Kew Palace. And, of course, toasts to Prinny too.
At four, the McKenzie women don their outerwear; Eilidh in a fur-edged cape the colour of good red wine and Saoirse wearing a stylish satin-lined redingote in forest-green.
Thomas follows them downstairs. ‘The marvellous Misses McKenzie,’ he says.
‘What would Edinburgh do without you?’ Gentlemen are generally charming to the women.
They gravitate towards Eilidh, the chattier of the sisters and the younger.
She takes this in her stride, knowing they hope for a coveted invitation to one of the McKenzies’ famous dinners, where pudding is only served if the party can solve one of the sisters’ notorious riddles.
Thomas Scott has never been invited for he has no intellect and could not unravel a riddle if it were a waxed paper round a toffee.
The McKenzies take their leave and walk home, arm in arm, along George Street and round the square.
It’s cold but the sky is piercing-blue. The air smells faintly of woodsmoke.
The trees are bare. Saoirse looks forward to the day only a few weeks hence when the grass will be scythed and heaped on a large sackcloth under a tree. She likes the smell.
‘Do you think he’ll realise?’ Eilidh asks.
Saoirse shakes her head. The crown Scott found today is not Scotland’s only missing royal jewel.
‘It’s not in Walter’s nature to think of the women.
He’s found his summit. He’s planted his flag.
He’ll be Sir Walter before the end of the year.
Lady Charlotte has a nice ring to it. I don’t feel like the Assembly Rooms later, do you? ’
‘Certainly not,’ her sister confirms. Both are tired.
Walter’s exploit has cost them a good deal of sleep over the last weeks.
Should they have given him the clue when they unearthed it?
Or would it have been better to allow the honours to languish?
The McKenzies took almost a fortnight to decide that Scotland’s crown jewels were best placed in the public sphere.
They have a great deal on their minds apart from this.
‘And the child? Our little peppermint?’
‘Araminta? Let’s leave her where she is.
’ Eilidh breaks free of her sister’s arm and opens the front door, throwing her outerwear onto the table.
She casts a passing glance at the family coat of arms and its motto, Cuidich ’n banhrigh: Help the queen.
It is the women’s sworn duty. ‘We’ll know when the time’s right.
It’s safer this way,’ Eilidh adds. ‘Perhaps we’re the final generation.
Walter has unearthed his honours. I hope we shall find ours as well. ’
Saoirse’s mind is still on the great niece she has only met as an infant. ‘Might the wee lass miss us?’ she muses wistfully.
Ever pragmatic, Eilidh shrugs off this question as Brodie, the women’s butler, six feet tall and handsome, sees them upstairs.
Eilidh employed him on account of his looks: striking red hair and pale-blue eyes that contrast his black uniform.
‘He’ll cheer the place up,’ she’d said. ‘Nice and colourful.’
Brodie’s personality does not match his flaming hair. He emanates confident discretion, a trait the McKenzies value above almost anything else. ‘An enjoyable afternoon, ladies?’ he enquires, rock-steady.
‘All according to plan, Brodie. Send up tea, would you?’ Eilidh instructs. ‘Sage, I think, with honey.’
Upstairs, the women lounge on yellow satin sophas round the open fire.
The long windows are open an inch, despite the cold.
Later, Saoirse will attend the evening service at St George’s, as is her habit.
She likes to see the neighbours and to sing, while Eilidh remains in this room, reading; always reading.
‘I’m sure our crown has emeralds,’ Saoirse says wistfully.
‘They’re far better stones. If only we could lay our hands on it,’ she adds with a sigh.