Chapter Sixteen
Out in the carriage for the second time today, Araminta peers at the High Street.
She reluctantly admits that Colonel Fraser was right, as she knocks on the roof to have Davey draw up at the point which marks the apex of Berenice McKenzie’s triangle.
Araminta did not expect the place would feel so down-at-heel in daylight hours, so despite her promise to Winifred last night, she hasn’t brought her muff gun.
Now she regrets it. Still, she climbs down, lifting her skirts over the stinking stream running downhill in the direction of Holyroodhouse.
She’s fond of old buildings, indeed she and Johnathan live in a house that’s well over a century old, but this part of the city feels like a rookery for all its illustrious past. It’s difficult to imagine that her well-heeled McKenzie forebears ever resided here, though she supposes some of them must have.
The tenements run to an impressive eight storeys and on the street there are costermongers and beggars.
She takes heart at the sight of two gentlemen clutching advocates’ briefs, deep in discussion as they stride up the hill.
The building marked on Berenice’s map is only six storeys.
Below it there’s a wool shop and the thick scent of shorn sheep seeps through the doorway.
Unsure what she intends to do, Araminta climbs the steps to the front door above the shop and knocks.
There’s no answer. She knocks again and at length a girl opens up.
The child is no more than eight years of age and barefoot.
She clearly finds the sight of a lady on her doorstep disturbing.
‘Miss?’ she asks nervously.
‘Might I come in?’
The girl steps back. Inside, there are more stone steps, curving upwards with only a grubby rope as a banister.
‘Who lives here, please?’ Araminta enquires.
The girl bites her lip and to loosen it, Araminta fishes a penny from her reticule. This has the desired effect. Once started, it feels like the child will never stop.
‘My kin, miss, my parents and my brothers and one sister and me. And the Robertsons. And the Lindsays. And the Macraes and the lassie Macrae and her husband though I’m not sure his name. And old Mrs Banks on the top floor with her cats and she has some doos an aw. And in the laigh, some poor folk.’
Araminta wonders how poor the people residing in the basement would have to be, to be considered poor by a girl with no shoes.
‘And in the back of the building?’
‘We’ve twa goats, miss, and ducks but mostly it’s a midden.’
‘Can I see?’
The girl nods enthusiastically and taking on the guise of tour guide, leads the way down the inner stair and through another door to the rear.
The back of the building seems taller and Araminta surmises this is because it has been erected on a steep hill.
A forlorn chestnut tree grows against the boundary wall and goats graze on the patchy grass.
Turning back, Araminta notices a coat of arms carved into the stone on the first floor, but she doesn’t recognise the insignia.
It’s a sign, she supposes, of better days, though she finds it hard to imagine that a building such as this would ever have housed the sort of family with their own crest.
The girl strides downhill through the mud and returns with a contented brown duck under her arm. ‘Their eggs are bigger than a hen’s,’ she says knowledgeably. ‘But we mun keep them penned cause of foxes.’
Araminta wonders where Berenice might have left a clue in such a place.
Gardens change, even if this was once a well-ordered, grassy slope with apple trees and lavender, only a fool would expect it to stay so.
Hoping that something will catch her eye, she continues round the boundary wall which is built of roughly hewn sandstone mortared in irregular shapes.
The wall is ordinary and at the rear of the steep garden the view is a fetching vista of the New Town, though in Berenice’s day, Araminta thinks, it would have been open fields.
‘Do you know who this house was built for?’ she asks.
‘It was a Maitland woman lived here,’ the girl says, pointing back towards the crest. ‘Fancy folk. I’ll show you.’
With the duck still under her arm, she strides back up the garden and through the door, leading Araminta to the first floor, where the apartment is open.
‘Do you live here?’ Araminta asks.
The girl shakes her head. ‘The Lindsays,’ she pronounces. ‘They’re helping at the printers. Mr Lindsay sets the press,’ she adds. ‘He gets an extra sixpence when it’s busy to bring more hands.’
Inside, the apartment smells of melted tallow.
Laundry hangs from a rack attached to the wooden ceiling, and through the still-damp petticoats and stockings Araminta can see a faded, painted frieze.
The wooden fireplace is carved with sheaves of barley and a motto in Latin, Consillio et Animis – ‘By Spirit and Skill’.
There isn’t much furniture, but a small pile of pamphlets lies on a shelf near the window.
Not surprising, she thinks, given Mr Lindsay’s occupation.
The apartment overlooks the church. The girl follows Araminta’s gaze.
‘That’s the Tron Kirk. The salt tron was nearby, ken, but no now. ’
‘Tron?’ Araminta enquires.
‘You know. To stop folk getting swindled.’
‘Ah.’ The penny drops. There are markets nearby, Araminta recalls, the butchery block and poultry. A tron must be the standard of weighing apparatus. ‘Is the word Gaelic?’ she asks.
‘Our folk are no Gaels,’ the girls snaps. She pulls the duck upwards, as if steeling herself against a slur.
‘My family are,’ Araminta admits, smiling because a fortnight ago she had no idea. ‘Highland folk,’ she adds. ‘I don’t speak the tongue.’
The girl looks surprised. ‘Is there anything else, ma’am?’
Araminta shakes her head and deposits another penny into the child’s free hand.
Outside, Davey’s smoking a stinking cheroot. He stubs it out as she emerges and shoves it into his pocket. ‘It’s a bad habit, I know, ma’am,’ he apologises for Cook is a holy terror to all the staff.
‘I don’t mind,’ Araminta says, as he opens the carriage door.
Davey glances back at the Maitland house.
‘Who were you visiting?’
‘None of your business,’ Araminta snaps, but adds, ‘it’s a dead end anyway. This part of town is . . .’ she wants to say ancient, she supposes, but can’t get it out. Perhaps the word is interesting, or historic or sad.
‘My folk live on the Canongate.’ Davey motions down the hill. ‘By the brewery.’
‘That’s the smell of hops then?’
‘Reminds me of home, miss.’
‘So you know it round here?’
‘Aye. Yes,’ Davey corrects himself for Mrs Moore, he knows, is English.
‘Do you know this house?’ She indicates the door she’s just left.
‘Not really. But the house next door is where the Act of Union was signed.’ Davey stops himself from adding the famous Robert Burns quote that people normally tack onto this fact. Bought and sold for English gold. There were riots outside while the deed was done.
Araminta perks up. This sounds more notable. ‘Do you think I might see it?’
Davey shrugs. He closes the carriage door and disappears into a booth on the ground floor next to the wool shop.
He gestures when he returns. ‘They’re sick of people asking but the man says he’ll show you for sixpence.’
She fumbles in her reticule as she follows him back inside. It’s a leather shop and strips of hide are slung over hooks mounted along the back of a workbench.
‘Aye, it was here,’ the man says, as he removes the coin from Araminta’s gloved fingers.
‘This way.’ He leads her into a dilapidated basement.
‘They were ashamed,’ he adds by way of explanation.
‘A crowd gathered outside the kirk. Folk were agin the union.’ The basement shows no sign of its illustrious history and looks worse the further she enters into it.
The walls are pockmarked stone. A bed comprising a stuffed sack of straw is set under the stair.
There’s a small fireplace with a bucket of water to one side and a greasy-looking chair on the other.
‘Here?’ she confirms, hardly able to believe it.
The man nods. ‘’Twas a kitchen in those days, mebbe.’
Araminta doubts it. The fireplace is too small to accommodate either roasting or baking. She doesn’t argue, instead drawn to the back door. The window beside it is caked with soot. ‘What’s out there?’
The man opens up. She steps out. This garden is even steeper than the one next door.
Quickly she walks along the boundary and inspects the wall, which is, she thinks, the only thing out there that Berenice could reasonably have expected to last. The rough-hewn sandstone is peppered black with soot and there’s no carving. She sighs.
Back in the carriage, feeling like a failure, she directs Davey home.
In Glenfinlas Street the hallway is full of light by comparison to the Maitland house.
It doesn’t surprise Araminta that high society moved away from the low-ceilinged Old Town to these bright, airy houses.
She has an appointment to meet Sister Winifred this evening at St John’s Kirk and wanted to have made progress.
She hopes the triangulation she’s uncovered will make sense to her great aunt.
She imagines Winifred poring over a velum map, coming out with abstruse facts from Scottish history.
‘There must be an octagonal stone, the mark of the Scottish royals. A unicorn, my dear. From there if you take a compass and mark ten paces to the north you’ll come to the seat of the McKenzie jewels.
Freedom for women! Didn’t they teach you anything in London? ’
The idea makes her giggle.
Brodie appears as she enters the drawing room.
‘I’ll have white soup. And cold meat with mustard,’ she says.
Before the old butler acquiesces, he hovers next to the sopha.
‘What is it?’ Araminta asks.
Brodie’s blue eyes soften. ‘The staff are wondering your intentions, ma’am. How long you might stay in Edinburgh?’
‘The staff?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Are we about to lose someone?’
‘No, ma’am. I don’t think so.’
‘My great aunt, before her death, mentioned that Cook might be enticed down south,’ Araminta says, realising that when Aunt Eilidh posited this, London had seemed more important than Edinburgh. Her world has shifted and she now has doubts.
‘I’ve no idea, ma’am,’ Brodie replies. ‘Would you like me to enquire?’
Araminta gives a non-committal shrug. Brodie continues to linger. The way he puts his head to one side feels somehow too familiar as if he’s watching her not like a butler, but like a man.
‘I’ve made no plans,’ Araminta snaps. ‘I can’t say what I’ll do.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Send up Eleanor, would you?’ she adds brusquely.
Brodie pauses. ‘Thrale went out an hour ago, madam,’ he says. ‘I can have one of the maids see to you if it’s urgent.’
Araminta checks the timepiece on the mantle. It’s three of the clock. Eleanor, she thinks, has been gone a good deal longer than an hour, but she doesn’t want to get into that with the butler. ‘It’s all right. That’ll be all.’
As Brodie leaves, she rises and stares up the hill, to the garden on the square. She lets out a tutting sound. Where on earth has the girl got to?