Chapter Twenty
The convent has a set of sounds and smells with which Eleanor is unfamiliar and in addition a large network of corridors.
The girl has never visited an institution larger than the local church; not a library nor a college nor even a bank.
The day starts no earlier than in the Moore household, when the housemaids set fires and Cook bakes bread.
Eleanor is given a plain robe to replace her apricot dress and, with her boots echoing along the high-ceilinged passage and the windows damp in the early morning air, she joins Sister Winifred in the chapel for the first service of the day.
The old nun plays the organ. After this there’s warm bread and small beer in the refectory.
It’s difficult to tell the nuns apart, all dressed the same with their hair covered.
In fact, it’s impossible to estimate the women’s ages.
The air smells of scrubbing soap and marzipan.
The sisters chatter in a low hum. Eleanor feels safe.
After breakfast, a bell sounds and the nuns scatter, leaving only a few women to clear the tables. ‘It’s not far,’ Sister Winifred says, matter-of-fact. ‘A pleasant walk through Hope Park.’
In darkness last night, Eleanor had not taken in the mansions along the roadside. Now, just after dawn, as they come onto the highway, she eyes the double-fronted stone houses.
‘Is this still Edinburgh?’ she asks for this place looks different from the grand terraces of the New Town. Here each house is set in its own grounds and the highway is made of compacted mud.
The old nun chuckles. ‘We’re outside the city, dear. This is the old Borough Muir. Many families keep country places here. It’s popular, especially in summertime.’
‘Does your family have a house?’ Eleanor looks round nervously, as if a McKenzie residence in the vicinity would put them both in danger.
‘Och no,’ the old nun replies. ‘This isn’t really the country, if you’re a Highland lass.’
Eleanor has no idea what this means, but does not enquire further.
They tramp across open ground punctuated by a couple of ancient oak trees, then they cut into Hope Park which is bounded by railings.
Inside are manicured paths and more trees; this time sycamores; younger ones.
A footman throws a stick for a spaniel and a nanny pushes a perambulator.
To the east, Arthur’s Seat rises majestically and Eleanor can just make out two tiny figures who’ve made it to the top.
In the other direction, not as far as she’d like, she takes in the dark castle with a shudder, as if it’s a malevolent force observing their progress.
Keeping her head down, they continue to more open, hilly ground.
Sister Winifred tramps across the grass past a crescent of houses shielded by private planting.
At the far western corner, she stops near a hostelry on the main thoroughfare, which Eleanor realises is the road they took to the convent last night.
A faded wooden sign proclaims it the Golf Tavern, not that Eleanor can read, though there’s a picture of a golf club and some grass.
Further down the hill there’s a Celtic cross, a memorial to the victims of the plague.
Winifred removes a trowel from her pocket.
‘That’s the place,’ she says. ‘It’s as well there’s nobody around. ’
Eleanor surveys the area, realising that the sister is right. There’s nobody going in or out of the tavern or the houses. The park and main road are quiet. At this time of day gentlemen and ladies are only just rising to their bowls of steaming washing water and trays of boiled eggs and toast.
‘Keep an eye out,’ Sister Winifred directs, and Eleanor is glad that she’s not being asked to break ground.
At the corner, in front of the cross, the old nun falls to her knees, marking out a patch of grass. The earth is frozen. It’ll be hard digging. She’s brought a pair of cotton gloves to protect her hands. Efficiently, she peels back the top layer of turf.
For a good while nothing passes on the road. Then a gentleman on a horse at a gallop, heading into town. In a field to the south, Eleanor can just make out a groom exercising two piebald ponies that have been put to grazing. Sister Winifred stands up and shakes her legs.
‘Would you like me to . . .’ Eleanor offers. It seems an easier job now it’s started and she isn’t accustomed to allowing her betters to do the lion’s share of the work.
Matter of fact, Winifred hands over the trowel and the gloves and Eleanor scrapes at the small, muddy pit the nun has opened.
The digging gets easier as the hole deepens.
When they’ve made it over a foot down, perhaps nearer two, Eleanor squeals.
Winifred peers into the hole, where a thin, mud-streaked bone sticks through the wall of earth.
She crosses herself and says something in Latin.
‘Poor soul,’ she adds. ‘An arm bone, I think.’ And she reaches again for the trowel.
‘You’re not going to continue.’ Eleanor can’t believe it.
‘What we’re looking for won’t be lower than the bodies,’ Winifred says with great pragmatism. ‘These folk were long-rotted when it went in.’ She starts to scrape the outer edge of the little pit, above the line of the gruesome discovery.
Eleanor’s breathing becomes shallow. This whole trip, day on day, has got more and more confusing.
Richmond seems like a dream; her time spent darning and polishing boots, dressing her mistress and arranging flowers.
Since they came to Scotland everything seems to be getting worse, until here she is, digging up a grave in the soft morning light, in hiding from a man who’s assaulted her.
She’s about to say something to object, when Winifred lets out a triumphant ‘Ha!’ and excavates a small golden box from the muddy wall.
‘We needn’t have dug so deep,’ she says.
‘We only missed it by an inch. It just goes to show you.’
The nun climbs out and kicks a pile of loose dirt into the hole. ‘Fill it, would you?’
Eleanor obliges. The job of putting the earth back is easier than taking it out and she’s glad the bone will once more be covered.
She presses down the infill, but at the end there remains a small mound protruding above the grass, on which she lays the sod Sister Winifred cut out, like a tiny picnic rug.
When she turns, the nun’s cheeks are wet.
‘Are you all right, Sister?’
‘I’ve never found one,’ Winifred sniffs. ‘A clue. My sisters . . . that is, my McKenzie sisters, Eilidh and Aoife were always the ones to succeed.’ She steps onto the grass-topped hillock to tamp it down. ‘It’ll level in time,’ she says.
‘Are you going to open it?’ Eleanor asks, her gaze falling to the box still in Winifred’s hand.
The old nun’s eyes are like pistons. ‘In time,’ she says.
‘It’s gold, though,’ the girl persists.
‘Gold doesn’t rot, that’s why it was chosen. Its treasure is its practicality.’
‘What do you think is inside?’
Winifred secretes the box in her pocket. ‘You can’t know, Eleanor. The fewer of us, the better.’
Eleanor feels a flush of anger. Her mistress has put her in terrible danger and she isn’t even allowed to know why. She’s admitted her guilt to the McKenzie women and still, it seems, they don’t trust her.
‘We should get back. I’ll show you the sewing room,’ Winifred continues. ‘Everyone has to earn their keep,’ she adds. ‘You’re a ladies’ maid. You can stitch, can’t you?’
Eleanor nods. She doesn’t mind sewing. ‘Thank you,’ she manages, but she finds her eyes drawn to the pocket of Sister Winifred’s robe where the box is now hidden.
‘You’re too curious a cat. You know what happens to them,’ Winifred warns.
The nun leads the way and Eleanor starts to follow, but out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of something in the distance.
She squints. Far off, on the other side of the park, a gentleman on a horse is riding towards them at a gallop.
She recognises him; his greatcoat a plummy shade of wool so dark it’s almost black.
‘Oh God,’ she gets out. She grabs Sister Winifred’s arm. ‘It’s Mr Thom,’ she squeals.
Winifred peers. Her eyesight is not as good as it once was. She can make out the chestnut horse but not the figure.
‘You’re sure it’s him?’
Eleanor doesn’t answer, just starts to run up the hill back towards the convent.
The nun catches her arm. There’s no way they’ll make it to safety in that direction.
‘Come with me,’ she says, and quickly discounting the nearby houses as possible hiding places, she pulls the girl towards the tavern.
Eleanor trips as they scramble across the wet grass and clatter past two clucking hens, pecking the hard ground in the courtyard.
The women burst through the door into an almost empty public room where a hefty-looking barmaid is rolling a keg into place.
It’s early for there to be drinkers but a man by the ember-strewn grate sighs in his sleep, his dishevelled appearance indicating he’s been there all night.
The air smells stale though somewhere there’s a pot of barley broth bubbling, its scent overlaying the hoppy remnants of last night.
‘Sister!’ the woman declares, clearly surprised for nuns do not normally frequent the hostelry.
‘We need to hide,’ Winifred gets out. ‘This girl,’ she pushes the maid ahead. Thom, after all, can identify Eleanor but as far as she knows, he has no idea who she is. In fact, now she thinks on it, she’d like to get a look at him. ‘I can pay,’ she adds, pulling three shillings from her pocket.
Businesslike, the woman takes the money and thankfully asks no questions. Someone in her position, Winifred is sure, has seen many women fleeing menfolk. She puts out a hand to manoeuvre Eleanor away, her chunky arm as pink as pork.
‘Right,’ she says.