Chapter Twenty-Two
Sister Winifred and Eleanor spend the day hidden in the crypt of the old church.
The maid has been put in enough danger, the old nun thinks, little of it even to the McKenzies’ advantage.
In any case, Winifred intends to get the girl away.
She must wait for darkness. The church is run down, almost abandoned since the canal was cut.
Eleanor passes the time drawing with a stick in the dirt.
Winifred perches on the ledge of a monumental tomb.
She considers Araminta and what they have, so far, achieved together.
The progress has not been inconsiderable though their running start was gifted by Eilidh.
Now with a reminder of mortality at her back, it comes to Winifred suddenly that she hasn’t mourned her sister’s death.
The McKenzies hadn’t spoken in such a long time, it’s easier simply to imagine that Eilidh is still at number four Glenfinlas Street, but in thinking that, Winifred is forced to think of Cillian Brodie.
This leads her down a twisted path and what she finds herself remembering is his smile.
She wonders if it’s changed over the years.
The butler certainly wouldn’t recognise her now, she thinks; an old lady in a dowdy robe.
Come five of the clock, just before sunset, Winifred instructs Eleanor to swap clothes with her.
Sulkily the maid hands back the golden box secreted in her stocking.
The nun slips it into her pocket. She runs a hand over her grey hair which was sheared when she first entered the convent but has now grown long and sits in a tidy bun.
It feels odd to be without her wimple. The brown habit she’s now wearing means nothing. She simply looks like a pauper.
As darkness falls the women tramp up the hill, skirting the Links warily and passing on the far side of the Golf Tavern. The walk stretches a good mile and they’re both hungry. ‘Are we going back to the convent?’ Eleanor asks.
Winifred nods. ‘You are,’ she says.
At the east end of Hope Park, Winifred knocks at Reverend Reid’s door and the youngest of the orphaned sisters he has taken in answers. Reid is in his sitting room. He takes a moment to recognise Winifred, out of her usual habit.
‘Good Lord,’ he says, ‘what’s happened?’
Winifred does not give a full explanation but elicits the reverend’s help.
Food first. Bread and ham. Then an undertaking that he’ll personally deliver Eleanor to Winifred’s sisters in a closed carriage and that he’ll do so armed.
Lastly, he agrees to lend her the key to a private ecclesiastical library in Forres Street where a residence has recently been taken over to house books and manuscripts which once formed the collection of the late Bishop of Aberdeen.
Fed, and confident Eleanor will be safe, Winifred ventures on foot across Hope Park, past the old city walls and down the Mound.
Town is busy tonight, at almost eight of the clock, the houses along the fine vistas left and right are wreathed in light with fancy coaches coming and going.
Outside, working men fall into conversation; mostly coachmen drinking as they wait.
An owl hoots from a chimney as Winifred walks steadily onwards to Forres Street.
Here she withdraws the key and proceeds through the doorway, closing it with a decisive click.
The house is dark and silent. She lights a lamp on the hallway table and in the old dining room settles into a comfortable chair amid the smell of old books and singed wicks.
It’s easy to find a lead and some paper.
She doesn’t write the address, but merely draws a map; a shape she trusts Araminta will recognise – the route from Glenfinlas Street to this place.
It’ll make little sense to anyone else. With this, she slips back out, along St Colme Street and up the hill, posting the note marked ‘MRS MOORE ONLY’ under the front door of number four Glenfinlas Street.
The best she can do. Then she returns to the library.
Araminta arrives two hours later, sharp on ten. Winifred is waiting in the window, the lamp dimmed and the shutter cracked. ‘I found it,’ she announces, drawing the gold box from her pocket once her niece is inside. ‘It was buried on the Links.’
‘Have you solved the clue?’ Araminta asks.
‘I waited to open it.’ The nun pushes the box across the desk. Araminta picks it up. She runs her thumb along the surface, rubbing tiny pieces of grit between her fingers.
‘It was where we expected,’ Winifred says. ‘We’re getting close.’
‘The tenth clue,’ Araminta confirms, thinking of her list. The lid is stiff and the two women lean forward as Araminta opens it. Inside, there’s a line of shallow engraving. Winifred squints for the writing is tiny. Araminta, shifting to get the best light, reads the words.
‘She is on the wall, it says. And there’s another triangle here, engraved into the gold.’
‘A triangle . . . Perhaps, it’s the opposite apex,’ Sister Winifred says. ‘You visited there. A garden, wasn’t it?’
Araminta considers. ‘The garden wall was roughly cut stone. Almost rubble.’
‘Think, dear. Was there nothing else? Nothing at all?’
Araminta recalls the stone crest carved into the rear of the building on the High Street. ‘The Maitland family crest,’ she says. ‘Mounted on the back of the house. But that’s not a “she”, is it? A “she” can only be a person.’
Winifred shakes her head. ‘Berenice is nothing if not precise.’ She peers inside the gold box. ‘Look,’ she says, ‘there’s something on the bottom, close to the edge.’
Araminta takes the box back. The text is so tiny it might be taken for a hallmark. ‘Follow her to the grave.’ She reads out loud.
‘So, a woman on a wall, that we must follow to her death,’ Winifred reasons, her tone businesslike. ‘Someone Berenice knew of, who had already died by 1746. How intriguing.’
‘You’ve no idea who it might be?’ asks Araminta.
Winifred shakes her head and Araminta lets out a sigh. This will necessitate another late night. ‘I’ll search in Aunt Eilidh’s library,’ Araminta says. ‘Tomorrow I can return to the house and see if anything strikes me.’
‘Good.’ Winifred gets to her feet.
‘You’re going?’
Winifred is not. She meant to see the girl out. ‘Do you wish to stay?’ the nun enquires.
Araminta nods. She’s made a joke of the old nun’s historical stories, but she’s enjoyed learning about her family. Discussing nothing but their investigation feels unsatisfying now. She pauses, forming a question.
‘The Thoms,’ she says. ‘They’ve pursued us over generations, you said?’
Winifred sits down again. She doesn’t want to frighten the girl by admitting her and Eleanor’s narrow escape from Harry Thom earlier today.
History is somehow easier to talk about.
‘They’ve sought us since Berenice’s lifetime,’ she confirms. ‘The Jacobite uprisings brought a redcoat army to Scotland and a brace of spies. It was only then they realised we had something; almost exactly at the time we lost the treasure or, rather, Berenice hid it.’
‘Do you know what the crown looks like?’
Winifred’s blue eyes sparkle. ‘I’ve never seen it.
No one now living has. But my mother held it once, as a child.
She said it was heavy. Golden. Many precious gemstones and large pearls.
Berenice told her it was made of Scotland.
Pearls from our shores are rare. Gold is mined near Crianlarich.
I always hoped the stones were emeralds but they could be ruby or diamond or sapphire, I suppose.
Our people traded widely in the old days. ’
‘Cairngorm, perhaps,’ Araminta interrupts. ‘It sounds beautiful.’
Winifred takes up the soft lead lying on the desk and doodles a crown on a scrap of paper. It looks like something from a fairy tale. Jewel-encrusted and ornate.
‘I hadn’t thought it so . . . tall,’ Araminta says, realising that this piece is more decorative than the honours she saw at the castle; more ornate even than King William’s crown in London, which she’s seen only in a painting.
Her assumption was the McKenzie women would have something of less importance in their possession, and now she can’t reason why.
Perhaps she considered a queen less important than a king or maybe in her mind it was Scotland that was of less import. ‘Do you think we’ll find it?’ she asks.
Winifred puts down the lead. ‘We’re closer than we’ve been in almost a century,’ she says. ‘My mother said the crown bespeaks a true treasure. A gem for womankind.’
‘I wonder what she meant by that?’
Both women are startled by the sound of a knock on the door. Sister Winifred hurriedly sets light to the drawing she’s made. Araminta stows the box in her pocket. The nun gestures towards the hallway, sending her niece ahead.
‘Who is it?’ Araminta calls, her fingers on the door handle.
‘Davey, ma’am,’ a voice announces. ‘I hoped to see you.’
‘It’s the carriage man,’ Araminta whispers.
‘He must’ve followed me.’ The women lock eyes.
Winifred motions as if to say that opening the door is a risk worth taking.
Then, thinking again, she puts up a hand and swaps places with her great niece.
‘If there’s trouble, I’ll hold him off. Run out the back door and return to the house,’ she instructs quietly, shooing Araminta to the far end of the hall.
Winifred pauses before opening the door. When it is indeed only Davey on the wide step, there’s a sense of relief.
‘Come in,’ Winifred motions. Davey doesn’t enquire as to who the old woman is, nor does he make the connection with Thom’s probing about women in holy orders. Winifred looks like any of a hundred poor folk he sees about the town; plainly dressed and bare-headed.
‘Davey. How did you know I was here?’ Araminta asks.
Davey freezes. He followed the mistress for it’s common knowledge in the household now that she takes the air at ten of the clock. Hester and Agnes have both said so.