Chapter Twenty-Two #2
‘Ma’am’ – he gives a little bow – ‘I followed you. I come with news. The gentleman who tailed the carriage today. Mr Thom. I’m unsure if he trusts me any longer. He questioned me before I came round this morning and on my return. I wanted to inform you.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Something about you being on the south of the city this morning. I told him you hadn’t taken the carriage. I’m not sure he believed me.’
Winifred sighs audibly. ‘But he believes your mistress was there?’
‘Yes . . . miss.’ Davey bites his lip. He’s not sure how to address her.
‘Sister,’ Winifred helps him.
‘Yes, Sister.’ Davey continues. ‘Oh. He asked me if I’d seen a nun.
’ Araminta and Winifred lock eyes. ‘He told me to go to Mr McGhie’s tomorrow but, ma’am, I went today.
I waited on the lane all afternoon, for you’d no need of me .
. .’ His voice trails. He’s supposed to be at the mistress’s pleasure.
‘It’s fine,’ Araminta motions. ‘But why, Davey?’
‘I thought it was a taste of their own medicine,’ he ventures.
Araminta grins. She likes this carriage boy more and more. ‘Did you uncover anything?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Davey says. ‘The shop boy. I fell into conversation with him when he left. Name of Ewan Fergus. He’s the same age as I am and stays in the old tenements at the foot of Calton Hill. His family’s dead. I stood him a pint of beer at the hostelry past St James Square.’
Winifred smiles. ‘They’ve bribed our staff and you thought to do the same?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I told him I was in the employ of Mr Thom’s mother. I said she was anxious for her son.’
‘Did he tell you anything?’ Winifred enquires.
‘Sister,’ says Davey, ‘I could scarce shut him up. He said Mr Thom’s taken rooms on North St David Street and that the gentlemen squabble, especially in drink.
That Mr Thom dislikes Mr McGhie, who spends a deal of time trying to impress him, despite that.
That after Eleanor left the other day the men almost came to blows. They call themselves Hermits.’
‘What does that mean?’ Araminta asks.
‘I don’t know. Neither did Ewan. The Devils are gentlemen that drink on Advocate’s Close. Perhaps the Hermits are something the same.’ Davey’s eyes fall to his boots as if he’s plucking up the courage to add something.
‘What is it?’ Sister Winifred pushes.
‘I wonder what they’re after, Sister,’ Davey says. ‘Eleanor didn’t say.’
‘Eleanor doesn’t know,’ Winifred snaps. ‘There’s no need for you to know either.’
‘Yes, Sister.’ The boy sounds apologetic.
‘Thank you, Davey,’ Araminta chimes in. ‘You’ve done well.’
They send him back to the mews. ‘Search Eilidh’s library’, Winifred tells her niece – a parting shot – ‘for any mention of that building but also these Hermits.’
‘Tomorrow I’ll return to the Maitland house,’ Araminta says. She’ll amend the list in her notebook when she gets home.
Aunt Eilidh left me a tartan kerchief.
Clue 8 led to the castle.
Clue 9 from the castle to Heriot’s: a third point on the triangle.
Clue 10 The third point was a plague pit.
Clue 11 Inverted, the point led to the Maitland house.
The women pause in the hall, the light of the moon through the fanlight falling onto the flagstones.
Both are considering their progress. ‘Good luck,’ Winifred says and watches her great niece disappear up the street in anticipation of a long night at the old desk in the drawing room.
Once Araminta is gone, Winifred gives a silent prayer of thanks that Edinburgh is small and she has a wide acquaintance in the town.
She thought she might catch a few hours’ sleep in the library, but matters have taken a turn – one she did not elucidate to Araminta.
She wants to shield the girl where she can.
Thom is a menace but there’s a chance, she recognises, that she might get a handle to him.
She checks the street’s clear, then slips out of the door and strides along Queen Street, turning south at the far end.
North St David Street comprises a short run of townhouses, sited on a steep hill, much like Glenfinlas Street with a square at the top.
Here, at the bottom, are three of the New Town’s oldest buildings; landlords’ apartments below with rooms to let on the upper floors.
Winifred hasn’t been here in years. She trips up the stairs to number eleven as if she were a far younger woman, which, indeed, she was on the last occasion.
The windows are dark but she doesn’t hesitate to rap on the main door.
After a minute it’s opened by a man in a linen nightgown with a navy lambswool dressing gown pulled loosely around his wide frame.
‘What do you want?’ He sounds short-tempered, eyeing her thick brown dress and workaday boots.
He’d never speak to her that way if she was wearing her wimple.
He peers past Winifred up the hill, as if there may be an explanation for this poor specimen of an old woman on his doorstep.
Winifred can’t help laughing. The last time she was here she had green silk stays and buttoned kidskin boots. ‘I’m sorry it’s late. I had a friend in this house. I’m here to speak to Grizel.’
The man steps backwards as if Winifred has uttered a secret password.
In the inner hallway a maid so small she looks as if she’s only a child loiters at the door to the kitchen stairs. At the doorway to the back room, a woman in a thick, creamy nightdress and lace-edged cap studies the visitor. A greying plait snakes down her back.
‘My God. Saoirse McKenzie,’ she says, her voice breaking.
The women embrace.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d recognise me.’
Grizel lets out a laugh. ‘It’s been a while. Your eyes are still blue as the sea at Portobello in June. Same smile too.’
Winifred grins even wider. Grizel was ever charming. ‘I’ve come to beg a favour,’ she admits, her gaze darting to her friend’s husband. ‘Women’s business.’
Grizel makes no matter of it. She motions the man back to bed, shoos the maid downstairs and leads her old friend into a small drawing room.
She closes the door and turns up the lamp.
The fire is mere embers. There’s a book laid spine up on a side table – a drab edition of an old Mary Brunton novel with a decanter of port half-drunk beside it.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,’ the nun admits.
‘Mother left me the place when she died. I never thought I’d see you again,’ Grizel says, pouring two glasses of port.
Winifred pauses. ‘You married in the end,’ she says.
‘He’s a good man. A widower when we met. Older though we’re all older day by day. His name is Frederick Campbell. I’m Mrs Campbell now.’
‘I’m happy for you.’
‘You disappeared so suddenly. I only heard afterwards you’d taken orders.’
‘I’m Sister Winifred now. I’m sorry I never wrote to say goodbye.’
Both women are silent. Many years ago, Grizel bore an illegitimate child.
A son she named Edward. Most likely the only two people still alive who know this are here, in this small room.
Her lover was from a good family and had a commission in the Black Watch.
He died in the French Revolutionary war and the child was sent to a wet nurse in Ratho, which Winifred helped to arrange.
He only lived a few weeks. Grizel doesn’t know any of Sister Winifred’s secrets, which are, Winifred thinks, much more shameful.
There is much they could discuss, but Winifred decides to get straight to the matter in hand.
‘Have you a lodger?’ she asks. ‘A fellow called Harry Thom. Dark-haired. Arrogant. English.’
Grizel sits down on a red leather chair. ‘I do.’
‘What do you know about him?’
‘Only that he’s from London and keeps irregular hours.
He took the rooms for a fortnight but says he might stay longer.
He rents a horse from the hostelry at the end of York Place.
He has oysters sent up. He doesn’t drink overmuch – a case of wine sent from McGhie’s the day he took the tenancy and nothing since. I can’t say he’s a pleasant gentleman.’
‘Has he said anything about a hermit?’
‘A hermit? No.’
Winifred’s lips twitch. ‘I’d like to search his rooms.’
Grizel scarcely blinks. She’ll deny her old friend nothing. How could she? ‘He’s abed just now. He came in earlier, the earliest he’s returned since he got here. I can send word to you at Glenfinlas Street when he goes out, if you like? Tomorrow.’
Winifred’s head drops, only slightly. ‘I’m not staying at home. I have, in fact, nowhere to stay tonight.’
Grizel takes this information in her stride. ‘Why don’t I have a room made up? And in the morning we can wait till he goes out,’ she says. ‘He left early doors yesterday. Perhaps he’ll do the same. We’ll search his things together.’