Chapter Twenty-Four
Thom leaves North St David Street at ten of the clock that morning.
Grizel asks if he’ll be back for lunch, and he gruffly shakes his head.
As soon as he’s out of sight of the drawing room window, the women sweep up the close to the rented apartment.
Grizel has provided her friend with a simple, blue day dress, prettier than anything Sister Winifred has worn in a decade.
She catches sight of herself in the mirror by the door and laughs.
‘Your old dress needed a good wash,’ Grizel comments. ‘Why shouldn’t you look respectable?’
This concept is so far from Winifred’s normal life now that she takes a moment to understand it.
A nun’s habit, after all, is the most respectable robe a woman might don.
She no longer speaks the language of well-cut sleeves and laced bodices.
Though, she notes with some surprise, she still has a waist as small as when she resided in the West End.
Thom’s room is tidy. The tiny maid runs ahead of the women like a wisp and immediately sets to making the bed and removing the wooden plate on which Thom’s breakfast was served and the crystal glass stained red by his morning wine.
She bobs a curtsey and disappears downstairs as Grizel and Winifred get their bearings.
‘What is it we’re looking for?’ Grizel asks.
Winifred’s eyes narrow. ‘I want to know why he came to Edinburgh. Anything about him.’
She crosses to the large travelling chest under the window.
‘That’s his,’ Grizel confirms.
The lid is not locked. Inside there are two neat piles of well-packed linens; stiff collars and a selection of taffeta cravats which, as Winifred lifts them, remind her of the colour of bruises. She puts this out of her mind as too poetic.
‘Aha,’ she chimes, for under the clothes there are books and papers. She lifts the books one by one.
Grizel inspects them. ‘No novels.’
‘Nor poetry,’ Winifred adds, opening a leather-bound volume about military tactics and another by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Winifred flicks through the pages noting passages underlined about the inferior physiognomy of women.
Below that, an older book. ‘Reverend John Knox,’ she reads, recognising the name, and then the book’s title, sensing a theme, ‘The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. A polemical work, I should think.’ She finds more passages underlined, including a diatribe against the rule of queens.
‘A ponderous argument,’ she comments. The letters seem workaday: a notice from a club on Pall Mall where Thom is a member and a few lines from a relation in the matter of a younger cousin’s education.
Grizel checks the chest of drawers on the other side of the room. ‘Nothing here,’ she says, ‘only hose and woollen semmits.’ She moves on to the bed, shifting the long pillow and then the mattress, to see if there’s anything underneath.
Winifred runs her eyes across the room. On the nightstand beside Thom’s half-drunk bottle of Burgundy is a leather wallet which opens into a double picture frame.
Inside, there’s a miniature of a woman on the left.
This, she expects, is Harry Thom’s mother, for the lady has his high cheekbones, higher than those of Thom’s father, Winifred recalls.
She’s wearing an empire-line frock that would have been fashionable about the year Harry was born.
In the other frame there’s a painting of a bearded man, his head framed by a golden halo. He’s holding a deer in his arms.
Grizel looks over her friend’s shoulder. ‘Mr Thom doesn’t seem a devout sort,’ she says. ‘Is that St Francis?’
Winifred shakes her head. ‘St Francis usually has a lamb; sometimes doves. I think this is St Giles.’
‘The kirk in the town seems too fancy for that loon,’ Grizel grins. ‘He looks as poor as you did in that old brown robe.’
‘I took a vow of poverty,’ Winifred says.
‘So did he.’ Then she notices a candle lamp in the painting, small in the corner, and she recalls something.
She snaps the leather case shut. ‘A hermit!’ she says delightedly.
‘St Giles is the patron saint of the lame and the unworthy. He was a hermit! Do you see?’
Grizel folds her arms. ‘I don’t see,’ she states plainly.
But Winifred doesn’t explain. Instead, she opens the leather wallet once more and slips her finger behind the paintings.
There’s nothing in the half with the image of Thom’s mother, but stuck down the back of St Giles is a slip of wood.
It’s painted with a crest, rather grand with gilded edges and beautifully finished.
‘Some kind of . . . order.’ Winifred pulls it out. ‘The Order of the Hermit.’ She tries the words. ‘Funny . . . I can’t see St Giles as a woman hater.’ She recalls vaguely that Giles is the patron saint, among other things, of nursing mothers.
Grizel perches on the edge of the bed. ‘I thought St Paul was the hermit,’ she says. ‘There really are too many saints!’
Grizel always had a sense of humour. Winifred’s lips are just stretching into a smile when the door to the bedroom opens and Harry Thom stands in the doorway, a walking cane in his gloved hand.
‘Mistress Campbell,’ he greets his landlady. Then his eyes light as they land on Winifred. ‘Sister,’ he growls, recognising her immediately despite her change of clothing. He snatches the sliver of wood from Winifred’s fingers and puts it in his pocket.
‘We’re cleaning,’ Grizel says weakly.
The little maid appears in the doorway, too late to warn the women. Thom closes the door in her face. ‘Well, well,’ he says, stationing himself so there can be no prospect of an exit.
‘I thought you were out for the day, sir,’ Grizel adds.
‘Clearly,’ Thom says drily. He’s not interested in her though, his full attention coming to rest upon Winifred. ‘I’d like to know what you disinterred on the Links yesterday, Sister.’
Winifred decides not to deny it. ‘You must know I’ll not divulge that, Mr Thom.’
Thom manages to smile without looking happy. ‘Then I shall whip it out of you,’ he snarls. ‘If that’s how it has to be. I’ve had enough of your cloak and dagger.’
Grizel steps between the lodger and her friend. ‘We don’t allow that kind of talk in this house,’ she says. ‘Not to anyone, but especially not a sister in holy orders.’
‘I don’t give a damn what you allow, madam. I’ll have the clue this woman uncovered and she shall give it to me.’
He raises his walking stick to make the threat clear.
Winifred sighs. She moves her friend to one side gently as if she’s sweeping aside a curtain. ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she says, staring Thom down.
Grizel tries to push past him to the door.
‘Freddie!’ She manages to call her husband’s name before Thom strikes her with the stick and she falls with a thump.
Winifred punches Thom in the stomach, realising immediately that wearing a dress with a bodice restricts her movements in a way to which she is now unaccustomed.
Before she can catch her breath and strike again, Thom turns her as if she’s a mannequin and holds her in front of him with his arm round her throat.
‘What did you find? The next clue?’ he growls. ‘Tell me.’
Winifred doesn’t hesitate. She moves her body behind his with one elegant step and uses her weight to force him to the floor.
A cross might be a target, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stand still for him to aim at.
Grizel gets up and with Thom down, she staggers out of the room, shouting her husband’s name all the way down the stairs.
Far off, Winifred hears the door to the street bang.
She only has to last a minute or two, she thinks, before her friend will return with help.
She can certainly manage that. Thom pushes her over, manoeuvring his body on top.
It’s been a long time since she’s felt the weight of a man, and with surprise she realises he’s hard.
She struggles as he searches her frame, running his hand down the line of the bodice. ‘Get off me,’ she squeals.
‘You hag,’ he spits. ‘What would I want with a crone such as you?’ He pulls up her skirts roughly and easily uncovers the gold box.
Taking the idea from Eleanor, Winifred secured it this morning inside the top of her stocking, bound in place with a short length of ribbon.
‘Ha!’ He’s triumphant. He kisses her wetly on the cheek.
Rather than disgust, Winifred feels a wave of fury.
She kicks out, making to trip him as he goes for the door, but he dodges the ploy and stamps on her stomach, hard.
There’s a sudden, sickening crack. Winifred cries out and Thom laughs, barrelling down the stairs with the box in his hand.
Winifred manages to haul herself to her feet and holding on to the bedstead tries to get to the door.
The hallway brightens beneath as Thom makes it outside.
She screams in frustration. Another thirty seconds and Frederick Campbell flings open the door below and belts up the stairs.
‘He ran!’ she shouts. ‘See if you can get him. He took something. A little box!’
Mr Campbell turns and Grizel enters the hallway behind her husband as he disappears outside.
‘I think I broke a bone,’ Winifred manages, holding on to her old friend for support.
Grizel helps her to the edge of the bed and gingerly checks over her friend with gentle fingers. Winifred yelps.
‘That bastard,’ Grizel curses. ‘He won’t get back in here.’
Winifred edges backwards so she’s supported by the mattress. Grizel tends to the pillows. ‘I’ll send for the doctor.’
‘Not Anderson,’ Winifred cuts in. She doesn’t want the McKenzie family doctor.
‘There’s a fellow on Queen Street,’ Grizel suggests. ‘I’ve heard he’s good.’
‘I need to get a message to my niece.’
‘Your niece?’ Grizel sounds amazed.
‘Great niece. Grainne’s girl.’
‘I knew Grainne had married but she died so young.’
‘We kept it quiet,’ Winifred admits. ‘Mr Thom is not the first man to take an interest in our family affairs.’
Grizel asks nothing further. ‘You’ll stay here, of course,’ she says. ‘Moving you will be difficult and he’ll not be back. I’ll send the girl for the doctor.’
They hear Frederick Campbell enter below. He’s breathing heavily as he comes up. ‘I lost him,’ he says. ‘There was no sign outside. He’s either jumped over the railings into the garden or dodged down one of the streets off St Andrew Square. I’m sorry.’
Winifred moans. ‘Thanks for trying.’
‘I can put the word round the district,’ Campbell offers.
Winifred considers this. ‘Only folk you can trust,’ she says.
Campbell nods, taking orders easily. A good man, as Grizel said. ‘I’ll see to it,’ he adds and disappears.
‘I’ll send the maid for the doctor and fetch you a pen and ink to get a note over to . . .’
‘Araminta.’
She smiles. ‘Lovely. McKenzie?’
‘McKenzie Moore,’ Winifred says. ‘I want to search the rest of Thom’s things,’ she adds.
‘Right you are.’
‘And Grizel, thank you for being such a good friend.’
Grizel squeezes the old nun’s fingers. ‘You were a good friend to me,’ she says and sets off downstairs to get matters started.
*
Harry Thom squats on the mews behind Abercromby Place, heaving for breath.
As his mind races, he runs through the items in his possession at the boarding house and decides there’s nothing that reveals his mission.
Some books. The order’s crest. Nothing explicit.
He puts his hand to his jacket pocket. Earlier, he picked up a missive that arrived this morning from the Grand Master.
Now he opens it. The palace is set upon the young princess for the crown.
William’s health is failing. You must do what you need to for this crown they are said to have is queen’s business.
And there is more to it, I’m sure. Behave as if I am beside you.
These women may be sorceresses of the ages.
Do what you must. Thom pauses momentarily as the weight of this injunction settles upon him.
He’s been in the right to pursue the McKenzies with more vigour, then, and he is certainly getting closer by putting his back into it.
A maid passes on her way to an outhouse and he leers as she hurries on, casting a glance over her shoulder.
But he’s no time to exploit such fripperies now.
There’s a fire burning in a brazier outside one of the mews.
He casts the Grand Master’s letter into it, just in case.
He wouldn’t like the McKenzies to read it.
Thom’s resolve hardens further in the flames.
Sorceresses indeed. Witches by another name.
He’ll redouble his efforts. He’ll do, as the Grand Master suggests; whatever he needs to.