Chapter Twenty-Five
Araminta has promoted Agnes to assist in Eleanor’s old tasks.
The girl isn’t competent and dressing has become a trial of fighting in and out of the mistress’s clothes.
It’s only the second day but there’s been little sign of improvement and Araminta has decided not to let Agnes loose on the dressing of her hair.
When she returns from the High Street, she lingers in the drawing room, searching for Aunt Eilidh’s copy of the Maitland quarto and pulling out books that detail any facet of the reign of Mary Queen of Scots.
Almost all the Maitland poems are written in Scots and Araminta struggles, though her education in French helps and she finds if she sounds the words she can tell their meaning.
Within the first hour it’s clear she’s drawn to the poetry that’s marked ‘anonymous’; passionate declamations of love and lust that make her think of her husband.
It reminds her of the work of John Donne which she studied in Mary-le-Bone.
If there’s women’s work here, she thinks, it’ll not be given a name.
There are several, she suspects, alongside poems by the Maitland men and even the king.
In earlier days, it seems, political life was compatible with the writing of verse.
Araminta struggles to imagine Charles Gray or Lord Melbourne indulging themselves this way, but then, she chides herself, you never can tell a person’s private life from their public persona.
Brodie loiters, fetching ham and cheese and a bottle of sherry from the cellar. ‘Delicious! I’d never have paired these,’ Araminta comments, and the butler blushes.
‘The sherry was a favourite of your great aunt,’ he replies.
‘She had none among her decanters.’
‘I didn’t mean Mistress Eilidh, ma’am, but her sister, who had a sweeter tooth.’ The butler drops in this detail as if it’s nothing, for he’s burrowing an opening into a conversation he wishes to have.
Araminta glances at him. It’ll seem odd, she thinks, not to enquire. Brodie waits. It’s his job. He can wait as long as he has to.
‘What was she like?’ Araminta ventures carefully.
‘An elegant lady. She favoured the colour green. She made the cape to which you’ve taken a fancy.’
‘She didn’t mention that.’ The words are out before Araminta can stop them.
‘Madam?’
‘Nothing.’
He’s about to admit that he’s seen the women at night twice now.
Perhaps even offer his assistance. But the front door bell sounds and he must answer it.
He brings up a note on a salver and Araminta slits the seal.
She sits straight as a willow stem as she reads.
Beware. Thom has the box. I am injured but in good hands.
You must solve it before he does. Come tonight at the usual time.
11 North St David Street. She rises and consults the map.
North St David Street isn’t far. Efficiently, she crosses the room and burns the note in the grate, watching as it darkens to ash.
‘Madam?’ Brodie enquires. He wonders if he ought to add, Is that from your great aunt? for he knows it is. He recognises the handwriting. But he’s held back by years of never intruding on the women who people this drawing room.
‘That’ll be all,’ Araminta replies. Then as Brodie approaches the door, she calls, ‘Send for the carriage, would you?’ Damn the notion of waiting until ten of the clock. She wants to see her aunt now.
Outside, though it’s daylight, the moon is a white nick on the blue sky, Jupiter shining above it like a lantern.
As she mounts the carriage, the shape reminds Araminta of a mark her fingernail made once on Johnathan’s skin as she held on to him.
It occurs to her how much she’s changed since she left Richmond.
On departure she felt her husband had abandoned her.
Now she feels that he trusts her. At least, she hopes he does.
Ten minutes later, Davey deposits her outside the boarding house and she raps on the door.
Grizel and the maid both being occupied, Mr Campbell answers.
He directs Araminta to the lodging rooms on the second floor where Winifred is tucked into bed.
The doctor has set the old woman’s rib. Having refreshed the linens and brought up a potpourri of dried gorse and lemon peel, the tiny maid is clearing Thom’s things, packing his clothes into his trunk, dusting as she goes.
Winifred is methodically working through Thom’s books, paying particular attention to the marginalia.
Apart from passages that denigrate women (sometimes underlined twice) it would seem he also paid attention to arcane symbolism.
Waning moons, goats, candle magic and the like.
The old nun sighs loudly and lays down a particularly heavy tome on the mattress, listening to Araminta’s steps rising on the stair.
Grizel has gone to fetch the locksmith to secure the door so Thom will not be able to return, and Winifred is surprised when it is her great niece who enters the bedroom.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was concerned,’ Araminta admits, taking in the incongruity of the nun, tucked in bed, wearing a pale-pink, brushed cotton nightgown with a ruffle at the shoulder.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Winifred chides sternly.
Araminta looks round. ‘He was here, then?’
‘He lodged here. These are his things.’ Winifred gesticulates beyond the edge of the bed. ‘I doubt he’ll return. We uncovered him.’
‘Still, to stay must be dangerous. Wouldn’t it be better to make up a room at Glenfinlas Street? We have more staff.’ Araminta’s eye falls to the maid, who’s not stopped working.
‘I’ll never go back to that house,’ Winifred says flatly. ‘Nor would I lead him to the nunnery. This place belongs to a friend. She’s been kind to me.’
Araminta doesn’t push the old woman as to why she will not come home. ‘All right,’ she says. ‘Tell me what happened.’
In this, Winifred is more forthcoming. ‘My rib’s broken. The doctor’s bound it. It’ll heal in time.’
‘Can you walk?’
The nun gives a little shrug. ‘It’ll be painful,’ she adds vaguely. ‘Perhaps I might rise with the help of a stick. It’s a victory for Thom, anyway.’
‘He got away with the box?’
‘Yes. So he knows the clue. The tenth. You must solve the riddle first, Araminta.’
Araminta pulls a chair to the bedside. She leans in, whispering so the maid won’t hear. ‘I returned to the house on the High Street. There are frescoes on the plaster – two women. Both long dead. One must be Mistress Maitland, the other’s a mystery.’
‘And the grave?’
‘I enquired at St Giles’ but they don’t know where she was buried. Perhaps Greyfriars Kirkyard, but I can’t find her stone. I’ve engaged a fellow who works in the library to search the parish records.’
‘Can you trust him?’
Araminta raises her hands to indicate that she can’t tell. ‘Women aren’t admitted to the library.’
‘Pah!’ In her time at the convent, Winifred has almost forgotten the restrictions placed on her sex. In a world of women, the library is open to all, no doors barred, no job unsuitable. She herself has acted as a notary on her sisters’ behalf. ‘Such nonsense!’ she grumbles.
Araminta sits back. ‘You know, you’ve told me nothing about my mother,’ she says.
Winifred shifts. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I never knew her. I’m curious. Did she ever live at Glenfinlas Street?’
‘For a short while. She married your father but he was stationed abroad and didn’t expect her to follow him.’
‘What was she like?’
Winifred regards her great niece. ‘A little like you,’ she admits. ‘Pale. Determined. Clever.’
Araminta smiles at these compliments.
‘She liked to ride. She liked green tea, as I recall, and fruit cake and game pie. She recited poetry well.’
‘Robert Burns?’ Araminta casts her mind back to the snow melting in the river.
Winifred laughs. ‘John Donne was more to her taste.’
‘I like Donne’s poems.’
‘Also love poetry in Gaelic,’ Winifred continues. ‘There’s a long tradition of women writing about love in our mother tongue.’ She almost blushes for the tradition is also for women to write poetry about their lust.
‘My mother spoke Gaelic, then?’
Winifred raises her eyebrows as if to say of course she did.
‘She was born in the Highlands,’ she says.
‘Gaelic is more suited to poetry than English. I’m sure your mother would have been proud of you.
We’re at clue number ten, my dear. We mustn’t lose our advantage.
We must turn ourselves to the riddle of the box and this matter of the Hermit to which your coachman alerted us.
Thom had a coat of arms concealed behind a miniature of St Giles.
I suspect it’s emblematic of a vow. He’s most interested in symbols.
’ She taps the book beside her. ‘I suspect Mr McGhie has made the same vow. They’re both Hermits, the boy said.
It is . . . some kind of club,’ she continues, searching for the right word.
‘As we’re a sisterhood, they’re a brotherhood.
Though this’ – she gesticulates towards his books – ‘doesn’t have the feel of the usual brotherhoods.
University fellows. The Royal Society and so forth.
Nor a religious order of the Christian kind. ’
There’s a clatter from the direction of the fireplace as the maid overturns a brass warming pan propped against the mantle. Winifred peers past Araminta as the girl scrambles to right it.
‘Discretion, child. Do you understand?’
The maid nods. ‘It’s only, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying . . .’
‘Go on,’ Winifred allows.
‘I think the gentleman may be one of them who meets in the lodge on Rose Street Lane.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Along from my cousin’s husband there’s a place. Masons they say but not the lads who cut stone. They’re too fancy for that.’
‘What makes you suspect Mr Thom is a member of a masonic lodge?’
The girl crosses to the trunk and opens a small drawer from which she removes a carefully folded purple sash.
‘I see,’ Winifred says, holding out her hand so she can examine it. She passes the satin to Araminta.
‘This embroidery shows a lamp,’ Araminta says. ‘What does that mean?’
Winifred shrugs. ‘A symbol of the order, I imagine. We have an evergreen wreath at Sciennes. It’s carved in stone over the main entrance and is on the order’s seal which Mother uses. The hermit is often shown with a lamp. St Giles, that is. Lighting the way. A symbol of enlightenment.’
Araminta’s eyes fall to her great aunt’s wound.
‘Masons. Monks. There have always been fighting orders, the Templars the most famous. Holy warriors – or at least that’s how they consider themselves.’
‘I hardly see Mr Thom as holy.’
‘Nor do I, but what we see, isn’t what he sees. Thank you,’ Winifred says to the maid. ‘I don’t recall your name.’
‘Bella,’ the girl provides. This is the first time a guest at the boarding house has ever asked.
‘We must seek to find out more,’ Winifred adds, turning back to Araminta. She shifts in the bed, wincing.
‘Did the doctor provide you with something to ease the pain?’ Araminta asks.
Winifred nods and Araminta notes a small bottle on the nightstand. ‘The poppy takes more than pain away,’ Winifred says. ‘I’d rather keep my senses. Leave this with me. I’ll send a friend to seek the information. I’ve never heard of these Hermits.’
‘And I?’
‘Araminta, you must solve the clue. We must split our forces.’
As if on cue there’s a knock at the door. ‘Come,’ Winifred calls.
Davey steps inside holding a note. ‘This was delivered at Glenfinlas Street, Mrs Moore. Mr Brodie sent the footman with it.’
Winifred glances at her great niece. ‘You told Brodie where I am?’
Araminta shakes her head. ‘He held the coach door. I told Davey the address,’ she ventures.
Winifred’s lips purse in annoyance. ‘What is it, then?’
Araminta opens the paper. ‘It’s from Mr Winter. The librarian. He’s found something.’ She gets to her feet and briefly clasps Winifred’s hand. ‘You must send for me if there’s anything you need.’