Chapter Thirty-Two
Grizel Campbell feels that her boarding house has been overtaken.
She’s never had a guest quite like her old friend for the quantity of visitors and the long list of requirements.
This morning already a basket of conserves and pickles has been received from the convent as if Grizel’s cook does not make her own most acceptable comestibles, and the doctor has called to check Sister Winifred’s bindings.
Messages come and go at an alarming rate.
Bella is run ragged, though the girl seems cheerful and appears to like the old lady in the top suite.
Grizel does not recall that Sister Winifred required so much attention in the old days.
She watches from the drawing room window as the McKenzie carriage pulls up.
Mr Brodie and the coachman cursorily check the empty laneway behind the building, and then more carefully, the fringes of Queen Street Garden.
Grizel wonders what exactly they are looking for.
It seems unlikely Mr Thom will return, what with Mr McLevy enquiring after him and the neighbours alerted.
Then as Araminta and Eleanor are handed down, she opens the door before they knock.
Behind the women, the butler and coachman are carrying two large parcels.
It’s beginning to feel as if Winifred is taking over.
The nun has still not divulged what she’s up to and Grizel remains suspicious.
Her folk were Hanoverians from the off and the mention of Jacobites the last time Araminta called is uncomfortable.
She keeps returning to it. Any mention of Charles Edward Stuart feels at best ill-advised and, at worst, a downright embarrassment.
Nonetheless, Grizel says, ‘Come away,’ opening the close doorway and leading the party upstairs.
She lets everyone enter the bedroom ahead of her.
Winifred is sitting up, reading another of Mr Thom’s books.
She never used to read half so much, as Grizel recalls.
As young women the pair of them gossiped about their parents’ friends and Mr Hume’s strange pink turban and the move to the New Town which both families made in the same year.
At first the girls missed the hubbub of the old place and declared themselves bored by the New Town’s emptier streets and classical vistas.
There used to be more fun, she thinks. Giggling especially.
‘Visitors,’ Grizel announces briskly, and Winifred puts down the book.
‘Araminta,’ she greets her great niece, ignoring everybody else, especially Mr Brodie though she pulls her bedjacket closed.
Brodie and Davey prop the painting and the mirror carefully against the wall.
‘Whatever are you doing? Poor Mother,’ Winifred says when she sees the picture.
‘Clementina McKenzie,’ Araminta announces.
Grizel bristles. It’s such a Jacobite name.
‘She’s the thirteenth,’ Araminta adds. ‘I need your help.’
She motions to Brodie to move the mirror into place.
Grizel’s lips tighten as the painting reveals its secret, though Winifred gives a chesty laugh.
She reaches out to her great niece. ‘Help me up,’ she says.
Araminta does so. Winifred winces but does not complain as she pulls the sheets aside and steps out of bed.
In thick bedsocks she pads across the floorboards. ‘Clever,’ she says.
‘Do you know where it is?’ Araminta asks.
Winifred shakes her head.
Araminta sighs. ‘It doesn’t even look Scottish to me. Does it look Scottish to you?’
Winifred’s eyes widen, the idea dropping that Berenice perhaps hid the Queen’s Honours somewhere unthinkable. ‘Surely not England,’ she gets out.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Grizel says, unable to hold back.
Winifred and Araminta turn, as if noticing her for the first time.
‘What is it, dear?’ Winifred asks.
Grizel’s expression is frozen. Araminta thinks the old woman’s face reminds her of a bead-eyed blackbird about to peck a worm. ‘I won’t have this Jacobite nonsense,’ she says. ‘Not in my house.’
‘What do you mean?’ Winifred asks. ‘This isn’t a picture of the Bonnie Prince and even if it were, it’s over a century old.’
‘They burned it down. I’m sure there are those who’ll never forgive that,’ Grizel spits.
‘Burned what down?’
Grizel gestures towards the reflection. ‘The palace,’ she says. ‘The redcoats razed it in 1746. It’s a ruin now. There’s not even a roof and the palisade is completely gone.’
‘You know where this building is?’ Araminta surmises.
‘It doesn’t look like that any longer. It’s Linlithgow Palace,’ Grizel replies.
‘My aunt lives in the town. I suppose the Jacobites will go on about what happened forever. The gates of Traquair House being locked. Linlithgow open to the skies. All that Stuart nonsense. But they lost the conflict. They brought it on themselves. Things might not be perfect but the Hanoverians are the future.’ She turns to Winifred.
‘I thought you’d know better! Really I did. ’ Her eyes are burning.
‘Linlithgow,’ Araminta repeats, unsure where this place might be.
‘Mary Queen of Scots was born there,’ Winifred recalls. ‘It’s a couple of hours’ ride from Edinburgh. I’ve never been.’
‘Mary Queen of Scots! Our most hopeless queen.’ Grizel can’t contain herself. ‘French,’ she sniffs. ‘Like Charles Edward Stuart. Don’t think I can’t see what they’ve done here with the perspective. And the dove. Such a Catholic symbol!’
‘Mother wasn’t a Catholic,’ Winifred says matter-of-factly. ‘It is odd that they’ve painted the dove above her head like that. I never thought of it before.’ She squints. ‘What do you mean about the perspective?’
‘The palace gate.’ Grizel points. ‘It’s in the wrong place.’
Winifred’s eyes meet Araminta’s. She draws herself up. ‘Do you know,’ she says, ‘I feel much better. Eleanor, could you help me dress? I think it’s time to leave.’
Grizel’s cheeks burn. She owes Saoirse McKenzie a great deal and feels guilty that she resents her staying these few days, and worse, now her feelings are apparent.
‘I didn’t mean . . .’ she starts. ‘I just don’t understand why you keep casting up this divisive nonsense . . . the Jacobites are done with.’
Winifred clasps Grizel’s pink fingers. ‘They are, dear,’ she agrees. ‘Please, don’t exercise yourself. You’re quite right. You’ve been good to me. Thank you. It’s kind of you to have had me to stay.’
Grizel finds Winifred’s kindness overwhelming as the old nun intended and cannot object. Araminta gestures for Brodie and Davey to remove the picture and the mirror. They leave in a clatter as Eleanor looks about for Winifred’s clothes.
‘I rather miss my wimple,’ Winifred says and touches her hair. ‘Might I borrow your dress, Grizel?’ she asks. ‘I’ll have it laundered and returned of course.’
‘Please take whatever you need. Oh dear,’ Grizel says, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I owe you such a lot . . .’
Winifred doesn’t let her continue. She gives her old friend a hug to forestall any further outburst, then motions to Eleanor to assist her into the frock and fetch a wrap from the back of the chair.
‘We’re only going as far as Glenfinlas Street to start with,’ she says.
‘This will be fine. You’ll forward any messages? ’
Grizel looks defeated and merely nods.
In the carriage, Araminta takes her great aunt’s hand. ‘I don’t understand what she was cross about.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Winifred replies. ‘It’s all in the past.’
Araminta doesn’t question this. Still, it seems, in Edinburgh, the past is ever present.
Winifred winces. The rocking of the cab makes her ribs ache, but no more than she can bear.
At Glenfinlas Street, Winifred lets Brodie help her onto the pavement.
‘Can you manage the stairs, ma’am?’ he asks and she doesn’t correct his address to ‘Sister’.
‘Araminta will help me,’ she replies stoutly and loiters on the doorstep, hoping it’s not going to be as difficult to walk through the door as she’s always dreaded.
In the hallway, she relaxes into the smell of Cook’s stock pot that has snaked up from the kitchen and recalls the light tumbling down the staircase from above as if it’s an old friend.
They go up to the first floor slowly, step by step, past the white marble statue and the golden mirror and the family crest. On the landing, Winifred stops to wipe away the single tear she has allowed herself.
‘Bring tea and cake, would you?’ Araminta instructs the butler and then lays her hand on her great aunt’s back to guide her into the drawing room. She fetches pillows to make a day bed of the sopha and instructs Eleanor to look out a set of better clothes.
‘We can’t replace your robes,’ she adds, with some practicality, ‘but I think we can find something warmer, perhaps.’
Winifred eases herself onto the pillows. ‘A map, dear,’ she orders, to the point as ever.
Araminta scrambles among Eilidh’s things, up and down the library ladder, and finds a map of Linlithgow that is fifty years old, perhaps.
She lays it on the carpet in front of the sopha, weighting the edges with the ornaments of ancient goddesses retrieved from the ledge.
A weighty Aphrodite tumbles to one side.
‘It’s only a single street,’ she says. ‘With a church and the palace. There’s not much to the place.’ She squints at the writing which is rather small. ‘Ruin of Linlithgow Palace,’ she reads, placing her forefinger on the outline. ‘I wonder how much of it’s still there.’
‘Let’s hope the crown is. Berenice chose a fitting place to hide it, in the end.
Twenty miles of road will take two hours in this weather, if we’re lucky.
’ Winifred scrutinises the map. Her forehead rumples.
‘How curious. The riggs running from each property in the town are named.’ She has, she knows, no prospect of being able to read the tiny script without a glass.
‘Each house has its own plot then. And there’s no sign of the palace gate.
If it’s been painted wrong, there’ll be a reason. ’
Araminta shakes her head. ‘The palace is shown as a footprint is all, but when we get there, perhaps we should dig where the gate is shown in the picture.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Winifred says. ‘We must go in the light. We can leave at dawn.’ She settles onto the cushions and closes her eyes.
Araminta sneaks to the desk and pulls out her notebook and pencil:
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. Which led to the insignia of St Giles’ roof on a grave.
Clue 12 Roses in a picture frame led to Clementina revealed in a mirror.
Clue 13 Linlithgow Palace and the crown.
Brodie arrives with the tray and Araminta shoves the notebook back into the desk.
She lifts the map of Linlithgow elegantly and shoos him into the hallway.
‘My aunt is asleep.’ She pauses and then whispers, ‘I shall go to Linlithgow, Brodie. Have Davey bring round the carriage. Will he know the way?’
‘I’ll check, ma’am. He’ll need to leave town westwards, then proceed through Corstorphine village and north of Broxburn. The new canal runs to Linlithgow, it’s easy enough to follow it.’
‘Broxburn,’ Araminta repeats. Place names here sound foreign still.
She glances back into the drawing room where Winifred’s breathing is even.
It’s only just after midday, she reasons.
There’s plenty of time to drive twenty miles and still have an hour or two of light.
She imagines bringing the crown back to her great aunt by the time the old woman wakes.
She smiles at the celebration that will ensue.
She’ll need help, though. ‘Fetch Eleanor,’ she directs the butler, quietly.
‘I think you ought to join us too. Are there tools, Brodie? A spade? A crowbar? We shall also take Douglas.’
Brodie glances protectively in the direction of the drawing room.
‘We’ll leave Agnes at the door for when she wakes,’ Araminta says.
The butler hesitates. ‘I think my first duty is to look after . . .’ he starts, but the mistress cuts him off.
‘She’ll be so pleased,’ she gets out. ‘We’re almost there.’
Brodie raises an eyebrow. He still isn’t sure what it is that’s almost upon them.
‘Madam,’ he tries, starting to form some kind of sentence, but Araminta is off, taking the stairs down.
‘Come along,’ she says.
Brodie abandons the tray on the iron stand built into the banister. As he closes the drawing room door he peeks at Winifred, propped in place, and for a second, he allows himself a smile before he turns to the tasks in hand.