Chapter Thirty-Five #2
As Araminta takes the stairs to the second floor, the hallway seems too orderly for what’s occurred in this house.
Winifred is asleep in Eilidh’s bedroom. The peach curtains are drawn and the fire newly lit, the dancing flames cast shadows onto the pink walls.
Araminta lights a candle and from that sets a flame to the lamps.
Winifred doesn’t stir. Araminta shakes her arm gently, then her shoulder.
The old woman opens her eyes. She tries to sit up.
‘Was it Thom?’ Araminta asks gently.
Winifred nods. ‘I can’t remember much. The doctor came. There was a man.’
‘My husband, Johnathan,’ Araminta says.
Winifred smiles. ‘Handsome,’ she pronounces. ‘Helpful.’ Then, as a memory returns, ‘What about the girl? The maid?’
‘Bed rest. Anderson has seen to her.’
‘Anderson,’ Winifred says regretfully. ‘I shouldn’t have come back.’
Araminta pauses. ‘I found it, Winifred,’ she says.
The old nun brightens. ‘The crown?’
Araminta nods. ‘There’s something else.’ She reaches into her decolletage and pulls out the velum. Winifred’s eyes narrow. ‘I can’t read without a glass, dear. What is it?’
‘It’s in Latin. An edict signed by Mary Queen of Scots.’
‘What does it say?’
‘This is the true treasure. It’s about the rights of women. Just as Wollstonecraft wrote them. As your mother said, women can have it all.’
Winifred shifts under the counterpane. She recalls the day that Mrs Wollstonecraft’s book came to Edinburgh; the queue along George Street outside the bookshop.
The conversations in the weeks that followed about the right to property.
The right to divorce. The right to education.
The right to vote. Men’s laughter at the very idea.
That, she thinks, is when I knew I should never marry. Is this really what her mother meant?
Araminta is rereading the velum, this time in less of a hurry. ‘It says these rights should be enacted “as in the ancient law”. What do you think that means?’
‘Gaelic law,’ Winifred pronounces. ‘Highland law. Redress not punishment. It was the law of the Highlands and of the west for many centuries.’
‘And something about the rights of women to be baillies?’ Araminta translates.
Winifred’s eyes dart. ‘That’s an officer of the burgh. Mary would want that, of course, to combat Knox. The earls must have found out what she was planning. So they kidnapped her after her husband was killed.’
‘And she was made to marry the Earl of Bothwell,’ Araminta recalls from Eilidh’s history books.
‘They’d make her do anything to stop this,’ Winifred says.
Walter Scott had laughed at Mrs Wollstonecraft’s book.
Smith and Hume would have torn her argument apart, he said.
Though stalwarts of the Enlightenment, both Adam Smith and David Hume had both lately died, so several of Edinburgh’s gentlemen undertook the job, while recognising that in Scots law, women had more rights than in England.
They pronounced it ‘enough’, she recalls.
Gaelic law gave women more. Ad libertatum.
‘This was hidden with the crown?’ Winifred checks.
Araminta nods again. ‘Inside it. I took it out and gave Thom the crown to call him off.’
The old woman is shocked. ‘You forwent the crown?’ she says in disbelief.
‘In favour of this. Yes. It’s the true value of our duty.
I suppose Mr Thom thought the crown was imbued with power.
After all his books about magic candles and goat heads.
But this is the treasure. Freedom, Winifred.
Thom was going to kill Eleanor. He’d already stabbed Mr Brodie.
So I gave him what he wanted and kept this instead.
If it’s ancient law, it’s still law, don’t you think? ’
Winifred’s eyes widen. ‘So the Hermits have the crown,’ she reasons.
‘Thom walked away,’ Araminta confirms. ‘The minute he laid hands on it. He has no grounds to follow us. Or so he must believe.’ Araminta folds the velum.
‘A worthy queen. Of course,’ Winifred says, catching up. ‘Otherwise, it could be destroyed or laid aside.’
‘A worthy princess perhaps,’ Araminta repeats. ‘Let’s see.’
‘And you said Mr Brodie is hurt?’ Winifred comes back to it.
‘He’s downstairs,’ Araminta says. ‘The doctor is coming.’
There’s a knock at the door and Johnathan peers into the room. ‘May I?’
‘Sister Winifred, this is my husband, Johnathan Moore. Johnathan, this is my great aunt Saoirse McKenzie, who has taken orders. You must call her Sister Winifred.’ Araminta makes a formal introduction as if they’re meeting for the first time at some kind of salon.
As if Johnathan hadn’t carried the old woman upstairs and put her to bed an hour before.
Winifred lets out a giggle at the ridiculousness of it. ‘Mr Moore, thank you for helping me earlier.’
Johnathan’s expression remains grave. ‘The doctor is downstairs. I’m afraid the man . . . the butler, that is. He’s fading. Anderson has called for Mr Neill for if he dies it will be murder. It’s a deep stab wound.’
Winifred moves to get out of bed. Her head swims for Anderson’s draught was strong.
‘Take me downstairs,’ she demands, grabbing Araminta’s arm.
Anderson has cut away Brodie’s waistcoat and shirt.
Beside him, Hester, her face pink from crying, holds an enamel basin of warm water that’s been used to clean the butler’s wound.
Brodie’s breathing is unsteady as Anderson binds his torso, blood seeping through the bandage.
Winifred hovers. The world without Eilidh seems strange now she’s back in the family home.
The world without Brodie is unthinkable.
They might not have been together for over a decade, but somehow he’s always been there. She sits beside him and takes his hand.
‘Cillian.’
‘Saoirse. I always . . .’
She brings her finger to her lips and says something softly, in Gaelic. Then: ‘Dr Anderson will help you.’
The doctor does not confirm this. He’s generally encouraging to his patients, but unless he can staunch the bleeding the man will certainly die.
Downstairs someone raps on the front door. Araminta motions to Hester to go, worried that she’ll have to explain Brodie’s injuries to Mr Neill, but it’s not the magistrate who is shown up to the drawing room but Mother. Winifred rises and the women embrace.
‘Whatever has happened?’ Mother asks.
‘Mr Brodie was attacked. He was defending me,’ Araminta gets out.
She finds suddenly she’s crying. ‘It was Great Aunt Eilidh’s sword stick,’ she burbles.
‘I’d put it down and the fellow used it against Mr Brodie.
Brodie had disarmed the man already – he was terribly brave – but the blade got the better of him. ’
Brodie begins to mumble, low. He’s not speaking English. Mother and Winifred lock eyes.
‘I shall do it,’ Mother says and starts to recite the last rights in Gaelic.
Winifred falls to her knees and intones her own prayer.
It’s hard to hear what she’s saying. She stops when Brodie pulls her hand to his lips and kisses her fingers once more.
Then he turns away, as if his death should be more private than this, here in the McKenzies’ drawing room.
And suddenly, he’s gone. Johnathan curls his arm around his wife’s frame.
He’s solid as a tree, she realises gratefully. She’s glad he took the packet north.
‘He’d want to be buried at St Columba’s,’ she says. ‘I’ll send a note to the minister.’
‘Close to Eilidh,’ Winifred adds. ‘Yes. That’s where he belongs.’