She pauses behind the church with her mind racing. From here she can make out the rear of number four Glenfinlas Street, candlelight emanating from the maids’ attic rooms. The shame twists her gut even now. Eilidh was Brodie’s first choice. ‘How could you?’ she snapped all that time ago before the silence descended. ‘It’s been ten years...’ she started to accuse the butler. That was the first barb. For Saoirse it had only been eight. Eilidh, then, was younger, but she was first. Then there’s the fact that Winifred had kissed Brodie the first time, rather than the other way round. Lady Charlotte Scott, God rest her soul, had lit in the McKenzie sisters an interest in buying unusual wine and Saoirse had laid down some kegs of Spanish sherry. Brodie was unsure how to store these and she’d gone down with him to inspect the racks. The proximity, the darkness, the illicit nature of being below stairs had conspired, and Miss Saoirse McKenziehad stepped too close and before she knew it, she was kissing the handsome butler and he was kissing her back. The humiliation of Brodie defending himself still stings. ‘When I first reached for you...’ he said to Eilidh. So Saoirse had been second, then, in everything. It felt like Eilidh was more desirable and more accomplished too for, also, it was Eilidh who had unlocked clue after clue.
Winifred slams the back door of St George’s too loudly. Memory is dogging her and she must shut it out. Would Brodie have kissed her had she not stepped towards him? She had served herself on a plate, unlike her sister. Once, Winifred conversed with one of the other nuns about why they’d come to the convent. ‘If I hadn’t,’ the other sister said, ‘I’d have had to marry aman.’ This was delivered with such disgust that Winifred knew she could not share her real reason for taking vows; that she had been shamed in her own home by her sister’s lover. That she was his second choice. And him a servant. Instead, she said she’d come to Sciennes for the same reason. Pride is a sin. But then, so is everything else she’d done.
Now she taps her foot impatiently. At last, there is a knock at the door and she scoops up a lamp to let in her great niece. Araminta is excited.
‘You found it, then?’ Winifred says, recalling feeling like this when Eilidh unlocked one of Berenice’s damn clues. The thrill is a kind of communion. Another unsought-for memory.
‘I did,’ Araminta almost squeals. The women sit on either side of a small desk.
‘And?’
‘Draw the pearl’s seat to the jeweller’s crown,’ Araminta recites.
‘And did you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘On the map, child,’ Winifred says, as if Araminta is an idiot. ‘They are, I expect, the points that my sister already marked for you. On the Carmichael thread.’
Araminta’s eyes light as understanding drops. ‘Ah!’ she lets out.
Winifred confirms. ‘The pearl was Queen Margaret. St Margaret, in fact. She founded the chapel in the castle. The jeweller’s crown, let’s see. The second point. Heriot’s Hospital, I imagine.’
‘A hospital?’
Winifred sighs. ‘George Heriot was the King’s Jeweller. Really, you’d think you were brought up in an...’ she is about to say ‘English barn’, but she needs to move the child on in her quest, not offend her. Besides, her time at the convent has taught her not to take out her feelings on others. ‘It’s to the south of the city,’ she explains. ‘That will be the ninth clue.’
‘The south? Where your convent is?’
‘Closer. On the near side of the park.’
‘Perhaps we might go together?’
Winifred rolls her eyes. More than anything she hates having to explain. ‘We cannot be seen together,’ she states baldly.
‘But why?’ Araminta sounds like a mewling infant.
‘You’re almost certainly being watched, child.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Who would want to watch me?’
Winifred leaves a long and disapproving silence.
‘You said if I fetched the clue you’d answer my questions. You shook my hand,’ Araminta complains.
Sister Winifred waits another few seconds before relenting. She picks up a cushion from a pile behind the door to make herself more comfortable, motioning for Araminta to do likewise. ‘There will be a clue at the hospital. The ninth clue. It’s a school; a charitable concern. Eilidh clearly did not make it that far, but that’s what will take you onwards.’
‘Onwards towards what?’
Winifred lets out a sigh as she realises there is no way out of having the conversation that she has been avoiding for a decade; perhaps even longer. ‘It’s the crown,’ the old nun says.
‘Yes,’ Araminta encourages her. ‘I saw the crown. The honours. I’d thought it might be plainer but it’s quite as ornate as the one in the Jewel House at the Tower of London. Colonel Fraser showed me in the castle.’
‘Not that crown. You must understand the times. Firstly, Cromwell was coming. He’d smelted the English honours – quite destroyed them – after he beheaded Charles Stuart. King Charles the First that is.’
Araminta searches her memory. ‘1649,’ she ventures, glad to finally be able to place something of historical importance to her family’s story.
‘In January, as I understand it,’ Winifred confirms. ‘The following year, Cromwell invaded Scotland because we’d crowned Charles’s son at Scone.’
