‘Charles the Second.’
‘Indeed, though it would be ten years before he was crowned at Westminster Abbey and fully took the throne. It was an act of extreme loyalty or defiance, depending on which side you were on.’
‘I don’t understand. What has this to do with Culloden?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Winifred says. ‘This was a century before. Let me speak.’
Araminta folds her hands in her lap and curbs her questions. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Please continue.’
‘Charles escaped to France after the coronation. Cromwell headed north with a huge army. He’d have smelted the honours, as he did the English crown, and our people couldn’t have that, so the jewels were spirited away. Not for the first time either. During medieval times there were often battles, armies... Men!’Winifred gesticulates. ‘So when Cromwell threatened invasion, the honours went north. To Dunnottar.’
Araminta cannot contain herself. ‘I didn’t know Cromwell came to Scotland at all.’
Her great aunt casts her a look that leaves her in no doubt that this is extremely disappointing. Nonetheless, the old lady continues. ‘So the King’s Honours went to Dunnottar in 1651 because there was a castle. But the Queen’s Honours did not.’
‘The queen?’
‘Well, there was no queen; Charles at that time being unmarried. So while he was being crowned at Scone, your great, great... now let me see... great great grandmother Aine McKenzie and her sister, Derbhille, were entrusted with the Queen’s Jewels. For safekeeping. They took the crown westwards, not north. And they hid it.’
Araminta gets out of her seat. ‘The McKenzie women...’ she starts. ‘Hid the queen’s crown.’
‘Yes,’ Winifred says, relieved the girl is finally getting the gist of it. ‘We are the keepers of the Queen’s Jewels. The consort’s crown as it’s sometimes known.’
Araminta takes this in. ‘Keepers of the Queen’s Jewels,’ she repeats. ‘Help the Queen. But did we not give them back? Charles the Second was married when he returned from France. He had a queen, did he not? And the King’s Honours must have been returned.’
Winifred sighs once more. ‘Charles had a queen, yes, and a great many mistresses. His wife was a Portuguese princess. Catherine of Braganza.’
Araminta wishes she had paid more attention during history lessons. She can’t picture this dead queen’s face or recall anything about her. She tries to remember if Sir Walter wrote about Cromwell and recalls that he did in a novel calledPeverilof the Peakwhich was entirely set in England. She curses her classroom decision to focus on classics.
‘Derbhille took against Catherine of Braganza,’ Winifred admits. ‘I don’t think she was a bad woman.’
‘Which? Great Great Great Great Aunt Derbhille or Charles’s wife?’
‘Well... both. Catherine, she said, was not a worthy queen. In any event, the crown remained hidden and you know the rest.’
Araminta shakes her head. ‘I certainly do not know the rest.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Winifred is insistent. ‘After Culloden. Berenice’s incarceration. The clues. Thirteen of them. We’re at number nine.’ Winifred wishes the minister had left them some kind of sustenance. It’s been a long time since dinner, and she feels worn down by the damp journey into town as much as the memories. She picks up the lamp to see if there’s anything on the shelves by the door – a tin of biscuits, perhaps. The minister of St George’s was ever the kind of fellow to have shortbread about the place. As she does so she notices a movement beyond the barred window, in the laneway. A flash of pale cloth.
‘Who’s there?’ she calls, peering through the dark glass.
Araminta is not paying attention. She’s counting the generations of McKenzie women since the time of Oliver Cromwell’s short-lived republic. Charles’s restoration in 1660, the Jacobite uprising in 1745... and she, here in the year of 1837. ‘Do you mean that for the last several generations, almost two hundred years, the women in our family have been Jewel Keepers... and that is why you think we may be watched? But by whom?’
Winifred ignores her niece, flinging open the door and walking purposefully down the tiled corridor to the entrance. She douses the lamp, leaving herself in absolute darkness, before opening the outside door and pouncing on the figure waiting halfway up the alley. Eleanor screams and tries to run but Sister Winifredgrabs the girl by the ear and pulls her smartly up the hallway and into the little office.
‘Eleanor!’ Araminta exclaims.
‘You know this child?’ Winifred asks.
‘She’s my maid. You must unhand her.’
Winifred lets go of Eleanor’s ear.
‘Good heavens, whatever are you doing creeping about the streets at this hour?’ Araminta demands.
Eleanor pulls herself upright. ‘I was following you, ma’am. You left the house.’
Araminta sighs. ‘Well, really. There was no need...’ But she finds it difficult to finish this sentence. She can’t blame Eleanor. The girl likes to attend her. It’s her job.
