‘Wait in the hallway,’ the nun directs, lighting Eleanor a candle. The girl disappears.
‘What is it?’ Araminta removes a clean handkerchief from her pocket for now Eleanor is gone, her eyes begin to flood. It’s like being pickpocketed. Worse than that.
Winifred ignores her niece’s tears and lowers her voice. ‘I don’t want to scare you...’ she hisses.
‘Scare me? My damn maid has been selling my movements to a man I have met no more than three times,’ Araminta sniffs. ‘I’m not scared. I’m furious.’
Winifred leans in. ‘They hunt us,’ she continues, low. ‘They have for a long time. My mother said it was because they can’t bear women to be free. We hoped you’d escape their notice.These are dangerous men, Araminta, the girl’s not wrong about that. We’ll redouble our efforts but you must be careful. Do you still carry that gun? Promise me you’ll keep it with you.’
Araminta dabs her cheeks with the handkerchief. Her head on one side, she considers Harry Thom the last time she saw him, which was last year at a party after the opera, where Italian vermouth was served and cod roe on squares of toast. He has always seemed a serious sort, that night solicitously enquiring about a holiday where she and Johnathan had visited friends. She’d always considered him a dull, old stick. Hard-faced, certainly. But dangerous?
‘The McKenzie women don’t die in childbirth,’ Sister Winifred continues. ‘You’ve seen the family bible. So many gone...’ She stops, unable to put words to the premature deaths of their foremothers. ‘As my sister died so old, I assumed it had abated. Many of our forebears have not been so fortunate.’
Araminta considers the dates next to the unpronounceable names of generations of McKenzie women. She hadn’t thought their lifespans unusual.
‘They want the crown,’ Sister Winifred adds.
‘But we don’t have it.’
‘We don’t. But we’re the Jewel Keepers.’
‘Can’t we just tell them?’
‘Dear girl. The shame of losing it. The sacred duty we’ve been entrusted with. Besides, the crown can only be delivered to the monarch. That is our charge. If we were to confide our state to these men, they’d whip the clues from us. They’d clap us in irons and say we were traitors. Besides, the clues are not ours to merely hand over. They’re ours to be solved. Do you see? These men are vicious. They can’t be trusted. They killed my grandmother, my great aunt and my sister. I don’t like to say it, but I’m not entirely sure that they didn’t kill your mother.’
‘But it was an accident . . . A horse that bolted . . .’ Araminta bursts out.
Sister Winifred takes Araminta’s hand. ‘None of us was there. Your dear mother was close to making progress. She was hoping to solve a clue. Then she had an accident. Now we find they’ve been watching you. Take my word, the only way out is to recover the crown. You’re the keeper now.’
‘And then what?’
‘We must return it to a queen. It’s a royal commission of the highest order, trusted to the McKenzies almost two centuries ago. The crown mustn’t fall into the hands of these men or anyone else. My mother always said when we delivered it, women would prevail.’
Araminta considers this. All her life, she’s wanted to do her duty. ‘A lady must rise to what is required,’ her teacher used to say, in a homily repeated throughout Araminta’s education about loyalty and responsibility and the obligations of the upper classes. It’s simply that until today, she thought her duty was to run her husband’s household. Now she feels something stir. A higher calling, perhaps. She is, after all, a McKenzie now. Alongside this, something hardens within her; a feeling confirmed that a lady’s maid cannot be trusted. Carefully she weighs the stories about stolen ribbons and purloined toiletries against a royal duty. A promise to the Crown made by her family. A kind of inheritance.
An American visiting London the year before famously said the whole town suffered from a case of ‘stiff upper lip’. Perhaps they taught me something at Mary-le-Bone after all, Araminta thinks. I must rise to it she decides. Suddenly she finds she has no trouble addressing herself to the larger picture despite the fact she’d rather never see Eleanor Thrale again. ‘All right,’ she says slowly and opens the door, motioning the maid inside. Shesets her jaw for she’s made a difficult decision but one, it seems, that’s consistent with her family tradition.
‘You told these gentlemen everything?’ she checks. ‘All this time?’
Standing before her, clutching the candle, Eleanor nods sadly. ‘Mr Thom, ma’am. I only met Mr McGhie the other day. Lately I’ve been trying not to tell them anything much, but they wheedle things out of me.’
‘So they trust you?’ Araminta reasons.
Eleanor nods again.
‘They seek to find out my movements? My friends? My activities?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And you have accepted their money?’
Eleanor gives another guilty nod.
‘I suppose you regret this now?’
‘I do ma’am,’ Eleanor snivels. ‘It seemed like it was nothing at first, but now I know they’re bad. They’re watching the house too. I didn’t tell them you went to the castle today. They knew it already.’
‘But you don’t know what they want?’
