The women embrace.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d recognise me.’
Grizel lets out a laugh. ‘It’s been a while. Your eyes are still blue as the sea at Portobello in June. Same smile too.’
Winifred grins even wider. Grizel was ever charming. ‘I’ve come to beg a favour,’ she admits, her gaze darting to her friend’s husband. ‘Women’s business.’
Grizel makes no matter of it. She motions the man back to bed, shoos the maid downstairs and leads her old friend into a small drawing room. She closes the door and turns up the lamp. The fire is mere embers. There’s a book laid spine up on a side table – a drab edition of an old Mary Brunton novel with a decanter of port half-drunk beside it.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,’ the nun admits.
‘Mother left me the place when she died. I never thought I’d see you again,’ Grizel says, pouring two glasses of port.
Winifred pauses. ‘You married in the end,’ she says.
‘He’s a good man. A widower when we met. Older though we’re all older day by day. His name is Frederick Campbell. I’m Mrs Campbell now.’
‘I’m happy for you.’
‘You disappeared so suddenly. I only heard afterwards you’d taken orders.’
‘I’m Sister Winifred now. I’m sorry I never wrote to say goodbye.’
Both women are silent. Many years ago, Grizel bore an illegitimate child. A son she named Edward. Most likely the only two people still alive who know this are here, in this small room. Her lover was from a good family and had a commission in the Black Watch. He died in the French Revolutionary war and the child was sent to a wet nurse in Ratho, which Winifred helped to arrange. He only lived a few weeks. Grizel doesn’t know any of Sister Winifred’s secrets, which are, Winifred thinks, much more shameful. There is much they could discuss, but Winifred decides to get straight to the matter in hand.
‘Have you a lodger?’ she asks. ‘A fellow called Harry Thom. Dark-haired. Arrogant. English.’
Grizel sits down on a red leather chair. ‘I do.’
‘What do you know about him?’
‘Only that he’s from London and keeps irregular hours. He took the rooms for a fortnight but says he might stay longer. He rents a horse from the hostelry at the end of York Place. He has oysters sent up. He doesn’t drink overmuch – a case of wine sent from McGhie’s the day he took the tenancy and nothing since. I can’t say he’s a pleasant gentleman.’
‘Has he said anything about a hermit?’
‘A hermit? No.’
Winifred’s lips twitch. ‘I’d like to search his rooms.’
Grizel scarcely blinks. She’ll deny her old friend nothing. How could she? ‘He’s abed just now. He came in earlier, the earliest he’s returned since he got here. I can send word to you at Glenfinlas Street when he goes out, if you like? Tomorrow.’
Winifred’s head drops, only slightly. ‘I’m not staying at home. I have, in fact, nowhere to stay tonight.’
Grizel takes this information in her stride. ‘Why don’t I have a room made up? And in the morning we can wait till he goes out,’ she says. ‘He left early doors yesterday. Perhaps he’ll do the same. We’ll search his things together.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
The following morning is so bright it might almost be spring. Araminta calls for the carriage to take her to the High Street. After hours in Eilidh’s library last night, she could find nothing useful. The shelves yielded several books and manuscripts that referred to Maitland men, who it seems were illustrious; poets as well as statesmen. None of the books recounted the story of a Maitland woman, however. Late, she fell asleep frustrated on the sopha, where she had a dream which she now cannot remember.
When she gets to the house on the High Street at the other end of the triangle on the map, she raps with confidence on the door, the gold box in her pocket. Today her knock isn’t answered by the barefoot child but by a tidily dressed, red-haired woman carrying a baby. She has ink on her fingers.
‘Mrs Lindsay,’ Araminta guesses.
Mrs Lindsay shifts. ‘I don’t know you, ma’am,’ she says, her tone stilted as if she’s smartening up her accent, like a pair of gloves that need to be stretched.
Araminta introduces herself. ‘My husband is a student of architecture,’ she lies. ‘He asked me to visit this building while I’m in Edinburgh.’
Mrs Lindsay looks doubtful.
