‘History,’ Araminta adds by way of explanation. ‘Do you know anything about the old place? The Maitland family lived here, did they not?’
Mrs Lindsay hoists the child further up her hip. ‘The Maitlands resided outside town at Lethington. It was the daughter of the house who lived here.’
Araminta’s face betrays her surprise. ‘That seems unusual,’ she says. ‘Might I come in?’
She judges it best not to admit she’s already been inside the Lindsays’ rooms. Today the place is tidier with a pot of something simmering that smells of stewed leeks and pearl barley.
‘There’s a crest on the wall in the yard,’ Mrs Lindsay says.
‘Do you know anything about the woman. The Maitland woman, I mean?’
‘Her name was Marie, I think,’ Mrs Lindsay reveals. ‘She was old when she married. That’s when she had this house.’
‘This would have been her reception room?’
‘I suppose. Her bedroom must have been where we have ours. At the back.’
Araminta lingers at the painted wall above the stove. Its surface is roughly plastered, the image fresco al secco. The painting is indistinct but it’s certainly a woman. ‘Do you think this was Marie?’ she asks.
Mrs Lindsay shrugs. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘Or perhaps the other one.’
‘Other one?’
‘In the bedroom.’
‘May I?’
Araminta walks into the back of the house. This room is smaller and on the same side as the other painting, another fresco, a different woman, paler than the image in the front room. Better preserved too. Beside the strawberry-blonde figure, entwined with flowers, the wordsNor Penelope, Nor Ruth, Nor Portiaare inscribed.
‘What do you think it means?’ she asks.
‘My husband says they’re the virtues of good women.’
Araminta nods. ‘Of course. Self-control, gratitude and wisdom.’ She casts her mind back to her classroom classics. ‘But why is it negative? Not those women?’
‘Because the woman it describes is better,’ Mrs Lindsay says shyly. ‘Frank says she looks like me.’ Her colour heightens. ‘It’s from a poem, I think.’
There were love poems by Sir Richard Maitland, Marie’s father, in one of the books Araminta studied last night. She’d paid them little mind.
‘How nice. I’d like to pay my respects to Mistress Maitland. Is there a family tomb?’
‘I couldn’t say. The family seat might have a kirk. Perhaps there.’
‘But she lived here?’
‘Aye,’ Mrs Lindsay says. ‘As far as I know. She’d business in town, I guess. Society too in those days.’
‘I wonder the dates of her life.’
‘Mary Queen of Scots’ reign, I think, or thereabouts.’
Araminta takes in the dresses worn by the women in the frescoes. Mrs Lindsay’s assessment seems likely. She remembers the story of the queen’s forced second marriage and her own ancestor’s part in it. For a moment she feels the thrill of connection as if she might be tied through time in blood. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
Back on the street, Davey is smoking on the step of the carriage. He stubs out the cheroot and jumps up. On the other side, a robed advocate makes his way up the hill to the High Court. Araminta takes in the thoroughfare. The high kirk is close, fancy for a local parish church but if you lived here, that’s where you’d be bound to worship. The church opposite does not seem old enough.
‘I’ll walk up to St Giles’,’ she says and falls in behind the lawyer.
The kirk looks different in daylight with the nearby court in session. Inside, it’s shady despite the bright winter sun. The first night she visited, there were no priests, but today two young men wearing black cassocks are sitting like bookends in the first pew. Araminta approaches.
