‘Mother was from the west.’ Aunt Eilidh’s finger moves across the map. Araminta reads silently: Dumbarton.
‘She was more exciting than her husband?’
‘A temptress! An event. She loved to dance and to read.’
‘In Gaelic?’
‘Och dear,’ the old lady purses her lips as if the vivid nature of her mother should be elementally understood without verbal communication. ‘That’s her. On the wall.’ She indicates an image of a woman with a dove above her head. ‘She was educated in several languages and had a fondness for French. They taught you languages at school, did they not?’
‘How do you know that?’
Aunt Eilidh makes a swift movement almost as if she is flinching. ‘We hoped not to bother you with family business. To allow you to get on in life,’ she sighs. ‘You like Richmond, do you?’
‘Yes,’ Araminta replies with real enthusiasm. At first Johnathan had intended to buy one of the modern houses at Primrose Hill, but ever prudent, he worried the area’s proximity to the new canal might mean lowlife pervading the district, so they settled near his cousin, further south along the Thames.
‘Well, that’s something I suppose,’ Aunt Eilidh gets out.
Araminta does not know how to reply so there’s a long pause before the older woman speaks again. ‘I feel unaccountably exhausted, dear,’ she says, rising. ‘Why don’t we talk later? I’ll tell you everything then.’ She rings a silver bell on the side table to summon Brodie. When he arrives she issues instructions. ‘Make Mrs Moore comfortable. I must lie down.’
Brodie holds the door as Aunt Eilidh sweeps through the hallway and up the staircase. Araminta notes that the red dresshas a short, elegant train that trails down the steps as the old lady pulls the blue bottle from her pocket and drops more medicine onto her tongue. Araminta casts her eyes round the yellow drawing room. On a ledge by the fire she notices a line of ancient totems carved in stone, marble, onyx and jet. Goddesses every one. Isis. Hera. Venus. Women can have it all, she thinks, considering the words of her great grandmother.
‘Would you like to go up, Mrs Moore?’ Brodie enquires.
‘Does my great aunt always tire so easily?’
Brodie is too discreet to say but he gives a sad little nod. ‘We have the greatest admiration for the mistress,’ he manages. ‘The household, I mean.’
Araminta is curious about the other floors that lead up to the glass cupola currently tipping light down the staircase even on this wintry afternoon. Perhaps there will be more family artefacts upstairs.
‘I’ll go up too,’ she says. ‘Thank you, Brodie. That will do very well.’
Chapter Three
Eleanor knows she ought to be unpacking, but she has other concerns, and with her mistress occupied and the luggage in the care of Douglas, the footman, she decides to attend her own business while she has the chance. She dodges out of the house by the basement door, up the stone stairs and down the steep slope of Glenfinlas Street, before turning right along a thin, whinstone pavement at the end of which there is a half-frozen water trough for the horses. Edinburgh is considerably colder than London, the chill nipping her cheeks. To the rear of one of the houses Eleanor notices a young man smoking under a tree. He’s wearing livery. Most likely a coachman, she decides, as she dives into her pocket to withdraw a crumpled piece of paper.
‘Excuse me,’ she says. ‘I’m looking for Princes Street.’
The young man showily exhales a long cloud of tobacco smoke and eyes the young housemaid. ‘You’re new in town?’
Eleanor holds out the piece of paper on which the name is scrawled. ‘I’m commissioned by my master, sir, to visit Mr McGhie’s establishment at number two Princes Street. We’re lately arrived from London.’
The fellow eyes the paper. ‘Yes, that’s what it says.’
Eleanor bites her lip. She cannot read, but she assumed so. The note feels like it gives her authority. That’s why she keeps it with her.
‘That’s the other end of town. A good mile off.’ The fellow motions back up the hill and adds, ‘Princes Street runs below the castle. You cannae miss it.’
Eleanor worries about the time. Two miles there and back means she’ll need most of an hour, but Mrs Moore is likelyto spend a decent stretch with her great aunt, being only just now introduced. ‘Thank you,’ she says and drops a strange little half curtsey before turning up the hill. Sparrows and robins are eating crumbs from the pavement as she passes onto Princes Street, taken aback by the scale of this town. Edinburgh seems unexpectedly grand for somewhere so far from London. Along the street, at intervals, fine carriages are waiting. On the other side of the road, a maid with three French poodles emerges from the private garden at the foot of Castle Rock. A costermonger offers beetroot as if she’s singing at the opera.
Eleanor keeps walking, her earlobes numb with the cold, until at the end of the street, the castle behind her, there’s a shop with a green and gold sign and crates of spirits in the window. She can read the number two and other words which must be Mr McGhie’s name, she supposes. A bell sounds as she enters and a shop boy in a brown cloth apron approaches. ‘Can I help, miss?’
‘I’m looking for Mr McGhie,’ Eleanor gets out, her eyes darting. This feels ludicrously dramatic. Her hands are quivering. She shoves them into her pockets and wishes she hadn’t promised to come, but she owes the gentleman. She lied to the lad who was smoking. She’s on a mission not for Mr Moore but for the gentleman in Kew who got her the position with her mistress three years ago. The man who has been paying her an extra shilling a month ever since he did so. A man whose name she doesn’t know. Her stomach shifts as it occurs to her that in fact, despite the shillings, it’s possible she now owes Mrs Moore more loyalty than she owes the gentleman. She isn’t sure. When she was homesick for her parents’ tiny cottage at Wimbledon, those first months of the job at Richmond, Mrs Moore was kind to her. Apart from anything else, as a ladies’ maid she should really be known as Thrale, but she asked Mrs Moore to use her given name and Mrs Moore said that she should be known by whichever name she liked and allowed herto choose the fabric for her uniform besides: two apricot cotton dresses she sewed in the first fortnight of her employment along with three long, almost sheer linen aprons to tie on top. The large brick house at Richmond was intimidating at first, but Eleanor now feels at home there.
The shop boy disappears into an office behind the mahogany counter. He reappears with a handsome man wearing a fancy taffeta cravat. The gent smiles in a way to which Eleanor is most unaccustomed – as if he is receiving a visit from a dear friend. The air smells of sawdust with a touch of brandy.
‘Miss Thrale?’
‘Yes, sir. Eleanor.’
