The Firebird

The woman’s eyes touched Anna’s face. ‘Does she need guarding?’

‘Aye, she does. ’Tis why my father makes this journey, for he is intensely fond of Anna.’

Mrs Ogilvie remarked, ‘Your father’s good regard is not an easy thing to win.’ She seemed impressed, the fine arch of her eyebrows growing more pronounced as her regard of Anna grew more keen. ‘Good morrow, child. How are you?’

Anna’s head still ached, and she was hungry, but she knew that it was not polite to make complaints. ‘I am quite well, I thank you, madam.’

Mrs Ogilvie contained a smile. ‘Such lovely manners, Father Graeme.’

‘Aye, she was but lately with the Irish Dames at Ypres.’

‘The Abbess Butler?’

Father Graeme gave a nod. ‘And she would be there still, had I not received a summons from my father to go fetch her hence without delay, and bring her out of danger.’

‘Danger? What could—?’ Breaking off, she fixed the smile again upon her face and sat back as the landlord came to bring them bread, a jug of wine, and broth that smelt of cabbages and onions. Mrs Ogilvie was generous with her thanks, and waited till he’d gone again before she leant in, speaking quietly herself. ‘What danger could there be at Ypres for such a child?’

It was a question Anna had been wondering herself, for Father Graeme had said nothing to her of why he had taken her away, apart from saying that the convent was not safe. She broke her bread with care, and listened.

Quietly the monk said, ‘This is Anna Moray, only daughter of my cousin John. My father took great pains to hide her safely, but there was an … indiscretion at the convent. A young woman who’d been staying there did somehow learn of Anna’s true identity, and passed that information to an English spy at Paris with whom she’d been keeping company.’

The jolt that Anna felt within her chest was so great she felt sure her heart had stopped its beating for that moment. It began again, but painfully, and sent a surge of warm blood upwards, pounding in her ears.

It was not possible, she thought, that Christiane could have betrayed her trust. Not Christiane. Her eyes began to sting.

‘My cousin Maurice Moray, Anna’s uncle,’ said the monk, ‘is now at Paris also, and has long been trusted by Queen Mary and the King. So when my father learnt, by secret channels, that the agents of the Prince of Hanover had set a plan in place to seize the child and use her as the means to turn her uncle’s loyalties, he sent to me at once.’

Across the table, Mrs Ogilvie agreed that Colonel Graeme had done wisely. ‘But where will she go from here?’

‘I’ve not been told,’ the monk admitted, ‘but my father never moves without a plan.’ He’d only eaten several bites of bread, and chased them down with a small tumblerful of wine, but now he added, ‘And he always minds a schedule once he’s set it, which is why I am surprised that he did not arrive ahead of us, and why I do suspect he may be waiting in some other place.’

He looked to Mrs Ogilvie, who nodded and assured him, ‘I shall stay with her till you return.’

He thanked her, and with one hand gave a lightly reassuring stroke of Anna’s bent head as he promised her, ‘I’ll not be long.’

She kept her head down, so that no one else would see her misery. Her guilt. In memory she heard Colonel Graeme saying how, if English agents had been sly enough to catch her father, he’d have stood through any torture without talking; and that clearly was a trait of all the men of Abercairney, for her Uncle Robert had now been in prison twice, they’d said, and neither time had he been broken. So the English would expect her Uncle Maurice to be just as strong.

Unless … unless the English captured her, and let her uncle know it.

‘Men can bear most hurts,’ the colonel had confided, ‘but there’s few of us can bear to see the ones we love best made to suffer for our sake.’

It went both ways, she thought, for nor could she bear to allow her Uncle Maurice to be turned against his conscience and his honour as a consequence of her mistake in trusting Christiane.

They’d warned her; they’d all warned her to be careful, but she simply had not thought that Christiane would ever …

‘So,’ said Mrs Ogilvie.

Remembering the nuns’ instruction that it was polite to give her full attention to an adult who was speaking, Anna clutched the little parcel of belongings on her lap with both her hands and raised her chin.

‘It has been a good while since I have dined with a young lady.’ Mrs Ogilvie was smiling. ‘You’ll forgive me if my manners do not equal those of Abbess Butler and her nuns at Ypres, for I fear I have been far too long in London, these past months. They do not share our Scottish ways in London.’ While she scooped a spoonful of the broth her light gaze took in Anna’s features, and again the eyebrows arched. ‘I must confess I am astonished I did not mark the resemblance before now. You are the image of your father, may God rest his soul. Has anybody told you this?’

‘Yes, madam.’ Anna’s voice was flat.

‘I met him several times at St Germain, although my husband would have known him rather better,’ Mrs Ogilvie remarked. ‘I did not know that he had married.’ She said nothing for a moment, while she ate, and then her thoughts changed course. ‘And is your Uncle Maurice well?’

She did not know. She hoped he was. But she could say no more than, ‘He was well last time he wrote to me.’