The Winter Sea

That brief visit in the drawing room had raised her spirits instantly, as Kirsty had intended.

Just as now, these two weeks later, as she sat in her accustomed place among the dunes and watched the children play with Kirsty’s sister on the wave-washed curve of beach, Sophia’s darker thoughts ran from her as if they had been no more than shadows to be chased off by the brightness of the early autumn sunlight and the sound of Anna’s laughter.

The little girl was happily at play with the great mastiff Hugo, who had cast aside his fierce façade to show his own true gentleness, his jaws clamped softly round the stick that Anna had held out to him.

Sophia was so focused on that tiny tug of war she nearly didn’t hear the brush of skirts across the grass as Kirsty climbed the dunes to join her. ‘’Tis not a fair contest,’ said Kirsty. ‘The dog is too strong for her.’

Sophia smiled, still watching. ‘But she will best him, regardless.’

‘Aye, I do not doubt it. I do not doubt she can do anything,’ said Kirsty. ‘Not after seeing with my own eyes how she had my Rory galloping on all fours round the cottage playing horses, and him having sworn he had nae time nor liking for bairns.’

‘Perhaps his views are changed,’ Sophia said, ‘and he does seek to make a family of his own, and settle to that life that you so long for.’

‘Rory? Never.’

‘There is no such thing as never,’ said Sophia, as a sudden shriek of laughter turned her head again toward the shore, where Anna had succeeded in recovering the stick from Hugo’s mouth and had begun to run. She’d walked with confidence at ten months and having had several months’ practice since then ran easily on tiny feet that touched so lightly on the glistening sand they left no mark behind. Sophia thought of Moray walking barefoot on this beach and looking like a lad himself, and something he had told her on that day seemed fitting for the moment, so she said it over now for Kirsty, in a quiet voice: ‘You cannot ever say which way this world will take you.’

The sand felt cool beneath her hands. She cupped a handful of it, sifting it with absent fingers while her eyes, from habit, searched the far horizon for a sail, but there was nothing to be seen in all that wide expanse of blue except the faint and fleeting lines of white along the breaking waves against the rocks that marked the far end of the beach.

Kirsty watched in silent sympathy. ‘Perhaps there will be news today from France. The countess did receive a letter.’

‘Did she? When?’

‘As I was coming out.’

‘Another message from His Grace the Duke of Hamilton, no doubt.’ Sophia’s voice was dry. The duke had written often to the countess since the spring. He had at first expressed his great concern about Sophia’s welfare after Mr Hall had lost her in the marketplace, and he’d wondered if he might perhaps have details of her lodgings there in Edinburgh so that he could himself pay her a visit and ensure that she was well. The countess, reading that first letter, had remarked, ‘He will be disappointed, surely, to discover you are back with us at Slains, for though his influence is great within the town he dare not challenge us in our own home. The worst that he can do now is to wait, and watch, and hope we will betray the king’s designs.’

And so the letters of the Duke, professing friendship, filled with loyal sentiments towards the king, had started to arrive, and each one left the countess out of temper for an hour or more.

‘This did not come from Edinburgh,’ said Kirsty. ‘It was carried by a fisherman, the same man who last month did bring the letter from the Duke of Perth at Saint-Germain, and anyway the countess seemed quite happy to receive it.’

‘That is good,’ Sophia said. ‘The countess likes to get a letter from her brother. It will cheer her.’

She was lightened by the thought, and went on sifting sand within her hands while watching Kirsty’s sister and the children. Hugo had retrieved the stick now and the game was on again, the gentle tug of war with peals of laughter rising happily above the rushing rhythm of the waves.

And then the game became a chase and Kirsty, filled with too much energy herself to sit in one place long, slipped running down the dunes and joined the children. And Sophia, left alone, could only think of how contented her heart felt at this one moment, and she raised her face towards the sun and closed her eyes.

When next she opened them, there seemed to be no change. There should, she later thought, have been at least a cloud to block the sun and send its shadow chasing darkly out across the brilliant sea—but there was nothing.

Only the countess, coming down the path to join them on the beach.

The countess was so rarely out this way that in all truthfulness Sophia could not bring to mind the last time it had happened, but she still thought little of it till the countess reached the bottom of the hill and stopped a moment, standing strangely still against the blowing grass. And then Sophia saw her take a breath and set her shoulders and continue on as though the sand between them had grown wider and was difficult to cross.

The countess did not try to climb the dune when she had reached it, but stood several steps below Sophia looking upward, and her face was like the faces of the women who so long ago had come to tell Sophia that her father and her mother would no more be coming home.

She felt the shadow touch her then, although she could not see it, and inside her a great hollowness consumed all other feeling. But because she did not wish to hear the answer to her question she said nothing.