The Winter Sea

It was gone, words and all, when she opened her eyes. And the sun was gone, too. Here, the light was a harder flat grey, and it couldn’t reach into the bedchamber’s corners, so they stayed in darkness, although she knew well from what she’d seen last night by the candle that there would be little to hide in the shadows. The room was a plain one, with only one tapestry trying to soften the stark grey stone walls, and one painting—a portrait of some unknown woman with sad-looking eyes—hanging over the mantel. Below both of those lay a hearth that was too small to be any match for the wail of the wind at the rain-spattered glass of the window.

She clutched a blanket to her for protection from the cold, and rose, and crossed to see what view she had. She hoped for hills, or trees…though she could not remember seeing trees upon the landscape when they had approached the house last night. In fact, this part of Scotland seemed quite bare of vegetation save the gorse and rougher grasses that grew close beside the sea. The salt, perhaps, made it impossible for anything more delicate to grow.

Another angry blast of rain assailed the window as she reached it. For a moment she saw nothing, then the wind chased off the water in thin, sideways-running rivulets, and let her see beyond the glass.

The sight was unexpected, and it stole her breath. She saw the sea, and nothing else. She might have been aboard a ship, with days of journeying between herself and land, and nothing round her but the grey sky and the storm-grey waves that stretched forever to the grey horizon. She’d been warned by the Countess of Erroll at supper last night that the walls of Slains Castle had been, at some places, set close to the cliffs, but it seemed to Sophia the walls must rise straight from the rock for her chamber to have such a view, and that there could be nothing below but a sheer drop of stone wall and precipice, down to the boiling foam of the sea round the rocks of the shore.

The wind hurled a fierce blast of rain at her window and turning, she drew near the small fire and took her best gown from the clothes-press, doing what she could to make herself presentable. It had been her mother’s gown, and was not nearly as in fashion as the one that the countess had been wearing last night, but the soft blue color suited her, and with her hair combed carefully and pinned into its style she felt more capable of facing what might come.

She did not know, yet, her position in this house. It had not been discussed at supper, the countess seeming quite content to feed her guests and see their needs attended to with gracious hospitality that asked for nothing in return, and gave Sophia hope that here indeed might be the kind and happy home whose promise she had followed all these days and nights since she had first begun her eastward journey.

But life, if nothing else, had taught her promises weren’t always to be counted on, and what appeared at first a shining chance might end in bitter disappointment.

Drawing in a calming breath, she squared her shoulders, smoothed her hands along the bodice of her dress, and went downstairs. It was yet early, and it seemed she was the only one awake. She moved from empty room to empty room, and since the house was large, with many doorways, she soon found herself quite turned around, and might have gone on wandering if she had not become aware of sounds of life from one rear hallway—voices, and a clanking that she took to be a kettle, and a snatch of cheerful singing drew her steps toward the kitchen door. She had no doubt it was the kitchen. Even through the paneled oak, the warmth and comfortable smells of cooking reached to make her welcome, and the door itself swung open to her touch.

It was a long and well-scrubbed kitchen, with a massive hearth at one end and a flagstone floor, and one long table, very plain, at which a young man, roughly dressed, was sitting with a pipe between his teeth, chair tilted back, his booted feet crossed at the ankles. He hadn’t seen Sophia yet, because his eyes were for the girl who had been singing and who, having perhaps reached a place in her song where the words were forgotten, had happily changed to a hum while she laid out a tray with clean dishes.

And at the hearth, a woman, middle-aged, stood with her broad back turned to both of them, and stirred at something in an open kettle. That something, to Sophia, smelled like barley, and her stomach gave a hungry twist, and so she said, ‘Good morning.’

The humming stopped. The young man’s chair thumped down, and all three heads came round in mild surprise.

The girl spoke first. She cleared her throat. ‘Good morning, mistress. Were ye wishing something?’

‘Is that broth?’

‘Aye. But ye’ll be having more than that, the day, for breakfast. I’ll be serving in the dining room in half an hour’s time.’

‘I…could I please just have a bowl of that, in here? Would that be possible?’

The mild surprise grew more pronounced. Sophia stood uncomfortably and sought the words to tell them she was not accustomed to a great house such as this, that hers had always been a simple life—not poor, exactly, but not far above their own place in the order of society—and that, to her, this clean and cheery kitchen had an air of home about it that the dining room did not.

The older woman, who till now had stood in silence at the hearth, looked Sophia up and down and said, ‘Come have a seat, then, mistress, if it pleases ye. Rory, shift your great and useless self and let the lady sit.’

‘Oh, please,’ Sophia said, ‘I didn’t mean—’

The young man, Rory, stood without a protest, and with no change of expression to betray what he might think of this intrusion. ‘Time I got on with my work,’ was all he said before he left by the back corridor. Sophia heard the swing of hinges followed by the slamming of a door that sent a wave of chill air swirling through the kitchen’s warmth.