The Winter Sea

‘If my memory’s so terrific, why would I forget?’

She sighed. ‘Don’t argue with your agent. Just accept the fact I’m right.’

I had to smile at that. I’d never even tried to have an argument with Jane, because I’d known I wouldn’t win. When she was certain she was right, I stood a better chance of moving mountains than of changing her opinion. ‘You don’t think I’m turning psychic?’

‘When you start to win the lottery,’ she promised me, ‘I’ll think you’re turning psychic. If you want to know the truth, I think you’re simply so absorbed in this new book that you’re letting yourself get exhausted. You need a night off. Put your feet up, do nothing.’

I pointed out that there was nothing to do, if I didn’t write. The cottage had no television.

‘So find a pub, have a few drinks.’

‘No, that’s no good, either. I’m going walking in the morning, up the coast path. I can’t be hung over.’

Her voice grew accusing. ‘You promised me you wouldn’t walk that coast path on your own.’

‘I won’t be on my own.’ The minute I’d said that I wished that I hadn’t. Jane had a ferret’s own instinct for sniffing things out, and I hadn’t a hope of running something like Graham Keith under her radar.

‘Oh, yes?’ Her tone was a study in nonchalance. ‘Who’s going with you?’

‘Just someone my landlord knows.’ Trying to muddy the scent, I told her how Jimmy had come back from his favorite haunt with his list of people I was supposed to meet. ‘He’s got me on a schedule.’

‘Very helpful of him.’ But she came right back to, ‘What’s his friend like? Young? Old? Good-looking?’

I said, ‘He lectures in history, at the university in Aberdeen.’

‘That isn’t what I asked.’

‘Well, what do most history professors look like, in your experience?’

She let me leave it there, but I had known her long enough to know she wasn’t finished asking questions. This was only the beginning. ‘Anyhow,’ she said, ‘don’t write tonight. Your poor brain obviously needs a rest.’

‘You may be right.’

‘Of course I’m right. Ring me tomorrow, will you, after your walk, so I’ll know that you didn’t go over the cliffs?’

‘Yes, Mom.’

But I did take her advice about not working. I didn’t even read for research, though the pages Dr Weir had given me the night before—the articles having to do with Slains castle, along with the copies of Samuel Johnson’s and Boswell’s account of their visit there—sat in their folder, enticingly close to my armchair. Deliberately, I took no notice of them. Instead, I made a cup of tea and switched on the electric fire and sat there doing absolutely nothing till I fell asleep.

III

SHE DIDN’T LIKE THE gardener. He wasn’t like Kirsty; or Rory; or Mrs Grant the cook; or the slow-moving maltman who kept to the dark, fragrant brewing house and whom Sophia had actually seen only once; or the dairy and byre maids who did little more than go giggling past her whenever she ventured outdoors. No, the gardener was different.

He was not a very old man, but he looked it sometimes, bending over his hard-scraping tools, with his sharp-featured face and the mirthless dark eyes that seemed always, whenever Sophia looked round, to be fixed upon her.

Now that spring had come, he seemed to be around Slains all the day, although he didn’t live there.

‘Oh, aye,’ Kirsty said, with understanding. ‘Billy Wick. I canna bide the man, myself. He makes me feel I’m standing in my shift, like, when he looks at me. The late earl had a fondness for his father, who was gardener here afore. ’Tis why her ladyship, the countess, keeps him on.’ She had been laying fires, and now was walking back along the corridor towards the kitchen, with Sophia following. There wasn’t anyone around to raise an eyebrow at the two girls keeping company. A message had come that morning from the present Earl of Erroll, who had been expected these days past, and on receiving it, the countess had retreated to her chamber to reply.

So when they reached the kitchen door, Sophia walked right through in Kirsty’s wake, and even Mrs Grant did not look disapproving, having long since given up her attempts to persuade Sophia of the impropriety of mixing with the servants. It was clear to all that Kirsty and Sophia, being ages with each other and of friendly dispositions, would be difficult to keep apart. Here in Scotland, it was common for the sons of lairds and sons of farmers to sit side by side in school, and play at games together in their youth, a custom which produced a friendly feeling in the greater houses between those who served and those who sat at table. And as long as Kirsty showed Sophia all the deference and respect that was befitting to their roles when they were in the main rooms of the castle, Mrs Grant appeared to care but little these days what they did when they were on the servants’ side.

She, too, had nothing good to say about the gardener. ‘Allus lookin tae hisself, is Billy Wick. He couldna fairly wait tae see his father deid sae he could get his fingers on the siller that was left. There wisna much. ’Tis why he keeps on here. But Billy thinks hisself above the likes of us. Ye keep well clear of him,’ she warned Sophia, motherly. ‘He’s nae the sort o’ man ye need tae ken.’

Rory, coming through the back door, caught the last bit and his eyebrows lifted just a bit, enquiring.