The Winter Sea

XIII

NOVEMBER CAME, AND BROUGHT a weary week of wind and storms, and one more unexpected guest. He came on horseback, blown across the threshold of the stables by a fiercely gusting north wind and a drenching sheet of rain, his cloak wet through and hanging heavily across his horse’s steaming flanks. To Sophia, who’d been passing time by chatting with the soft-eyed mare and feeding kitchen scrapings to the mastiff, Hugo, this new stranger bursting in upon them seemed like something flung up by a force unnatural. He looked, to her eyes, darker than the devil, and as large.

As he dismounted she withdrew a step, her hand on Hugo’s collar. It surprised her that the dog had not yet growled, nor even laid his ears back. She herself was measuring the distance to the door and wondering what her chances were of getting past the newcomer without his taking notice. He was standing with his back to her, and viewing him against the horse she saw that he was not as big a man as he had first appeared. In fact, he likely was not too much taller than herself—it was the cloak, with its great hood drawn up to shield his face, that had deceived her.

Merely wary now, she watched him while he tended to his horse, first lifting down the heavy saddle, then with clean straw rubbing dry the creature’s heaving sides. No devil, thought Sophia, would have taken such great care. She looked again at Hugo standing calmly at her side and felt her fears recede, and then they vanished altogether when the man turned finally, pushing back the black hood of his cloak to show a lean and weathered face with pleasant features neatly bordered by a trim brown beard that here and there displayed the greying evidence of middle age. He wore no wig—his hair was greying, too, and worn drawn back and tied without a care for fashion.

‘I’m sorry, did I frighten ye?’ His voice was pleasant, and it held the cadence of a Highlander. ‘Forgive me, lass. I took ye for a stableboy at first, there in the shadows. Is there one about?’

‘A stableboy?’ She did not know where Rory was, just then. She glanced around.

‘Eh, well, I only need a blanket and a stall, and I can see to those myself.’ Not far from where he stood he found an empty stall to suit his purpose, and when Rory did arrive a short time afterwards the horse was settled comfortably, the stranger having found a blanket on a nearby rail.

Rory’s eyes held recognition. ‘Colonel Graeme!’

‘Aye,’ the man acknowledged with surprise. ‘I did not think to be remembered—it must be two years since my last visit here.’

The fact that Rory had remembered, and was moving round the man with obvious respect now, told Sophia that this Colonel Graeme was no common guest.

He was still thinking of his horse. ‘He’ll need a warm feed,’ he told Rory, ‘if ye have the means to manage it. We’ve ridden hard the day, and we were all the time in rain.’

Rory nodded, but his brief and silent glance seemed more concerned about the colonel, who was soaking wet himself and sure to suffer for it if he didn’t soon get dry. ‘I’ll see him taken care of,’ Rory said, about the horse. ‘And Mistress Paterson can show ye to the house.’

‘Mistress Paterson?’ He looked at her with open interest, and Sophia could not help but smile. It was no fault of his that he’d assumed she was a servant, with her being here so freely in the stables, wearing one of her old gowns and with the mud upon her shoes. She let her hand fall from the mastiff ’s collar as she curtsied. ‘Colonel. I’d be pleased to take you to the countess and the Earl of Erroll.’

He had laughing eyes that crinkled at the corners, and his smile showed beneath the greying beard. ‘And it would please me, lass, to follow ye.’

She took him in the back way, through the stables and the storerooms to the corridor that ran along the courtyard. She’d been right about his height—his shoulders were not far above the level of her own, and he was built compactly, yet he had a presence and a strength about him and he had a soldier’s walk, not swaggering but self-assured. It made her think of Moray. And like Moray, Colonel Graeme wore, beneath his cloak, a basic leather buffcoat over breeks and boots, his swordbelt slung across his shoulder with the ease of one who had long worn it.

‘My memory is not what is was,’ he told her, with a sideways glance, ‘but am I right in thinking ye were not at Slains two years ago? Or were ye hiding with the horses then, as well?’

She liked his eyes, his face, his friendly manner. ‘No, I was not here. I only came last spring.’

‘Oh, aye?’ He showed a keener interest. ‘Was that afore or after Colonel Hooke was here, with his companion?’

They’d come around the courtyard now, and reached the steps that led upstairs, and she was grateful that she was ahead of him so that her face was hidden while her voice pretended ignorance. For though she liked this man, she could not easily forget the need for caution. Repeating, ‘Colonel Hooke…,’ she shook her head and told him, ‘I regret I have no memory of the name.’

‘’Tis of no matter.’

As they reached the upper floor the earl stepped out into the passage from the library and narrowly missed colliding with them.

‘Colonel Graeme!’ Looking as surprised and pleased as Rory had been earlier, the earl reached out to greet the colonel with a hearty handshake. ‘Where in God’s name have you sprung from?’

‘I can tell ye that, your Lordship, when ye’ve offered me a dram.’

Sophia had not heard another man, except the Duke of Hamilton, be so familiar with the earl—the colonel said ‘your Lordship’ in a tone so much at ease that he might just as well have said ‘my lad’. But from the earl’s acceptance of it she assumed the two men shared a long acquaintance, and her sense of this was strengthened when the earl, with one hand clapped around the colonel’s shoulder, steered him through the doorway of the drawing room, announcing, ‘Mother, look at who has come.’

The countess came across, delighted. ‘I heard no one at the door.’

‘I came directly from the stables. Mistress Paterson was brave enough to guide me, though I look a proper rogue and we’ve not yet been introduced.’

The countess smiled. ‘Then let me set that right. Sophia, this is Colonel Graeme. He is truthfully a rogue, as he admits, but one we welcome in our midst.’ Turning to the colonel, she said, ‘Patrick, this is Mistress Paterson, our kinswoman, who came this year to live with us.’

‘An honor.’ He did not bend low above her hand as was the current fashion; only took it in a firm and honest grasp and gave a formal nod that had the same effect.

The countess said, ‘But you must come and sit beside the fire, or else you’ll catch a fever standing in those wet clothes.’

‘Och, I’m not so weak. It was my cloak that got the worst of it, the rest of me is dry enough.’ He swung the sodden black cloak from his shoulders to prove it, and the countess took it from his hand and laid it on the fender.

‘Nonetheless,’ she said, and put her hand upon an armchair by the fireplace in a gesture that fell partway between invitation and command. The colonel gave way with a cavalier shrug, but he waited for the countess and Sophia to find their seats first before he took his own. The earl, who through all this had left the room a moment, now returned and pressed a glass half-filled with whisky in the colonel’s hand.

‘There,’ he said, ‘you have your drink. Now tell us what has brought you here. We thought you were in France.’

‘I was. I landed to the north of here two days ago, and came to you as quickly as I could. I bring a message from your brother,’ he said, looking to the countess and then past her, very briefly, to Sophia.

The countess told him, ‘Mistress Paterson is family, and does know to keep a secret.’

‘Aye, I gathered that much for myself.’ Again his eyes laughed privately within the lean face. ‘When I asked if she’d met Colonel Hooke, she near convinced me he had never been to Slains.’

Sophia blushed. ‘I was not sure…’

‘No, no, ye did the right thing, lass,’ he said. ‘Ye canna be too careful, in these times. It was my own fault, for forgetting ye did not ken who I was—I only meant to learn if ye had seen my nephew and could tell me how he looked, for though we both have been in France of late our paths seem not to cross.’

Sophia frowned in faint confusion. ‘Colonel Hooke is your nephew?’

‘No, lass.’

‘He speaks of Mr Moray,’ said the countess, and then answered in Sophia’s place, ‘Your nephew did look very well when he was here.’

The earl put in, ‘He was not pleased with me, I think. With such a price upon his head, I could not let him venture out as he desired, to journey through the Highlands, so he had to stay the whole time here with us.’

‘I see.’ The colonel’s glance touched on Sophia, giving her the feeling that he saw more than she would have wished. She felt relieved that she had already been blushing from her earlier embarrassment, so nobody could blame the heightened color of her cheeks on this new talk of Moray, or on her reaction to the news that Colonel Graeme was his uncle.

‘Still,’ the countess said, ‘he did not much complain, and seemed to keep himself well occupied. I found him very quiet.’

‘Not like me, ye mean?’ The colonel grinned. ‘Aye, John does keep his thoughts and feelings to himself, for all he feels them deeply. He was like that as a lad, and in the years he’s been a soldier he’s grown harder in the habit of it.’

‘Where is his regiment now fighting?’ asked the earl. ‘Are they in Flanders?’

And Sophia tried with downturned eyes to hide her own fierce interest in the answer.

‘Aye, they are, but John’s not with them. Hooke has kept him close, in Paris. They’ll let no one who kens anything about the young king’s plans stray far from Saint-Germain, these days, for fear the word may spread.’

The countess drily told him, ‘They are fools if they believe that it is not already in the wind. Faith, it does seem from the reports we hear that half the court of Saint-Germain are Queen Anne’s spies.’

‘Aye, very likely. Which is doubtless why your brother thought to send his message using this’—he tapped his head— ‘and not a pen and paper.’

‘And what is his message?’

Through this last exchange Sophia had been listening with only half an ear, so great had been her feeling of relief to hear that Moray had not been these months in danger on the battlefield as she had feared, but safe somewhere in Paris. Not, she thought, that he’d be happy to be once again confined to what would seem, to him, a soft-barred prison, but at least she knew for certain he was well, and still alive.

No other news but that had seemed important. Only now she sensed the shift of expectation in the room, and brought her own attention back to what the colonel was about to say, because she realized suddenly it might be what they’d hoped to hear these many weeks.

It was.

‘I’m sent to tell ye to expect a frigate out of Dunkirk that will soon arrive to signal all is set for the invasion to begin.’

The countess clapped her hands together like a girl. ‘Oh, Patrick! When? How soon?’

‘Your brother thinks the time is measured now in days, and that you should be ready. They’ll be sending Charles Fleming as the messenger. Ye mind young Fleming?’

‘Yes, I do remember him,’ the countess said.

‘A good man,’ Colonel Graeme called him. ‘He’s to carry with him your instructions from the king, who will be following not long behind.’

Sophia’s mind withdrew again, and let the others carry on their animated talk. She turned her head towards the great bow window and the sea beyond, and found in all that endless view of water nothing to contain her swelling happiness. The time is measured now in days…The words played like a melody repeating in a joyful round that drowned all other noises.

She was not aware of anybody seeking her attention till she felt the tiny nudge against her side. She shook her daydream off and looked round in apology, but nobody was there. The earl, the colonel and the countess were still sitting in their chairs as they had been before, in lively conversation. Again she felt that small sensation, not against her side this time but deeper in her belly, and she realized what it was. Her child was quickening.

This first faint contact with the life inside her left her filled with wonder. Even though she knew it was coincidence that it had happened now, for Kirsty’s sister had been telling her for weeks now she might feel it any moment, still she could not help but let herself believe it was a sign of good to come, as if the child, too, was rejoicing at the news that Moray soon would be returned to them.

The countess started laughing at a comment Colonel Graeme had just made, and to Sophia’s ears the outburst caught the spirit of her mood, and she laughed, too.

The colonel’s lean face turned to hers, appreciative. ‘Now, there’s a bonny sound.’

‘And one we have not often heard, of late,’ the countess said, recovering her breath and looking fondly at Sophia. ‘Patrick, I do see that we shall have to keep you with us yet awhile, for as you see we sorely need amusement.’

The colonel settled in his chair and smiled. ‘I’m happy to supply it,’ he assured her, ‘while the whisky lasts.’

Jimmy, on my doorstep, held a covered dish in both hands like a Wise Man bearing precious gifts. ‘I telt ma freens at the St Olaf Hotel aboot yer fa doon Ward Hill, quinie, and they thocht ye micht need this.’

I stood aside to let him in. I still felt a little groggy from my writing, having surfaced at his knocking, and the darkness he stepped out of was my only way to judge the time. He’d clearly been up to the hotel himself—his eyes were shining happily and Scotch was on his breath, but it could not be all that late, or a gentleman like Jimmy Keith would not have even thought of coming round to call.

‘Ye should be sittin doon,’ he told me, nodding at my bandaged ankle, and he freed one hand to help me hobble to the nearest chair. A richly warm, brown-sugared smell was rising from the bowl he held.

‘What is that, Jimmy?’

‘Just a wee treat. Ye’ll be needin a fork and a spoon,’ he decided, and fetched them, then set the bowl down on the table beside me and took off the cover to show me a huge chunk of caramel-brown cake sweetly sinking in a pool of cream. ‘That’s sticky toffee poodin, and ye’ll nivver taste better than fit they mak at the St Olaf Hotel.’

After the first heavy forkful I had to agree it was almost worth spraining my ankle for.

Jimmy shrugged my thanks aside. ‘Nae bother. I was on ma wye up, onywye, tae empty oot yer meter.’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I told him, quickly. ‘I’ve still got coins left.’ I didn’t especially want to get either of his sons into trouble, and I was pretty sure that, if he got a good look at the meter, he would know the needle wasn’t resting where it ought to be. I was relieved when he accepted what I’d said without a comment and directed his attention to the Aga in the kitchen.

‘And yer a’richt fer coal, are ye?’ He had the door open, assessing the fire.

‘Yes, thanks. Stuart stoked it up for me.’

‘Oh aye, I see.’ His tone was dry. ‘He could nae build a fire worth a damn.’ He took the poker, prodding round the coals until their new position suited him. ‘Mind, it’s rare ye’ll see Stuie dee onything fer onybody but his ain sel. Ye’ve fairly inspired the loon.’

I was grateful I was eating, and I only had to mumble something noncommittal through a mouthful of pudding before the telephone began to ring, and rescued me. I hobbled over on my own to answer it this time, and Jimmy let me do it.

Graham’s voice felt warm against my ear. ‘Hello.’

‘Hi.’ Holding the receiver closer, I lowered my voice.

Behind me, Jimmy closed the Aga’s door with a decided clang and stood. ‘I’ll jist fetch ye a bittie mair coal fae oot back,’ he announced, and went whistling past.

Graham asked, ‘Was that my father?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re being well looked after, then.’

‘I am. He brought me sticky toffee pudding.’

‘Good man. How’s the ankle?’

‘How did you hear about that?’

‘I have sources. How is it?’

‘Not bad. Dr Weir says I need to stay off it a couple of days.’

‘Ah.’

‘Why “ah”?’

‘Because I had a proposition for you, but if you’re supposed to rest…’

‘It’s just a sprain, it’s not that bad.’ I glanced around to make sure I was still alone. ‘What kind of proposition?’

‘Well, I thought that since my brother’s home and looking after Dad, and since it’s difficult for me to come to you with those two hanging round the cottage all the time…I thought that you might like to come to Aberdeen this weekend.’

It was my turn to say, ‘Ah.’

‘You could bring your computer,’ he said, ‘so you won’t lose your writing time. I’ve got some marking of my own to do.’

‘It’s not that. It’s just I promised to have lunch with Jane, my agent, up in Peterhead on Saturday.’ I didn’t tell him that Jane had, in essence, invited him, too. There was no way I’d even consider subjecting him this early on to Jane’s scrutiny. She could be worse than my father when it came to grilling my boyfriends, and I didn’t want Graham grilled. He was special.

‘Nae bother,’ he said. ‘I could come and get you after lunch. We’d still have half the afternoon and evening, and all Sunday.’

Put like that, and with his voice so close against my ear, persuading me, I couldn’t think of any reason not to tell him, ‘All right, then. I’d love to.’

‘Good.’

Jimmy, still whistling, was coming back. Raising my voice to a more normal tone, I said, ‘OK, I’ll phone you tomorrow. We’ll work out the details.’

‘I’ll phone you,’ he promised.

I rang off in my most businesslike fashion, so it caught me off guard when Jimmy asked, ‘Was that ma son?’

It was, I thought, a good thing he was looking at the coal hod he was filling, not my face. He didn’t see me hold my breath. Head down, he remarked, ‘He’s a good-hearted loon, Stuart is, but he can be a nuisance.’

I exhaled, and relaxed. ‘It wasn’t Stuart.’ Then, because I saw a useful purpose in it, I said, ‘It was Jane, my agent. You remember Jane?’

‘Aye. She’s nae the sort o’ quine a man forgets.’

‘I’m having lunch with her this Saturday in Peterhead,’ I told him. Then, more casually, ‘I might, in fact, stay over. Spend the weekend with her family.’

Jimmy thought that sounded like a good idea, and he said as much. ‘Ye canna hide awa up here the hale time. Folk ging mad athoot a bittie company.’

I watched him tip the coal bag up and send the last bits rattling into the hod, and I thought how it must be for him, in his cottage alone. I remembered how Graham had told me his dad had been lost since his wife’s death. He might have his sons and his group of friends at the St Olaf Hotel, but it wasn’t the same thing as having a woman around all the time.

So when he’d finished with the coal and would have left me from politeness, I asked him if he’d make some tea, and then I asked him if he’d stay and have a cup, as well, and for the next two hours we sat and talked and laughed and played gin rummy with the deck of cards I used for playing solitaire.

Because, as Jimmy’d rightly said, it could be better sometimes having company than being on your own.