‘Mother!’ exclaimed Deborah. ‘You’re back! We have our visitors, Mamma.’
The Boothams and Major Keyes swung round from the paintings. Nathaniel Tibo stepped forward from the window embrasure.
Lady Scoggie, with a faint squeak, sank to the floor in a deep faint.
Chapter Seven
Murray tried to concentrate on the document on the table.
Written in flaking black ink on a crisp slice of vellum, it had spent a century or so folded in four, and now had to be pinned flat with a book and a couple of candlesticks. The handwriting was aged, but Murray had difficulty in believing that it had ever been easy to read.
‘Be it known - to all present ...’ he managed, mouthing the words. A shadow passed over the vellum. He did his best to ignore it. ‘that I, Jacobus Scoggy, Lord Scoggy of Scoggy, being seik in bodie but of haill mind ...’
He felt a movement behind him, a soft scuffle amongst the books to go to the binder. Blinking, trying to refocus, he glanced up at the high ceiling and then down again to the document. Up in the gallery, which was simply part of the first floor landing, he could hear Beatrix and Deborah hurrying past, Deborah laying out the plans for the day. The windows were open, and from outside, distantly, came the scrape and tap of fencing foils and the large voice of Major Keyes, instructing the boys in their lesson.
‘Knowing no thing more certain than the judgement of our Lord and no thing more uncertain than the day of our own death ...’
‘Mr. Murray!’
He jumped, and spun round in his chair.
‘Yes, Lady Scoggie?’
She smiled rather weakly at him.
‘I wonder if you would mind helping me to open this deed box?’
He looked at it. It was one of the heap drawn into the library for him to work through. Nothing about it signified, to any useful extent, its contents, and Lady Scoggie had never previously expressed the least interest in his work amongst the family papers. In fact, he was fairly sure he had never even seen her in the library. However, why should she not look?
‘Certainly, my lady. Some of them are a little rusty.’ He knelt beside the deed box and applied his long fingers to the lock at the front. Lady Scoggie continued her uneasy perambulation of the library.
Deborah had let it be known that her mother’s faint had been the result of missing both breakfast and dinner, and it seemed that she had managed to win a battle of wills that ensued, for Lady Scoggie was reluctantly confined to the castle for the day, and barred from her usual charitable visits in order to rest. Neither woman was now in a particularly good mood, and Murray had had to suffer, for the last hour, Lady Scoggie’s presence in the library, poking, scuffling, sighing and meandering, while being enjoined just to ignore her. It would almost have been easy, physically: Lady Scoggie was always small, but seemed now to be shrinking, and Murray wondered how many other meals she had missed recently. Her old brown gown was loose across her shoulders, and she huddled around her the same shawl she had worn yesterday. Though he himself saw a change in her appearance, he could have read it just as easily in the look of complete shock that had passed over Major Keyes’ face when he had seen her in the drawing room before her faint.
‘Are these all the boxes Lord Scoggie has given you?’ she asked, returning to stand beside him.
‘So far, my lady. He adds to them from time to time when more are found. I think these are from the gun room, the east tower room and the stables – be careful you don’t go too close to that one, for instance, my lady. I think some of the top floor rooms have still to be examined for others.’
‘Good Lord!’ said Lady Scoggie. ‘I had no idea this was such a great task.’ She perched on the edge of his chair, watching his progress. He had taken a piece of wood he sometimes used for the purpose and was gently knocking the corners of the deed box, trying to break the seal or to knock the lid back into shape: this particular box looked as if it had been used as a step up to some well-used high shelf. ‘And what age are the papers you have discovered so far?’
‘Around the time of Queen Mary and King James VI, most of them. It was around that time that the Lord Scoggie of the time was building up the estate, so there are lots of deeds transferring land to him. But the one on the table there is his will.’
‘His will? Really?’ She turned to study the document, touching the old vellum with her pale little fingers. Murray watched her for a second. She was really extremely colourless. He thought of Major Keyes asking him if there was some illness in question, and wondered if there actually was.
After a moment she looked away from the will again and stared away at the fireplace, contemplating something much more distant.
‘I seem to have spent so little time with the family recently,’ she said. ‘Major Keyes arrived yesterday before dinner, I gather.’
‘That’s right. Rather earlier than expected, but not quite early enough for Robert and Henry.’ He looked up and smiled at her, and she smiled back.
‘I can imagine. It’s so difficult for little boys to be patient.’
‘And they do not stay little for long,’ Murray added, seizing a small opportunity. ‘Soon they will be ready for University – or I think Robert would prefer the army.’
‘Goodness,’ was her only response. ‘So soon.’
Murray managed to lift one corner of the lid a quarter of an inch, but it slid down again when he tried the other side.
‘I’m afraid this is taking some time,’ he said, to fill a silence.
‘Perhaps I should have asked for some other box ...’ A confused look passed over her face.
‘Not at all – they all have to be opened some time.’ He applied the blade of a paper knife delicately to the edge of the lid.
‘And the guests who were here yesterday when I arrived home –‘
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t think I have had the pleasure.’
‘Mr. and Mrs. Bootham. They have taken Aberardour Lodge, and had come over to ask Lord Scoggie for permission to walk in the park. It seems she is quite a painter, and he is a poet. They are English, though I am not sure from where.’ He had spent some time the night before thinking about the Boothams, or at least about Mrs. Bootham. She was a witch, he had decided. She was beautiful, a wood-elf, certainly, but there was something altogether too unsettling about her. A married woman should not have that effect, surely. And her husband, with his fair hair and sculpted face – there was something not quite human there, too, surely. He would have to ask Major Keyes what he thought.
‘It will be pleasant for the girls to have some other female company,’ said Lady Scoggie, without expression. ‘Bootham, you say?’
‘That’s right.’ With a snap, the paper knife broke, the point flicking backwards to embed itself in a leg of the table with alarming force. At the same moment, to his surprise, the deed box opened enough for him to insert the broken knife and lever the lid up fully. Inside were about a hundred bundles of thin paper, rolled into tubes but tossed into a heap. Not one that Murray could see was labelled.
‘Oh, well done!’ cried Lady Scoggie. ‘Now, what do you suppose all those are?’
‘I haven’t the remotest notion,’ said Murray, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice and not quite succeeding. Lady Scoggie glanced at him, and settled down quietly to the papers, allowing him to return to his will.
She took a few bundles of the papers from the deed box and sat opposite Murray at the table, delicately unrolling the tubes and trying her best to read the spidery writing inside. Murray could not help glancing over, partly for a change from his Stuart papers: the bundles from Lady Scoggie’s box could not have been more than fifty years old, and were comparatively clean. His fingers were filthy with dust from the charters, whose box was rusted through on one side.
For ten minutes or so, they worked opposite each other in silence. Lady Scoggie quickly examined each of her papers, and soon piled her side of the table with discarded rolls, as if she
were looking for something. Murray worked on, reading through the early Lord Scoggie’s mundane bequests and inventory. ‘Ten milch cows, at six shillings the cow. Ane old sheep at fourpence. Ane red nagg, ane pound ... My old clothes, hats, wiggis and teeth to my daughter’s spouse William.’ Was William suitably grateful, Murray wondered? Maybe fashions did not change so quickly then. Still, teeth were always useful, he told himself, grimacing.
‘So what is your opinion of Major Keyes?’ Lady Scoggie’s question came suddenly. Murray looked up at her, momentarily stuck for something to say, wondering what she was after. An opinion on Keyes’ suitability as a son-in-law?
‘I walked round the lake with him yesterday,’ he began. ‘He appears a very interesting gentleman. He spoke at some length over dinner on the battle of Seringapatam and the officers there.’ He thought that Keyes was not finding it easy to return to civilian life, but decided to keep that to himself for a little. Certainly he had seen nothing of the aggression that Lord Scoggie had hinted at here in the library before Keyes’ arrival.
‘And what do you think Deborah thinks of him?’
Here was more difficult ground.
‘She was a little overwhelmed by him, I think, at first,’ he ventured, and looked at Lady Scoggie to see how that had been received. She was rolling up the documents she had examined, eyes on her own fingers.
‘Does she prefer him to Mr. Tibo, for instance?’ she asked. She looked up at him. ‘I might not be here all the time, but Lord Scoggie misses less than you would think.’
He nodded, acknowledging the statement.
‘I cannot say, I’m afraid, my lady. I have not had much chance for comparison yet.’
‘But –’ Whatever Lady Scoggie was about to say was lost for good. At that moment the door opened, and with a swagger that was mostly due to his wooden leg, Major Keyes entered the library, Tippoo the dog pattering behind him. Lady Scoggie leapt from her seat.
‘Livvy!’ Major Keyes cried, holding out his arms to her. Livvy? thought Murray, never having heard her called anything but Lady Scoggie or Mamma. He vaguely remembered reading amongst the papers that her Christian name was Livia, a name he could only, in his mind, associate with the livelier members of the Roman imperial family. Watching Lady Scoggie’s prim acceptance of Major Keyes hug, he found it easy to put the parallel out of his head. He turned back to the will.
‘I’m delighted to see you looking so much better,’ Keyes was saying. ‘I had not expected to see you this morning at all. Good heavens, Livvy, what a scare you gave us all yesterday!’
‘I’m so sorry, Alec. What a way to welcome you! But as you see, I am at home today and quite well.’ She did not seem entirely well: now that he had released her, she was edging towards the library door.
‘Then we must sit together and talk of old times, my dear cousin. But what are you doing in here? I never had you in mind as a lover of libraries!’
His cheery familiarity was having its slight effect in Lady Scoggie’s pale face, the beginnings of a flush of amusement.
‘No, no, you are quite right. I was looking for Lord Scoggie, but as you see I have missed him.’ She took another step, backwards, towards the door.
‘I, on the other hand, was looking for Mr. Murray, and have been more successful,’ said Major Keyes. Murray, his head bowed over the will, grinned a little to himself at their eagerness to find excuses for being seen near books. ‘I have been teaching your lads a little swordplay. Young Robert has the makings, you know.’
‘Has he?’ Lady Scoggie looked aghast.
‘I suppose you would like me to take my charges back now?’ Murray asked hurriedly.
‘Actually I was going to ask you if I could take the boys out for their ride before dinner,’ said Major Keyes. ‘My own horse needs exercise today, and I would enjoy seeing how they are coming along in that activity, too.’
‘I have no objection, if Lady Scoggie does not mind,’ said Murray, though he would have liked a ride himself. Lady Scoggie, not usually consulted over her sons’ activities, shook her head quickly.
‘Where are the boys?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I have not seen them this morning.’
‘I sent them to fetch their coats and hats,’ Major Scoggie admitted. ‘I had great hopes of having my wish granted.’ He grinned at Murray.
‘Then I shall go and say good morning to them before they go,’ Lady Scoggie said. She snatched at the door handle. ‘I shall send them down to wait in the hall when I have spoken to them.’
Left alone in the library, Major Keyes and Murray sat for a moment in silence, taken aback at the speed of her exit. Tippoo sniffed his way around the room, his claws tapping lightly on the hard floor.
‘Keep an eye on Robert, won’t you?’ Murray said quickly. ‘He’s inclined to go galloping off and he’s not as good a rider as he thinks he is.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind. Look, Murray,’ Major Keyes’ voice dropped. ‘Can I have a quick word? I’m not sure who else I can talk to.’
Murray looked up in surprise.
‘If I can be of assistance at all,’ he said, without much encouragement. People who were half-family, half-servants, ended up with a lot of confidences, not all of them welcome.
‘It’s this,’ said the Major, without further preamble. He reached into his pocket and set down on the table a rough piece of paper, folded into a letter. ‘Go on, open it.’
Murray opened the paper, and read the careful writing.
“Yew wer not wyse to com back to St.Monance, Major Keys. Yew wuld doe well to kep looking beind yew. A freind.”
He turned the paper, but the only mark on the outside was Major Keyes’ name.
‘Where did this come from?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s anonymous,’ the Major snapped.
‘I mean where did you find it? How did it arrive with you?’
Major Keyes slapped the table lightly, looking frustrated.
‘Naismith brought it up to my chamber earlier. He said he had found it on the hall table – apologised for hours about missing it before. Man’s a nuisance.’
‘Why show it to me?’
‘Well, I can’t show it to Scoggie, or Livvy. It seems a bit ungrateful, a guest complaining about this kind of thing.’
‘I’m sure Lord Scoggie would be only too pleased to try to get to the bottom of the matter for you. After all, who could it be? There can’t be many candidates.’
‘That’s what I was hoping you’d help with. Do you know if there’s anyone locally who was – who doesn’t like me?’
He leaned his bad leg against the table, sounding suddenly rather pathetic. Murray contemplated the note. Whatever the Major’s complaints about his universal popularity after Seringapatam, it must be easy to fall into the habit of being liked, and difficult to face anything different.
The note was quite poorly written, but not, he thought, deliberately so to deceive. The care taken with each letter implied writing in desuetude: the paper was old, but had been folded neatly. Whoever had done this had taken time over it. He could only think of one candidate in the neighbourhood, but he felt he had to be careful how to phrase the suggestion.
‘It was mentioned to me – I heard it somewhere – that the last time you were at Scoggie Castle you had a – an altercation with one of the fishermen.’
‘Did I?’ Major Keyes looked vague. ‘I may have done. I was a fighter in those days, eh?’ He laughed.
Murray cleared his throat.
‘This was one you injured quite badly. You apparently kicked his knee.’
The Major frowned.
‘Oh, that sounds faintly familiar. A young lad. With a pretty wife, I think?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Oh, I don’t expect he can write.’ The Major wandered about the library for a moment, swinging his wooden leg with a deliberate swoop as he went along. Back at the table again, he poked around amongst the documents that Murray had carefully arranged, then discovered th
e copy of The Siege of Seringapatam that the boys had been consulting and had of course not put away. He picked it up and flicked through it, smiling dismissively.
‘You know the troops went a bit wild after the walls had been breached,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of looting in the town – well, the soldiers had been waiting around for months, and once they were over the river and in there was no holding them. No reason to, really – they have to have their reward, too. Wellesley was a real killjoy, protecting Tippoo’s family, hanging and lashing. He just doesn’t understand. After a battle a man needs a drink, a meal, and a woman, and if he doesn’t get it he’ll take it. You have to be there to know. They’ve made him a General now, you know, but he’s still in Mysore, tedious young paper-pusher.’
Murray did not know quite what to say. It seemed that the Major did not really want help with his anonymous letter: he had just wanted someone else to know about it. He contented himself with pushing papers for a moment, thinking that General Wellesley sounded like a sensible man.
‘So what keeps you busy in here?’ Keyes asked eventually.
‘Sorting out the family papers, constructing a genealogy of the Scoggies – the fashionable thing.’ If Lord Scoggie wanted Major Keyes to know about his claims to the Marquisate of Ballavore he could tell him himself.
‘Genealogy, eh?’ Major Keyes had the air of someone who had heard all the rude jokes there were about genealogy. ‘Any dark secrets, ha ha?’
Murray smiled.
‘Sadly, no.’ There were one or two, perhaps, occasional arrangements for payments to local women inconveniently supporting children of a coincidentally Scoggie-like appearance, one or two accounts of illicit duels or correspondence concerning raiding parties and their results, but it was not his business to discuss them, however distantly past they were. ‘There’s the library catalogue as well – I’m revising and extending it.’
‘Oh, Scoggie and his books!’ Keyes came round and looked over Murray’s shoulder at the will in front of him. ‘What’s that mouldy old thing?’
Knowledge of Sins Past (Murray of Letho Book 2) Page 11