Sophia's Secret

by Susanna Kearsley

  I’d never given it much thought, but I supposed that he was right. And come to think of it, a few of my own characters – the servants up at Slains – spoke in the Doric in my mind, and though I modified their speech when I was writing so my readers wouldn’t curse me, I still understood what they had said originally. Just as I understood everything Jimmy Keith said.

  It was almost as if I had heard it before. Heard it spoken so often that I had remembered…

  My gaze was pulled back to the window, and Slains.

  Jimmy cheerfully said, ‘Weel, that’s me awa hame. Best o luck wi’ yer research, my quine.’

  And I thanked him.

  But part of me wasn’t so sure that I wanted good luck, at the moment. It was one thing, I thought, to ask questions, and look for the answers. It might be another to actually find them.

  In the end, I decided the Duke of Hamilton would be the safest subject for my research. I did need to learn more about the man, since it appeared he was going to play a key role, whether onstage or off, in my novel. And I knew I’d have no trouble finding information on him down in Edinburgh.

  I’d been there several times already, doing research for this book, but always I’d just flown across from France and stayed a few days in the flat that Jane still kept there for her use when she went down each month to work out of the office of her literary agency. Her agency was large and based in London, but she’d worked for them so long and so effectively that, when she’d married Alan, they had in effect created a new office for her private use, in Edinburgh. Since then, a few more agents had moved up to work in Scotland, so she didn’t feel the pressure to come down from Peterhead as often as she had before, but she still came enough to need the flat.

  It was a tidy little place, two rooms, conveniently central. If I’d wanted to, I could have walked the short way down to Holyroodhouse, which had stood in its imposing park for centuries behind its great iron gates. I could have walked around it, or even tried to get permission to tour the old apartments of the Duke of Hamilton himself, to get more detail for the scenes that happened there between Sophia and the duke at the beginning of my story.

  But I didn’t.

  I would never have admitted that I stayed away in part because I didn’t want to know what those rooms looked like, didn’t want to take the chance that they, too, might be just the way I had imagined them.

  Instead, I told myself I simply didn’t have the time this week for sightseeing – I had too many documents to slog through.

  So it was that Wednesday morning found me settled in the record office reading room, a comfortably familiar environment, happily sifting through the Duke of Hamilton’s private correspondence.

  The letters that he’d written and received gave me a clearer picture of the man – his double-edged role as the patriot and the betrayer, though I doubted he’d have ever judged himself like that. He’d simply served himself, I thought, before all others. His political and personal decisions, which so many of his own friends, in their letters, claimed they could not fathom, all could be reduced with mathematical precision to that one common denominator: what would best advance the duke’s ambition.

  Always short of money, he had married an heiress with large estates in England, and he hadn’t been likely to do anything to irritate the English into cutting off that prime source of his income. He gave speeches in the parliament against the Union, but when others wanted to oppose with force instead of words, he held them back with empty promises until their opportunity was lost, and so made certain that the Union went ahead. He had not been a stupid man, and in his letters he’d left no clear evidence that he’d been bribed by England to support the vote for Union, but I knew, just from his character, that he would not have risked his reputation if he hadn’t stood to gain by it.

  I knew exactly whom the countess had been speaking of to Hooke in that last scene I’d written, when she’d said, ‘He is suspected of holding a correspondence with the court of London…’

  Someone coughed.

  I looked up from my work, and saw a youngish female clerk who looked a little nervous. ‘You’re…excuse me, but you’re Carolyn McClelland, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ I smiled politely, understanding now. She was a fan.

  ‘I’ve read your books,’ she told me. ‘Every one of them. They’re marvellous.’

  ‘Well, thank you. That’s so nice to hear.’

  ‘I love the history. Well, I would. That’s why I work here. But you make it come to life, you really do.’

  I thanked her once again, and meant it. When a person cared enough to stop and tell me that they liked my books, I valued that connection. Since I wrote in isolation, just myself and my computer, it was good to be reminded there were readers at the end of that long process who enjoyed the stories. And it was because of readers like this young clerk, after all, that my books had been successful.

  So I put my pencil down, and asked her, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Kirsty.’

  ‘One of the characters in my new book is named Kirsty.’

  She beamed. ‘Is this for your new book, the research you’re doing?’ She glanced at my table. ‘The Hamilton papers?’

  ‘Yes, the 4th duke is one of my characters, too, so I’m getting my facts straight.’ The people around us appeared to be packing up. I stole a glance at my watch. It was closing time. Where had the day gone, I wondered?

  ‘I feel like I’ve only just started,’ I told the girl Kirsty, and smiled. ‘Guess I’ll have to come back in the morning.’

  Which made her look more pleased. ‘Do you think…’ she started, then broke off and tried again. ‘If I brought one of my books in…’

  I knew what she was asking me. ‘Of course. Bring whatever you have, I’ll be happy to sign them.’

  ‘Oh, that would be wonderful.’

  I had so clearly made her day that I left feeling happy, too, if humbled.

  When I came back to the record office first thing the next morning, I felt humbled even more. It wasn’t only that she’d brought my novels in for me to sign – all hardback copies, obviously read and re-read many times – but she’d gone to the trouble of arranging an assortment of materials she’d thought I might find useful in my research. ‘They’re mostly papers, family papers, that have some connection to your Duke of Hamilton. The letters aren’t by anybody famous, and most people wouldn’t know that they were here, but I remember someone else was looking up the duke last year and said that these were very helpful.’

  I was touched, so I took extra care to sign all her books well, with my friendliest wishes and thanks for her help.

  The papers she had found for me were of more interest, I discovered, than the letters the duke wrote himself. It was interesting, always, to learn about someone by how other people described him. By late morning, I had learnt so much I didn’t think it possible that anything was left that could surprise me.

  Till I turned to the next letter.

  It was one of several written by an Edinburgh physician to his younger brother, and was dated 19th April 1707. After going on for half a page about a dying patient, he said, ‘Coming home, I did meet Mr Hall, whom I am sure you will remember from our dinner with His Grace the Duke of Hamilton, and who is by the duke now greatly valued and esteemed. Mr Hall appeared quite pale, but when I questioned him he did assure me he was well, but only quite worn out from having travelled on His Grace’s business. He has ridden these five days from Slains, the castle of the Earl of Erroll in the north, where he last month conveyed a young kinswoman of the earl who had come lately from the Western Shires. This lady, who is named not Hay but Paterson, had very much impressed the Duke of Hamilton as being of good character, and learning that her parents had both perished in the Darien adventure, which His Grace does hold to be our nation’s greatest tragedy, His Grace did then endeavour to do all he could to aid the lady in her journey northward, and to that end did commission Mr Hall to be her guide.<
br />
  ‘With such an act of kindness does His Grace reveal again his true benevolence to those who do apply to him in need…’

  The letter carried on to praise the Duke of Hamilton for fully one more page, but I just skimmed it to the finish, and went back.

  I had to read that passage several times before I could believe that the words, the facts set down in front of me, were really there – that everything I’d written in my own book had been true in every detail, and not fiction.

  But the line dividing fiction from the truth had blurred so badly now I didn’t have a clue where it began, or where it ended. And I didn’t know exactly how to deal with that.

  My first thought was to share the news with Dr Weir, to tell him that I’d found what looked like proof Sophia Paterson had been to Slains. Not only that, but that she’d been there at the time and in the circumstances I had written down in my own story. But the doctor, when I called him, wasn’t home. And likely wouldn’t be, said Elsie, until sometime Sunday afternoon. He’d gone to see his brother, near Glasgow.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘If it’s important, I could—’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I can wait till Sunday.’ But it seemed a long way off. I could have used the doctor’s counsel and encouragement when I came home to Cruden Bay late Friday night, too tired to take much notice of the apprehensive feeling that, as always, met me halfway up the path above the harbour.

  The night was calm. There was a winter moon to see by, and as I drew closer to the cottage I could see that Jimmy had left lights on for me, spilling warmly out the front room windows. And inside, I found things looking just as I had left them. But the voices of my characters, beginning now to whisper in my mind, advised me differently. I heard the countess saying clearly: ‘Much has changed since you were last at Slains.’

  I didn’t doubt that she was right.

  And so I crossed to my computer, sitting patient on the long scrubbed table, waiting for me. And I switched it on.

  V

  All week there had been visitors.

  They came on horseback, singly, from the shadowed lands that lay toward the north and the northwest. Sophia knew from their appearance and their bearing they were men of some importance, and although they were presented to her when they first arrived, as though they’d come for no more reason that to bid her welcome to the region, she knew well that this was simply a convenience, for each visitor was then conveyed to Colonel Hooke, in private, and remained with him some time.

  The first to come had been announced as Lord John Drummond, which had stopped Sophia’s heart an awful moment, till she’d calmed herself with the assurance that her Uncle John could not have left his grave and come to Slains in cruel pursuit of her. And then, the countess, too, had understood, and had been quick to say, ‘Sophia, here is John, my nephew,’ and the man who entered was a younger man, and pleasant in his manner. He was, Sophia learnt, the second son to that same Duke of Perth – the brother of the countess – who was spoken of so famously as living in such closeness with the exiled king, and young Lord Drummond did not hide the fact that he, too, was a Jacobite.

  Sophia had suspected, these past days, beginning with the warning of the countess that she might hear things and see things that would play upon her conscience, that the coming of the colonel and of Mr Moray might, as its design, involve some plot among those nobles who would bring King James to Scotland and restore him to his throne.

  Such things were never spoken of before her, but she’d noticed that, although the countess and the two men did not drink the king’s health at the dinner table, they did pass their goblets casually above the water jug, and from her uncle’s house Sophia knew this meant they drank the health of him ‘over the water’, meaning of the king in exile just across the English Channel.

  She knew this, yet she held her tongue, because she did not wish to vex the countess by revealing what she understood of everything now happening at Slains. The countess was so occupied and busy with her guests and with the messengers who came and went at all hours from the castle that Sophia felt her own place was to keep herself well out of things and keep the countess happy by pretending to be ignorant.

  She knew that Colonel Hooke did think her so, though she was not convinced of Mr Moray. His grey eyes were wont to watch her with a quiet concentration that did not appear to waver from its purpose, although what that purpose might have been, Sophia could not say. She only guessed that he saw much, and was not easily deceived. But in that instance, and if he was as intelligent a man as she believed, he also would have seen her feelings were in sympathy with theirs, and that they need have no worry that she would betray them. Whatever Mr Moray’s knowledge, he did nothing, for his part, to raise the question of her being trusted in their company.

  And so the first days passed, and brought the visitors, with names belonging to the greater families of the north – the Laird of Boyne, and later, Lord Saltoun, the chief of one branch of the house of Fraser. And behind them all came the Lord High Constable himself, the Earl of Erroll.

  Sophia thought him more impressive than his portrait; young, but careful with his actions and his words, and with his mother’s independent mind. There was around the man a certain energy, as of a banked-up fire that might, at any moment, flare to life.

  He made a vital contrast to poor Colonel Hooke, whose health, since his arrival at the castle, had continued to be troublesome.

  The Earl of Erroll, noticing, remarked upon this, and the colonel answered him, ‘I fear that I am still much out of order with my voyage. Indeed, I have been indisposed since we did leave Versailles.’

  Which was the first time that the French king’s court had been so openly referred to, and Colonel Hooke, as though just realising his carelessness, glanced quickly at Sophia, as did everybody else. Except the Earl of Erroll. He simply carried on to ask, ‘And I do trust that you left both their majesties, the King of France, and our King James, in all good health and spirits?’

  There was silence for an instant, then the countess warned him, ‘Charles…’

  ‘What, Mother?’ Shrugging off his cloak, he turned his gaze toward Sophia, as the others had, his own expression showing no concern. ‘She is a member of our family, is she not?’

  The countess said, ‘Of course, but—’

  ‘Well, then I would warrant she has wit enough to know the way things are with us. She does not look a fool. Are you a fool?’ he asked Sophia.

  She did not know how to answer with so many eyes upon her, but she raised her chin a little and quite bravely shook her head.

  ‘And have you formed your own opinion as to why these gentlemen have come to Slains?’

  Although she faced the Earl of Erroll, it was not the earl’s regard she felt just then, but that of Mr Moray, whose unyielding gaze would brook no falsehood, so she said, ‘It is my understanding that they have come here from France to treat among the Jacobites, my Lord.’

  The young earl smiled, as though her honesty had pleased him. ‘There, you see?’ he told the others. Then, returning to Sophia, asked, ‘And would you then discover us to agents of Queen Anne?’

  He was but baiting her, in jest. He knew the answer, but she told him very clearly, ‘I would not.’

  ‘I did not think so.’ And the matter, from his tone, was settled. ‘I do therefore feel at ease to speak my mind in this young lady’s presence. As should all of you.’

  If Colonel Hooke looked doubting, it was balanced, thought Sophia, by the faint smile of approval on the face of Mr Moray. Why it mattered to her so, that he approved, she did not seek to know, but turned her eyes and ears instead to Colonel Hooke, who had at last relented and was answering the earl as to the health of those whom he had last seen at the exiled Stewart court of Saint-Germain, in France.

  ‘I am encouraged,’ was the earl’s reply, ‘to hear that young King James is well. This country sorely needs him.’

  Hooke nodded. ‘So he is aware. He is n
ow more convinced than ever that the time has come for Scotland to arise.’

  ‘He was convinced of that, as I recall, two years ago, when we first started this adventure.’ With a patient look, the earl went on, ‘But it may be as well that he did hesitate, for he will find that there are many more who are now full prepared to stand for him, convinced that, at the worst, they will gain more with sword in hand than they are offered by this union with the English.’

  ‘Is it true that the Presbyterians in the west might seek to join our cause?’

  ‘I have heard whisperings to that effect. The Presbyterians were angered by the Union, and indeed, being among the best armed and the least divided forces in this country, they did intend to make their anger plain by marching upon Edinburgh, there to disperse the parliament.’

  Mr Moray, who’d kept to the background until now, could not contain himself on hearing this. ‘But surely, had they done so, that would then have stopped the Union taking place?’

  ‘Aye, almost certainly. Especially,’ the earl said, ‘since no fewer than four nobles from the shires of Angus and of Perth proposed to do the same.’

  ‘Christ’s blood,’ swore Mr Moray. ‘Why then did they not?’

  A quick glance passed between the young earl and his mother before he replied, ‘They were dissuaded, by a man they did esteem.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘His Grace the Duke of Hamilton.’

  There was a swift response from Colonel Hooke. ‘I’ll not believe it.’

  ‘Know it to be true,’ the earl assured him. ‘And know too that your friend the duke, who for these two months past has testified to such impatience that you should arrive, has changed his tone now that you are on Scottish ground. He says to all who care to listen that you come too late, and that the king no longer thinks about this nation, and we cannot hope for his return.’

  ‘You lie.’

  The earl’s hand lightly touched his sword hilt in an answer to the insult, but the countess stepped between the two men.