It was in the divided days of John Knox, a hundred and fifty or more years ago, that the inside of St. Giles’s had first been divided as well with partitions, a practice that carried on through the last century so that now this one great building, although it was still whole on the outside, had been carved within to form four separate churches, each one having its own minister and congregation.
It was done, so I’d been told, to better serve the population of the growing town.
The central section of St. Giles’s became the Old Kirk, while the western end was split into the Haddo’s-hold and Tolbooth Kirks, which left this eastern end—the soaring choir—to be the High Kirk, where the queen’s pew lay and where the lords of session and a good many important men had seats.
Outwardly, it was a practical arrangement, but as I sat paying no heed whatsoever to the raging sermon of the minister this morning, I engaged myself in study of the columns that were meant to lead my eyes up to the intricately vaulted ceiling high above my head. I was thinking, not of heaven, as I was supposed to, but of how wondrous the effect would be if all the space inside that great cathedral could be opened and restored. And I was thinking of the things that had been lost by its division.
In that way, too, St. Giles’s was much like Scotland.
“Amen,” said the minister.
Helen was in no great hurry to leave. She had spotted her cousin—the one who sat on the commission—and wanted to linger and thank him in person, being somewhat puzzled she’d had no reply yet to her letter, but he was in deep conversation with two other men, so she was waiting.
After some minutes, she glanced at my face. I’d been trying to not let my restlessness show. Evidently I’d done a poor job of it.
Helen smiled. “Why don’t you step out and get some air while I am waiting?”
“I’d not leave you on your own.”
“Why not? And if you tell me that it is because of my condition, I can’t promise I won’t poison you at dinner,” Helen warned. “I had enough of that this morning, with the fuss MacDougall made about me coming here. ’Tis only the beginning of my seventh month. I’m not so very large,” she asked me, “am I?”
I could not help smiling. “No.”
“Then go and have a walk,” she told me. “I will sit exactly here until my cousin’s free to speak.”
I knew when I was being sent away. “I’ll not be long,” I told her.
Helen said, “Take all the time you like.” And then, more casually, “I do believe that I saw Violet Young leaving just now. You might still overtake her.”
With a sideways look I said to Helen, “I will not go far. You’ll find me with the Regent Murray if you need me.”
Since she had been raised here, I knew she would understand that reference, and her nod and smile assured me that she did.
The Regent Murray, long ago, had schemed against his own half sister, Mary, Queen of Scots, joining with John Knox to raise the citizens of Edinburgh against her. When Queen Mary abdicated, chased to exile and captivity in England, Murray was created regent for her infant son, the young king, but he’d not held power long. He’d been assassinated shortly after by a man he’d wronged, so it was only fitting that his final resting place was where men came to settle their accounts.
His tomb was in the southern transept of St. Giles’s, and being in an aisle of the church left always open, with an access to Parliament Close—where the parliament sat and the lords of the council and session did business—the Regent Murray’s tomb had been used for some generations as a meeting place, where messages were passed, and deals were struck, and debts were paid.
This morning there were several people strolling round the space, together and apart.
I noticed only one.
She wore a simple brown silk gown—most probably the same brown gown that once belonged to Barbara Malcolm, carefully reworked to suit more recent fashions, for I’d learned that Lily did not much like to discard things. She was sentimental.
She looked to be waiting there for somebody, and we were not alone, but I was not about to lose the opportunity to speak to her. I made my bow and wished her a good morrow, and because I feared to compliment the wrong thing, said, “I like your hat.”
She smiled. “It is an old one.”
“I do like it, notwithstanding. I confess I did not see you at the service.”
“I expect we were in different churches,” she said. “I was in the Haddo’s-hold. The houses on the south side of the High Street and the Landmarket belong to different parishes than those upon the north.”