I had taken care with what I wrote, and yet this morning Helen had, across the breakfast table, said, “My husband gets that same look when there’s something he has left undone.”
I’d pondered that this past hour.
Now, I took the illustrated book I’d bought of plants of the Americas, and gathered up a file of paper with a pen and ink, locked up the scrutore and the writing chamber, and went off to fetch my cloak and hat.
This time, when I passed Helen in the drawing room, I assured her I’d be in no danger. “There’s no rain this morning, only wind.”
She looked at me with open curiosity. “Where are you going?”
“You were right. I need to follow up on something more with Mrs. Graeme.” Gilroy, after all, had asked me to ask Henry what became of the child Maggie, and from Henry I had learned that Maggie went from Leith with Lily. “I will not be long.”
“I’m coming with you,” Helen said.
“What?”
“Adam. You cannot simply turn up at a woman’s door and think that she will let you in. No decent woman would, for you would compromise her virtue.”
Social rules exhausted me. “And yet when I first came here,” I reminded her, “you let me in, and you have let me stay, and I would count you very virtuous.”
She thanked me. “But I have MacDougall and the maid, while Mrs. Graeme is not of the class to keep a servant. No,” she said, “I will come with you.”
Helen, when she set her mind to something, always had her way.
MacDougall grumbled, but he could do little more than glare accusingly at me and remind us both how foolhardy it was for Helen to be out of doors at all. “If ye take fright, your bairn will bear the mark of it,” he told her.
As I helped her down the forestair, I bent low against the wind and said, “I do already pity your wee bairn before it’s born.”
“Why?”
“Because it must already be marked in several places with MacDougall’s face.”
She laughed. “’Tis very possible. He means well, for his fierceness. What’s that book?”
I showed her. “Mrs. Graeme asked about my time in the Americas. I thought she might find this of interest.”
Helen seemed to find my face of interest for a moment, but a passing couple soon distracted her attention. There weren’t many other people in the street to watch—the weather had kept most of them indoors, and there was no one lounging in the entrance to Hamilton’s Close when we walked by.
The house at the corner of Forrester’s Wynd was an older one that had been altered and much improved over the years. As with Caldow’s Land, there was a shop at ground level—in this case a candlemaker’s—and above that, overhanging galleries leaned out into the street and wynd, with multipaned sash windows framed in stone. There were three floors above the shop, although the uppermost, considering the steeply angled roofline, could be no more than a garret.
Lily had her lodgings just below that, on the second floor above the shop, which meant our climb was one floor more than Helen was accustomed to, and even though I helped her up the covered turnpike stair the effort stole her wind a little. Whatever surprise Lily might have had on opening her door to us was quickly damped by her concern for Helen’s health and comfort.
All the years Lily had spent in service made her an efficient lady’s maid, and I knew better than to interfere. While she was seeing Helen settled in a chair with cushions, I looked round the room, for it was only that—a single room. The plastered walls were washed in white, but otherwise undecorated, and the ceiling beams had not been painted like the ones at Caldow’s Land, but it was not a cheerless space. There was some color in the weaving of the blanket on the bed against the far wall, and more color in the cushions of the chair where Helen sat. The fireplace, while not a large one, was sufficient still for cooking and a pot of broth was simmering upon the hook that hung above the coals. And while the day outside was grey, the room drew light from the two windows that faced to the High Street, and a third that overlooked the wynd.
On the broad ledge of this third window I saw a short brass candlestick that had been fitted with a brand-new candle, yet unburnt.
“I wonder, Sergeant Williamson, if I might have your help.”
I turned, and meeting Lily’s eyes directly felt off balance though I covered it with confidence. “Of course. Just tell me how.”
“If we could bring this table close to Mrs. Turnbull…”