I was hoping that as well, but I’d resigned myself to anything, so when Lord Grange’s clerk appeared at two o’clock precisely with a file of papers underneath one arm, I breathed more easily. The drudgery of paperwork was something I could bear.
The clerk was younger than me, too—a tall man in his later twenties with broad shoulders and a build that seemed more suited to the fields than to an office, but his voice was educated.
Gilroy was his name. “I will be with you every day,” he promised, “until we finish the inquiry.”
I tried to sound informed, and failed. “The inquiry?”
“You’ve not been told?” His mouth, for just a moment, made a line that I knew well. Mine did the same when I was forced to explain basic things to new recruits. He set the papers on the table by the window, which by now had been cleared of its breakfast things and sat in readiness, with four chairs stationed round it. “How much do you know of the business of the Commissioners of the Equivalent?”
I knew that since the Acts of Union had been passed between my own country of Scotland and the English this past spring, dissolving our parliament and creating one united nation, the government of Queen Anne now at Westminster had sent north an enormous sum of money to be managed as a fund designed to offset our assumption of a share of England’s debt, and for some other sundry purposes, and that this money was called the Equivalent, and those who had its charge were its Commissioners.
I said all this to Gilroy, who seemed satisfied. “That’s fairly it. Except a large part of what those commissioners are doing now is sorting through the claims of those owed money by our African Company, since one promise of the union was that everyone who lost by that adventure would be compensated out of the Equivalent.”
Helen, who had been all this time in the room with us, spoke up. “Sergeant Williamson is very well acquainted with the African Company. He is one of our brave men who went to Darien. He fought at Toubacanti, with my husband.”
Gilroy’s level grey eyes held a new appreciation. “Did you? Then you’ll not need me to waste my breath on that.”
“No.” I knew all about the Company.
“The people who lost money, and the men still owed their wages, have been publicly invited to apply for payment,” Gilroy said. “As have the heirs of those who died.”
I worked to smooth the brittle edge from my own tone. “I should imagine the commissioners are overrun with claims.”
“They are. But this one,” he said, untying the string that bound the file of papers, “they have passed to us. A woman who has recently come forward with a claim to be the widow of a sailor.”
Helen looked at him. “You do not think she is?”
“I did not say that.”
“No,” she mused. “You did not.” Leaning closer, she glanced at the few pages that were topmost in the file. “So we are meant to ask her questions?”
“Sergeant Williamson is, yes.”
I felt at sea. “What sort of questions?”
“Ones that will determine whether she was truly married to this sailor, and establish whether she is owed his wages,” Gilroy said, with patience. “When Lieutenant Turnbull has returned, he will assume the inquiry, but until then you have the lead, sir.”
Not a thought that gave me comfort.
Somebody was coming up the curved steps of the forestair. Gilroy turned toward the sound and said, “That’s probably the lady now. Lord Grange said he would tell her to be here at half past two.”
MacDougall let her in.
She was not tall. She did not have to duck to miss the lintel, but as she entered, she turned her head slightly toward me and I felt the breath leave my lungs.
I’d seen beautiful women. Society women. Their faces would fade from my mind. But the face of this one unremarkable widow, I knew beyond all doubt, I’d always remember.
Our eyes met.
She’d paused just inside the door, hesitant, as though she hadn’t expected to see us all waiting there, but when I smiled reassurance, she took a step forward.
Gilroy made the introductions. “Mistress Aitcheson,” he called her first, then correcting himself, “Mrs. Graeme.”
She offered me her gloved hand and said, “That is what we’re all here to decide, is it not, Mr.—？”
Gilroy gave her my name. I was grateful, for I doubt that I could have managed it.
I paid her my honors and felt her hand slip from mine. I missed the touch.
“Well, Sergeant Williamson,” she told me, steadily, “shall we begin?”