‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because it is a heart, and knows no better.’ With her own eyes moist, the countess smoothed the hair back from Sophia’s cheek. ‘But leave whatever part of it you will with us at Slains, and I will care for it,’ she said. ‘And by God’s grace I may yet live to see the day it draws you home.’
CHAPTER 17
NO, NO,’ SAID JANE. ‘You simply cannot end the book like that. It’s much too sad.’
To emphasize her point, she thumped the final pages of the manuscript down on the dark wood table of our booth in the Kilmarnock Arms, and made our lunch plates rattle.
‘But that’s how it really happened.’
‘I don’t care.’ There was no stopping Jane once she got going, and I was glad there was no one but us in the Lounge Bar this afternoon. The lunch hour itself had been busy, seeing it was Saturday, but now the other tables had been cleared and there was only us. The girl who’d served us had retreated round the corner to the Public Bar, but even that seemed quiet, and to judge by all the footsteps passing by us on the sidewalk most of Cruden Bay today was out of doors. The breeze was chilly, but the sun was shining cheerfully for all that it was worth, so that from where I sat beside the window facing on the street, it looked like spring.
‘It’s bad enough,’ said Jane, ‘you had to go and kill the poor girl’s husband—and I won’t forgive you soon for that one either—but to make her leave her child.’ She shook her head in disbelief.
‘But Jane—’
‘It isn’t right,’ she said. ‘A mother wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I thought I understood Sophia’s reasons, even if I wasn’t a mother myself, but my explanations fell on deaf ears. Jane was in no mood to hear them.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it’s far too sad. You’ll have to change it.’
‘But I can’t.’
‘Of course you can. Bring Moray back from France, or Flanders, or wherever.’
‘But he died.’ I held the sheets I’d got from Graham out to show her. ‘See? Right there, page three. John Moray, died of wounds.’
She took the papers from my hand and looked them over, unconvinced.
‘They’re all there,’ I assured her. ‘Look, there’s Moray, and his sisters, and his mother’s brother Patrick Graeme. I can’t change what happens to real people, Jane. I can’t change history.’
‘Well, Sophia isn’t history,’ argued Jane. ‘She isn’t real, she’s just a character, your own creation. Surely you can find some way to let her have a happy ending.’ Standing firm, she pushed the pages back towards me on the table. ‘You can try, at least. Your deadline’s not for weeks yet. Speaking of which,’ she went on, switching gears as she picked up her coffee cup, ‘what shall I tell them you’re working on next, when they ask me? I know you were thinking of Italy somewhere, but I don’t remember the details.’
My own coffee had long since grown cold in the cup, but I lifted it anyway and drank so I’d have an excuse not to look at Jane directly. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking I might stay in Scotland awhile.’
‘Oh, yes?’ All her antennae were up, I could feel it.
‘I have this new idea for a novel about one of the earlier kings of Scotland, James I. He ruled in the early fifteenth century and had a fascinating life, full of adventures, and he was murdered in this wonderfully treacherous way—there’s a long Victorian poem about it, called “The King’s Tragedy”。 Anyhow, I thought I might tell the whole tale through the eyes of his wife—’
‘Was she murdered, as well?’ Jane asked drily.
‘No.’
‘Glad to hear it. I thought this might be a new trend in your books, killing off all the likeable characters.’ Over the rim of her own cup she gave me a moment’s appraisal. ‘It sounds like a good story, though. The publishers will like it.’
‘Yes, so you said.’
‘And I’d be thrilled, of course, to have you living here. Assuming you’d be staying on in Cruden Bay.’ She slipped that in as casually as some old angler stringing bait onto a hook.
‘I like my cottage.’
‘Yes, I know you do. I only thought your research might be easier if you were living near a university that had a decent library.’ The hook danced closer still. ‘Like Aberdeen.’