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 learned 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 traveled 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 endeavor 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.
‘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 harbor.
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.