‘It means you don’t believe in things that can’t be proven.’
‘Try me,’ he repeated patiently.
I took a breath and told him. For good measure, I threw in the bits of information Dr Weir had scrounged for me, in hopes they’d make things sound more scientific, but the essence of it was, ‘And so I seem to have inherited her memories, and my being here at Slains has somehow called them to the surface from wherever they’ve been stored.’
A pause. Then he said, ‘Interesting.’
‘See? You think I’m crazy.’
‘Did I say that?’
‘You don’t have to. I remember your reaction when Aunt Ellen said she’d seen a ghost.’
‘Well, a ghost is one thing. This is DNA,’ he said. ‘And anything is possible, with DNA. You know they use it now, in genealogy, to trace specific lineages? If Ross McClelland and I had our blood tested, we’d show the same markers on our DNA, because we’re both descended from the same man.’
‘David John McClelland’s father,’ I said, frowning.
‘That’s right. Hugh. He had two sons, David John and William, but he died when they were young, and both the boys wound up in northern Ireland somehow. Sent to be raised up by their relatives, I guess. The Scottish Presbyterians had settled into Ulster by that time, but they still liked to send their sons across to Scotland to find wives, and likely that’s why our McClellands came back over to Kirkcudbright. William found his wife, and never did go back to Ireland. And David found Sophia.’
If I didn’t answer right away, it was because I didn’t want to be reminded that Sophia hadn’t ended up with Moray. I had gotten so caught up in their romance, I didn’t like to think of any ending for them but a happy one.
‘It’s too bad,’ said my father, not quite serious, ‘you didn’t get David’s memory. I’d love to find out anything about his early years in Ireland, before he got married. The family Bible doesn’t start till then.’
I said, reacting to his tone of voice, and not his words, ‘I knew it.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘Honey, whether I believe or not, it doesn’t matter. I can’t offer any explanation of my own, how you came up with all those names and dates from nowhere, so I guess that your genetic memory theory makes about as much sense as anything.’
‘Well, thanks.’
‘I mean, I’d hoped it was a book you’d found, or something.’
‘Sorry to disappoint.’
‘You haven’t disappointed me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got me back two generations on the Patersons. And like I said, I’ll keep an open mind.’
I knew my father well enough to know he’d keep that promise, and that if I passed on any other details I ‘remembered’ from Sophia’s life, he’d search for documenting evidence, the same as he’d have done if I were finding information in a book.
But I didn’t choose to tell him, yet, that it might just be possible Sophia’s marriage to our own McClelland hadn’t been her first; that three years earlier, she might have bound herself by handfast to a young Lieutenant-Colonel in the French king’s service.
That was knowledge that I wanted to hold closely to myself a while longer.
There was nothing that my father could have found to prove it, anyway, and even if there had been, something deep within me wanted me to keep Sophia’s secret, as she’d kept it for herself, those many years ago.
And I obeyed the instinct, though I knew it was irrational. I had already written down the scene, and when the book was published there’d be other people reading it, and nothing would be secret. But for this small time between, I felt responsible to Moray and Sophia to protect their hour of happiness, to help them hold it just a little longer…though I knew that like the beach sand that had slipped between Sophia’s fingers, it could not be held.
X
IT WAS, SOPHIA THOUGHT, like waiting for the headsman’s axe to fall.
It had been but a day since Colonel Hooke had made a safe return to Slains, looking ill and weary from his days of horseback traveling among the Scottish nobles. And this morning, shortly after dawn, Monsieur de Ligondez’s French frigate, the Heroine, had reappeared in full sail off the coast, having kept strictly to his earlier instructions to remain three weeks at sea.
Sophia’s heart felt like a stone within her chest. She could not look at Moray, who sat now in his accustomed place across the dinner table, for she would not have him see the wretched nature of her misery. It was as well, she thought, that all the others were so focused on their conversation that they took no notice of the fact she had no appetite for any of the fine food Mrs Grant had set in front of them—oysters and mutton and wildfowl in gravy, a swirl of rich smells that would normally stir her, but which, on this day, failed to tantalize. Pushing the meat round the plate with her fork, she listened while the Earl of Erroll questioned Hooke about his meetings with the other chieftains.