Sophia's Secret

by Susanna Kearsley

  ‘That’s a good, fine Scottish name, MacLellan.’

  ‘Well yes, except we spell it wrong. My family are Ulster Scots,’ I said, ‘from Northern Ireland. But my ancestors did come from Scotland, way back. From Kirkcudbright.’ I pronounced it ‘Kir-COO-Bree’, the way I’d been taught. My father was an avid genealogist who spent his spare hours buried in the history of our family, and I’d learnt from a young age the varied details of my pedigree, and how the first McClelland of our line had crossed from southwest Scotland into Ulster. That had happened, now I thought of it, about the same time as the story I was writing now, in the first years of the eighteenth century. A David John McClelland, it had been, who’d up and moved to Ireland, and…who had been his wife? Sophia something.

  With an idle frown, I wrote that first name down beneath the others on my page.

  My seatmate, watching, said, ‘I like Sophia, for a name. I had a great aunt named Sophia. Remarkable woman.’

  I found myself liking the name, too. It had a nice ring to it. If only I could remember the surname…no matter, my father would know it. And he’d be pleased beyond measure if I used our ancestor’s name in a novel. So what if she’d lived on the wrong side of Scotland and likely had never seen Edinburgh, let alone Slains? She’d lived at the right time – her name would be right for the period, and I’d be making her life up, not writing biography, so I could put her wherever I wanted.

  ‘Sophia,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think that’s the one.’

  Satisfied, I folded the page and settled back to watch the window, where the coastline was just coming into view.

  The man beside me settled back as well, and asked, ‘You’re writing something set in Scotland, are you? Whereabouts?’

  ‘Just up the coast from Aberdeen. A place called Cruden Bay.’

  ‘Oh, aye? Why there?’

  I didn’t usually talk work with total strangers, and I wasn’t sure what made me do it now, except maybe that I hadn’t had enough sleep, and his eyes were engagingly warm when he smiled.

  Whether he actually found it all interesting, what I told him about Slains and the failed Jacobite invasion and Nathaniel Hooke, or whether he was just a practised listener, and polite, I couldn’t tell. Either way, he let me go on talking till we’d landed, and still chatting, he walked out with me, waiting while I got my bags, and helping with the heavy ones.

  ‘It’s a good place for a writer, Cruden Bay,’ he said. ‘You know Bram Stoker wrote the better part of Dracula while staying there?’

  ‘I didn’t, no.’

  ‘Aye, it was your castle, Slains, and not the one in Whitby, that inspired him. You’ll hear the whole story, I’m sure, from the locals. You’ll be there a while, did you say?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve rented a cottage.’

  ‘In the wintertime? That’s brave of you.’ We’d reached the rental car counter, and he rested his arms as he let down my suitcases, frowning a bit at the length of the queue in front of us. ‘You’re sure that you won’t let me give you a lift?’

  It was tempting, but my parents had long ago taught me that taking rides with strange men, even friendly ones, was not a good idea, so I said, ‘No, that’s all right, I’ll manage. Thanks.’

  He didn’t push the point. Instead, he took his wallet out and shuffled through its contents for a scrap of paper. Finding one, he clicked a ballpoint pen. ‘Here, write your name on that, I’ll look for your books next time I’m in a shop.’ And while I wrote, he added, smiling, ‘If you write your number down, as well, I’ll come and take you out to lunch.’

  Which I found tempting, too, though I was forced to say, ‘I don’t know what my number is, I’m sorry. I don’t even know if there’s a phone.’ And then, because his face was so good-looking, ‘But my landlord’s name is Jimmy Keith. He’ll know how to get hold of me.’

  ‘Jimmy Keith?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He gave a smile so broad it fell just short of laughter, as he bent to pick up both my suitcases. ‘You’d best let me give you that lift, after all. I’m not so big my father wouldn’t skelp me if he knew I’d left you here to hire a car when I was heading north myself.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘Aye. Did I not say my name, before? I’m Stuart Keith.’ He grinned. ‘And since it appears that you’ve taken the cottage where I like to stay, so you’re making me sleep on my father’s spare bed – and a very uncomfortable bed it is, too – then the least you can give me is company during the drive,’ he concluded. ‘Come on.’

  And having no argument, really, for that, I had little choice left but to follow.

  Chapter Three

  He drove a silver Lotus, sleek and fast, and drove it recklessly. I found it hard to focus on the things that he was pointing out as we went whizzing past.

  ‘Of course it’s all changed since the big offshore oil rigs went in, in the seventies,’ he said. ‘Not that I remember what it was like before then, I’m not so old as all that, but the area’s been built up, with the people coming north to work in Aberdeen and Peterhead. And we’ve got the golf course, and the beach. The golf course is a good one, it draws a fair number of tourists. Do you play?’

  ‘Golf? No, not really. You?’

  ‘It all depends what you call playing. I can knock the ball around, no problem. Putting it anywhere close to the hole, well…’ He shrugged. ‘It’s too slow a sport for my liking.’

  From the way he was driving, I guessed that he didn’t like anything slow. We covered the twenty-five miles in about half the time it had taken me on Sunday. The thick snow that had been here then had melted so the green of grass showed through the white in places, and as we turned down Main Street to the harbour I could see the golden grasses blowing wild along the dunes above the wide pink curve of beach. Already the place had a welcoming feel, half-familiar. As we parked the car on Harbour Street, I felt a settling of my spirit that reminded me a little of the feeling that I got whenever I flew back to Canada and knew that I was home.

  It was a nice way to feel, after spending the past year in transit, bouncing from author appearances to writers’ conferences, one hotel to another, and then the months of fruitless work in France. Something told me that spending this winter in Scotland would be good for me, as well as for the book.

  ‘Come on,’ said Stuart Keith. ‘You’ll want to get your key, I’m sure, and Dad will want to walk you up the hill and see that you’ve got everything you need. In fact, if I know him,’ he said, and checked his watch, ‘he’ll likely have you stay to lunch.’

  Jimmy Keith lived in a grey, stone-built cottage wedged tightly between its two neighbours and set at the edge of the street. His sitting room was at the front. I knew this because he had the window partly open, and I could hear a television announcer giving a play-by-play of something that sounded like soccer.

  Stuart didn’t ring the bell or knock, but simply used his own key to walk in, with me behind him. The narrow front hall, with its mirror and mat, and the cheerfully yellowing wallpaper, wrapped me with warmth and the faintly lingering smells of a fried-egg-and-sausage breakfast.

  From the front room, Jimmy called, ‘Aye-aye. Which one o ye is that?’

  ‘It’s me, Dad.’

  ‘Stuie! I didna expect ye till Friday. Come in, loon, drap yer things and come and watch the match wi’ me. It’s on video – I’ll wind it back.’

  ‘In a minute. I just need the key to the cottage.’

  ‘The cottage, aye.’ Jimmy’s voice took on a note of apology. ‘Listen, there’s been a wee change o plan…’

  ‘I gathered that.’ And taking two more steps so that he stood within the open doorway of the sitting room, Stuart motioned me to come stand at his side. ‘I’ve brought your tenant with me.’

  Jimmy Keith rose from his chair with that chivalric reflex that some men of his generation hadn’t lost, and most men of my own had never learnt. ‘Miss McClelland,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘How on earth did ye manage t
ae meet up wi’ this sorry loon?’ He used that last word the way people from elsewhere in Scotland used ‘lad’, so I guessed that it meant the same thing.

  Stuart said, ‘We were on the same plane. We—’

  ‘Ye micht let the quine spik a word fer hersel.’ Which was harder to fathom, but my ear was retuning itself to the sound of the Doric, the language that Jimmy Keith spoke, and I translated that to ‘You might let the girl speak a word for herself’, which I figured was right because Jimmy’s mild eyes held the warning of a parent to a child to mind its manners. Then he thought of something else, and turned to me. ‘Ye nivver let ma Stuie drive ye fae the airport? Michty, come in,’ he said, as I nodded. ‘Sit down, quine. Ye must have been feart fer yer life.’

  Stuart shifted to let me go by him. ‘You know, Dad, you’re meant to be telling her all of my good points, not all of my faults. And you might want to try speaking English.’

  ‘What way?’ Jimmy asked, which I knew from my past trips to Scotland meant ‘Why?’ But when Jimmy pronounced it in Doric the first word came out more like ‘fit’ – which I later would learn was a feature of Doric, the way that some ‘w’s sounded like ‘f’s – and the second word came out as ‘wye’. So, ‘Fit wye?’ Jimmy asked. ‘She can folly me fine.’

  He was right, I could follow him easily, though Stuart seemed unconvinced. Jimmy saw me settled in an armchair by the window, with my feet warmed by an old electric heater in the fireplace, and a clear view of the television. ‘Stuie, awa up tae the St Olaf wi’ ye, and bring us back three plates o huddock and chips.’

  ‘They don’t do take-away at the St Olaf.’

  ‘Na, na,’ his father said, knowing, ‘they’ll dee it fer me. Ye’ll stay tae lunch,’ he told me, but he made it sound an invitation rather than an order. ‘Efter drivin wi’ ma Stuie ye’ll be needin tae recover. We can take yer things up tae the cottage later.’

  Stuart didn’t argue, only smiled as though he’d long since learnt there was no point resisting. ‘You do like fish and chips?’ was the only thing he wanted to make sure, before he left. ‘Right then, I won’t be long.’

  His footsteps echoed on the road outside as he went past the window, and his father drily said, ‘Dinna believe it. Ma Stuie’s nivver gone past the St Olaf Hotel athoot tasting a pint. Mind, he’s nae sic a bad loon,’ he added, as he caught my eye, ‘but dinna tell him I telt ye that. He thinks a great deal o hisself as it is.’

  I smiled. ‘You have two sons, somebody said.’

  ‘Aye. There’s Stuie, he’s the younger, and his brother Graham’s doon in Aiberdeen.’

  ‘He’s a student, isn’t he, at the university?’ I was trying to remember what the woman at the Post Office had told me.

  ‘Ach no, quine. He’s nae a student, he’s a lecturer. In History.’ His eyes crinkled at the corners with good humour. ‘They’re naething alike, ma twa sons.’

  I tried to imagine Stuart Keith attending classes, much less teaching them, and failed.

  ‘Graham taks efter his mither, God rest her sweet soul. She loved her history, loved tae read.’

  Which would have been the perfect opening for me to tell him what I did, and why I’d come to Cruden Bay, but at the moment, with the warm fire at my feet and in the comfort of the armchair, I felt no sense of urgency to talk about my work. He’d find out soon enough, I reasoned, from his son. And anyway, I doubted that a man like Jimmy Keith would take an interest in the sort of books I wrote.

  We sat companionably in silence as we watched the game on television – Scotland playing France. And after several minutes Jimmy asked, ‘Ye were coming fae France, weren’t ye?’ and when I told him yes, he said, ‘I’ve nivver been. But Stuie’s aye ower there these days on business.’

  ‘And what’s his business?’

  ‘Geein me grey hairs,’ said Jimmy, straight-faced. ‘He disna stick at onything fer lang. It’s computers the noo, but I cwidna say just fit he does wi’ them.’

  Whatever he did, I decided, he must do it well, to be able to afford the Lotus. And his clothes had an expensive cut, for all that they looked casual. But when he came back several minutes later with our fish and chips in paper, the salt wind – no doubt with the help of a pint from the Hotel’s bar – had rumpled him enough to make him lose the city slickness, and he looked at home, relaxed, as we three sat and watched what they would have called ‘football’.

  Not that I actually saw much of the game. My lack of sleep the night before was catching up with me, and with the warmth and heavy food and Jimmy Keith and Stuart talking on to one another in their deeply lilting voices, it was all that I could do to keep my eyes from drifting closed. I fought the urge as best I could, but I was nearly gone when Jimmy said, ‘Stuie, we’d best get the quine tae her cottage afore it gets too dark tae see.’

  I forced my eyes full open. It was darkening outside, the daylight giving way to that grey, colder gloom that marked the start of evening, in the winter.

  Stuart stood. ‘I’ll take her, Dad. You sit.’

  ‘Na, na.’ The older man stood, too. ‘I widna send ony quine oot on her ain wi’ ye, at nicht.’

  Stuart looked down. ‘I’m not really that bad,’ he assured me, and reached a hand to help me up.

  But I was glad to have the two of them for company, as we walked through the swiftly falling darkness up the hill along the rutted path that was in places inches deep with melted snow. Not just because they gallantly carried all my luggage and the heavy briefcase holding my computer, but because I felt an unexpected twisting of unease deep in my chest, there on the path – a sense of something at my back that made me scared to look behind.

  If I had been alone, I would have run the whole way to the cottage, suitcases or no, but as it was I simply shook the feeling off and looked instead toward the sea, where I could just make out the running lines of white that were the waves, advancing in their rhythm to the shore. The sky was thick with cloud, and veiled the moon, so that the dark line where the sea met the horizon was not easy to make out. And yet I looked for it, and searched it without knowing what, exactly, I was searching for, or what I hoped to see.

  ‘Mind yersel,’ said Jimmy’s voice. His hand came out to steer me, fatherly, back to the path. ‘Ye dinna wish tae fa, yer first nicht here.’

  We’d reached the cottage. It was dark as well, but not for long. A scrape of the door on the floor tiles, a flip of a switch, and we stood in the bright, shabby cheer of the main front room, with its worn Persian rugs and the armchairs and long, scrubbed wood table pushed up to the wall, and the coal-fired Aga snugged tight in its small kitchen alcove.

  Jimmy swung the door shut behind us, checked to see the latch was working properly, then handed me the key. ‘That’s yers, quine. Ye’ve got coal in the back fer the Aga. Ye’ve usit coal afore? Weel, dinna worry, I’ll show ye.’

  I watched him very carefully, then tried my hand at doing it, arranging the coals in the way he instructed and swinging the Aga’s cast iron door shut with a competent clang.

  ‘Aye, that’s richt, ye’re deein gran,’ said Jimmy. ‘Ye’ll hae this room fairly warm in nae time ata.’

  Stuart, not so encouraging, said, ‘There are electric fires, too. One in here, and one in the bedroom, if you need to switch them on. Just don’t forget to feed the meter.’

  ‘Aye, ye’ll need yer siller.’ Jimmy put a hand in one pocket and pulled out a fat roll of coins in brown paper. ‘There’s ten pound, tae start wi’.’

  I traded him a ten pound note for the coins, and he thanked me.

  Stuart watched me tilt my head back to examine the black box above the door, with all its spinning dials and knobs, and with a grin he reached above me to explain. ‘This shows how much time you’ve got left, you see? And there’s the meter – that’s how much electricity you’re using. If I turn another light on…there, see how it’s going faster? So you have to keep an eye on it, and make sure when the needle on the gauge gets down to here you plunk another
coin in, or you’ll find yourself sitting in the dark. Let me fill it for you, then you’ll have a little while before you have to worry.’

  He was tall enough to simply reach and pop the coins into the slot. I’d need to stand on a stool when my turn came.

  Jimmy said, ‘I’ve gotten some food in fer ye. Bread and eggs and milk, like, so ye winna need tae bother wi’ the shops the morn.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I told him, touched that he’d have taken so much trouble. He’d cleaned the place as well, I noticed. Not that it had been dirty before, but now it was decidedly dust-free, and smelt of soap and polish. Once again I felt that sense of something settling round me like a shawl around my shoulders, as though I’d found a place where I could rest, and be at home. ‘It’s really lovely, all you’ve done.’

  ‘Na, na,’ Jimmy shrugged, but his voice was pleased. ‘If ye need onything ata, just speir. I’m nae far awa.’ He glanced around, and seeming satisfied with everything, announced, ‘We’ll leave ye tae yersel, quine. Let ye get a bit o rest.’

  I thanked them both a final time, and said good night, and saw them out. I was about to close the door when Stuart stuck his head back round, and told me,

  ‘Incidentally, there is a phone, just over there.’ He pointed, making sure I saw. ‘And I already know the number.’

  And with one last charming smile he withdrew again, and left me on my own to latch the door.

  I heard their footsteps and their voices on the path as they retreated, and then silence. Just the rattle of the windows as the night wind struck the glass, and in the space between the gusts the measured crashing of the waves along the shore below the hill.

  It didn’t bother me to be alone. I’d gotten so I liked it. Still, when I’d unpacked my suitcases, and made myself a cup of instant coffee in the kitchen, something drew me to the armchair in the corner, by the table with the telephone, and made me dial the number that I always dialled when I was wanting somebody to talk to.

  ‘Daddy, hi,’ I said, when he picked up. ‘It’s me.’