Sophia's Secret

by Susanna Kearsley

  With an almost steady smile, Sophia asked, ‘Which one do you like best, then, Anna? Which one is your favourite?’

  She had expected that the little girl would choose a knight – the horses’ heads had held her interest longest – or a castle tower, but the child, after some consideration, chose a different piece and showed it on her outstretched hand: a single, fallen pawn.

  Sophia thought of Colonel Graeme, when he’d taught her how to play the game, explaining of the pawns: ‘These wee men here, they’re not allowed to make decisions. They can only put one foot afore the other…’

  Looking down, she saw the pieces of the chess set scattered anyhow across the board and lying on their sides like soldiers felled in battle, and she saw that in their midst one piece still stood: the black-haired king.

  She looked again at Anna’s pawn and blinked to keep the tears back, but her smile held. ‘Yes, that one is my favourite, too.’

  And careless of propriety, she bent to wrap her arms round Anna one last time and hold her close, and make a final memory of the scent of her, the feel of her, the softness of the brush of curls against her cheek, so she’d have that at least to keep her company through all the hollow years to come. Then quickly – for the little girl, confused, had started drawing back – Sophia kissed the top of Anna’s head and loosed her hold. ‘It is all right, my darling, you can go.’

  Anna stood her ground a moment longer staring upwards as though somehow she suspected more was going on than she could understand. Her solemn face and watchful eyes were so like Moray’s at that instant that Sophia felt a painful twist of memory, like a hand that tugged against her heart and stopped it in mid-beat. She drew a shaking breath, determined, and her heart resumed its rhythm once again.

  As all things must.

  Still Anna stood and watched in silence, and Sophia tried to smile again but could not manage it, nor raise her voice much higher than a whisper. ‘Go,’ she gently urged the child. ‘Go to your mother.’

  And she did not cry. Not then. Not even when the little girl was led away, with one last backward look that would forever haunt Sophia’s dreams. She did not cry. She only rose and went to stand before the window, where the cold wind off the sea was blasting hard against the glass and wailing still that it could not come in, while last night’s rain yet clung hard to the panes like frozen tears.

  The countess did not speak, nor leave her place beside the mantelpiece.

  ‘So, you see,’ Sophia said, ‘my heart is held forever by this place. I cannot leave but that the greatest part of me remains where Anna is.’

  ‘It would be so no matter how you left her,’ said the countess. ‘I have said goodbye to my own daughters, one by one.’ Her voice was softly wise. ‘And now to you.’

  Sophia turned at that, and saw the sadness in the older woman’s smile.

  The countess said, ‘I can assure you it is never such an easy thing to wish a child farewell.’

  Beneath that quiet gaze Sophia felt her chin begin to tremble once again, and as the room became a blur she stumbled forward to the countess’s embrace.

  ‘My dear.’ The countess held her close and stroked her hair as if she were as small as Anna, and in greater need of comfort. ‘I do promise that you will survive this. Faith, my own heart is so scattered round the country now, I marvel that it has the strength each day to keep me standing. But it does,’ she said, and drawing in a steady breath she pulled back just enough to raise a hand to wipe Sophia’s tears. ‘It does. And so will yours.’

  ‘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 Seventeen

  ‘No, no,’ said Jane. ‘You simply can not end the book like that. It’s much too sad.’

  To emphasise 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. Scotland sells.’

  ‘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.’

  I didn’t bite. I was, in fact, about to make some noncommittal comment when a knock against
the window at my shoulder interrupted. On the sidewalk Stuart grinned and winked and motioned he was coming round.

  Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘Friend of yours?’

  ‘My landlord’s son.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ It was clear from her expression what conclusion she had leapt to, and the devil in me didn’t rush to set her straight. Especially since Stuart, when he came into the Lounge Bar, wasn’t on his own. Behind him, Graham shrugged his jacket off and met my gaze with warm indulgence, keeping to his brother’s shadow while I made the introductions.

  Everybody shifted round the circle of the booth as Stuart slid himself in next to me and slung an arm possessively along the window ledge behind. ‘I think we talked once on the phone,’ he said to Jane, and looking down at me explained, ‘the night you hurt your ankle, you remember?’

  ‘That was you?’ Jane thought she had him pegged securely now, and barely glanced at Graham as he settled himself quietly across from her.

  He knew what I was doing. I could read the faint amusement in his eyes as he took in the situation – Stuart leaning close against me, Jane positioning herself to cross-examine from my other side. He stretched one leg until his foot touched mine and left it there, a minor contact, yet for me the only one that mattered.

  ‘So,’ said Stuart, ‘what are you two up to?’

  Meaning Jane and me. I said, ‘Jane was just telling me she hates the ending of my book.’

  Jane looked at Stuart. ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘No, not yet. Is this it, here?’ He turned the pages on the table round. ‘I didn’t know you’d finished it.’

  ‘She hasn’t,’ Jane put in, and I knew better than to argue. ‘It’s too sad. You’ll have to help me to convince her that the ending should be happy.’

  ‘I can try.’ He grinned, and shifted even closer to me as the waitress, seeing there were more of us, came by to clear our plates and see if anybody wanted drinks.

  The two men ordered pints, I took a refill on my coffee, but Jane raised a hand. ‘Oh no, I can’t. I must get back. I promised Alan I’d be home by three. My husband,’ she explained to Stuart, gathering her things before she rose and told him, ‘Good to finally meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘And your brother. Graham, was it?’ Reaching over to shake hands across the table, she asked, ‘Did you like your cake?’

  I hadn’t seen that coming, and I held my breath, but Graham neatly caught the pitch and tossed it back again, his grey eyes laughing in his otherwise unaltered face. ‘Aye, very much.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ She turned to hit me full force with the triumph of her smile. ‘I’ll ring you later, Carrie.’

  I had no doubt that she would.

  ‘Nice woman,’ Stuart commented, when she had gone. Her reference to the cake had sailed right past him, it appeared, or he’d dismissed it as an unimportant detail since it wasn’t about him. He drummed his fingers absently on top of my stacked pages. ‘Why did she want me to convince you that the ending should be happier? How sad can it be?’

  ‘I killed the hero.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And I made the heroine give up her only child and go away.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Stuart, ‘that’ll do it.’ Swigging back a mouthful of his pint, he said, ‘So let the hero live.’

  ‘I can’t. He’s an actual person from history, he dies when he dies, I can’t change that.’

  ‘So end the book before he dies.’

  A simple answer. And it would have solved a lot of problems, I admitted. Only life was rarely simple.

  I was vividly reminded of that fact an hour later when we three left the Kilmarnock Arms and started walking down toward the harbour. Stuart wasn’t drunk, exactly, but the pints had left him happy and relaxed, and as we walked he put his arm around my shoulders and there wasn’t any nice way to get rid of it. Graham, walking half a step behind us, didn’t seem to mind.

  Nor did he seem to mind when Stuart said he’d walk me to my cottage.

  ‘No, you go,’ said Graham. ‘I’ll look in on Dad.’ His hand clasped briefly at my arm, a reassuring touch. ‘I’ll see you after.’

  Stuart went on talking to me cheerfully as we trudged up the slushy path together, and when I had put my key into the cottage door he came right in behind me, stamping water off his feet and in the middle of an anecdote. ‘And then I said to him, I said—’

  He broke off so abruptly that it made me look behind.

  He was still standing just inside the door, eyes focused on the table where I wrote. Well, not the table, but the chair in front. And not the chair exactly, but the shirt slung on the back of it: a well-worn rugby jersey, navy blue with stripes of gold and red.

  He swung his gaze to mine. I was relieved I couldn’t see real disappointment in it, just a rueful realisation, and acceptance. ‘It’s not me,’ he asked me, ‘is it? It was never me.’

  I answered him with honesty. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ he said, lifting up one hand. He turned to go. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off to beat my brother senseless.’

  ‘Stuart.’

  ‘Not to worry, I’ll leave all his vital parts in working order.’

  ‘Stuart.’

  Halfway out the door he stopped. Looked back, good-natured. ‘Actually, the worst part is, I haven’t got an argument to offer. Even I know that you chose the better man.’ And then he smiled, and let the door swing closed behind him, and I heard him trudging off along the path.

  ‘Did I not tell you?’ Graham asked me. He was setting up his next move on the chess board that I’d found in a back cupboard of the cottage. It was not quite in the same league as the one my characters had played on in the library at Slains – not all the pieces had survived, and we were using Liquorice Allsorts for my bishop and his rook – but when I set it on the small round table in between the armchairs near my fireplace, it made a close facsimile.

  I looked at Graham. ‘So he’ll be all right, then?’

  ‘Stuie? Aye. He’s away to Peterhead tonight to search the pubs for your replacement. He’ll be fine.’

  He’d moved his knight, and I was forced to take a moment to consider my response. I wasn’t the world’s best chess player, and I tried to clear my mind, in hopes some buried memory – Colonel Graeme’s teachings, maybe – might come down the line to steer my hand.

  Graham waited. ‘I’ve been thinking of your problem with the book.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘You say that after Moray dies, his widow has to leave their child as well?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘There’s no way she can keep it? When my dad lost Mum, the only thing that kept him going was the fact he still had Stuart and myself. A grieving person’s like a person treading in deep water – if they’ve nothing to hold on to, they lose hope. They slide right under.’

  I agreed. ‘But for my heroine, it isn’t quite that easy.’ I explained the situation while I made my move.

  He wasn’t swayed. ‘I’d take the child anyway.’

  ‘Well, you’re a man. Men think differently. And a woman on her own in the early eighteenth century wouldn’t have had an easy time of it, raising a child.’

  He pondered this while studying the chess board, then he moved his queen to take my liquorice allsort bishop, which he lifted from the board and ate, still thinking.

  ‘And just what,’ I asked him drily, ‘do you plan to do when my pawn makes it to the other side, and I ask for my bishop back?’

  Graham gave a cocky grin, and speaking thickly through the candy said, ‘Your pawn’ll never get there. You’re in check.’

  I was, at that. He’d done it neatly, and at first glance I could see no way to move my king to safety, but he hadn’t told me ‘checkmate’, so I knew it wasn’t hopeless, that there had to be a way…

  ‘The thing to do,’ he said, ‘is give her someone else.’

  It took a moment till I realis
ed Graham was still thinking of my book, and how to make the ending happy.

  ‘Give her someone else to love,’ he said. ‘Another man.’

  ‘She doesn’t want another man.’

  It was the truth, I thought. The minute that I spoke the words, I knew it was the truth. And yet Sophia had, within a year, agreed to marry my own ancestor. I couldn’t help but wonder why.

  Perhaps, I thought, the answer to my problem with the ending didn’t lie at Slains. My vision cleared. I made a minor move upon the chess board, and a pawn stepped up to shield my king and clear my other bishop. ‘Checkmate.’

  Graham, leaning forward, made a quick inspection of the pieces. ‘How the devil did you do that?’

  In all honesty, I didn’t know. But I was sure of one thing: like Sophia, I would have to make the journey to Kirkcudbright, for the ending to my story waited there.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was no station at Kirkcudbright, so I took the train to Dumfries, which was close. I didn’t know what I expected, when I stepped down to the platform. An epiphany, I guess – a sort of wakening of memory now that I was in the landscape where Sophia had been born and raised. But there was nothing. Just the pretty little station with its curving track and platform and the sunshine sparkling down through the glass roof that stretched above me.

  The weather was thawing in earnest, and the breeze was almost mild against my face as I stepped back to let another woman pass me, her wheeled suitcase rumbling purposefully across the paving bricks.

  ‘Carrie!’

  I shifted the weight of my own case and took a look round. I’d never actually met Ross McClelland, but over the years I’d formed a mental picture of him, making him in my own mind an older version of my father, someone I’d recognise, seeing as we had all sprung from the same stock. The man who came forward to greet me was nothing like what I’d imagined he’d be. He was big and tall and ruddy-faced, with thick wavy hair and a beard that, though grey, still showed black round the edges. I wouldn’t have known him for family.