Page 9 of The Seaside Homecoming
“How did you come to live in Edinburgh?”
“Your father never told you?”
Claire shook her head.
“My mother was born here—your great-grandmother. After she married my father, they lived with his family in England, near Warwick.”
“I noticed you don’t have a Scots accent.”
“Mamma had that drilled out of her by Papa’s family. My sister and I grew up speaking like our English relatives and neighbors.”
The old woman paused to gather her thoughts.
“Mamma always missed Scotland, though, and longed for home. And I thought, someday, should Papa go first, I would take her there, let her revisit the Auld Reekie of her childhood. Alas, her health failed, and moving her was not possible. I took care of them both in their old age and infirmities. And for my pains, Papa left me everything. My sister—your grandmother—had married, but I never did, so he wanted to provide for me. When my parents were both gone, I used that money to come here in Mamma’s stead. To see the OldTown of her youth, the castle and Holyroodhouse, and the beautiful New Town as well. I liked it so much I stayed. The strict Scots religion suits my temperament.”
Claire could not disagree.
She remembered again the letter Aunt Mercer had sent to her when she was five and twenty. In it, she’d hinted that as Claire had reached such an age without benefit of marriage, she might like to come to Edinburgh and set up housekeeping with her—two spinsters living together. At the time, Claire had been offended, yet that letter had given her the courage to show up at her door unannounced.
Her aunt’s story began to wane as the pain clearly worsened. When Mr. Dumfries from Dombey & Dumfries arrived at last, Aunt Mercer shooed Claire from the room, commanding her to shut the door securely behind her.
Claire obeyed. Despite her aunt’s brusque manner, Claire felt sorry for the suffering woman and offered a prayer on her behalf, hoping God might hear her, for Agnes Mercer’s sake if not her own.
When the lawyer left an hour later, Claire tentatively reentered.
“Would you like that draught now?”
“Yes, please.”
After that, her aunt began sleeping more and more.
Meanwhile, Claire waited—an exercise in silent misery. Nerves and fear for the future mounted. Worries stole her peace and made it hard to sit still. To rest. To sleep.
At times, she was tempted to leave now and not wait for the end. But how could she travel anywhere without money for coach fare? Most of the money she’d left home with was gone, and she’d not been paid a farthing in all this time.
If she somehow gathered enough for fare, she would still have to bear the risk and stigma of traveling by public conveyance alone. She had done so only once before, whenshe’d had no other choice, and was not keen to repeat the experience.
Besides, even had she the money and a traveling companion, where would she go? Aunt Mercer had made it clear her mother wanted nothing to do with her after her disgrace. Her father had forbidden any contact.
How well she remembered the poisoned barbs her aunt had flung at Claire when news had come of Father’s death a few months after she’d arrived in Edinburgh.
“You know they blame you, don’t you? Oh yes. For the apoplexy brought on by that horrid ordeal. Not to mention the cold he caught when trying to overtake the pair of you on the road. All for naught. If you think your mother or sisters would take you back, you are grossly mistaken.”
Claire had no trouble believing it.
Even Sarah, with whom she had been closest in age and affection, was unlikely to welcome a reunion. She and Sarah had shared a room at Finderlay, their family home in May Hill, and Sarah had watched in shock and dread that night while Claire hurriedly packed a valise, pleading with her to change her mind. How Claire regretted begging Sarah not to say anything until she was safely away.
At the memory, shame pressed hard, weighing her down like a millstone in her middle until she could barely move. Barely breathe. So she remained where she was ... and waited.
Claire awoke in the night, roused by some sound. For a moment she lay there, ears pricked, listening intently.
Nothing.
Even so, something nudged her from the warm bed. She stepped into slippers and pulled on a dressing gown, then gingerly opened the door.
In Claire’s early days there, the creak of her door opening—fora glass of water or a dash to the privy—had been enough to pull Aunt Mercer from bed, sure Claire meant to sneak out with some other man, her “loose behavior” habitual rather than a onetime mistake.
But now the creak of hinges and squeak of footsteps were met with silence.
