‘No,’ I said, making a supreme effort to be polite rather than coldly hostile. ‘He probably saved my life. But I don’t remember him doing it.’
I began to have the uncomfortable feeling that it might be up to me to make sure Euan McEwen didn’t get blamed for whatever had actually happened that morning. And until we knew what that was, neither one of us was free of suspicion.
To my frustration, Mother was still irritatingly cautious about letting me walk by myself on the river path. But once I was on my feet again I was allowed to go and visit Mary if she came to fetch me. The prolonged loss of independence would have driven me quite mad otherwise.
It was a dull, chilly day when I arrived back at the Inverfearnie Library for the first time after my injury. I was decently dressed in Mother’s skirt still, but had bundled myself up in a nursery-bathroom sweater that smelled exactly like a sheep. It was wonderful to be out of the house. As Mary and I crossed the swaying iron footbridge I was surprised to see Sergeant Angus Henderson striding down the slope of the unnatural mound of Inverfearnie Island towards us in his intimidating waterproof cape and high boots, stumping along with his ram’s-horn-hook-topped cromach staff.
As he came towards us Mary waved.
The river watcher stopped short. His iron-grey eyebrows drew together ferociously. His face was very white.
‘Miss Kinnaird …’ He spoke as though he wasn’t sure. ‘Lady Julia?’
I couldn’t remember him ever having noticed me before, let alone called me by name. Being Mary’s companion must have made me special.
‘Hope you’re well,’ he said gruffly, doffing his tweed hat at me with military sharpness.
As we came off the bridge he gave Mary a very cordial bow and a kindly pat on the shoulder.
‘No harm done here the day,’ Sergeant Henderson bellowed at her.
‘Oh heavens, I should hope not!’ she said.
‘Aye, well, it’s quiet now those mucky tinks are away.’
‘They’ll be back for the flax at Bridge Farm no doubt, if not before,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll be glad when the Glenfearn School opens and they’re gone for good.’
‘I’m counting the days,’ the Water Bailiff growled. ‘If that young lad gives you any trouble this summer, be sure to put a call through to the Brig O’Fearn police. I’ll have his teeth on a string.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant Henderson, you’re a dear. You always take good care of me.’
They shook hands and off he went to pull teeth somewhere else along his patrol.
Well! That was a surprise. Apparently the Water Bailiff had a soft spot in his heart for Mary, who acted as a sort of loyal unofficial river watcher on the front lines.
‘Which “young lad” did he mean?’ I asked Mary as she unlocked the heavy oak front door to let us in, guessing perfectly well whom he’d meant. ‘Not Euan McEwen, surely, the one who took me to the hospital? I can’t imagine him giving you any trouble.’
She didn’t hear me. I’d have asked again, but when she turned towards me she’d already moved on.
‘Now, darling, I’m often busy with library patrons and the running of the place, and I won’t be able to be with you all the time you’re here. But you can help me with the Murray Collection. I’ll show you what we have to do.’
Mary led me up the winding staircase.
‘My little library’s been commandeered,’ she said as we emerged in the Upper Reading Room.
It was exactly as I’d left it the day I arrived at Strathfearn, with the great chestnut library table covered with artefacts. There were the spear tips spread all over the place; there was the beautiful black wooden cup in its silver filigree setting.
‘Who moved the collection here?’ I asked. ‘Did you help?’
‘Dr Housman packed the boxes. I believe the chief contractor came along to keep an eye on the workers who brought them here.’
‘Did they bring all of it? Is this the whole thing, the whole of the Murray archaeological collection?’ I was still thinking about the pearls that no one remembered.
‘It’s all here, but it’s not all unpacked. I’ve to make sure no one moves anything that’s on the main reading table, because that’s what Dr Housman left there. The police were round looking at it and I had such a hard time stopping them touching things.’
‘Shouldn’t they have put a barrier round it or something?’ I asked, impressed.
Mary gave a little laugh. ‘You’ve been reading too many Harriet Vane novels!’
‘That’s true.’
‘Imagine there’s an invisible barrier. These folding tables are for Sandy to use when he comes.’ She brightened as she spoke my brother’s name: Mary visibly brightened. ‘He’s working on a project in London that he can’t get out of till the middle of July, and I suppose Dr Housman might come back before then, but I thought I’d try to get things ready for Sandy just in case.’
She paused, still a little bit flushed, and it dawned on me that she called me ‘Julia’ and she called the missing antiquarian ‘Dr Housman’ and the ‘dear’ Water Bailiff got called by his military rank. But when Mary spoke of my big brother, Grandad’s heir, who has always been ‘the Honourable Alexander Lawson Murray Wallace Beaufort-Stuart’ and is now by Special Remainder ‘Alexander Beaufort-Stuart, Earl of Strathfearn’, she simply called him ‘Sandy’. And he wasn’t even here yet.
‘Mary, you have given yourself away,’ I said, and she knew exactly what I was talking about, because her smooth and shapeless cheeks went even pinker. ‘You and Sandy?’
‘No, no! We’re friends. I read his article and wrote to him about it, and he wrote back. We write to each other all the time now, by return post sometimes. He visited in the spring to see your grandfather just before he died, and … and Sandy and I went walking.’
‘Just walking?’ I said, disbelieving. I wasn’t trying to be coy. I really wanted to know.
‘Well, no! Not just walking. But not what you think. He sat here after your grandfather’s funeral and drank such a quantity of whisky that I thought he’d drown himself – in the River Fearn, properly, not metaphorically in drink – if he tried to make his way back to the Big House alone in the dark. I let him stay here, which was perhaps not the correct thing to do, but he’d fallen asleep at last in the chair in my study and I didn’t have the heart to wake him.’
‘Nor would I!’
‘Exactly.’
Mary knew she was blushing, and turned her face away from mine in embarrassment. ‘I know he would never – well, Julia, you see me for what I am. But I like him more than anyone I know, and I don’t have many friends. Sergeant Henderson is a dear, you know, but he’s not really a friend. I am concerned for Dr Housman, but I am selfishly glad his disappearance means I am to work with Sandy …’ Mary hesitated all of a sudden. ‘I wouldn’t confess this to anyone but you, Julia.’
‘I do understand, Mary! And I don’t spill secrets.’
I obviously didn’t know her any bit as well as I thought I did.