1.5 Mrs Sinclair and the Feather Haa

In which Mrs Sinclair interviews the banker and confuses him.

Jun 28, 2024

Dr McKay continued. ‘He’ll bring the will as well, I would hope. Best to get everything dealt with as soon as possible. I think that Lady Brae is your husband’s only relation?’

Mrs Sinclair nodded again, her pale cheeks colouring. ‘They have not spoken since shortly after our wedding. Lady Brae is a connection by marriage of his mother, I believe.’

He regarded her, nodding slowly. ‘The relict of Sir William Brae of Busta House. No other kin. That would be why Gilbert was so damned anxious for a son, hey?’

She flushed with annoyance, and he sighed.

‘Nothing for you to worry about now.’

She gulped, and to her amazement felt tears rising in her eyes. She looked upwards in an effort to seem not to cry.

‘Dr McKay,’ she waved her hand ineffectually, ‘I am discomposed. Please forgive me.’

Now the doctor looked even more satisfied. As he bowed and turned to leave her, she thought ruefully that at least this sad lack of self-control would be counted doubly in her favour. She could not have behaved more fittingly as a stunned and weeping widow than if she had practiced for a month.

Then the doctor turned, just as she was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

‘I forgot to finish what I was saying, about the will. As you have no son, you will inherit the estate, I suppose? In trust for your daughters?’

‘I hardly know. I believe so,’ she said cautiously.

‘So your daughters will inherit from you, unless you are increasing with a son,’ he said, looking at her in a calculating manner.

A wave of revulsion rose slowly in her mind with a familiar tide of nausea. She wondered, bleakly, when she would be able to trust her stomach again.

She looked at her lap. ‘I do not think I am increasing, sir.’

‘Well, you know where you are. Good.’

He waved his gloves at her, and closed the door behind him with a smart tap.

Mrs Sinclair leaned back in her chair, feeling limp.

But the door opened again. Her second daughter Ishabel peeked inside, poised to speak. Unlike her elder sister, she liked to make sure that everyone had seen her before she said her piece.

‘Mama, Miss Warner would like you to see Maria’s new dress, please.’

‘Very well, dearest,’ Mrs Sinclair sighed. ‘I will come now.’

She followed Ishabel into the hall. With a thump that was shockingly loud, the child began to jump up the staircase, one tread at a time, playing a game in which she had only been able to indulge herself when her father had been out of the house. Now that he was lying on the dining-room table, dressed in a nightgown, jaw strapped, hands folded, and the carpenters working around him, Ishabel was making the most of her opportunity. Mrs Sinclair automatically began to hush her.

But then she stopped.

This was her house.

These were her stairs.

This was her child. Nobody would shout at her, ever again, to keep the brats quiet. No-one had the right to tell her how her own children should behave in their own home.

She had long known that Maria and Ishabel did not care for their father, and indeed, he had scarcely attempted to win their affections. They were not sons. Now, they had dropped him from their minds with relief, as an affliction laid upon them by others.

Ishabel had paused, as if she were expecting to be corrected, and her back was tense. When she turned her head, her eyes and face were scowling in anticipation. Mrs Sinclair was shocked to realise that the child was on the way to resenting her.

She smiled lovingly at her daughter. ‘Jump, child! Jump all you want. The stairs will hurt you if you fall, but you will be careful, my brave child. Hold the baluster.’

Ishabel seemed frozen with surprise, and then, like the rising sun, a smile of pleasure spread across her face.

‘Thank you, Mama, but I scorn the baluster.’ She jumped hard up to the next step, and then again to the next.

Mrs Sinclair followed her, sedately.

It was three weeks after the funeral. Everything had been done to satisfy propriety. The lawyer had been satisfied that the will had been proven correctly, and Mrs Sinclair had been satisfied by her interview with Mr Borthwick.

‘In summary, Madam, there will be more than enough income to ensure that your needs are met.’ The banker, Mr Borthwick, was ending his peroration, and reached out to hand the packet of documents to his skinny clerk. ‘The late Mr Sinclair was very concerned to ensure that his estate would be ready for a son.’

Mrs Sinclair looked down at her lap, and Mr Borthwick blushed. He was a florid and pompous man, but he was visibly uneasy in the presence of a lady in charge of her own fortune. He changed the position of his hands several times, resting them finally on the arms of his chair.

‘I mean, of course,’ he corrected himself, ‘of the son he expected. As I have noted, there were investments, but of course you must not be troubled with the details.’

Mrs Sinclair demurred. ‘I would like to see the details, if you please,’ she said, smiling at the pompous fool. ‘I am responsible for my daughters’ futures. I must understand the sources of their income as well as of my own.’

It was quite an hour later when the banker and his clerk had been able to take their leave and she had made them her curtsey. She had smiled privately behind the closed door of the parlour. Her grasp of accounting was quite equal to the banker’s, although she had been careful to ask questions to make the man feel competent. Nonetheless, she was agreeably surprised at the size of the fortune she had to manage for herself and her daughters.

‘Much more than I had expected. Gilbert was a miser, so this is beyond anything I had imagined.’ She murmured this to the curtains as she gazed out into the rain.

She began to think, carefully, about what she would like to do with some of the money. She would see about an increase in wages for the servants, and a new gown for Jessie. Next year, perhaps, she could buy a new dress for herself. A blue or a purple silk. Mr Sinclair had not liked her to dress in colours, so she would wear her old black dresses for the period of mourning. Meanwhile she could buy a pony for Maria and Ishabel to share, and engage a dancing tutor. Perhaps they could have a puppy.

She composed her face into an expression of mild astonishment, and went to compliment Mrs Anderson in the kitchen on her new recipe for macaroons.

While she was walking down the corridor towards the butler’s pantry and the kitchen, she remembered that the mystery of the Martinmas payments was still unresolved. In her surprise at her unexpected new wealth she had forgotten to ask Mr Borthwick about them.

The Shetland Witch

Discussion about this post