Now, surely, he was bound to leave. He kept up, however. “Really?” he said brightly. “That’s absolutely fascinating.”
“That’s one word for it,” she agreed.
They had almost reached the top of the Royal Mile now. The sky had cleared completely and become blue, bright and beautiful. To the north, the Firth of Forth sparkled like a carpet of sapphires. To the south, the great bare bulk of Arthur’s Seat rose over the towers and spires. Above the great black stone gateway of Edinburgh Castle, the motto on the coat of arms shone gold in the sun: “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit.”
“No one provokes me with impunity,” Valentine translated easily.
“Or,” said Marion, “as the Scots would put it, ‘Dinna mess wi me, or else!’”
“But they were messed with,” he pointed out. “Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I lost their heads. And James II and Bonnie Prince Charlie lost their kingdoms. That lot down there”—he nodded toward Holyrood, at the other end of the street—“need to watch out.”
Marion glanced at her dress. The damp hem, edged with a grayish border of mud, clung to her bony knees. “They do,” she agreed. “Look what they did to my frock.”
“I don’t mean that,” he said. His bantering tone had gone and he now sounded slightly impatient.
Beneath the rearing dark hair, his face had become serious. His features were beautifully molded, she saw, his lips full and shapely, his cheekbones pronounced.
“What do you mean, then?” she asked. “What do they need to watch out for?”
“For the international proletarian revolution,” he declared.
She felt a thrill of shock. “You’re a republican?”
“You’re getting close.” The dark eyes gleamed. “The monarchy’s an outdated institution. How can a system where privilege, power and position come from a mere accident of birth ever be justified? It has no place in the modern world.” He paused before adding, in stirring tones, “As the spring must follow the winter, the triumph of the workers over the ruling classes is historically inevitable.”
She felt her mouth drop open. “You’re a Communist!”
“And what if I am? What if I’m a red under your bed?”
His amused gaze was locked on hers. The thought of him under her bed, and even in it, jumped into her head. She tried to push the image away, but it was too late—something sharp had pierced her, low in her belly.
He had flipped back the flap of the bag now. Inside were piled not books, but a great many newspapers. They bore a red hammer and sickle and the title Daily Worker. He grinned at her. “Can I interest you in a copy, madam? Something sensational to read in the train?”
She stared at him. “You’re selling those? Here?” Respectable Edinburgh wasn’t an especially left-of-center city.
“All members of the party have to. It’s our socialist duty. Spreading the word.”
“And what is the word exactly?” Marion was curious. She was interested in politics but knew little about Communism, which was something she associated with fierce, bearded Russians, violent uprisings and murdered czars. Not well-brought-up young men from England.
“Well.” He hesitated. “Do you believe in the equality of the sexes?”
“Absolutely.”
“And do you agree that everyone should enjoy equal social and economic status?”
She nodded vehemently.
“Do you believe in love rather than money?”
“Er . . .” She looked at him. He was grinning, and a wave of heat rushed up her neck. Just being close to him was exciting. She had never met anyone like this before. She searched for a smart reply, failed to find one and decided she’d had enough of this disconcerting stranger.
“I have to go,” she muttered, then turned and clattered down the dark stairs leading from the castle rock. She half expected to hear him clatter after her, and her relief that he didn’t was mixed with regret. She realized, feeling the lump in her pocket, that she still had his handkerchief.
At the bottom were dirty cobbles and dark, rotten entries. These broken houses with their tall gables had once been home to the city’s aristocracy. Now Grassmarket sheltered—if that was the word—its opposite extreme. She took a deep breath and plunged into the warren of gloomy passages.
The McGintys’ door was on the first floor, up a broken and banisterless staircase.
The battered portal threatened to collapse at her knock. A small pale face appeared in the gap, its initially suspicious expression flaming with sudden delight. “Miss Crawford!”
It was Annie who had first brought Marion to Grassmarket, the previous winter. She was eight, but looked three years younger. Her father was an organ grinder who did the rounds of the Edinburgh streets, taking his daughter with him. The day had been freezing wet and the child’s naked feet had looked cold and vulnerable on the shiny pavement. And yet she had sung “Loch Lomond” with a sweet gusto.
Marion’s own coat was old and her shoes had seen better days. But she was nonetheless grateful for them as she sheltered under a nearby shop awning and pretended to study displays of gleaming silverware. Her chance came when the organ stopped grinding. She turned; the father had stepped away, so she approached. “Why are you not at school?” she gently asked, flinching as she saw the bruises on the child’s thin arms. Beneath her dirty hair spread what looked like a healing gash across her forehead.
Fear had filled Annie’s large eyes. She would, she said, have liked school but whenever her father went out with the organ, out she must go too. It was at this point that the father had reappeared out of the doorway of a low-looking pub. He had the small, mean eyes of a fighting dog and was wiping his mouth with the back of a dirty hand. He spoke roughly to the child and dragged her off down the street, wresting from his daughter’s thin fingers the sixpence Marion had slipped her. She had followed, at a discreet distance, and found not only Grassmarket, but what she now felt was her vocation.
McGinty was not here now, thankfully. Annie’s mother, a wan, wasted creature who worked as a seamstress, was lying on the bed, eyes closed. A piece of dirty flannel was tied round her head. “Ma’s head is bad,” Annie said.
Marion looked at her, wishing she could help. But she was not a doctor, much less a plumber, glazier, carpenter, electrician or any of the other trades that, combined, might make this wretched place vaguely habitable. She was only a teacher, and a not-quite-qualified one at that.
But that was something. If Annie learned to read and write, and add up a bit, she could get a proper job. Escape from this miserable hovel. Hopefully take her mother with her.