the director’s office.
James laughed. “They’re doing something with coriander today. I suspect that this is the only gallery in the world where the director works immediately above the kitchen,” he said. “A great privilege.”
They sat at the large conference table in James’s office. There were two other members of the gallery staff there – Anne
Backhouse, who extracted the list of anthropologists from a large file marked
“Nicola knows all about Jacobite glass,” said James as he introduced Domenica. “And Gainsborough, of course. She’s been putting things together for the Drambuie collection which we’re showing.”
Domenica looked at a large photograph which Nicola had on the table in front of her. A wine glass, long- stemmed and elegant, stood against a dark background. The glass was engraved with a rose, intertwined with leaves, behind which there was what looked like a field of stars.
“That dates from about seventeen fifty,” said Nicola. “Not too long after the Forty-Five. I suppose that whoever had it then might be drowning his sorrows over the fate of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the attempt at the Stuart restoration. The rose is a Jacobite symbol, as you know. And this is a particularly attractive one.”
Domenica picked up the photograph. “I’m always surprised that old glass survives,” she said. “You’d think that over a couple of centuries somebody might fumble and drop it.”
“Ah, but these Jacobite glasses were special,” said James. “And special things have a way of surviving. These glasses were tucked away for use in secret – they would not have been everyday ware.”
“I don’t have a particularly high opinion of the Stuarts,” said Domenica. “Apart from Mary, Queen of Scots, of course, who had such a difficult cousin, after all. And Charles II, of course, had what we might today call an enlightened arts policy. . . . But as for Charlie . . . well, that was a narrow escape for Scotland, if you ask me.”
She examined the photograph more closely. “Those stars are so delicately engraved,” she said. “Look at them all.”
“Yes,” said James. “But that’s the extraordinary thing. That glass is part of a set of six – or it looks like a set. Usually, one comes across only one or two together, but there are six with that design. Very strange, wouldn’t you agree, Nicola?”
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Nicola nodded. “There’s something very unusual about it.
Normally, one finds only one star on these glasses, if there is a star at all. But here we have hundreds of little stars – it’s very strange.”
“And you have no idea of the meaning?” asked Domenica.
“None, I’m afraid,” said Nicola. “I’ve looked through the literature on the subject – and there’s quite a bit on Jacobite glass – but these particular glasses seem to be completely unusual.
We just don’t know what the stars mean.”
For a few moments the room became silent; outside in Queen Street, the vague hum of traffic; light slanted in through a window, pure, thin, northern light. Domenica felt the presence of the gallery around her; the repository of a nation’s memory, now distilled into this precious object depicted in the photograph – a moment of contact between the hands that had made the glass and engraved it so finely, and her.
James broke the silence. “There seems to us to be some pattern to the stars,” he said. “Look. Here and here. And again here.
They’re in clusters. Shapes.”
“I wondered if they could make a coded message of some sort,” said Anne from her desk at the side of the room.
Domenica looked at the photograph. She would mention it to Angus, who had said something about Jacobites to her recently –
what was it? She could not remember, but it was something about modern Jacobites sounding off even now about the Stuarts, still wanting them back.
“Of course, there are modern sympathisers of the cause, are there not?” asked Domenica.
“Oh yes,” said James. “They have their pretender, Francis II, who lives in Bavaria, I believe. Not that he has ever made any claim to the throne. But there are one or two people who still claim that he is the real King of Scotland.”
“How colourful,” said Domenica. She was still trying to remember what Angus had said. She had not been paying particular attention, but it involved Big Lou for some reason. What
possible connection could Big Lou have with Prince Charlie and Francis II and the whole arcane Stuart dynasty?
James tapped the photograph with his finger. “If there were a coded message on the glasses, it would be rather interesting to find out what it is,” he said. “Perhaps we could get Bletchley Park, or whoever cracks codes these days, to work out what it says.”
Domenica laughed. “Let’s not let our imaginations run away with us,” she said. “Codes only occur in ridiculous novels. The real world is much more prosaic.”
The photograph was slipped back into a large envelope and Domenica turned her attention to the list of anthropologists.
Fifteen minutes later, James Holloway escorted her to the front door of the gallery and said goodbye to her there. They would see one another again soon, he said; Domenica suggested lunch with their mutual friend, Dilly Emslie, and James agreed. Then she walked down the hill towards Drummond Place and Scotland Street. As she passed Queen Street Gardens, the wind moved the branches of the trees against the sky, gently, almost
