Chapter 35
1980
I had just started my tour one rainy day in early July when a hand went up. I had been giving them a brief introduction in the entrance hall before the tour began and was explaining how Fyvie had been held by the crown until 1370 and then by the Lindsay family then the Prestons, the Meldrums and, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Setons. As usual, I had mentioned the fact that George Meldrum of Fyvie had married Mary Fleming, one of Mary, Queen of Scots’ Four Marys, and was about to tell them about the castle’s connection to Mary Seton when a small stout woman’s hand shot up. I nodded at her.
“Are we going to see the bed Mary, Queen of Scots slept in?”
“Well, there are actually no records of her visiting Fyvie Castle, sorry. But her godson was Alexander Seton, who I’ve just mentioned bought the castle from the Meldrums and…”
“But the man who did the tour last year showed us her actual bed, which was amazing, but I didn’t have my camera so I’ve come all the way back this year from York with this.” She pointed at the massive camera swung around her neck.
That must have been Andrew as last year there was only Silvia and him doing the tours. Everyone was looking at me. Should I denounce my colleague as a liar or go with the flow?
“Perhaps last year there was a bed in one of the rooms in the Preston Tower, which is no longer open to the public.” I was stalling.
“No, it was in the Seton Tower, which you said we were visiting.” She stood her ground while the others in the group fidgeted. 162
“Well, I’m sorry but this morning’s tour won’t be showing you Mary, Queen of Scots’ bed. Perhaps the 2pm tour will if you want to sign on for that one instead.” This was Andrew’s tour today. I felt hot all over even though as usual it was freezing inside the castle.
Before the woman had a chance to speak again, I started heading for the stairs, hoping she might stay put. “And now we are going to see the beautiful portrait of Lilias Drummond, Alexander Seton’s first wife. Please follow me.”
I managed to slip away at the end of the tour before the woman could pounce on me again but afterwards, I headed straight for the small dining room at the back of our kitchen. There was Andrew, sitting with a mug of tea in his hand regaling Silvia with some story in his usual blustering fashion.
“Andrew,” I said, “Could I have a word?”
“Of course, come and join us, Maggie. I was just telling Silvia about the preview of a film I saw at the cinema last night in Aberdeen.”
I sat down, glancing at Silvia who was even paler than usual.
“You all right, Silvia?”
“Yes, Andrew was going into the gory details of The Shining and I hate any spooky stuff. I just don’t know how he’d want to watch it.”
“It looks excellent. And I thought I could bring things from it into our tours maybe. It’s all about a haunted hotel, really scary in parts and…”
“This is what I wanted to talk about, Andrew, making up things just to liven up our tours.” I relayed what the woman had said that morning.
“Oh well, yes sometimes I do tell them the Queen slept in the bed in the Seton Bedroom where the Green Lady visits.”
I shook my head. “But that’s not based on fact. She never visited the castle.” 163
He shrugged. “They love it. Looks like the woman came all the way from Yorkshire to Aberdeenshire just to take a photograph. That must say something.”
I was aware Silvia was glancing from one of us to the other, fear in her eyes. She was clearly not one to enjoy witnessing an argument.
“It says to me that your idea of a guided tour of a historic castle is different from mine.” I stormed over to the soup pot and started ladling out my lunch.
I had contemplated speaking to Mr David about it, but when I asked Mrs MacPherson if he was around, she told me he was away visiting family on Orkney for a few days.
“Have Mr Charles and his wife never lived at the castle then?”
She gave me a cold stare. “They both reside in Italy, it is good for Mr Charles’s health. But Mrs Burnside returns to Fyvie every few months, just to check on things.”
I wanted to ask what kind of things but had the feeling the conversation was over.
I spent the afternoon engrossed in my books and notes, thinking no more of the morning’s incident. I had come upon some information about Loch Leven Castle, where I’d assumed the only connection with Alexander Seton was that his godmother and his aunt, Mary Seton, were imprisoned there for eleven months in 1567 and 1568. But as I delved deeper, there was more. It seemed that Mary Seton had returned there in 1601 and had been in contact with Willie Douglas, the page who had been instrumental in ensuring the Queen’s escape from the castle. Mary Seton must have been nearly sixty by then – elderly in those days – so it would have been an arduous journey. 164
I looked up from my notes to the high window and saw, thankfully, that the rain had stopped and the clouds were breaking. I shivered in my thin cardigan. I really must try to get to a shop and buy a warmer jumper at some stage.
It looked like Mary Seton had travelled from her convent in northern France to Scotland, to see Lilias Drummond just before she died. But why on earth was Lilias at Loch Leven Castle and how was Willie Douglas involved? I couldn’t find out any more in my books, so I began looking into Lilias’s place of burial. And what I discovered was a surprise: she was buried at Dalgety Bay in Fife. Why would she be laid to rest in Fife, where there were no family connections, and not here at Fyvie?
Well, that was not going to sit well with all the Green Lady theories as surely ghosts only haunt somewhere near their place of burial? Silvia had told me she mentions in her tours that the secret chamber below the Charter Room may contain Lilias’s bones as she was never actually given a proper burial. But between Silvia’s naivety and Andrew’s blatantly misleading lies, I began to wonder if there was perhaps a glimmer of truth somewhere.
As a history student, I wanted to find out. Since Mr David was away, perhaps I could try to take a look at the old books and files I’d seen in those numbered filing cabinets in the Charter Room after Mrs MacPherson had gone home one day. Surely there was no harm in trying to find out the truth?