A Rip Through Time(24)

My main point of reference in Edinburgh has always been the castle. Yep, kind of hard to miss a big castle on a hill. It’s like the CN Tower in Toronto. No matter where I am, I can orient myself according to that. As we walk, I spot the top of another landmark—the monument to Sir Walter Scott. I’ve climbed the two-hundred-odd steps inside, and while it’s not quite the CN Tower, I should be able to see it from many parts of the city.

Gray lives in the New Town. That’s the new part of Edinburgh … or it’s new in this time period. Edinburgh, being a royal city, was also a walled city, and while that’s great for protection, it’s horrible for expansion. Behind its walls, the city grew crowded and it grew upward. Sometime in the Victorian period—before now obviously—those with money abandoned the Old Town and built the New Town across the mound. As we walk, I can see the Old Town rising on a slope, blanketed by the smog of coal smoke that earned Edinburgh the nickname of Auld Reekie.

As we round the corner I make note of the street name. When I’m back in my time, I want to see whether Gray’s house still exists. Robert Street. It’s a short road, with only maybe a dozen or so town houses. There’s a park to our right. Queen Street Gardens?

After a quick walk, we reach a road I definitely recognize. Princes Street. In the modern world, it’s a massive thoroughfare. It’s the same here, wide enough for five coaches to pass. Busy, too, and lined with shops and hotels.

I try not to gape as I look around, taking it all in. I also need to watch where I’m walking, preferably at the side of the road, away from the mud that I’m sure is fifty percent horse dung. I do look as much as I can, though, taking brief note of the fashions. There are other men in top hats and frock coats, like Gray. The genteel women wear skirts more bell-shaped than my own and … is that a bustle? Are they coming into fashion or leaving it? Leaving it, I hope, with a shudder.

We make our way to Princes Street Gardens and cross to the Old Town. It is only as we walk that I realize another advantage to going with Gray. It’s my first look at the city in this time period, and it gives me time to orient myself, not just to the landscape but to the customs of the time. I can’t afford to call attention to myself before I escape back to my own world.

It’s a brisk and overcast day, yet still a fine walk, one I will commit to memory for the sheer novelty of it. Like strolling through the most elaborate period theme park ever.

We’ve left the town houses and wide streets of the New Town and entered the densely packed tenements and narrow cobbled roads of the Old Town. Now walking gets tougher, as we head uphill. At one point, when I stop to adjust my boot, Gray asks whether I’m all right with the walk. I say I am. He has a groom and presumably horses and a carriage, but he seems to prefer walking. Normally, I would appreciate that, but …

Oh, let’s not mince words. I don’t mind the uphill walk, but streets are filthy. At least in the New Town, the mud and the animal by-products had been in the wide streets. Here, the narrow roads mean I’m walking in it, and I’m pretty sure not all those by-products are animal. While the cobblestones help, there are still unavoidable patches of muck and some very questionable puddles.

I stare down at my shit-spattered boots and try not to whimper. My indoor boots. My lovely, formerly clean indoor boots.

I glance down at Gray’s, which might be even dirtier, as he isn’t darting about to avoid the worst of the muck. Of course not. He has a maid to clean his boots.

As we walk, I’m aware that I seem to be drawing some attention. Or, I should say, Catriona is. Understandably. She’s young and fair-haired and “winsome,” as they might say in this time. Yet I realize those looks linger less on her pretty face than her stylish jacket. Stylish men’s jacket. I pull it tighter. It is a lovely coat. I find myself wishing I could sneak it back to the twenty-first century.

I’m not the only one attracting attention. Gray gets his share, complete with uneasy glances and careful sidesteps. He is a forbidding figure, taller than most, his workman’s build not quite disguised by his gentleman’s clothing. Yet again, I think it’s more than that, as I take a closer look at him and suppress a chuckle.

“Sir?” I whisper.

He glances over and I motion to his collar, which is half tucked in. He fixes that with a grunt of annoyance. Next I gesture to his misbuttoned coat. As he does it up, I whisper, “Might want to go one higher,” and point at the blood speckling his shirtfront. A put-upon sigh, as if I’m unreasonably insisting he use the right fork at a picnic.

Even after he looks more presentable, he continues drawing those uneasy glances and careful sidesteps, and I remember my earlier thoughts, about how his experiences here might differ, as a person of color. When I look around, I see an Asian couple selling from a battered street cart. Otherwise, the only people of color I recall were back in the New Town, and not residents but staff—a Black coach driver and an East Asian butler opening a door for a matron. That is the true difference then. There are people of color, but I’d guess most are in service or working menial jobs. They are not doctors or undertakers, and not imposing and confident men wearing a gentleman’s attire. That is what makes people uneasy. Gray has stepped out from the box in which they’d like to keep him. Not that different from home, really.

We find McCreadie’s police station. I presume the city has a main station, and that this is not it. I had the impression that Old Town in this period was tenements and slums. My impression was wrong. The station is in a working-class neighborhood, surrounded by shops and services. I don’t recognize it, but without specific landmarks, there’s not much of Edinburgh I will recognize here.