Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [337]
Once, as his breathing slowed, and she lay cradled and quiet in his arm, Nicholas said, ‘I am glad my grandfather saw you.’
She turned her head a little. ‘Your message reached him,’ she said.
‘And he sent it to you. He must have liked you. He seems to have been quite a connoisseur, before the paralysis came.’
She was smiling. ‘It runs in the family. I wish we could have proved something for you. At least you know what he felt for your mother. Did you know she was a twin?’
‘No,’ said Nicholas.
‘I didn’t tell you. I went to your mother’s tomb in Dijon. I saw your brother’s name below hers. Nicholas? Could he have been a twin?’
Nicholas waited. Then he said. ‘There was a theory that he was. It can’t be proved. And anyway, Fleury and Dijon are French now.’ He hesitated, and then said, without looking at her, ‘When you were there … Tobie thought that perhaps you found out how Marian died.’
‘Did you believe Adelina?’ Gelis said.
He said, ‘I tried to find out for myself. I called on Enguerrand de Damparis — at Chouzy — at La Guiche. No one knew anything.’
‘No one told you anything,’ Gelis said. He looked down. She went on, ‘Clémence and Pasque her nursemaid come from there. It was easier for me, perhaps, to ask.’
‘And?’ he said. He pulled away a little and eased himself up. It was instinctive. Not to recoil from her, but to spare her contamination.
She didn’t let him go, but instead laid her hands on his arm. She said, ‘They think Marian did have a daughter. They said it was born dead. I don’t think Bonne is yours. She isn’t Adelina’s. She’s just a waif, Nicholas, whom Adelina discovered and used.’
‘But Marian did have a child,’ he said. ‘And died of it. You didn’t tell me?’
‘She didn’t want you to know,’ Gelis said. ‘If you let it harm you, you’ll deny all she did for you.’ She broke off, and sat up in her turn, twisting to face him. She put her hands on his shoulders. ‘You have come so far. We both have. Three years ago, you were ready to step into mindless oblivion with Benecke. All that has changed.’
He remembered. He remembered the moment when he stood on the jetty at Mewe, and watched the raft with Paúel Benecke leave. He had just heard that Julius and Anna had come. So he had to stay, or leave unprotected all those he cared for. Goodbye, Colà.
But for Adelina, he might never have known about Marian. But for Adelina, he would not be here. And now she was dead. The sheltering tree.
O God! Thou art all-pardoning, Thou likest pardon, pardon me.
The changes the world had seen were far greater than his, and the tragedies, too. He could only grieve on his own account that Adelina was dead in her torment; and Thibault, and stout Ochoa, and the strange Greek whose life had become entwined with his own. Astorre had gone. But Robin was living, and the bright, triumphant spirit to whom he would return. Sometimes, this evening, he had thought he could feel her joy, and he had tried to return it. Kochajmy się, my sweet Kathi.
Nicholas said to Gelis, ‘You are right. And these things are not for tonight. Tonight is for us.’
‘Today,’ she said, as he moved.
‘Tonight,’ he repeated, looking down at her. ‘I have not finished yet with tonight. Tomorrow is when we rise and reach our decision.’
She said, ‘I think the decision is made.’
She was right, he supposed. There was only one thing he could do, that no one else could do, that would finally repair all he had done. It would not be easy for Gelis and Jodi. It would not even be safe. But there might be ways around that. If she had guessed, she was prepared for that also.
She was here.
The place of the Spindle of Necessity, with its whorl-weight of stars, where a traveller was bidden to choose his new life.
Whoever shall cast love aside, the words ran, shall lose everything. For by love, laws are made, kingdoms governed, cities ordered, and the state of the commonwealth is brought to its proper goal. So he recognised;