Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [126]
‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘It will be paid by Mr Crawford’s bankers, whether he is alive or not, all through Sybilla’s lifetime. But that may not be long.’
‘Then I wonder,’ said Marthe, ‘why your Mr Bailey doesn’t wait for Sybilla’s death before risking Francis’s possibly lethal displeasure? Or has Francis never considered that—what, great-uncle?—Bailey should have an accident?’
‘He decided against it,’ said Philippa smoothly. ‘Clearly an error.’
‘I stand humbled,’ said Marthe. ‘And Renée Jourda?’
‘She was a maid at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de la Guiche. She left before you were born,’ Phillipa said. ‘When Sybilla abandoned the Poor Clares, Renée followed her. Leonard Bailey knew I would probably visit the convent. He must have known about Renée Jourda. It was a safe guess that once I had been to la Guiche, I would tell Mr Crawford. And that when he heard, Mr Crawford would want to visit Flavy.’
There was a little silence. Then Marthe dropped the letter back in Philippa’s lap. ‘I doubt,’ she said, ‘if Francis is going to be cured by the heady knowledge that he was sired by the rude Gavin upon the Dame de Doubtance’s bastard. It was a romantic idea of Mr Blacklock’s, but I know nothing that will help matters, and it is a long time since Volos. What do you suggest? Have you not laid bare some genial morsel of genealogy that will make him whole as Kentigern’s robin?’
‘No. I remain receptive to ideas,’ said Philippa. ‘The bladder may be dipped, but never drowned. We have been a sad disappointment to Adam.’
‘Ah yes. Mr Blacklock,’ said Marthe. ‘I have always held that sentimentality is the ruin of the amateur artist. I know a good deal about Mr Blacklock: Jerott and he spent a crapulous evening together. Are you aware, for example, that the scar on his face was caused by a whiplash from Francis?’
‘No,’ said Philippa. The closed paper between her fingers, she rested in the depths of her chair looking up at the curling smile and the yellow silk hair of her interlocutor. Where Marthe moved, soft as vapour in webs of antique, intangible richness, Philippa sat, still and burnished and clear-eyed, and studied her.
Marthe said, ‘Is that what repels you? All men on occasion revert to the animal. The Schiatti; the poets; the seigneurs who pay court to you would be no better. What strange Northumberland prudery barred Francis from your bed?’
(Why ask me? someone said. So that you may ask yourself, someone replied. What a silly question.)
The brown gaze did not shift, or veil itself. ‘To be accurate,’ Philippa said, ‘it was a strange, Celtic prudery. You forget. He did share my bed.’
‘Under duress. You were a child. But now you are a grown woman. Would it not amuse you to make him think of you as one? You are his wife, and it is four months to Easter.’
‘… And look at the effect a whipping had on Adam?’ said Philippa. ‘Of course, I am tempted. But, my friends, this is blood, and not the ichor which blest immortals shed. I mentioned before. I am not made for martyrdom. I want to be free to make my choice of husband. And if I share my favours, I forfeit my annulment.’
Marthe stood looking at her, arrested in puzzlement. ‘He is only ten years older than you are. I was younger by a generation than Gaultier.’
Philippa played the only card she had left; and the cruellest. ‘He is in love with someone else,’ she said quietly.
Pride made the next pause a long one; but even pride broke in the end.
‘Who is she?’ said Marthe.
‘He wouldn’t say,’ Philippa answered. Her gaze unwavering, she drove home her advantage. ‘But when he is freed, you are anxious he should not go back to Russia?’
Marthe moved. ‘I am averse to waste,’ she said lightly. Smiling again, that perverse, slanting smile, she lifted her hand and stroked the quilled porcupine on the chimney-piece. ‘Perhaps even frustration is better than being split by four horses in Muscovy. If you don’t think so, I am sure Mademoiselle Catherine d’Albon does.’
Reflectively, Philippa studied Marthe. Jerott