Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [186]
‘As you know, it … isn’t reciprocated. There was never any question of completing our marriage. Next month he will make Catherine his wife, and we are unlikely ever to meet. He is already at some pains to avoid me.’ She looked up, smiling.
‘Do you think I am surprised?’ Austin said. ‘He would charm the fish from the sea, and one needs more years than you have to see what lies underneath. It was a fever. It will one day be over. But you are telling me that, until it is, I must wait.’
‘No,’ Philippa said. ‘I am telling you, my dear, that I have met, unsuitably, hopelessly, and too young the only human being I wish to belong to; that I never will belong to him; but that anyone wishing to marry me should know of the fact. It is a lifelong fever, Austin; and leaves no passion to spare. Only mild love, and kindness, and friendship.’
His eyes had darkened and his hands were clasped, she saw, to still them. He said, ‘You know, I am bound to say, you may be mistaken.’
‘I know you are bound to say it,’ was all she answered.
Nor did she break the silence that followed, although she guessed what was coming, and wished, painfully, that she could help him.
Then he said, his head bent, his eyes on his hands, ‘Philippa, my love is not mild.’
‘I know that too,’ said Philippa gently. ‘I am not asking anyone to marry me and become to me less than a husband should. I am only saying that … what I have to offer is flawed. You must recognize that and think about it, before this matter goes any further.’
‘Must I?’ he said; and looking up, let her see for the first time what she had inflicted on him. ‘Philippa,’ said Austin Grey, ‘why did you have to tell me?’
The wine at her side lay still, deep and bright in its goblet. ‘Because, of all those who have offered me love, you would have noticed,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I was being selfish.’ He waited, schooling his voice, and then said, ‘But feeling like this, you can have no wish for marriage.’
‘Perhaps I need it more than anybody,’ Philippa said. ‘I can live alone, but it is better to have someone else to concern oneself with; to help and be helped by. There is nothing so strong as a family.’
Sitting opposite her, without approaching or moving or making any attempt to touch her: ‘Will you then marry me?’ said Austin Grey.
‘I want you to be sure,’ Philippa said. ‘I want you to think about yourself, and not about me. And I want … I should like Catherine d’Albon’s marriage to pass before I make any betrothal announcements. When that time comes, will you ask me again, if you want to?’
‘And if I do?’ said Austin Grey.
‘Then we shall go home,’ Philippa said. ‘To Allendale, and Kate; and be married.’
*
Self-respect forbade that Philippa should cry on her way back to the Hôtel de Guise; and when she arrived in her room, Célie was waiting to speak to her.
The Célestins had returned the Dame de Doubtance’s key, having discovered the door it belonged to.
The house to which it gave admittance was called the Hôtel des Sphères. And the occupier of the house, who had expressed interest in the Countess’s story and who would be happy to make the Countess’s acquaintance, was a widowed lady named Isabelle Roset.
*
Long ago, this southern corner of Paris between the Porte de St Antoine and the river had been filled with wide gardens, with white chapels and bowered galleries, with sweating chambers and aviaries, boar and lion-houses, lists and ball courts built for fine palaces. Most had gone, decayed into ruin or sold as separate mansions, but the little roads round the rue de la Cerisaye by their names kept a remembrance of them, and great houses here and there were still standing. A long ivied wall which Philippa passed the next morning held the blue turrets of part of the Palais Royal of St Paul, once the property of King François’s mistress: now one of the houses of Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King François’s son. It was a fair haven, long accustomed to lovers.
And here Sybilla had