Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [233]
‘That she was my grandmother,’ Marthe said baldly. A strand of the yellow hair, too quickly pinned up, had come coiling like silk over her shoulder. ‘That she believed herself to be an astrologer. And that I am grateful for only one thing in our relationship: that at least I was not her daughter.’
‘You know then how she directed her daughter’s life,’ Sybilla said. ‘Perhaps it would not even surprise you to know that it was she who arranged for your father and Béatris to become lovers. Then when you were born, she took and reared you. I went to her and asked her to let me have you, but she refused. And since Béatris was her daughter, I could not insist. Then, two years later, Francis was born and Béatris died.’
‘And this time, you had no trouble in obtaining her permission?’ Marthe said. Derision glittered in her blue eyes.
‘None. It was what she wanted. But, although I asked her again, she still would not release you nor, until she died, would she let me come and see you. I wonder,’ Sybilla said, ‘if you can tell whether I am speaking the truth? You must have some of her skills.’
‘No!’ said Marthe sharply; and then, with an abrupt change of manner, gave a harsh laugh. After a moment she added, ‘How can I possibly tell? All I know is that for thirty years you lied to your own son.’
‘I was held by a promise,’ Sybilla said very quietly. ‘It has not turned out, as you will notice, to my advantage.’
‘It has not turned out to his,’ Marthe said. ‘Do you think I envy him? At least I was reared without tenderness and without expectation of it. During all that time, you were breeding a hothouse love based on deception. You suffer now because he has withdrawn it, you imagine. He has not even done that. When the news came that you were lost at sea he set off to ride all night to Dieppe, although he had been so sick he could barely walk over the courtyard.’
‘I can’t remember why,’ Danny said.
The look Marthe gave him would have caused a less brazen spirit to recoil. Undeterred, he went on blandly. ‘I take it, if I may interrupt all this competitive planning on Mr Crawford’s behalf, that neither of you has heard what happened after the Hôtel d’Hercule reception the other night? The town is agog with it.’
‘After we left?’ Sybilla said quickly. ‘What?’
‘There are two versions,’ Danny said. He was enjoying himself. ‘One, from the servants, says that the young English prisoner went berserk in the middle of the night and having discovered the comte de Sevigny in bed with both his present and future wives at once, hauled him from between the sheets and attempted to throw him down the staircase. The two ladies ran away screaming and the Marquis of Allendale, having come off worst in the subsequent battle, is now in his priest’s hands, having been given up by his doctors.’
‘Mr Hislop?’ said Sybilla patiently. The attention of both women, he was pleased to note, was rigidly upon him, whatever they might choose to say.
‘The other version,’ he said regretfully, ‘belongs to Adam and Archie, who say that Philippa was in Lymond’s room for an hour, talking, a fact which did not escape his fiancée, with whom he had an assignation. Catherine, so it seems, had the good sense to retreat to her own room and has not been heard to refer to the incident subsequently. Austin, who also witnessed the whole thing, ill-advisedly tried to attack Francis and got, of course, what he asked for.
‘However that may be, Francis certainly didn’t appear until after the d’Albons had both left for home the next day, and Austin Grey is in bed with a badly broken arm. I rather think,’ Danny said, ‘that you should cease concerning yourselves too much with Mr Crawford’s marital problems. If he is going to take an active hand in them himself, then no gentle feminine influence is going to make itself felt in the general conflagration.’
‘What were they talking about?’ Marthe said.
It was so far from what he expected that he did not understand. ‘What?’ said