Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [312]
‘I have no one with me. I am staying at the Maison de Doubtance,’ Marthe said. And as Applegarth left she said, erect and quite uncompromising, ‘Since I am sister to Francis, I should like to know why you are killing him?’
The pen she was holding dropped from Philippa’s hand. She knelt after a moment and lifted it. Then, kneeling still, her hair arcading her hands, she said, ‘He is ill?’
‘Don’t you know?’ Marthe said. ‘According to Jerott, he is working, persecuted by headaches, like a being possessed by the devil; and under a self-imposed regimen which is breaking him. Surely that doesn’t surprise you?’
Philippa sat down. She said, ‘I thought the headaches had gone.’
Marthe looked down at her. ‘But here, he was at the beginning of his trial by endurance. Now he is tired, and in a place where all the demands on him are physical and he is surrounded by nothing but violence and vigour and virility. And he is staying, because there is nowhere else for him to go.’
‘Did he tell Jerott that?’ Philippa said.
‘He told Jerott,’ said Marthe deliberately, ‘that yours is a platonic marriage, and because of that, he could never return to you. That is all Jerott knows. On the other hand, I know the truth.’
The flowerbeds by the fountains were full of clove pinks. The thick, hot scent of them was stifling, and the sun, reflected from the white marble, dazzled Philippa’s sight, so that she closed her eyes and drew a long breath before opening them. Then she said, ‘How can you know it? It belongs to me, and to Francis.’
‘And to Austin Grey,’ Marthe said. ‘And to John Elder, and to Sybilla. It will stop there, I imagine, although the Lennoxes are likely to be edified by it. I shall not bore you with the details, but Madame Roset’s body was found, apparently murdered by a great-uncle of your husband’s. Elder deduced most of the rest from what he already knew, and made sure Austin heard of it. The Marquis, of course, is waiting anxiously in Paris for you to see the light of reason and fly from the arms of your pimping seducer. Are you with child by the old man?’ said Marthe.
That took a little while to answer. Then Philippa lifted her head and said, ‘No. Marthe, if there is a way out of this, will you leave me to find it?’
‘After what you have done?’ Marthe said. ‘What did you think you were achieving when you marched into that house like Joan of Arc going to the faggots? Saving his honour? The world could learn tomorrow he was the illegitimate son of Gavin Crawford and do no more than crack its jaw yawning. Saving his life? He won’t go to Russia, he won’t turn his own hand against himself now, that is certain. He will merely die, starved and strangled like a dog on a chain, unable to live with you or away from you. Could you not see it? With all your vaunted care for his life and his name, did you not visualize what would happen?’
‘No,’ Philippa said; and her voice, even to herself, was unrecognizable. ‘I didn’t see it. Whatever punishment you think that merits, I am suffering it.’ Then after a long moment she said, ‘He is not the child of Gavin Crawford, and neither are you. Your father is Gavin’s father, the first Francis Crawford. Your mother was Béatris and his was Sybilla. He is a child of incest.’
Marthe said, ‘Look at me.’
Long accustomed to bastardy, she should have found nothing of great moment in that news. But her eyes, when Philippa looked at her, were open and black as she had sometimes seen those of Francis in great pain, although she was smiling. She said, ‘So he is not my full brother. How obstinate … how obstinate can an old woman get? So the world would not have yawned. But even so, do you think now that he would not have preferred a quick death to this?’
Then as Philippa did not answer, Marthe said, ‘A raped woman should go on her knees if her husband will accept her. You talk of suffering. None of this is Bailey’s fault, or Sybilla’s, or the chiding hand of the One. It