Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [149]
‘It’s a useful convention,’ said Gabriel comfortingly. ‘But I’d rather guessed anyway. Do you know, from what you say, I don’t think you owe it to anyone particularly to make trouble now by passing on this precious secret of yours. Will the effect on your unpleasant friend be painful if he doesn’t know?’
Into Philippa’s brown eyes came a speculative glint which Kate would have seen with misgiving. ‘It might make him feel rather silly,’ she said.
‘Is that all?’
‘It wouldn’t kill him,’ said Philippa. ‘It wouldn’t even hurt him, except in his conceit. It was only that a promise to a dying man.…’
‘But the dying man, you say, didn’t know all the facts. And if the truth would really cause such an upheaval, there is really no virtue in telling it. There are truths and truths,’ said Gabriel solemnly. He smiled. ‘You’ve been really upset about this, haven’t you? No confession for weeks?’
‘No,’ shamefaced.
‘Well, you may begin again now,’ said Gabriel cheerfully. ‘You’ve acted only for the best, and concealment of that sort isn’t a sin, my dear child, that requires agonizing over, or even confessing. Make your reparation, if you still feel unhappy, by doing your best to swallow your dislike for this poor man, whoever he is. Keep out of his way, and try to be sorry for him. He doesn’t know he’s going to look a fool.’
Which was comforting. She was free to keep from Lymond the information Tom Erskine wanted him to have. And if Gabriel gave her his sanction without knowing the parties involved, how much more would he have done so knowing the truth?
Shortly after that, her uncle came in. No one had left the house by the dark little hall, so the inconvenient Mr Paris must have been smuggled out at the back. It had all been rather obvious, thought Philippa, and hoped that Joleta’s brother was not inclined to regard the whole Somerville family as deep in weaselly intrigue. In any case, Gabriel stayed very little longer. What time he could spare had been already spent in Philippa’s company, and he did not seem to regret it. Indeed, on hearing that Philippa and her nurse Nell were both due back in London almost immediately, he offered instantly to take them both with him in the barge waiting for him outside. Without Nell’s long face she might have gone; but it wasn’t really practicable with all the packing they had to do, and she had to let him go without her.
They met once more before Philippa went back to Flaw Valleys, when Sir Graham called at the Somerville house in London to pay his respects to Kate, and found Margaret Erskine there, off duty while the Queen Dowager rested before the royal banquet.
Margaret Erskine was on her way home after a year in France with the Scottish Queen Mother, and the costly ceremonies which were keeping Mary of Lorraine as a guest of etiquette in London were not grudged by the English Government half as much as by Tom Erskine’s wife.
That for twenty days she had been Tom Erskine’s widow was known to her mistress, to the French Ambassador in London and to very few others besides. Margaret Erskine herself was, of design, totally unaware of it, and would be, policy had decided, until she reached Scotland. The Scottish party must appear secure, sophisticated and carefree. The Dowager, in mourning white, had just lost her one living son, but her behaviour was handsomely gay. Margaret Erskine, normally a plump and prosaic young soul, was not only gay; she was sparkling with life at the prospect, at last, of rejoining her little son and her Tom.
Kate, going to her parlour door when Sir Graham Malett was announced, was frankly gloomy. To begin with, she thought it barbarous that Tom Erskine’s wife should not be told of her husband’s death, and she had said as much to the equerry who had arrived deprecatingly on her doorstep that morning from the Scottish Queen Dowager. However, she did not propose to interfere between the poor