Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [22]
It was logical enough, in its way. Joleta’s system, the governess explained, was used to Maltese remedies: the old brews common to nomads which even her convent, in all its medical sophistication, had allowed. And these a member of the queer sisterhood of gypsies might well know. ‘Oh, dear,’ said Kate finally. ‘I suppose we’d better get Trotty Luckup.’ She paused. ‘She’ll have to travel from Yetholm, and she’s an old gypsy rogue. You’ll have to pay her quite a lot.’
Donna Donati smiled, and with one cool hand took the liberty of straightening Kate’s half-attached sleeve. ‘I have dealt with many rogues in my years,’ she said. ‘Do not concern yourself.’
The widow Luckup arrived two days later on muleback, stayed the night with Joleta, and went back the next day without grumbling, accompanied, as Kate later found, by three silver plates and a pair of her dead husband’s thick woolly breeches; which alone in her room she wept over, ridiculously, before blowing her nose and sailing forth to see how Joleta did.
Joleta, blessedly burning with new life, had eaten her first light meal for a week and was sitting propped up by her pillows, running her fingers over Kate’s lute and singing, absurdly, the extemporized praises of Trotty. Richard had been right. Quiet and sick and very young, the vein had not shown. But the girl in her own right, and apart from the heavenly gift of her looks, was a person of character.
As the days of recovery went by, Philippa, at Kate’s wish, spent a good deal of time with Joleta. Abrupt, forthright as her mother without, just yet, her mother’s saving grace of humility and wit, Philippa sat at a loss and studied the other girl like a farm labourer at a flower show, while Joleta Reid Malett, whose courage was of the order of her brother’s and whose self-discipline, on occasion, went far beyond her years, willed herself better, rose, walked, dressed and moved to the garden, sang, played and indulged in a ferocious gift of mimicry, talking to all and everyone she met, from the kitchen boy to Kate’s stubborn steward, and lit Flaw Valleys as with Mediterranean sunlight from within.
To Philippa she told a little of her quiet life on Malta, but otherwise spoke rarely of herself. It was Philippa she was eager to know about; Philippa’s father and the war against the Scots; the coming of Tom Erskine to their door for the first time; and Lymond.
She asked Philippa directly, at last, why she disliked Lord Culter’s younger brother and Philippa, hot-cheeked under three years’ silence, told of the wartime raid when Lymond had broken into the house and had questioned her, a child of ten, against her parents’ wishes. The long room; Gideon, whitefaced, begging the stranger to leave the child alone; and Kate hugging her on her knees, her cheeks wet with tears.
‘But your parents overlooked it, didn’t they?’ said Joleta in her sane, friendly voice. ‘And you aren’t enemies now.’ They were brushing each other’s hair, Joleta’s firm fingers dragging the brush swiftly and effectively over and over through Philippa’s insignificant locks. Her own, in a single shining fall, reached to her hips over her robe; and her robe fell, as it should, over the soft rises of her young body. Philippa, flat as a kipper in front, said savagely, ‘What’s it matter? He could browbeat a child, whatever the motive. And he lives like a hog. I hate him.’ And to her own horror, Philippa broke into tears.
Joleta’s warm arms enfolded her, and Joleta’s freckled cheek pressed against her own. ‘Pippa, listen,’ said the clear voice in her ear. ‘Middle-aged ladies often imagine they have fallen in love. It doesn’t mean anything. Your mother is very sensible, you know.’
Philippa Somerville’s head jerked back, then her body, as she forced herself from Joleta’s gentle clasp. Then, stuffing a not over-clean hand into her mouth, Kate’s daughter fled from the room.
She and Joleta continued to meet and talk after that, but never again lapsed into the topic of Kate’s private affections. Nor, to do Joleta justice, did she give the matter more than a