Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [188]
His mother was alone in her office, seated behind her big table. Interviewing Henninc, or Julius, she sat stiffly like that, with all the light from the window falling on Henninc or Julius and very little on herself. The only difference now was that she had planted her elbows on the baize and had folded her hands to her lips as if she were blowing to warm them. Above them her eyes, he supposed, were inspecting his changed clothes, his uneven complexion. He didn’t really care if she saw what she had done to him. She deserved to. Then he got a little nearer, and saw that her eyes were shut.
His next steps brought him quite close to the table. Instead of looking, she squeezed her eyes tighter closed. Then she opened them on him, and brought her hands down. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded as if her tongue and the roof-arch above it were stuck together. She said, “Your friend understood you better than I did. Nicholas begged me to find you this morning and tell you everything.”
He stood in front of her. He said, “You would say that anyway.”
Her eyes had never moved from his face since they opened. She said, “Look at me as an adult looks at an adult. Think of Nicholas as an adult would. Think of all you know of him, and me, and yourself. We three do not lie to one another.”
He found he had started to breathe again properly. He straightened a little. He said, “But you didn’t tell me. I suppose in case I stopped it.”
“Yes,” she said. He wished she would go on, and protest, and try to explain, so that he could get angry again.
He said, “So you didn’t care what I felt, did you? You just wanted to get the marriage over before I heard about it. You knew it would be … I would be …”
“I knew that you would find it unthinkable. Yes. That’s why I hoped to arrange things so that you would find you wanted to think about it. Felix, you know Nicholas very well. Do you think he would try to trap me into marriage for his own purposes? Really?”
Claes. Claes, year in, year out at his side. But –
“You see, he’s clever,” said Felix.
Her face relaxed, as if she knew what that cost him to say. She said, “He’s wise as well. If you feel you can hardly hold your head up in public, you must know that he feels the same. He knows what people will say. So do I. So our reasons for doing this must be very strong, don’t you think?”
“The business,” said Felix. He said it flatly, and not with the disbelieving contempt he had felt, when he had feelings. He said, “He said just now it was to keep the business straight until I could run it. As if I would want it this way. As if my father would have ever, ever asked you, expected you … to …”
“Marry one of his apprentices,” his mother ended for him. He heard her draw a deep breath. She said, “No. Your father would never have wanted that. But your father is dead. I am here. My life, too, has to be lived. It is not even the company that your father made; it is quite a different one, and will grow more different still. I want to stay with it; spend my days thinking about it. But I couldn’t do it without help. Until you are ready, there has to be a man close to the business. Felix, I don’t want a man who will take your father’s place. I only want a friend.” She paused. She said, “And it will be known, I promise you, that Nicholas is only a friend.”
He felt his face burning again, because such denials should be remotely necessary. It sounded so reasonable. Except that he was the heir, and Nicholas was hardly older than he was. And Nicholas, everyone knew, was his servant.
His mother said, “Men have different gifts at different ages. Sometimes we must stand by and see others take the prize, but our turn will come. It would be a small spirit which would hold another one back. In Nicholas, you and I have a friend. In you I have a son. What can ever change that?”
Something moved on his cheek, but he couldn’t imagine that he was crying unknowingly. He said, “Just now, he said that he would leave if you wanted it. He said that I shouldn’t expect you to choose me instead