The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [81]
She applied, as was her sensible habit, for aid to the Sidneys. Lady Mary did not inquire why it was inconvenient for Mistress Philippa to spend a month at her home in Flaw Valleys. She merely arranged, with the greatest good will, for Philippa to join them instead down at Penshurst. And two days later, sent her husband to Greenwich to escort her.
He arrived on a day of typical chaos. All the Court were still there, Spanish and English, for with King Philip to Brussels were going the Queen’s principal ministers and almost the whole of her Council: a measure of safety, no less than a promise of willing and speedy return. And back in England, Philip was leaving his Queen yet another assurance: his German and Spanish infantry and Burgundian cavalry, his Chapel functionaries, his physicians and pages and his whole stable department were to remain behind him, patient pawns awaiting redemption; exiles in an unfriendly land.
Philippa was ready and thankful to leave. She welcomed Sir Henry as he stooped, spurs clinking, through the low door of her room, and he smiled and gave her a kiss and said ‘It should have been Allendale. I was to bring you his respects. That’s one young man, along with a number of others, who wish your divorce would speed, Philippa.’
So Austin had already said. She thought of him, smiling, and of all the warm farewells she had received today from her immediate circle. The kisses and gifts and affectionate raillery from all the men and women with whom she had brushed shoulders in the last ten months had both surprised Philippa and touched her. Don Alfonso, miming despair combined with exhausted relief, was going in the King’s train to Brussels. Austin, she knew, would find more than one excuse to come to Penshurst. She said, ‘I don’t suppose they want it any more eagerly than I do. It seems to be delayed once again. They say now that nothing can be done until Mr Crawford sends his formal consent.’
‘Sends,’ Henry Sidney repeated. He looked round and pushed the door shut; then pulling a stool forward for Philippa, went and perched himself on the window seat. ‘Philippa, are you sure he won’t come back to Scotland?’
‘I am sure,’ Philippa said. She would not be there to persuade Lymond. Her first two letters had brought no reply, and she had not sent a third, since Diccon Chancellor had sailed without her. She knew she would never commit now to paper what Leonard Bailey had told her. She knew that whatever excuse she had given, Margaret Lennox had placed her under restraint for one reason only: to prevent her from sailing to Russia.
How had she discovered her plan? Or was it merely a guess, based on the knowledge, somehow acquired, that Lymond was living in Russia? And why had she been prevented from sailing? Of all people, Margaret Lennox had no interest at all in her safety.
She had found no solution to that. Or to the choice she saw standing bleakly before her. Whether to sacrifice Sybilla’s wellbeing to her son’s peace of mind and safety in Russia. Or whether to persevere: to bring Lymond home to face what he already knew from the Abbess; or to be pursued and confronted by the outrage of his great-uncle’s spite, needlessly destroying both himself and Sybilla?
Perhaps, Philippa thought flatly, they were wrong, all of them, in their view of him. Perhaps he would learn the truth, whatever it was, with perfect equanimity, indifferent to the lives of his parents and the accident of his own origin; occupied, sensibly, with his own future. If that were true, then for Sybilla’s sake he should come home, for nothing could hurt him.
It had been a long silence. Coming to herself suddenly, Philippa looked up at Sir Henry and grinned, and said, ‘Or I think I’m sure. Confidence, like Admiration, is the daughter of Ignorance.