To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [37]
Entertainment at the farm was forbidden, but M. de Fleury had already taken them, when first they arrived, to the hospitable home of friends of his first wife. Enguerrand and Yvonnet de Damparis had several times invited the child back, impeccably guarded, and had won Mistress Clémence’s approval by filling the house with other children for Jodi’s inspection. Childless themselves, the couple – it transpired – were friends not so much of M. de Fleury as of Marian his first wife and her sister. Both were buried here: the sister who had married an old man and made Dijon her home, and Marian de Charetty who, taken ill, had paused there on a journey and died.
The child had been taken to both tombs. In general, Mistress Clémence understood the importance of teaching children the lessons of mortality, but thought that a crypt below ground was no place for a boy quite so young, even though M. de Fleury made nothing lingering or solemn of it, but simply talked to the child as they walked with their lamp, hand in hand. It seemed that his own mother Sophie was buried there, which made the lapse more comprehensible – indeed quite understandable, had M. de Fleury been an old man. Mistress Clémence had made no attempt to take the child there a second time, and the boy had asked no questions about it.
It was not a nurse’s place, either, to question; but, on joining the family, Mistress Clémence had made it her business to learn all the popular gossip about her charge’s father. M. de Fleury’s mother, buried here, had been Sophie, daughter of Thibault, vicomte de Fleury. Report said that the vicomte, still living, had long since been taken away to be cared for, and his only daughter by a second, late marriage had been placed in some convent. The family home, now in ruins, had sheltered Sophie de Fleury for seven years from the birth of Nicholas to her death, still in disgrace. Simon de St Pol had never accepted M. de Fleury as his son, as Jordan de St Pol had rejected him as his grandson. The true father had never been named.
It was an old scandal. There seemed no bitterness, at least on the de Fleury side, although there was with the Scots-French St Pols. People said that old Thibault de Fleury had done his best for his grandson while in health, and the girl, Adelina, was probably better off as a nun: the title carried no money, and the estate was tied up in debt from some family concern that had failed.
Mistress Clémence had thought, from the excessive time M. de Fleury spent examining his grandfather’s property, that he had a mind to restore it. Nothing, however, seemed to come of it, and she sensed that the family friends around Dijon were not displeased that this should be so. They were polite to M. de Fleury, as well as fond with the child. Yvonnet de Damparis especially asked after the servant who had nursed Marian de Charetty in her last illness. The name Tasse was unknown to Mistress Clémence. It appeared that the woman was in pensioned retirement, arranged for her by Master Gregorio, the lawyer who had attended her mistress’s burial.
Mistress Clémence listened, surprised. Knowing better than most the value of old, trusted servants, she deduced that Tasse was unused to small children, or too old for M. de Fleury to bring back to serve his new son. Then she remembered that it was the lady Gelis who had chosen Pasque and Mistress Clémence herself for young Jordan, and that a servant loyal to her husband would not then have suited her plans.
It reminded Mistress Clémence that a difficult phase of her contract was now approaching. She and Pasque had successfully accomplished the transfer from the mother’s employment, and had no complaints about their new patron. But everyone knew there was nothing worse for young children than two quarrelling parents,