Checkmate (79 page)

‘I should try,’ said Lymond, ‘equally to rise to the occasion while wearing, I assume, my sash of the Order which may only be relinquished on death. The situation is understood and has, I think, been laboured enough. We may leave?’

‘You may leave. I do not,’ said the Cardinal, ‘wish you to call upon the Reine Dauphine in Paris.’

‘Your pardon. I have already written her requesting an audience, and have her answer granting it. Do you wish me to tell her,’ said Lymond, ‘that you have rescinded it?’

There was a pause. Then, ‘No, M. de Sevigny,’ said the Cardinal. ‘In that case you may continue with your arrangement to see her. But I would ask you to be very careful, both in your dealings with the Queen’s grace, and in your doings when you return to Scotland. I have a long arm.’

‘Monseigneur: you have no arm at all,’ Lymond said, ‘unless England allows you a sleeve for it.’

*

Outside, Lymond said, ‘I do not, as it happens, wish to swoon in the public street. There’s a tavern.’ And after that, did nothing to help except walk, after a fashion, into the private room Richard got for him. Some time after that, he read Willie Grey’s letter.

‘What was it?’ said Richard, who had needed the flagon of wine almost as badly as his brother.

‘A warning, from Lord Grey of Wilton. Much along the lines we have heard. If I don’t behave, they’ll have me indicted for heresy.’

‘But they daren’t,’ said Richard.

‘They daren’t,’ Lymond agreed. He put away the letter. ‘The diatribe
we just heard was for your benefit, my Calvinist friend, not for mine.’

‘Maybe,’ said Richard. ‘But they’ve tried to use poison already. I really don’t think we need, do we, to move around like the new moon in the arms of the old quite for ever? They can’t try it twice. In any case, who am I running from?’

‘Raveand Rhamnusia, Goddes of Dispyte,’ said Lymond acidly. ‘I am trying to get you home, vide the shiten shepherd and the clene shepe, with your woolly chops spotless. The only drawback to date is that the bloody sheep is going to have to carry the shepherd, so far as I can see,’

But he walked, and suffered no nerve-storms; and next day, by easy stages, he and his brother set off for Paris.

The Cardinal, who saw everything and heard everything, watched them go. Then, calling his secretary, he gave into his care a letter, carefully sealed, addressed to her grace the Countess of Lennox at the castle of Settrington, England.

In the comfortable manor house called Flaw Valleys, set among its yards and its gardens in the valley of the Tyne in northern England, Philippa Somerville lived through September, motionless as a lead suspended in busy waters while her mother, deeply troubled, watched her in silence.

From France had come back a courtly woman who kissed but did not throw herself into the arms of her relatives; whose elegance was beyond anything she had acquired at Hampton Court or at Greenwich, but whose conscious mind was as far beyond communication as that of a bird lying stunned in the reeds.

With her had come Austin Grey, the charming, diffident boy one remembered from long ago, cosseted by his mother in the tall old house in the next valley. One supposed, in the absent years, that some eligible men had been known to pay court in their fashion to Philippa. Austin Grey treated her like a sick goddess, and it was painful to watch the carefulness with which she was polite to him. On Austin’s side, there was worship. On Philippa’s, something one could only begin to guess at.

One knew something from Adam Blacklock’s letters. Six years before, Philippa’s mother Kate had observed Blacklock among the men of St Mary’s: the artist with the long, lean frame and the halt in one leg who had possessed some insight, she thought, denied to others of that brilliant band. Since then, he had fought in France and in Russia. She knew, from some of Philippa’s earlier letters, that he was receiving a captain’s pay under the French crown, but that was all. Then when Philippa’s letters had ceased just after Sybilla and Richard reached France, the first diffident communication had arrived, signed
A. Blacklock
.

It had been no more than a short bulletin of the minor affairs at court in the weeks before the wedding, and conveyed the impression, with some skill, that the news was indirectly from Philippa herself, who was at present too occupied to write to her mother. From it Kate had learned—a piece of news Philippa had not thought to tell her—that Francis Crawford was affianced to a French heiress and would marry her as soon as the Queen’s wedding was over, and his own marriage to
Philippa had been dissolved. She also knew that Austin Grey was in Paris, a prisoner of war, and that he was said to be a serious suitor of Philippa’s.

Then had come the information, embedded in some detail of little consequence, that the French heiress had withdrawn from the prospective marriage, but the annulment was to proceed. And after that the two letters she would never forget.

In the first, Mr Blacklock had written,
Philippa will shortly be on her way home. Please be understanding. From her long acquaintance with Mr Crawford it seems, has grown something none of us would have wished for her, least of all Lymond himself. He is to continue with the divorce, but she will sail home, much against her will, as soon as the royal wedding is over. She is not a child and her feelings are not superficial, but we see no other solution, nor do Mr Crawford’s mother and brother. Lord Allendale will be coming with her
.

And almost immediately after that:
I have to tell you that Philippa and her husband have left Paris and are living at Sevigny. There is now no question of a divorce
.

That was all. No letters followed that, from Blacklock, or from Philippa or even from Sybilla and Richard. The next news she had was from Adam Blacklock in person, standing on her doorstep with a curious scar on his face, saying, ‘Mistress Somerville? Allendale and I have brought Philippa home.’

One did not ask questions then of this self-contained, exhausted creature. One installed her in the bedroom she had known from childhood, and entertained, as best one could, the two men who had brought her, with such trouble, all the way from France. Then, when Austin had left for his home, one was able to turn to the man Blacklock and say, more viperishly than perhaps one had intended, ‘All I gathered from that is that Francis Crawford is a raging harlot, and I am only doubtfully adequate to touch the hem of my daughter’s extremely expensive farthingale. I look to you to tell me what has happened.’

And Adam, confronting the sharp brown eyes of the small, untidy, vivid person he remembered all those years ago from the days of St Mary’s, had answered, ‘I don’t know. All I can tell you is that, superficially, Francis was offered the rank of Marshal of France and took it, leaving Philippa at Sevigny. And that she then left for Paris, and asked Allendale to bring her home.’

‘And a little deeper than superficially?’ Kate had said.

Then he had had to say, ‘I don’t understand what Allendale is implying. He knows something, I think, that Philippa has not told any of us. What I have found out is difficult enough to put into words.’

‘Can I guess?’ had said Kate abruptly. ‘She learned her affection was not adequately returned? No? Then, she was deliberately led to believe that it was not adequately returned?’

‘I think that was true,’ Adam said. ‘For a long time.’

‘But not at Sevigny?’

‘No,’ said Adam. ‘I saw them at Sevigny.’ He stopped and then said, without looking at Philippa’s mother, ‘As the pen needs the penknife, they are made for one another. And they know it.’

He could feel how still she had become. ‘But …?’ said Kate.

‘But it is of the spirit only,’ Adam said.

The width of her surprise, it seemed, filled all the room. ‘Why? Why?’ said Kate. And then, ‘No. Of course, it is not fair of me to ask you. But what then was Austin …? No, you didn’t know that either.’ Staring at him, her sunburned brow was lined in her perplexity. ‘Then why did they part?’

He had known he was going to be asked that question. He answered it with the truth. ‘Because Francis could not support it,’ he said.

*

For more than three weeks Adam Blacklock stayed at Flaw Valleys, and during that time was sometimes the only company Kate had, for Philippa seemed to find the society of others for many days quite beyond her.

It was strange for Kate, after eight years of widowhood, to have another likeminded human being waiting, quietly, to be talked to and to give advice when she wanted it. In fact, she did not realize how much of the past they shared, until the first morning after his arrival she knocked on his door, and taking in the small offering of food and drink she had prepared for him, had seen his eyes widen at the sight of her companion.

‘Ah,’ said Kate, ‘last night, you were too late to meet each other. Master Blacklock, this is Khaireddin Crawford. He prefers to be called Kuzúm.’

‘And I prefer to be called Adam,’ Blacklock said. He held out his hand. ‘I know your father.’

Kuzúm, his yellow hair brushed for the occasion, returned the handshake cordially. ‘He rides horses very well. I expect you ride horses very well too. Were you in Russia?’

‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘He rode on sledges in Russia. He was very good at that as well.’

‘We tried to ride on sledges last winter,’ Kuzúm said. ‘But I was only six, so I didn’t get on very well. I’m going to see Fippy. You brought her home, didn’t you? She isn’t my mother, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Adam. His throat was aching.

‘Aunt Kate says she is going to cry,’ Kuzúm said, gazing at him with those very blue eyes. ‘And I am not to mind, because it is only because she is a girl, and tired after her journey. Men don’t cry.’

‘Don’t they?’ said Adam.

‘Well, only sometimes. I broke my arm once, in the apple orchard. My father doesn’t cry.’

‘No,’ said Adam.

*

On the third day when, for once, she had let Kuzúm out of her sight, Philippa said to her mother, ‘What has Adam told you?’

At last. Kate sat down, and then got up again because it was a good chair, and she had butter on her skirt. ‘He was very discreet,’ she said. ‘But I think I gathered that you have a fine marriage but not a complete one.’

‘That
was
discreet,’ said Philippa. ‘And what did Austin say?’

‘Austin was biased,’ said Kate firmly. ‘You know he has called twice a day?’

‘I shall see him tomorrow,’ Philippa said, as she had said for three days. ‘In any case, what did he say, including the bias?’

‘It partook,’ said Kate, ‘of the nature of a full-scale cursing against one Crawford of Lymond, but whether for sins of omission or commission is not entirely clear. You wouldn’t like to clear up the point?’

‘No,’ said Philippa. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘I do,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t care to have my second-best bedroom looking like the den of a hibernating bear. In fact, I am beginning to feel like the gentleman who killed his sister with his bare hands for weeping on a day of official rejoicing. What is wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ Philippa said. ‘I have to know what is happening.’

‘And you know what is happening, shut up in this room?’ Kate said. And knew, as soon as the words left her lips that, of course, she had hit on the truth.

‘Yes,’ said Philippa. ‘On the ship …’

‘Adam told me that you were upset on the ship. You thought that Francis was in trouble?’ said Kate.

‘I thought he was dead,’ Philippa said. ‘You see, I released him to do as he wished.’

‘I see,’ said Kate slowly. She sat down, the butter forgotten. ‘And this is why you are waiting?’

‘Yes,’ said Philippa.

Kate said, ‘Philippa. What frightened you? Why couldn’t this be a complete marriage?’

But Philippa’s eyes, the candid brown eyes she would have trusted to tell the truth, however unpalatable, would not look at her, and her daughter turned her head, shaking it. Then Kate said, equally gently, ‘Then why hold to the marriage, my darling? Why not obtain your divorce and release him and yourself in that way?’

The silence this time continued for a very long time, so that she could hear the new kitchen maid break a bowl, and the puppy bark, and the
high, clear piping of Kuzúm’s voice, speaking to Adam. Then Philippa said, ‘Because the grounds for the divorce were to be lack of consummation.’

And then she turned her face so that her dark circled eyes locked with Kate’s and Kate, pale herself, was wise enough this time not to ask any more.

After that, the only really unbearable incident happened in the third week, when Philippa had begun to join them, very quietly, in the main part of the house and to stop the habit, so disconcerting both in herself and Adam, of thinking and speaking primarily in an idiomatic French which drove Kate to irritable despair.

By then, also, she had begun occasionally to entertain Austin, if only, Kate thought, to show some helpless return for the gifts of sweetmeats and flowers, of fruit and music and little, bound books which arrived daily and, it seemed, sometimes hourly from the next valley.

Only that night he excelled himself, and sent musicians.

Kate, more than warned by the barking of all the dogs far up the road, had already sent her steward to investigate and then dispatched a swift, conciliatory message round all the servants’ quarters before tapping on her daughter’s door and saying, ‘Philippa? Don’t undress in front of the candles: there’s an oboe in the flowerbed.’

In fact, there were also two recorders, a rebec and a cittern, sadly flattening her marigolds; and something else that made Kate, peering unseen out of the window in company with her daughter, moan with silent apprehension. ‘You remember the hombull bee who handyld the home pype, for ham fyngers wer small? He’s sent a cremorne, darling. The dogs will never stand for it.’

‘I think we should send them away,’ Philippa said. Her hand, from the first moment, had detained her mother and had not released her since.

‘I think so too,’ said Kate. ‘After the first offering, anyway. Open the casement and lean out, glowing. All they want to do is report to Austin that you listened to them without apparently having a seizure.’ Adam tapped on the door, made an inquiry and, reassured, returned to his room. To a chorus of resonant barking, the instruments proceeded to adjust themselves into tune. A billy-goat, alarmed, aroused his harem, and distantly a muffled lowing broke out.

Philippa said, ‘Oh dear. It must have cost a fortune. Did Gideon ever do this to you?’

Kate thought. ‘No, but I did it to him. He hadn’t called to see me for a week, so I sent eight bell ringers to serenade him at cock-crow and his mother’s parrot dropped dead, quoting Luther.’

‘What did it say?’ Philippa said. Sitting on the sill, with her long brown hair falling over her night robe, she looked, in the darkness, like the daughter who had come back from Turkey: calm and smiling and soignée.

‘Music is a fair and lovely gift of God, and deserves to be extolled as
the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart,’ said Kate, surprised. The sound of Philippa laughing mingled with the first notes of the consort below, the cremorne snoring manfully among the rest of its brethren:

‘No!’
said Philippa. ‘No! No! No! No! No!’

The casement slammed on the wood, breaking the glass. And Philippa, her hands rammed over her ears, fled gasping from the window and crouched, her sobs rising in pitch against the bed while Kate, her breath stopped, dragged the hangings over the window and finding the bed knelt and hugged her, suppressing the noise with her closeness.

They were like that when Adam, running, found them and left, without words, to stride downstairs and tell the players, surprised and more than a little displeased, to remove themselves. He gave them all the money he had, and excuses. Then, slowly, he went back into the house and stayed in his room until all was quiet.

Much later Kate, looking very tired, scratched at his door. ‘She’s sleeping,’ she said.

He looked at her over the candlelight, and the flame stood in both pairs of eyes. ‘It can’t go on. Poor Austin,’ he said.