The Disorderly Knights (44 page)

Her uncle would be here soon: the low murmur of voices in the next room was getting louder and moving towards the door. She said quickly, ‘Are you sick of priest things, or could I ask you something do you think?’

Gabriel didn’t laugh at all; he merely looked interested and said, ‘It’s non-priest things I usually get sick of, don’t you? There’s nothing I like better than putting my wits to work with a friend. What sort of problem is it?’

‘It’s a friend’s, actually,’ said Philippa cautiously, and in words as old as the language of Eden. ‘There’s this man she doesn’t like.’

‘And someone wants her to marry him?’ said Gabriel helpfully.

Startled into horrified amusement, ‘Oh, no! No, no!’ said Philippa.
‘She just hates him. Everybody does. He questions small children and laughs about old ladies who are … who are hurt.’

‘He sounds appalling,’ Gabriel agreed. ‘Womanizes too, I expect?’

Philippa went scarlet. ‘Well … yes. So one believes. So, you see, he doesn’t deserve to be helped.’

‘Who would want to help him?’ Gabriel asked.

‘Oh, some people. There was this man who was dying,’ said Philippa rapidly. ‘And someone told him a secret which if it got known, would cause a lot of pain and misery and would do no one any good, except … except …’

‘The man your friend dislikes so much.’

‘That’s it,’ said Philippa thankfully. ‘And my friend was asked to pass on the secret and she hasn’t. She won’t go to hell, will she?’

Gabriel’s eyes, clear and steady, were fixed on hers. ‘I don’t think I’ve got a very unbiased story, have I? And I don’t want to question you any more, or obviously I’d learn more than you want to tell me. But there are two things you must ask yourself. Did the dying man who passed you the secret recognize that it might be put to some wicked use? And did he tell anyone else?’

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Philippa positively. ‘I’m the only one who knows. And I’m sure he’d never think of the damage it would do. He was very deceived, you know.’ She then went slowly scarlet.

‘It’s a useful convention,’ said Gabriel comfortingly. ‘But I’d rather guessed anyway. Do you know, from what you say, I don’t think you owe it to anyone particularly to make trouble now by passing on this precious secret of yours. Will the effect on your unpleasant friend be painful if he doesn’t know?’

Into Philippa’s brown eyes came a speculative glint which Kate would have seen with misgiving. ‘It might make him feel rather silly,’ she said.

‘Is that all?’

‘It wouldn’t
kill
him,’ said Philippa. ‘It wouldn’t even
hurt
him, except in his conceit. It was only that a promise to a dying man.…’

‘But the dying man, you say, didn’t know all the facts. And if the truth would really cause such an upheaval, there is really no virtue in telling it. There are truths and truths,’ said Gabriel solemnly. He smiled. ‘You’ve been really upset about this, haven’t you? No confession for weeks?’

‘No,’ shamefaced.

‘Well, you may begin again now,’ said Gabriel cheerfully. ‘You’ve acted only for the best, and concealment of that sort isn’t a sin, my dear child, that requires agonizing over, or even confessing. Make your reparation, if you still feel unhappy, by doing your best to swallow your dislike for this poor man, whoever he is. Keep out of his
way, and try to be sorry for him. He doesn’t know he’s going to look a fool.’

Which was comforting. She was free to keep from Lymond the information Tom Erskine wanted him to have. And if Gabriel gave her his sanction without knowing the parties involved, how much more would he have done so knowing the truth?

Shortly after that, her uncle came in. No one had left the house by the dark little hall, so the inconvenient Mr Paris must have been smuggled out at the back. It had all been rather obvious, thought Philippa, and hoped that Joleta’s brother was not inclined to regard the whole Somerville family as deep in weaselly intrigue. In any case, Gabriel stayed very little longer. What time he could spare had been already spent in Philippa’s company, and he did not seem to regret it. Indeed, on hearing that Philippa and her nurse Nell were both due back in London almost immediately, he offered instantly to take them both with him in the barge waiting for him outside. Without Nell’s long face she might have gone; but it wasn’t really practicable with all the packing they had to do, and she had to let him go without her.

They met once more before Philippa went back to Flaw Valleys, when Sir Graham called at the Somerville house in London to pay his respects to Kate, and found Margaret Erskine there, off duty while the Queen Dowager rested before the royal banquet.

Margaret Erskine was on her way home after a year in France with the Scottish Queen Mother, and the costly ceremonies which were keeping Mary of Lorraine as a guest of etiquette in London were not grudged by the English Government half as much as by Tom Erskine’s wife.

That for twenty days she had been Tom Erskine’s widow was known to her mistress, to the French Ambassador in London and to very few others besides. Margaret Erskine herself was, of design, totally unaware of it, and would be, policy had decided, until she reached Scotland. The Scottish party must appear secure, sophisticated and carefree. The Dowager, in mourning white, had just lost her one living son, but her behaviour was handsomely gay. Margaret Erskine, normally a plump and prosaic young soul, was not only gay; she was sparkling with life at the prospect, at last, of rejoining her little son and her Tom.

Kate, going to her parlour door when Sir Graham Malett was announced, was frankly gloomy. To begin with, she thought it barbarous that Tom Erskine’s wife should not be told of her husband’s death, and she had said as much to the equerry who had arrived deprecatingly on her doorstep that morning from the Scottish Queen Dowager. However, she did not propose to interfere between the poor girl and her Queen, so she was forced, against her instincts,
to greet Margaret when she arrived as if nothing had happened. Philippa, who showed a strong tendency to linger large-eyed in corners, was dispatched to her cittern to practise and Kate was grimly carrying out her part of the conversational bargain with no pleasure at all when the steward came to tell her she was wanted. Margaret, who had brought a chicken and was deep in detailed recipe-making, disappeared promptly and happily in the direction of the kitchens while Kate walked downstairs, meeting an inquisitive Philippa on the way.

Her visitor was, she found, that gallant crusading hero, Joleta’s brother. Taking him into the small parlour she rarely used, Kate was civil and Philippa effusive. Kate had set up, her daughter knew, a characteristic resistance against the legend of Gabriel which had stiffened more than a little since Philippa’s own glowing account, suitably edited, of the Hampton Court encounter. Sir Graham also had the misfortune to be staying with the Earl of Ormond, whom she disliked.

Kate had had much the same reaction to Joleta when the girl had arrived at Flaw Valleys in a cloudburst of reverent awe: only after she proved that Joleta was human did Kate unbend and become her usual sardonic self. Now, Philippa watching with an experienced eye saw that Sir Graham Malett was aware of this guardedness and was amused by it, even to the extent of apologizing for his noble Irish friend. Ormond, he agreed gravely over Kate’s lavish refreshments, was a sorry young pensioner of his country’s enemy, but one must be tolerant. He had to be so or hang.

Kate, who did not like being humoured either, switched the subject to Malta but did not succeed in drawing him either on the fall of Tripoli or on the conduct of the Grand Master. ‘What, no harems unlocked, no spirited slave-girls carried safely to freedom? What a dull time crusaders are having these days,’ said Kate at length. ‘I shall need, obviously, to get the coarse side of the story out of Francis Crawford.’

‘No,’ said Gabriel with a moment’s diffidence. ‘That I shouldn’t recommend.’

Kate, who had half her mind on Margaret Erskine helping to show the cook how to do a French chicken, jerked her attention back and said, ‘Why? I’m sure he’d run anybody’s white slave traffic with exceptional skill.’

She wished heartily that he would go away. Coming from France as he did, it was impossible that he should know about Tom Erskine, but she did not intend that he and Margaret should meet. Her own powers of dissimulation were not very great; his were probably nonexistent. Nor did it seem fair to ask such a man to play a part in a deception.

In any case, he was deep in thought on some other subject entirely. After a considerable pause he said unexpectedly, ‘I wonder, Mistress Somerville, if you know a man called Cormac O’Connor?’

‘I know of him,’ said Kate shortly. ‘He’s an outlawed Irishman who’s been trying for years to get French or Scottish help to drive the English out of Ireland.’

‘He was also the possessor,’ said Gabriel without looking at her, ‘of a very beautiful mistress. I met him in France the other week, in Ormond’s company, as I was telling you. He parted with the woman in the end—he swears to our incorrigible friend Francis. In any case, it is a fact that Francis joined her in Tripoli, and lost her there. She was an unlucky woman; and the mistress of a knight of the Order for long months before that; but they had a real attraction for each other. I tell you only that you won’t take the subject of women lightly, when next you meet.’

‘I won’t meet him ever again,’ said Philippa forbiddingly.

Gabriel, seated in a chair too small for him, smiled at Kate, who merely lifted her brows. His smile grew broader. ‘There seems to be a general disenchantment,’ he said. ‘Joleta writes in the same, if not stronger terms. I’m sorry, because I was relying on her to exert a little moral blackmail.’

Tact was not yet Philippa’s strongest point. ‘But Mr Crawford
kissed
her!’ she said.

‘Philippa!’ Kate could hardly keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

‘It’s true! It was all round Boghall!’

Graham Malett was laughing aloud. ‘It
is
true. Joleta wrote about it. But you haven’t got the essential facts.’ He looked at Philippa and sobered suddenly. ‘This is a brilliant young man going to waste. I have failed with him; we have all failed. His career in France last winter is a sorry business, best forgotten. I had thought that Malta would change him … but he cannot do without women, he cannot do without wealth, he cannot do without admiration. He has come to Scotland for no better purpose than to raise a money-making army of mercenaries, just as he went to Malta for no better reason than that the Constable paid him to. I hoped that in Joleta’s company he would learn other values.’

‘On the whole,’ said Kate bluntly, ‘I feel that he would be far more likely to bend his brilliant mind to seducing Joleta.’

Gabriel’s wise, direct gaze moved from Kate to her daughter. ‘No man living could dishonour my sister. I believe in Joleta as I believe in the fount of my faith. But I would give her in marriage to this one man, if he asked it, provided that he brought as his marriage portion his new-made army, a holy instrument for Mother Church.’

‘You would let him marry Joleta, knowing him as you do?’ said
Kate sharply; and ‘Poor Joleta!’ said Philippa in a carping voice, and was quiet under her mother’s glance.

Gabriel smiled. ‘Joleta exercises a curious transmutation of her own. If she promised herself to him, he would become her equal in honour; of that I am sure. But it seems unlikely that she will. She challenged him, I think, and he felt impelled to show how vastly indifferent he was, and she became thoroughly piqued in return.… They are not elderly, passionless statesmen, these two. They would not be worth troubling over if they were.’

Philippa’s eyes were suddenly shining. ‘How nice,’ she said genteelly, ‘if your sister and Mr Crawford were married. Love often begins with a show of hate, doesn’t it?’

‘Only common mortals like the Somervilles have good old rotten hates, dear,’ said her mother. ‘Sir Graham manages to love everybody and wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. Have a bun.’

‘He doesn’t love the Turks,’ said Philippa. ‘He kills them.’

‘That isn’t hate,’ said Kate Somerville. ‘That’s simply hoeing among one’s principles to keep them healthy and neat. I’m sure he would tell you he bears them no personal grudge; and they think they’re going to Paradise anyway, so it does everyone good.’

With some relief, Philippa saw that Gabriel was smiling. ‘You have a sharp tongue,’ he said. ‘I think at bottom you approve of Lymond more than of me. You may be quite right.’

Starting from the collarbone of her least unfashionable winter dress and ending at the back of her ears, Kate flushed. Then, with Philippa’s bright angry eyes fixed on her, she said, ‘I merely know him better, perhaps. There is nothing wrong with his standards. He merely has difficulty, as we all do, in living up to them, with somewhat hair-raising results.’

‘Whereas I succeed because my aim is more commonplace, and you find me smug,’ said Gabriel gently. ‘But we may only do our best as we are made. You will make life very unhappy for yourself and the child if you measure all your friends against this charming, undisciplined man.’

Kate’s brown eyes were wide open to preserve her from any suspicion of weakness. ‘My friends don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Have a bun.’

At which moment, to Philippa’s appalled relief, Margaret Erskine came in, smelling of chicken. She said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry my dear: you’re still busy,’ and then looked surprised and pleased. ‘Graham!’ He had of course, Philippa remembered, travelled from France with her, although he had left the Dowager’s party to come to London first. For the thousandth time, Philippa wondered how Jenny Fleming, the vivid mistress of Henri of France, could have produced this downy little person who, a war widow of nineteen, had found joy at
last with the Master of Erskine. Then Graham Malett, towering above them, said, ‘Joleta has written me. What can I say, except thank God it was over so quickly?’

There was a terrifying silence, during which the three women stared at him as if he were an idiot while, hands outstretched, Gabriel took Margaret’s floury fingers in his. Then Kate said quickly and harshly, ‘Stop and listen. She hasn’t been told yet By the Queen Mother’s orders. Break it quickly: she’ll have to know now. Margaret, sit down.’