Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  But she could hardly know it, for she said, looking from one to the other, ‘Do you know each other?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Leonard Bailey. He did not move but stood, heavily expansive, on the threshold. Behind him two … men-servants? soldiers?—had occupied positions at each doorpost in silence. Bailey continued. ‘Madame de Sevigny has not had time to tell you who her husband is. You may know him merely as the Count of that designation, but I have to enlighten you, Madame Roset. His own name is Francis Crawford, and he is my great-nephew, the rogue, and that same base-born infant you tell me you delivered here in this house to Lady Culter.’

  He smiled, with his strong lips, at Philippa. ‘Sybilla was kind enough to let me have the use of her house while I am in Paris. A charming bower for lovers. Do you not envy me?’

  Nymphs, severe, delightful, gazed at her from the friezework. There was a blue Turkey carpet with roses, and roses wreathed the velvet housing of a pair of exquisite virginals. By the heaps of books bound in Levantine marocain lay scrolls of music, tinted with sepia. There was a lute in a case, and a box inlaid in sandalwood with garlands of shells and sea flowers. And in marble over the fireplace ran a throng of light, laughing figures, following the spoked wheels of a frail Roman carriage being drawn by young men between tree stems. Below, were written two fine lines in silver:

  I shall harness thee a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold

  Come into our dwelling, in the perfume of the cedars.

  The needlework and the music were Sybilla’s. But the verse belonged to somebody else. The Hôtel des Sphères was not a living house: it was a shrine. And it was beyond belief that Sybilla could have lent it. To this stupid, imbecile housekeeper Philippa said, steadily, ‘This gentleman has no right to be here.’

  Madame Roset was offended. Perhaps she had doubts already. ‘I have the letter arranging it, in Lady Culter’s very own handwriting!’

  But naturally. One had forgotten. He was also a forger.

  The powerful man in the doorway smiled at her, while the two men behind him stood motionless. ‘You see? But of course, if there is any shadow of doubt, Sybilla herself will be in Paris shortly. We have only to place the whole matter before her.’ And stirring at last, he came forward into the parlour, rubbing his hands and glancing from her to the housekeeper.

  ‘Are we not fortunate, that you thought to call on us this morning! Such a high-born young lady, and so well connected: in the service of yet another crowned head, they tell me! Do you know, Madame Roset; the young lady and I have a great deal to speak of together. And while we are talking, perhaps a little refreshment might be prepared?’ He laughed, his lips spreading widely, at Philippa. ‘Madame Roset is a paragon among housekeepers. I have never been looked after so comfortably.’

  ‘Then,’ said Philippa, rising grimly, ‘it pains me to tell you that you will have to cook your own dishes this morning. M. le comte has asked to see Madame Roset, and I have undertaken to take her back to the Hôtel d’Hercule with me immediately.’

  ‘Indeed? I thought he was in Dieppe?’ Lymond’s grand-uncle displayed, perfunctorily, a kind of surprise.

  ‘Did you? He came home late last night. Madame Roset, would you be so kind as to come with me?’

  Madame Roset, not unnaturally, hesitated. Philippa’s elderly relative by marriage strolled across and laying his hand on the housekeeper’s arm, patted it and then held it casually. ‘Came home, and sent you out alone so early this morning, and with no escort with you? I watched you come from my window and thought how unchivalrous the young are becoming, these days. Well, well. If he is really here, then his mother and brother … That is, the dowager and the Earl of Culter must be in Paris also. And what could be better, for I should tell you, my dearest young lady, that when I think of it, there is a little matter I ought to discuss with Sybilla and her two sons, although the morning is hardly the best time to do it. You wouldn’t care, my dear Lady Sevigny, to stay and give me your opinion on the whole matter first? I am really very hungry, and Madame Roset does not want to go out into the cold. Indeed, she tells me she had very strict orders not to approach Lady Culter or any member of her family, for which, of course, one must feel the greatest sympathy.’

  ‘Master Bailey,’ said Philippa sharply. ‘You cannot afford to displease my husband.’

  ‘I should hope,’ said Leonard Bailey heartily, ‘not to distress any of my fellow-men, far less my own sister’s family.’ He conveyed Madame Roset to the door, placed her outside, smiling, and closing it, turned back to Philippa. His smile broadened. ‘I saw you admiring my doublet. Do you think I could afford these buttons on a mere three hundred pounds every twelvemonth? No. I have M. de Sevigny’s bond that so long as I maintain silence about his unfortunate conception, I shall receive such a pension, and I am not ungrateful. But now I have additional sources of income. I am no longer the pauper I was when we met last in England.’

  ‘The fees for betraying your own sister’s family to the English?’ Philippa said.

  He smiled again. ‘Partly so. I am sure, for anyone so able, the incident at Ham proved merely a temporary inconvenience to my gallant great-nephew. And I am glad to say that my payments have continued without abatement. Your husband is a man of his word. Only in the event of my breaking silence, he ruled, would it cease. A step I should not lightly take. But a step I should not now require to avoid, if I felt it necessary.… I have been waiting for you to come, my dear, ever since your impulsive husband rushed off to Flavy. I made sure Renée Jourda would tell him everything, and you would find a way of extracting it from him. But instead, you used Camille’s key?’

  Philippa said, ‘Renée Jourda died before he could learn this address. How did you know he was going to Flavy?’

  ‘I have friends in Coulanges,’ Bailey said. ‘I knew as soon as you went to la Guiche what you would report to him, and that he would go to see Rénee Jourda. I only wish I had been there to hear that overweening self-esteem pricked at last. And what do you think now of the honourable, clean-living Scottish family you have married into? Small wonder I hear you cannot wait for a divorce.’

  It was, somehow, not so desirable to stand up. Philippa found a tall velvet chair by the fireplace and sat in it, taking some time to dispose of her petticoat and overskirt and hanging sleeves with their expensive gemwork. I shall harness thee a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold said the thin silver writing, glittering in the weak sun striking white through the window panes.

  The man—the person—the shapeless vessel of envy and malevolence seated opposite her believed that Francis … Mr Crawford … had learned the truth at Flavy, and had imparted it to her. Whereas what Lymond had written was that Béatris and Gavin Crawford were now proved his parents, and Béatris’s daughter Marthe his full sister.

  But Renée Jourda could not have proved such a thing to his or anyone else’s satisfaction. Béatris’s only son had died, aged ten, in the year Francis Crawford was born. And Lymond and Marthe must therefore have come of different mothers.

  They were alike because the same man had fathered them.

  A man whose real identity, it seemed, could not be countenanced, even for Sybilla’s sake. An irresponsible and, one supposed, irresistible man who must therefore have sired four different children, two to Béatris, the Dame de Doubtance’s unmarried daughter and two to Sybilla, already the wife of Gavin Crawford and the mother of Richard.

  The daughters had been named Marthe by Béatris and Eloise by Sybilla. But the same name of Francis Crawford had been given to both the sons: to the beloved child born in this house to Sybilla, and to Béatris’s ailing child of ten years earlier, who had died of grand mal and whose death certificate his grandmother, the Dame de Doubtance, had kept.

  ‘What!’ said Leonard Bailey and Philippa looked up, after too long an interval, into those seamed and glistening eyes. ‘You are silent. Can it be … can it possibly be that your husband has not admitted you to his confidence? Do you not know, even y
et, the name of the man who betrayed Sybilla’s good husband Gavin? Who enticed her again and again from her marriage vows, and lodged her here till brought to bed of each bastard?

  ‘Do you not know that Gavin was cuckolded by his own father?’

  *

  A lie is a broad and spacious and glittering thing, sweeping belief before it from its very grandeur. But the truth fits, like an old man cutting cloth in an attic.

  And that, Philippa did not need to be told, was the truth, which Lymond had guessed long before her. The only circumstance in the world which now accounted for Marthe, for Eloise, for the erosion of all that lay between Lymond and Sybilla to the point where, brought face to face without warning, he could not support an encounter. And dear God, who would blame him … who would force him now to come back to Midculter and Scotland?

  When, at Flavy, he had learned the true facts for certain he had lied to her. And with every reason.

  Your father’s two sons will not meet in this world again, the Dame de Doubtance had said, with cold-blooded accuracy. And Francis, believing her, had stayed in Russia rather than put that prophecy to the test. So the meeting on the sands at Philorth for him had been terrible, indeed.

  Francis Crawford had known the truth, and he had continued to fight. It would be a pity if she could not do the same. Sick in every thread of her body, Philippa stared the man direct in his suffused and ponderous face and said, ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he said; and smiling, moved to the small inlaid cabinet she had already noticed, set upon a side table. He opened it. ‘Of course, you have only to ask Madame Roset. But you might remember, there is written proof as well. Your husband burned the copies of these. Here—I would prefer that you do not touch them—are the originals. I found them, after a very short search, where you see them. A methodical creature, Sybilla, except in obedience to the laws of her Creator.’

  And there they were, displayed in each powerful hand: the two papers written by Sybilla and witnessed by Isabelle Roset and Renée Jourda so long ago. The papers in which she confessed to have borne a son and a daughter, Francis and Eloise, of whom her husband Gavin was not the father.

  And there, completed now in her writing, was the name of her lover, and the father of Francis … and Gavin. The name of Francis Crawford of Lymond, first baron Crawford of Culter. The gay, the gaillard, the remarkable man who died when Francis was three, and whom all the world thought his grandfather.

  She read the words without speaking. But as he turned to put them away she said, ‘Why have you shown me these, Master Bailey? My woman knows where I am. You must know that if Mr Crawford comes here he will take them, and kill you.’

  He finished what he was doing and turned round. His smile this time was pitying. ‘You think me a fool. What do you know of the world, my dear? I have no intention of keeping you. If you wish, you may leave forthwith: I have no objection. As for finding the papers … Do you imagine I mean to store them here? Hardly. Before you have reached the Hôtel de Guise, they will be out of the house also, and on their way to safe keeping. And should anything happen to these, I have made copies and sent them to London. Not as convincing perhaps, as the originals; but enough, if published, to create quite a scandal.’

  ‘Then you want more money, I take it,’ said Philippa. ‘In that case, why not approach Mr Crawford himself?’

  ‘Because I wished to give myself the pleasure of entertaining you,’ said Leonard Bailey.

  There was a stool by her feet. With surprising smoothness for a heavy, elderly man he seated himself on it. ‘I dislike your husband. It pleases me that he should know, when he looks in your face, what you feel about that impious coupling.’ He took her hand unexpectedly in both his own and toyed with it. ‘Tell me: now you know, could you lie with him?’

  He was the sort of person one could with justice kill if only—if only one had had the sense to bring a weapon. He was the sort of person who, if one offended him, was quite capable of destroying the whole house of Culter. Philippa withdrew her hand and said, ‘If I did, I should never obtain my divorce. Am I to give him some message?’

  ‘No,’ said Bailey. He picked up the cuff of her long sleeve and admired it. ‘I told you, I think, that I was no longer on the edge of pauperdom. I did not mention that it was because I have received a congenial—a most congenial commission. I wonder if you can guess what it is?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Philippa said. ‘Except that it will probably be damaging to the Culters. Is that it?’

  ‘You understand me,’ said Lymond’s great-uncle. ‘It is going to be, if I may so term it, a labour of love. And lucrative. The only disappointment is that in the end, I shall have to forgo your husband’s pension.… He has, you must know, many powerful enemies.’

  ‘And what then,’ said Philippa, ‘are they paying you to do that they can’t manage themselves? Challenge him face to face?’ The floorboards outside the doorway creaked. Bailey’s men were still standing there.

  ‘I fancy,’ said Leonard Bailey, ‘any man of birth might be excused from challenging M. le comte de Sevigny face to face in a very short time. No. I have been asked to investigate the circumstances of your husband’s progeniture and collect all possible evidence which will reflect against himself and his mother with the object, in the end, of making it public.’

  ‘By whom?’ Philippa said. ‘Or could I guess?’ Coming from Bailey’s house in England, once, she had been followed. She remembered the livery the soldiers wore, and the look on Lymond’s face when she had told him. Of all the powerful enemies Francis had made, one family had the most cause to hate him, and herself. Long ago in Scotland, Lymond had exposed the renegade Earl of Lennox to ridicule and later, in France, had discredited both him and his expatriate brother. And over and over, through the years, had stood between Margaret Lennox, the Earl’s half-royal wife, and the lands, the power, the kingdoms she coveted. Margaret Lennox who, rumour said, had once appeared on the long list of Lymond’s mistresses.

  There was money there, enough to give even this shocking old man satisfaction.

  But he was not going to answer, or to give away anything at the moment. He smiled, his pores sweating a little from the warmth of the fire and said, ‘Perhaps you could. The Crawfords always picked clever girls.’

  ‘And they know the truth, your employers?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘They undertook to pay me for the duration of my researches, and so far, I have not been in a hurry. They do not, for example, know where this house is. But of course, I know the truth and I have all the evidence. It remains only to choose a time to hand it over. The arrival in France of Richard Crawford and Sybilla herself makes the present moment seem singularly appropriate.’

  ‘Then your payment from all quarters would cease, and Mr Crawford would kill you,’ said Philippa.

  ‘Oh, he would try to kill me before that,’ Bailey said. ‘As soon as you leave here and tell him of this conversation, he would never rest, would he, until I was done for? That is why I have written some very special instructions to go with those papers I showed you. If your husband or anyone else touches me—if I suffer injury, or die by violence, or even if Madame Roset is concealed from me—Sybilla’s confessions will be opened and published in London and Paris.’

  Philippa stared at the flushed face. ‘But, Mr Bailey … if you sell to the Lennoxes, Mr Crawford has nothing to lose. Do you think you could possibly escape him?’

  ‘They have paid for my bodyguards,’ he said. ‘And promised protection in England. He can’t go to England. He’s in French employment.’

  Philippa laughed. It was a little sawtoothed, but she was glad she could manage it at all. ‘Mr Bailey,’ she said. ‘I’ll remind you again. You are pitching yourself against the best-known professional in Europe. If he wants to kill you, he will have it done. What are the Lennoxes paying you?’

  He had dropped her sleeves, shifting uneasily on his stool. He did not appear even to have noti
ced that she had guessed who his employers were. He said, ‘I have ten pounds a month so long as I am in France, and a written bond for six thousand more when I hand over the proofs, quite complete.’

  ‘I shall give you ten thousand pounds for them now,’ Philippa said.

  His eyes shone, and then he dropped his wrinkled lids over them. ‘And have your husband send to kill me tomorrow?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Philippa said. ‘If, as you say, your death will make everything public. In fact, whatever we arrange, Mr Crawford need know nothing of it. Your pension from him will continue, and you will tell the Countess of Lennox that you cannot help her. Then you will be both rich and safe, so long as you keep perfectly silent. Otherwise you are a dead man, Master Bailey, no matter what the Lennoxes promise.’

  She looked at him, without drawing back, and without, she hoped, showing fear or contempt or any of the black rage burning within her. ‘You will have to choose, Master Bailey, which of us to trust. But I can tell you that I should put your chances very low of ever seeing the six thousand pounds the Lennoxes may have promised you. The present Queen of England, we now know, is childless, and her sister has no love for the Lennoxes. When Elizabeth comes to the throne, that family will need all their wealth to keep themselves out of prison.’

  He was interested. He said, ‘You could bring me ten thousand pounds without your husband knowing of it?’

  ‘I have my own resources,’ Philippa said. ‘Give my bankers three days.’

  He had stopped smiling at last. He got up, and taking a turn, stood again in front of the fireplace. (Come into our dwelling, in the perfume of the cedars.) He said, ‘It is all very well, madam, but it is a matter of staking one’s life and one’s money on the word of a schoolgirl. I am not going to decide such matters in a moment.’

  ‘How long does it take,’ Philippa said, ‘to decide whether you want ten thousand pounds in your hands directly or not?’