Read Online The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett - Free Book Online
Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
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from her lover. Oonagh O’Dwyer, and beautiful.…
‘ Someone !’ said Philippa hoarsely. ‘Why, everywhere he goes he has hundreds and hundreds of—’
‘—critics who are not old enough to learn tolerance. Oh, do learn tolerance, infant,’ said Kate sadly. ‘Or how are you to put up with your cross old mother when you’re as old as me?’
For a day or two after that, Joleta Malett lay perfectly still, eating whatever she was brought and discarding it instantly. Only Madame Donati, brewing little morsels over the bedroom fire, seemed able to nourish her at all; and Joleta was happy, obviously, when her governess was there, although she managed a few words always for Kate, and a shadow of a grin for Philippa. Then Evangelista Donati, her impervious good manners unaffected by day and night nursingin the first heat of June, came to Kate and asked if she knew of any woman in the district versed in herbal remedies.
‘They all are,’ said Kate with the utmost goodwill. ‘Although if you want one of the real fewmets-in-rosewater school, the half-Egyptians are best. But really,’ she said, studying the pale, aristocratic face, ‘my own physician knows better. You still won’t let me send for him?’
But, as always when pressed, Madame Donati retreated into icy politeness. ‘Thank you, no. It is nothing. It will pass. If it does not, then we shall send for him. But Sir Graham has a superstition, you understand?’ Across the wintry face passed a slight smile. ‘Sir Graham does not care that the child should be seen by men. And she does not wish it. An instinct of innocence, Mistress Somerville.’
‘Still,’ said Kate, ‘it won’t do her much good to perish, however modestly unsurveyed. What do you suppose a herb woman can do?’
It was logical enough, in its way. Joleta’s system, the governess explained, was used to Maltese remedies: the old brews common to nomads which even her convent, in all its medical sophistication, had allowed. And these a member of the queer sisterhood of gypsies might well know. ‘Oh, dear,’ said Kate finally. ‘I suppose we’d better get Trotty Luckup.’ She paused. ‘She’ll have to travel from Yetholm, and she’s an old gypsy rogue. You’ll have to pay her quite a lot.’
Donna Donati smiled, and with one cool hand took the liberty of straightening Kate’s half-attached sleeve. ‘I have dealt with many rogues in my years,’ she said. ‘Do not concern yourself.’
The widow Luckup arrived two days later on muleback, stayed the night with Joleta, and went back the next day without grumbling, accompanied, as Kate later found, by three silver plates and a pair of her dead husband’s thick woolly breeches; which alone in her room she wept over, ridiculously, before blowing her nose and sailing forth to see how Joleta did.
Joleta, blessedly burning with new life, had eaten her first light meal for a week and was sitting propped up by her pillows, running her fingers over Kate’s lute and singing, absurdly, the extemporized praises of Trotty. Richard had been right. Quiet and sick and very young, the vein had not shown. But the girl in her own right, and apart from the heavenly gift of her looks, was a person of character.
As the days of recovery went by, Philippa, at Kate’s wish, spent a good deal of time with Joleta. Abrupt, forthright as her mother without, just yet, her mother’s saving grace of humility and wit, Philippa sat at a loss and studied the other girl like a farm labourer at a flower show, while Joleta Reid Malett, whose courage was of the order of her brother’s and whose self-discipline, on occasion, went far beyond her years, willed herself better, rose, walked, dressed and moved to the garden, sang, played and indulged in a ferocious gift ofmimicry, talking to all and everyone she met, from the kitchen boy to Kate’s stubborn steward, and lit Flaw Valleys as with Mediterranean sunlight from within.
To Philippa she told a little of her
‘ Someone !’ said Philippa hoarsely. ‘Why, everywhere he goes he has hundreds and hundreds of—’
‘—critics who are not old enough to learn tolerance. Oh, do learn tolerance, infant,’ said Kate sadly. ‘Or how are you to put up with your cross old mother when you’re as old as me?’
For a day or two after that, Joleta Malett lay perfectly still, eating whatever she was brought and discarding it instantly. Only Madame Donati, brewing little morsels over the bedroom fire, seemed able to nourish her at all; and Joleta was happy, obviously, when her governess was there, although she managed a few words always for Kate, and a shadow of a grin for Philippa. Then Evangelista Donati, her impervious good manners unaffected by day and night nursingin the first heat of June, came to Kate and asked if she knew of any woman in the district versed in herbal remedies.
‘They all are,’ said Kate with the utmost goodwill. ‘Although if you want one of the real fewmets-in-rosewater school, the half-Egyptians are best. But really,’ she said, studying the pale, aristocratic face, ‘my own physician knows better. You still won’t let me send for him?’
But, as always when pressed, Madame Donati retreated into icy politeness. ‘Thank you, no. It is nothing. It will pass. If it does not, then we shall send for him. But Sir Graham has a superstition, you understand?’ Across the wintry face passed a slight smile. ‘Sir Graham does not care that the child should be seen by men. And she does not wish it. An instinct of innocence, Mistress Somerville.’
‘Still,’ said Kate, ‘it won’t do her much good to perish, however modestly unsurveyed. What do you suppose a herb woman can do?’
It was logical enough, in its way. Joleta’s system, the governess explained, was used to Maltese remedies: the old brews common to nomads which even her convent, in all its medical sophistication, had allowed. And these a member of the queer sisterhood of gypsies might well know. ‘Oh, dear,’ said Kate finally. ‘I suppose we’d better get Trotty Luckup.’ She paused. ‘She’ll have to travel from Yetholm, and she’s an old gypsy rogue. You’ll have to pay her quite a lot.’
Donna Donati smiled, and with one cool hand took the liberty of straightening Kate’s half-attached sleeve. ‘I have dealt with many rogues in my years,’ she said. ‘Do not concern yourself.’
The widow Luckup arrived two days later on muleback, stayed the night with Joleta, and went back the next day without grumbling, accompanied, as Kate later found, by three silver plates and a pair of her dead husband’s thick woolly breeches; which alone in her room she wept over, ridiculously, before blowing her nose and sailing forth to see how Joleta did.
Joleta, blessedly burning with new life, had eaten her first light meal for a week and was sitting propped up by her pillows, running her fingers over Kate’s lute and singing, absurdly, the extemporized praises of Trotty. Richard had been right. Quiet and sick and very young, the vein had not shown. But the girl in her own right, and apart from the heavenly gift of her looks, was a person of character.
As the days of recovery went by, Philippa, at Kate’s wish, spent a good deal of time with Joleta. Abrupt, forthright as her mother without, just yet, her mother’s saving grace of humility and wit, Philippa sat at a loss and studied the other girl like a farm labourer at a flower show, while Joleta Reid Malett, whose courage was of the order of her brother’s and whose self-discipline, on occasion, went far beyond her years, willed herself better, rose, walked, dressed and moved to the garden, sang, played and indulged in a ferocious gift ofmimicry, talking to all and everyone she met, from the kitchen boy to Kate’s stubborn steward, and lit Flaw Valleys as with Mediterranean sunlight from within.
To Philippa she told a little of her
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