The Galliard by Margaret Irwin

Author:Margaret Irwin [Irwin, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780749013530
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2013-10-21T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

Darnley came into the room. As she laid down her book and sprang to meet him, she saw that he had come back quite different.

‘Harry, you’re not well. Don’t worry – I can easily explain. You know you said what a tedious business it would be – long speeches all so polite! I envy you, not coming.’

‘Not coming – what do you mean? Want to keep me out of it, do you? We’ll see about that.’

He stood there magnificent in white and gold, ‘but he is quite different’, she said to herself, and ‘I knew it. I knew this would happen.’ His eyes were staring over her head, vacant and blue as glass; his face sagged, his full mouth drooping open, his restless hands plucking nervously at his sleeves, his dagger, the tight buttons at his throat, unable to finish anything they began to do. Only his hair remained unchanged, that curling chicken-yellow hair that looked almost ridiculously young when he was fresh with riding, but now sat on that red heavy face as grotesquely as a wig.

It was impossible to dissuade him from coming. She could only hope the cold air would sting him fairly sober as they walked up the hill. But she would not be able to prevent him drinking at the banquet – it was bound to happen. And now it was happening and she watching it, talking to Rambouillet very fast so as to keep his attention, talking, talking – what about? Ronsard and du Bellay, of course: how lucky that she had just been looking, at them!

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