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5d0761a
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I've wed his two empty boots.' 'That you havena,' said Janet, Lady of Buccleuch, lowering her voice not at all in the presence of two hundred twittering Scott relations as they gazed after their vanishing husbands. 'They aye remember their boots. It's their empty nightgowns that get fair monotonous.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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49da788
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My dear, my dear,' said Kate, but to herself. 'I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie; and a knife to cut it with.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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fcd72d5
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He'd heard of this woman. The Dame de Doubtance, they called her: a madwoman and a caster of horoscopes. Gaultier gave her house-room and men and women came to her from all the known world and had their futures foretold--if she felt like it. She had given some help once to Lymond, on her own severe terms, because of a distant link, it was said, with his family. Plainly, a crazy old harridan. But if she was going to tell Lymond he ought to f..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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0b645b7
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Philippa's letter, from an afflicted conscience, was not very much longer. ... if I don't look for him, no one else will. You know I'm sorry. But I couldn't leave that little thing to wither away by itself Don't be sad. We're all going to come back. And you can teach him Two Legs and I Wot a Tree, and save him the top of the milk for his blackberry pie. He'll never know, if we're quick, that nobody wanted him.... Which had, Kate considered ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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5640928
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Disdainful of fur and fretful, privately, about the cost of his buttons, Jerott Blyth sat like the born horseman he was, and watched discreetly for trouble.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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7833b6f
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Jerott?' Two steps away, Jerott stood perfectly still. 'I hear you.' 'You sound like a schoolmaster,' said Lymond's voice at his ear, with a trace of its usual lightness. 'It doesn't matter. Go on.' Jerott did not move. 'What were you going to say?' 'Something regrettable. I'll say it; and then we can both forget it,' said Lymond. 'You put up with a lot, you know. More than you should. More than other people can be expected to do.... I ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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7e5e15b
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He said, 'You have everything there is of me, save a little I gave to my people. Now you hold that as well.' And last of all, when he had released her and moved to the door, to stand outside where the sky was enclosed with thick hills and dark, heavy forests, he said, because he could not prevent himself, 'When next you stand by the sea, say goodbye for me.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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64de5bc
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And deep within him, missing its accustomed tread, his heart paused, and gave one single stroke, as if on an anvil.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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7d96d86
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The war between England and Scotland was in its eighth year and there had been no raid for ten days: it had seemed possible to get married in peace.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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d57cc17
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A Scott, having got his bride pregnant, was apt to file her as completed business for eight months at a time.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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8e4654c
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She got in, as she had persuaded Jerott Blyth to bring her half across France, by force of logic, a kind of flat-chested innocence and the doggedness of a flower-pecker attacking a strangling fig.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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85a8f6f
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Intentions, yours or anyone else's, don't matter; they never matter and never excuse.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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46db6ef
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The crossroads may not be of your own seeking, but at least the road you choose will be your own.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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0fc4857
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We have reached the open sea, with some charts; and the firmament.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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bd8d5ca
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Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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1e68726
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Philippa Somerville was annoyed. To her friends the Nixons, who owned Liddel Keep, and with whom Kate had deposited her for one night, she had given an accurate description of Sir William Scott of Kincurd, his height, his skill, his status, and his general suitability as an escort for Philippa Somerville from Liddesdale to Midculter Castle. And the said William Scott had not turned up. She fumed all the morning of that fine first day of May..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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c82a001
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The darts which make me suffer are my own.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9a8ea29
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There was a silence. Then: 'What you are saying,' said Philippa slowly, 'is that the child Khaireddin would be better unfound?' The Dame de Doubtance said nothing. 'Or are you saying,' pursued Philippa, inimical from the reedy brown crown of her head to her mud-caked cloth stockings, 'that you and I and Lymond and Lymond's mother and Lymond's brother and Graham Malett would be better off if he weren't discovered?' 'Now that,' said the Dame..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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347f073
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When you ran that roof race with me you started with one stocking marked, a loose row of bullion on your hoqueton, and your hair needing a cut. Your manners, social and personal, derive directly from the bakehouse; your living quarters, any time I have seen them, have been untidy and ill-cleaned. In the swordplay just now you cut consistently to the left, a habit so remarkable that you must have been warned time and again; and you cannot pa..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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28a9637
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Lymond surveyed the grinning audience with an air of gentle discovery. "Is there no work to be done? Or perhaps it's a holiday?"
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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b9f3557
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Nobody ever," said the Dowager sorrowfully, "credits me with normal thought processes. When a mysterious man creates a royal scandal on the banks of the Lake of Menteith with the keenest ears in Scotland strolling utterly oblivious--by her own account--in the locality, I begin to wonder. I also wonder when a delicately reared child sends a court into fits with a riddle which I invented myself."
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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3171a46
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Two mornings later, entering her daughter's room, Kate was struck by the flatness of the bed, and then by the sight of a folded paper laid dead centre of the untenanted pillow. Unfolded, it proved to be a witty and delightfully-written apology from her daughter for upsetting the household, coupled with the information that, having some business of vital importance to transact north of the Border in the immediate future, she had taken the li..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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5631c02
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Lion-hearted; her tremors braced with virtue, Philippa trotted on.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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352c303
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Jerott's eyes and Philippa's met. 'When I meet my friend,' said Jerott Blyth carefully, 'there is likely to be a detonation which will take the snow off Mont Blanc. I advise you to seek other auspices. Philippa, I think we should go down below.' 'To swim?' said that unprepossessing child guilelessly. 'I can stand on my head.' 'Oh, Christ,' said Jerott morosely. 'Why in hell did you come?' The brown eyes within the damp, dun-coloured hair ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a0de6f5
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So: 'Why did you laugh?' demanded Philippa, and shook Jerott's hand off her arm. 'Oh, that?' said Lymond. 'But, my dear child, the picture was irresistible. Daddy, afflicted but purposeful, ransacking the souks of the Levant for one of his bastards, with an unchaperoned North Country schoolgirl aged--what? twelve? thirteen?--to help change its napkins when the happy meeting takes place.... A gallant thought, Philippa,' said Lymond kindly, ..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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aa3ffc0
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To pass over grief, they say, the Italian sleeps; the Frenchman sings; the German drinks; the Spaniard laments, and the Englishman goes to plays. What then does the Scot?' To Jerott's mind sprang, unbidden, a picture of the sword Archie Abernethy was trying to clean at this moment below. 'This one,' he said, 'kills.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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99fbebe
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I don't like this war. I don't like the cold-blooded scheming at the beginning and the carnage at the end and the grumbling and the jealousies and the pettishness in the middle. I hate the lack of gallantry and grace; the self-seeking; the destruction of valuable people and things. I believe in danger and endeavor as a form of tempering but I reject it if this is the only shape it can take.
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danger
endeavor
gallantry
grace
war
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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09a4bc3
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The progress of Sybilla though a market was the progress of worker bee through a bower of intently propagating blossoms. Everything stuck. From the toy stall she bought two ivory dolls, a hen whistle, a rattle and a charming set of miniature bells for a child's skirts: all were heroically received and borne by Tom, henceforth marked by a faint, distracted jingling. From the spice booth, set with delicious traps for the fat purse, she took c..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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cdaab67
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Kate slid to her knees, pulling the child's head to her breast, her mouth in its hair. "Pippa. Pippa, we're awful fools. What Father means is that truly nothing we have ever done can harm us, and Mr. Crawford has mixed us up with someone else. But you know what unstable-looking parents you have. He doesn't believe us, but he says he'll believe you. It's not very flattering," said Kate, looking at her daughter with bright eyes, "but you seem..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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c01abd2
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I could see you drop dead this minute from paralysis of the brain cells and burst into uninhibited applause.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9f0ba79
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What does anyone want out of life? What kind of freak do you suppose I am? I miss books and good verse and decent talk. I miss women, to speak to, not to rape; and children, and men creating things instead of destroying them. And from the time I wake until the time I find I can't go to sleep there is the void--the bloody void where there was no music today and none yesterday and no prospect of any tomorrow, or tomorrow, or next God-damned y..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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141ffff
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But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands.
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despised
fate
scotland
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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35e1eaa
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To save our friends' nerves, I suggest we meet on a plane of brutal courtesy. It need not interfere with our mutual distrust." -Francis Crawford of Lymond"
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lymond
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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1097e10
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There was a silence. 'You didn't as,' said Jerott at length. 'But I would have forgone even the body for the sake of the mind. And I would have claimed neither body nor mind, had I discovered a soul.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a016934
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It was a tragic and annihilating war, in which intellect fought naked with intellect, and the blows fell not upon the mind but upon the soul.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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1fb46bc
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Habits are the ruin of ambition, of initiative, of imagination.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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83a38d3
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Subject to intelligence, nothing is incalculable.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a829ca3
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Violence in nature is one thing, but among civilized mankind, what excuse is there?
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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9d78889
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Philippa allowed polite regret to inform every muscle. 'Whatever day it occurs,' she said, 'I feel I have a previous engagement.' 'May I congratulate you,' he said agreeably, 'on your evident popularity.' 'Anything I can do,' Philippa said, 'to save you from the exhaustions of pluralism.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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a5d6bef
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Don't you think you should retire again? The first retiral seems to have got mislaid.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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519f320
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This time, after a moment, he called her bluff. "Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better." Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye. "That would make her sorry for you?" "It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don't you think?" "Snakes don't," said Katherine inconsequently. "I hate snakes." "And yet you feed the..
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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6455e64
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It doesn't do my self-esteem much good though, does it?' 'Your self-esteem has had a lifetime of steady attention,' said Philippa abstractedly.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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784c050
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Whatever fascination Lymond held for her mother, it had no power at five in the morning.
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Dorothy Dunnett |
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0cea108
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And as he followed after the Irishwoman, Margaret Erskine, most levelheaded of women, picked up a Palissy vase, looked at it earnestly and smashed it clean on the floor.
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Dorothy Dunnett |