Chapter 2
2
I did not apply myself, although Damienne fussed and the music master shook his head. My own virginal reproached me with its silken wood and painted legend Musica Dulce Laborum Levamen, for although music was labor’s sweet reward, I would not practice. My writing was blotchy, my needlework uneven. At twelve, I had improved, but I was not excellent at anything. I knew this because another girl had come to live with us. Her name was Claire D’Artois, and she was clever, and her mother taught us both.
Claire was one year older, so in writing, she had the advantage. (Damienne said, No, she works diligently.) She was beautiful, so the music master praised her. (Damienne said, She is talented and beautiful as well.) If she had been fair, I would have hated her, but her cheeks were rosy, her hair black, and her eyes dark. Claire’s hands were strong and capable, not elegant. She had a look of health and fresh air, nothing fainting or refined. When she arrived, I hoped that she would play with me, but her sturdy looks deceivedme.
I asked if she would come to the stables.
My new companion shook her head.
I invited her to climb the tower stairs to see the fields and trees and the green river far below.
“Oh no,” she said with perfect modesty, as though she would never willingly see anything.
I told Claire I had found a rat’s skeleton—and she recoiled in horror. She would not touch animal, or bone, or anything unclothed. She sat instead for hours at our instrument or in her chair close to the fire screen. There she would sew while I told stories of the cellars with rusty irons fastened to the floor. She listened, but she did not stir.
I admired her for reading silently. I coveted her quick hands and marveled at her self-effacement. “It is nothing,” she would say of her own needlework and music-making, and then I was jealous of her modesty. I envied her in everything, but what I envied most was Claire’s good mother. Jacqueline D’Artois was tall and nunnish. She had a long, melancholy face, but learning burnished her so that she glowed subtly. She knew Latin, Spanish, and Italian. Her writing was perfect, her voice low and pleasing when she read aloud.
Although she was accomplished, my teacher was not proud. Even her smile was reticent; her long chin seemed to disappear. Neat and kind, she taught me with her daughter, and although Claire was far superior, her mother never held her up as an example. Such was Madame D’Artois’s tact. But knowing Claire to be more skilled, more pious, and more musical, I understood my teacher humored me.
I approached Madame D’Artois while Claire was practicing her music and I said what anyone could see and hear. “I am a fool, and Claire knows everything.”
Madame D’Artois replied, “You both have much to learn.”
“No,” I said. “I am a dunce. I don’t deserve to study.”
My teacher murmured, “That is not true.”
“It is! I know it, and you know it.”
“That is not for us to say.”
“But I will!”
Claire’s mother bowed her head because she could not answer that. She might rework my stitches or correct my writing, but she would not agree I was a fool.
“You know I’m right,” I said.
Madame D’Artois did not answer. Even as I raged, she would not contradict or criticize. She could not because I came from a great family.
Then my cheeks burned. Claire and her mother slept together, ate together, read together, and spoke of saints and ancient history. They were a pair and needed nothing but each other. As for me, I had fine slippers, silk gowns, and more land than I could see. Even my finch lived in a gilt cage, but when I looked at Claire and Madame D’Artois, I felt like a beggar at the door.
That night when Damienne combed my hair, I bent my head and cried.
“What is it?” Damienne asked.
I said, “They are each other’s company, and I have nobody.”
“I am not learned, true enough,” my nurse answered, “but you have me.”
Now I felt even worse, because I had been careless with my nurse’s heart. Miserably I said, “Forgive me.”
“Why are you jealous of your ladies?” Damienne chided.
“Because Claire knows so much more than me.”
“Learn from her,” said Damienne.
“And she is good, and she plays well. She can do everything.”
“Be like her.”
“It’s impossible,” I declared.
“Not if you work,” she told me.
And so it proved, as gradually I began to follow Claire’s example. I tangled up my thread, but I continued over weeks and months until I learned to prick my fabric evenly. Doggedly, I read and reread our lesson book until the words began to speak inside me. If you want to be considered wise, behave wisely and chastely. Be humble to all. Be truthful, courteous, and amiable…
I worked a pomegranate in crimson thread. With perfect knots, I fashioned every seed. I learned to raise my stitches so that my embroidered fruit was round and ripe and fine—and then to set my work aside as though it did not signify. I learned to write so that my words were clear and flowing—and then to say that I wrote poorly. To play my music perfectly and say I could do better. All this to imitate Claire and her good mother, for I saw what they held dear. Patience, excellence, humility.
My hours were ordered now. Serene. We worshipped at our house chapel, kneeling together in that tall narrow place, its ceiling triple height, its peaked window aspiring to heaven—but for private devotion, we prayed in our rooms. There we had an altar with our own image of the Virgin. This image occupied me when my attention wandered, and I gazed upon her many a morning, for her eyes were green and her hair gold, and I thought, The Virgin is not my mother, but she does look like her. Secretly, I took her for my own because I had no other picture.
When days were cold, we embroidered leaves and vines with silken flowers blooming. When afternoons were fine, we walked in our walled garden, immaculately planted. We strolled gravel paths between close-clipped trees where all was measured; all was still. Within stone walls, no winds could batter our white roses. They bloomed until they dropped of their own accord, scattering petals at our feet.
“The flowers are a lesson,” Madame D’Artois said because she loved sacrifice, and roses surrendered gracefully. On fine summer days, our teacher taught us martyrs—those shot through with arrows, those stoned to death, those burned even as they prayed. She was melancholy, but I was diligent and learned to match her manner, even if I didn’t share her mood.
Our teacher taught us scripture, and I repeated prayers by rote. She extolled every virtue—but when we read of temperance and patience, I whispered to Claire, and sometimes she whispered back and smiled. Now that I was quiet, she was not afraid of me.
After lessons, I would tell her what I thought or wondered, and she never hushed me.
One afternoon as we sat at our work, I said, “What is the earliest you can remember?”
Claire closed her eyes to ponder, and I looked at her dark lashes.
At last, she opened her eyes. “My father’s death,” she told me.
“How did he die?”
Her voice was hushed. “With candles all around his bed and prayers upon his lips.”
“What did he say?”
“He sighed. And that was when I saw his soul rising from his body.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“How could you tell it was his soul and not smoke from the tapers?”
Claire said, “The smoke was gray; his soul was white.”
“How lucky you are,” I whispered.
This startled her. “We were ruined when my father died.”
“Forgive me,” I said in some confusion. “I meant lucky to remember him.”
After her father went to heaven, Claire traveled with her mother to live and serve in other houses. For a time, Madame D’Artois waited on the King’s own sister, Marguerite, at Béarn. There Claire had seen cakes covered in gold leaf and held a book no bigger than her hand. This Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, had favored Claire with a ring graved with her own initial M . The ring was pure gold, and Claire wore it always as a charm.
Claire had no inheritance, but she had seen the world. She had feasted and watched ladies at chess and heard music played beyond compare. She had walked through rooms warmed by fires the whole winter and slept in sheets scented with lavender. We loved to talk of this. One summer day, we cut sprigs in the garden and slipped them between our own sheets, but the leafy twigs crumbled and shifted, and Claire’s mother had the servants shake them out, for, she told us, “I am not a saint, and I will not sleep on sticks.”
“She declares she’s not a saint,” I told Claire as we walked together in the garden. “But she behaves like one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mother is so good and quiet.”
“That is not being a saint,” said Claire. “That is being a lady.”
“But she is sad.”
“Perhaps,” Claire said uneasily.
“Does she miss the court and Queen?”
“I cannot tell,” said Claire.
“You cannot tell? Or you cannot tell me?”
Claire did not answer.
“What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?” I asked.
“I answered that already. It was my father’s death.”
“No, that was the earliest thing you could remember.”
“Couldn’t it be both?”
“It could,” I allowed. And then, I stopped on the gravel path. “Why don’t you ask me questions?”
She flushed. “Because it is not my place.”
“Isn’t your place with me?” I demanded, imperious as I was then. “And shouldn’t you ask if I require it?”
She hesitated, and then, cautiously, she turned my question back on me. “What is the worst thing that ever happened to you ?”
“Not my father’s death,” I told her. “Nor my mother’s.”
“No?”
“No, because I was too young to understand.”
“Then what is the worst?”
I stood there on the path. For a long time, I considered, because I enjoyed having a question for myself. “Not having sisters,” I said at last.
“Is that true?”
I nodded.
Claire did not speak. She said nothing but offered me her hand, palm up. For a moment, I could only look, and then I covered hers with mine.
After that, we shared clothes and news, and our opinions. Whispering, reading, sewing, walking, we were inseparable, and we began to leave the older women out. You are learning to behave, said Damienne, and she seemed pleased and hurt and proud. As for Madame D’Artois, she was watchful.
“She is always considering us,” I told Claire as we read our book of lessons.
“She is considering the future,” Claire said. “As she must.”
We kept our eyes on the page. Our heads bent together as I whispered, “What does she tell you?”
“Nothing yet,” Claire whispered back.
“Would you repeat her words?”
“If she does not require secrecy,” Claire murmured. And I was disappointed in her answer, although it was right and good.
I was still jealous of my friend for having her own mother, and I feared Madame D’Artois, who knew so much. But in her reticence, my teacher allowed Claire to tell me what she would not say directly. In this way, she let her daughter warn me.
Claire chose a fresh summer day to speak. We walked in the garden, but despite the perfect sunshine, she looked downcast.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t want to say.”
“Is it your mother? Is she ill?”
“No, she is quite well.”
“And you?” I asked anxiously.
“I will miss you,” she confessed.
Now my worries fled because I thought missing was something I could prevent. “We will not be parted,” I assured her. “Because I will not let you go.”
She twisted the gold ring on her finger. “I am not leaving.”
I stopped walking. We stood together on the path as I began to understand. “I am not fifteen.”
“Even so.” Claire lowered her voice. “My mother knows a lady in the Montpellier house, and your betrothed is fully sixteen, tall as a grown man. His father has written to your guardian about your dowry.”
“But Roberval is away at sea.”
Claire drew her arm through mine and whispered, “He is not. He has returned.”