Chapter 5
5
With this gift came a long reprieve, a year and more. The cold relented; the sun beat back the winter nights, and I turned sixteen. That spring, I hired a barber to operate on Damienne. The poor woman cried and covered her face and said that she would rather die, but I refused to let her. I ushered in the burly man, and his assistant held her down, despite her screams. Claire hid, but I watched the barber wrench and break Damienne’s diseased tooth. I saw him pull out shards while her dark blood filled the basin.
When it was over, Damienne closed her eyes and slept, pale as though her life had drained away. No tears came. No sound. That night and the next day and the next, my nurse lay in a trance. And now Claire crept back to watch and wait.
“How brave you were,” she told me.
I was surprised. “I wasn’t brave.”
“You stayed.”
“I had to,” I said, “because it was my fault.”
“Her tooth?”
“The barber. I brought this suffering upon her.”
“The pain is over now,” said Claire.
But I felt no relief. I was afraid Damienne would die, as she preferred. Each day I tried to feed my old nurse broth, and I paid the maids to heat pans to warm her feet. I read aloud, and Claire prayed earnestly with her mother until, at last, the blood and swelling ceased. The sick tooth no longer throbbed and pained her, and Damienne praised God and lived.
“Do you thank me now?” I asked lightly.
“No,” she said. “I would not endure another surgery. Not even to save my life.”
Then I rejoiced because my old nurse was herself again.
—
I was seventeen and Claire eighteen when we had new summer gowns. A bowlegged tailor came to measure us. He spread out fabric and Claire chose a light-blue linen, but I had silk rich and smooth as molten silver. Each day we waited for the tailor to return, to fit and to embellish us. Claire’s sleeves were simple, at her request, but mine were slashed to reveal ivory fabric underneath. When our tailor finished, we delighted in our clothes, and I took Claire’s arm to promenade in the garden. Now, when we walked, our tenants’ youngest daughters lifted their faces. They had scarcely noticed us before, but the children stared in wonder as Claire and I passed.
These girls were eight and five years old. Suzanne was clever, quick, her eyes black and knowing, while little Ysabeau was soft and fair with silken curls. Even in the garden these children dressed like ladies, in brocade and necklaces with pendant jewels. We came upon them where they were collecting petals, and they forgot their play and stood on the path to gaze at us. Claire bent her head, but I met their eyes, for I was proud of our fine clothes. I thought, I will show you who we are.
“Do you know my name?” I said.
The children shook their heads.
“I am Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval, and this is Claire D’Artois. I have lived in this house since I was born.” I lowered my voice so their grim-faced nurse, Agnès, couldn’t hear. “And I know all the secret places.”
“Which secret places?” Ysabeau whispered back.
“I cannot say, but I can teach you if you like.”
“What can you teach?” asked Suzanne.
“Music. History. Theology.” Claire turned to me, astonished, but I said, “If you come to our rooms, we will have lessons.”
“We will ask Agnès first,” Claire corrected me. “And she will ask leave of your mother.”
Our teaching was just a whim when we began. We were like girls playing with dolls. At first, the sisters came up each day for an hour, and in that time, Claire taught scales on the virginal, and I found scraps for each to practice writing. But soon the little ones came up for the whole morning. Then we read with them and embroidered together. Sometimes, we would pretend that we were nuns and our pupils novices, and we would pray together solemnly.
I said, “Now close your eyes.”
Suzanne protested, “But you are not closing yours.”
I smiled. “How can I, if I am not sure of you?”
Ysabeau puzzled, “Who will close them first? If we are all closing our eyes, how will anybody know?”
Claire told her, “Close your eyes and do not think of anybody else, and God will know because he knows everything you do.”
The girls closed their eyes and bowed their heads, and so did Claire, but I looked upon my friend. With open eyes, I prayed for Claire’s composure because I was always anxious, dreading but not knowing when Roberval would summon me away. I had been little once like Suzanne and Ysabeau. I had thought myself secure. Now I wondered how much longer I would live in my own house. At night I dreamed of Roberval’s cold hand, his surprise to hear me speak. In my dream, I asked, “Why do you laugh?”
—
That summer, our students wore gowns honeycombed with pearls, and we did up their hair. “Lovely!” Claire told them, and they were so young they did not disavow the compliment. We showed Suzanne the glass, and her face grew serious, as though she realized her future in an instant and she was now betrothed and wed. We held the glass for Ysabeau, and while her soft curls were wispy, her face still babyish, her eyes widened as though she saw an older girl.
For a moment, no one spoke, and then, suddenly, the children were themselves again, clamoring to show their mother. “Let’s go down together,” Suzanne said.
“Oh, I could not,” Claire demurred.
“Then you come,” Ysabeau told me.
“There is no need to go,” warned Damienne, but alas, I did not listen. I was pleased with my handiwork, the alchemy we practiced at lessons, transforming children, and I wanted credit.
Downstairs I went boldly. Into the long gallery I walked, following my students to their mother’s chamber where servants ushered us in.
“Children?” Madame Montfort sat curtained in a bed like a pavilion. Her hair was fair and fine, her hands so small I could not imagine them employed in anything. She was like a bird in a nest, her mattress bolstered and pillowed, her floor muffled with reeds woven in a checkered pattern, black and red.
“Come,” she called, and the girls ran to present themselves. They showed off their elaborate curls and then the scraps of paper covered with their names, and finally, they ran back and presented me.
“I thank you for your teaching,” Madame Montfort told me as I curtseyed.
“Your daughters learn well,” I said.
“Tell me what you need for lessons.”
Ten gold pieces, I thought immediately, but I demurred, “Nothing. Nothing at all. We teach for our amusement.”
“Let me send materials,” said Madame Montfort. “Linen, pins, and thread.”
I inclined my head in thanks. “A bit of paper, if you wish.”
Then Agnès took the girls away, and I took my leave as well, but I did not return to the tower stairs and the little rooms allotted me. Too bold, too curious, I slipped into the great hall to stand a moment in that vaulting space.
There I saw the dark table and the smaller one, both bare. Sun streamed through the high arched windows, and I turned my ruby ring to catch the light as Roberval had done. I thought surely this ring was a talisman to withstand my guardian.
“Are you playing jeweler?” The girls’ elder brother, Nicholas, startled me.
I slipped the ring onto my finger.
Too late. “Where did you find that?”
“The ring is mine,” I said because I was not a child or a thief.
Nicholas was beautiful, with tawny hair and hazel eyes. He walked with a careless swagger as though he would rather ride. He could not have been much older than I was, but he was tall, rich, and insolent, and he looked down on me. “Why are you here?”
Now I should have hurried off, but I replied. “I live here, as you know.”
“These are not your rooms.”
“Your sisters come to mine.”
He frowned when I invoked his family. “What do you know of them?”
“They are my little students.”
“I do not see them here with you,” he said.
“Your mother—”
“Do you mean my stepmother?” he asked.
“Your stepmother spoke to me.”
“As you wish,” Nicholas answered carelessly.
“And praised me,” I added intemperately.
“Would she praise you now?” He meant, Would she approve your standing here alone with me?
It was unjust to blame me for the conversation he’d begun, but I could not accuse him.
I turned to go but stopped as he stood before the door, preventing me.
“No, stay.”
In confusion, I looked up at him. Did he mean to punish me?
“Tell me something,” Nicholas said.
The Montforts’ son was standing close. When I looked into his eyes, I was afraid—but he did not touch me. He changed his tone entirely, asking, “Who is your companion? What’s her name?”
Her name! I drew back with indignation. He would ask Claire’s name, and yet he knew already. He’d seen her! Modest though she was, Claire could not escape his view. Nicholas Montfort had glimpsed her in the stairway, in the garden. Spied her from his window. And now he inquired of her because she was lovely and gentle and had no protector except for me. I said, “I will not speak of her.”
“Please,” he implored, but I was not deceived. He had insulted me, then scoffed at me for answering him. How, then, did he think that I would serve him and betray my friend? I rushed through the door, brushing past him as I ran into the gallery.
Nicholas did not pursue me, but I raced up the tower stairs to get away.
“What is it?” Claire asked when I arrived at my own chambers.
Breathing hard, I told of my encounter, and saw my friend’s dismay.
“You did your best,” Claire’s mother said.
But I knew it wasn’t true. I had done wrong entering the hall, attracting Nicholas Montfort’s attention.
“Why did you go there?” Damienne chided.
Downcast, I said, “I wouldn’t tell him anything.”
But I learned that silence was poor protection. Our little students arrived the next day with a letter. When Claire unfolded it, we saw a verse about a stag shot through the heart. I thought Nicholas must have copied this because the rhymes were good. The young man wrote with elegance.
“Won’t you answer?” Suzanne asked.
“It is not my place.” Claire handed the letter back.
“I asked Madame Montfort for paper, not for poetry,” I told Claire when the girls had gone.
Claire said, “Better not to ask for anything.”
“Forgive me,” I told her for the thousandth time.
“You could not have known,” Claire said, but I did not excuse myself.
“What can I do?” I asked Madame D’Artois.
“Nothing,” she answered, and it was true. There was nothing to be done. Nothing was the best and only remedy. To stay upstairs and out of sight.
A servant arrived the next day with a book of verse, but Claire said, “No, I am unworthy,” and sent the man and book away.
“What if he writes another letter?” I asked.
“I will not answer him,” Claire said.
“And if he appears here at our door?”
Claire’s mother spoke gravely. “Then I will beg Madame Montfort for relief. I will kneel before her.” But I thought, What will kneeling accomplish? Nicholas was not a child to instruct. We had no way to approach his father, and his young stepmother could not command him.
We had no recourse but to pray—and I, who had never been devout, now begged the Virgin to be merciful. I knew as well as Claire and Madame D’Artois that the young man’s passion was entirely self-interested. He would never marry Claire. He would have her virtue if he could—but make an alliance with a family like his own.