Judith Merkle Riley (4 page)

It is true that certain of my old schoolmates made sport of my height and boniness; but I note that they were those of bad complexion and ill figure, and count them as simply jealous of my excellent clear skin and large dark eyes, my plenitude of richly curling black hair, and above all of my melodious singing voice, which surpassed theirs. Besides, I was certainly handsome enough to be the third bride of Thibault Villasse, who, as I have said, was not only lacking in youth and physical beauty, but also in spiritual development.

“So, you are refusing to sign?” said my father, rather menacing this time. I thought I heard my sister Laurette suck in her breath, but could not see where she stood in the shadow of the immense, carved sideboard beyond the table. Dinners of bread and water, imprisonment in a remote chamber, nightly beatings—these are not things I wish to make part of my life. Therefore I am always agreeable to father.

“Oh, never in the world. I yearn only to make you happy and hasten the joyful occasion of my wedding. But I know that Monsieur Villasse craves to make me welcome in a way that befits his nobility, just as I crave only to serve the happiness of his home and person.” My father’s eyes rolled, as if he were saying, now what the hell does that mean, and I smiled, a small but contented smile.

Villasse, seeing that smile, beamed upon me and said, in a purring voice, “Why, we’ll have the notary here make an addendum, with the condition that you can decide to hasten the day of our union at any time, if you so desire.”

“You’re giving in to her? Stubborn girls should be shown the whip, I say. And none come stubborner or flightier than Sibille. You are starting ill, Monsieur Villasse.”

“My bride shall have nothing but respect. Demoiselle, when the volumes of religion arrive, perhaps you will be able to read them to me in my easy hours, and instruct me further.” Father looked shocked. Villasse beamed upon him. The notary scratched. I signed. “Wine, to celebrate our union,” said my betrothed, in his silky-smooth voice, and mother nodded and smiled a wan smile. As I sipped and they toasted, my Spiritual Self began to think that perhaps I might civilize him after all. A delay so that he might value me the more, then the nightly reading of Uplifting Works aloud, perhaps regular attendance at mass. These things have been known to soften a man’s soul, my Higher Mind assured me. Or perhaps, if you can put it off long enough, something might happen to get you out of it, whispered my Lower Self.

***

An infinitude of intervening possibilities can occur in six months, I thought, as I set my card book, the
Giardino
di
Pensieri
, out on the big canopied bed I shared with my sisters. Ah, would that I, like Penelope, had an infinite tapestry to unravel by night, I sighed to myself as I laid out the cards. Why, I thought, let’s see—May is almost gone, but there’s June, July, August, September, October. That’s practically forever. Besides, not only was my botanical collection coming on well, but I had begun a series of drawings of the wing bones of various birds, hoping to discover the secrets of flight.

“Ah, there you are, Laurette. The four of deniers—that’s money after a wait, I’m sure. We don’t even have to look it up—I remember that one from the book.” Beneath the bed there was a contented munching and groaning sound. Gargantua, large of body but small of brain, was consuming an ox bone. Useless in the hunt, useless on the watch, he was born the size of a large lapdog, and since then had done nothing but eat and grow. No one knew when he would quit. But he was a devoted creature, so mother wouldn’t let father get rid of him.

“Oh, how wonderful to be educated,” sighed Françoise, who had just turned ten that summer.

“Did the nuns teach you to read cards?” asked Isabelle, who was twelve and disliked sums.

“Oh, no, nuns don’t believe in cards. They’re strictly forbidden. But then, they don’t know everything, do they? Cakes and pet kittens and cards, they do find their way in.” I picked up the card book and leafed through it. “Dominique gave me her deck when she renounced the world. And Cousin Matheline gave me her book last year when she left to be married. Her husband hates fortune-telling.”

“I saw her going to the cathedral two days before we moved,” announced Laurette, who at eighteen was the beauty of our family. “She was riding a gorgeous white hackney, behind a groom in silk livery. She greeted me. They say she is very rich, now that she is married.”

“Ladies never discuss money,” I said. “It is a lower taste.”

“Honestly, sister, you have no sense at all,” Laurette answered. “One can’t do anything without money, even sit all day and daydream and scribble, the way you do. As for me, I’ll take the lower and let the higher take care of itself. Now, lay out some more cards for me. Tell me I’ll be rich, and mistress of a great house, and attend at least two—no, three balls a week, and have gowns and jewels and horses all of my own.” I sighed. Not only do I not look like my sisters, I don’t even want the same things.

It is difficult to describe the burdens of a civilized soul born into entirely the wrong family, by some mischance of a jesting God. It’s not as if the Almighty might not with profit have placed me in a more genteel and congenial setting. Willingly I would have sacrificed my place as eldest, vineyard and all, for, perhaps, birth as the only daughter of a Gentleman Philosopher or a wellborn Doctor of Theology, rather than one of the overstock of a patriotic warrior’s excessive family. Indeed, on my father’s side, so numerous were the cousins that the family estates had been subdivided into crumbs, so to speak. Poverty is the curse of ancient but numerous lineages. Of that whole side of the family, only Aunt Pauline had money, and she had married it, by sacrificing rank to fortune. Father regarded her as one dead, though her offerings from the tomb, as it were, were not scorned as greatly as her person.

It was mother who had been the heiress, bringing my father several farms, a vineyard with a spring and a ruined tower, and my grandparents’ town home. But all of her rich inheritance except for La Roque-aux-Bois had fallen to father’s extravagance, the requirements of his position, the need to purchase for our brother Annibal a commission in the fashionable company of Monsieur de Damville.

It was only thanks to grandfather’s foresight, the vineyard had been left to me, while I lay in my mother’s womb. And before he died, he had set the little inheritance so thickly about with legal entanglements that it could not be separated from my person. A strange gift, one that had resulted not in my good fortune, but in my betrothal to a gross being of purchased title who wished to extend the boundaries of his estate.

But the cries of strangers and the sound of horses in the courtyard broke into my Contemplation of Fate. Even reverie and speculation must be sacrificed in a household of barbarians.

“Look, look, who’s in the courtyard!”

“Annibal! He’s back, and he’s brought people with him!”

“The horses, Sibille. They are splendid! Just come look!”

Clustered in the upstairs window, we looked down on a grand sight.

Six armed foot soldiers were escorting an immense dappled gray destrier, led by two grooms holding his silver-trimmed bridle. His ears were trimmed down in the military style, and his mane shaved, and his immense shoulders stood a good three hands above those of any of the other mounts in the party. Behind the destrier trailed a mounted groom, his trainer, and ahead of him rode two officers: Annibal, our brother, in his short, embroidered cloak, flat plumed hat, and high boots, and a stranger, even better mounted and more grandly fitted out than Annibal.

“Annibal, Annibal!” cried Françoise and baby Renée, and he looked up and waved. The stranger looked up, too. He was splendid: eagle-eyed, dark mustachioed, and commanding. He rode with an easy arrogance and surveyed the world as if he owned it.

“Oh, who
is
he?” sighed Isabelle.

“I swear, I’m half in love already,” said Laurette.

For myself, I was a betrothed woman, so I did not allow myself to think anything

***

“So, when Monsieur de Damville heard that Le Vaillant was for sale, he entrusted us with the purchase, on behalf of his father, the Constable.” Annibal put his knife into the pigeon pie and cut another piece. “Ah, this is wonderful; home cooking is always best.”

“Annibal, why did you never tell me your sisters are all beauties?” said the stranger, raising his wine cup and glancing knowingly at Laurette, who blushed.

“Monsieur d’Estouville, if you will only stay a few more days, you will find the hunting around here admirable.” The remains of empty platters sat all around father, who was feeling mellow.

“Annibal, do stay a bit longer,” said mother. “We see so little of you nowadays.”

“Annibal, never refuse a mother’s plea,” said the stranger, smiling first at mother, then at father. “That’s a beautiful piece you have on the wall there. Italian, isn’t it?”

“Battle of Landriano. Took it from a Spaniard.”

“Those were great times, they say. It has the new wheel-lock firing. A great improvement. My father used to tell me how the harquebusiers would plant the guns on their stands, light the fuses, and then turn their backs for fear they might explode, rather than fire at the enemy.”

“A good mechanism, but tricky. One can’t risk leaving it uncleaned for a month, especially in damp weather, and I can’t trust it to a valet.”

Guns, hunting. The boring occupations of the barbarian mind, I thought. The only thing that remains to be discussed is dogs or falcons.

“Your mastiff there—he’s the biggest I’ve ever seen. Have you tried him on bear?”

“Gargantua, at a bear hunt? He’s the most useless creature God ever made. Does nothing but eat and grow. I tell you, he’d flee a rabbit, let alone a bear. I’d have drowned him long before now, but my daughters would howl and fuss.”

“Oh, we couldn’t have these delightful demoiselles unhappy for even a moment,” said the charming stranger, flashing us an ingratiating smile.

“We really cannot overstay—” Annibal was saying.

“I have a new peregrine I want to try at ducks. Do you like falconry, Monsieur d’Estouville?”

“I am tempted. After all, we can’t weary Monsieur de Damville’s new prize stud with forced marches, now, can we? A day more—tell me, what lure do you use in this part of the country?”

“For hawking at the brook? Mallard wings, and only mallard wings—so did my father and grandfather before him.”

“The wisest course—the weight of them is more satisfactory. So, Annibal, your father has tempted me to stay another day. The ducks—and this wonderful wine here. Where did you say it was from?”

“From a vineyard I have south of Orléans—not so far from Blois, actually. Perfect soil.”

“Ah, you can always tell the soil.”

“And the sun. The weather, this year, perfect for grapes. So tell me, M. d’Estouville, which bird would you find more profitable to train, one with a good conformation and bad plumage, or a bad conformation and good plumage?”

“There are those who’d be fooled by the plumage, but I’d take the bird with good conformation—it will have more staying power—”

“I had one once that simply refused ducks. Not that good-looking, either. I sold it to a neighbor who fancied it and thought he could train it. The first time it perched; the second time it raked off and was never found. Monsieur de La Tourette it was; have you heard of him?”

“La Tourette? Is that in the duchy? What is his family name?”

“Villasse.”

“Villasse. Ah, I see…” His voice dripped scorn.

But my ever-busy imagination had been set to dreaming about the little peregrine, circling, circling above Villasse while he sat on his horse, first summoning the bird with his glove, then shouting in rage, as she realized that nothing held her, and she flew blithely to freedom. I never heard the rest until Annibal said, “Sibille, Sibille—you will go with us, won’t you?”

“What? Oh, yes,” I answered, without even thinking.

“How splendid to have the ladies join us,” said the gorgeous Philippe d’Estouville, flashing his absolutely charming smile at me. I did not sleep all that night.

***

We were away when the letter from Villasse was delivered to mother. I imagined her putting her hand to her heart when she received it, and turning a little pale. But we were splashing into the reeds by the pond at full canter, sending the ducks scrambling into the air, where the falcons, already loosed, were waiting, flying in circles until the game should be sent up to them. Bright silver water flew in every direction, Laurette laughed and turned pink, and Annibal pointed up into the bright azure above.

“Look, she’s got one!” Father’s peregrine dove suddenly, catching a mallard in her claws, the force of her dive sending her into the water with the flapping, screeching duck.

“I told you she’s a bold one,” said father, riding into the water to save the peregrine, as it clutched tenaciously to the still living duck. With a thrust of his finger, he broke the skin of the duck and pulled out its heart as it convulsed in its death agony, feeding it to the falcon. Sunlight glistened on the leaves of the trees at the far side of the reedy pond. Already the ducks were returning to the water there, far from our horses, where the peregrines did not dare to pursue them. As if in a dream, I saw Annibal retrieve his bird, which had brought a mallard to earth in a flurry of feathers and hard-beating wings, as the mallard fought back with all its strength.

“There’s a sweet little bird,” said the stranger, riding up beside me, his eyes catching me with a knowing, sideways glance. Somehow, it didn’t seem to me that he was talking about birds. I lowered my eyes suddenly, and my face felt hot. Something inside me was trembling all over.

“My brother is a wonderful falconer,” I said.

“So am I,” he said in that voice of his, which gave it a double meaning. He flicked his gaze over me, then spurred his horse forward to congratulate Annibal. In a flash, I was hating myself, thinking, oh, Sibille, how could you, with your natural delicacy of expression and intelligence of spirit, have failed so miserably to say something witty, something light and charming that would keep him by your side for a moment more of conversation? On paper, your words flow in a sparkling torrent; in life, you are as dumb as a stick.