Read Online The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier - Free Book Online Page B

— though now that I thought on it, I wished we would be wearing completely different dresses so that there would be no comparisons.
‘There's nothing wrong with this neckline,’ I said. ‘That's not what I want to speak to you about.’
‘What, then?’ Claude went and stood by the window.
‘If you continue to be rude I'll send you to live with your grandmother,’ I said. ‘She'll soon remind you to respect your mother.’ My mother would not hesitate to take the whip to Claude, heiress to Jean Le Viste or no.
After a moment Claude muttered, ‘ Pardon , Maman.’
‘Look at me, Claude.’
She did at last, her green eyes more confused than angry.
‘Béatrice told me what happened with the artist.’
Claude rolled her eyes. ‘Béatrice is disloyal.’
‘ Au contraire , she did exactly as she should. She is still my woman, and her loyalty is to me. But never mind about her. What ever were you thinking? And in your father's chamber?’
‘I want him, Maman.’ Claude's face cleared as if there had been a storm there and now the clouds had been blown away.
I snorted. ‘Don't be absurd. Of course you don't. You don't even know what that means.’
The storm returned. ‘What do you know of me?’
‘I know that you're not to mix with the likes of him. An artist is little better than a peasant!’
‘That's not true!’
‘You know too well that you will marry the man your father chooses. A noble match for a nobleman's daughter. You aren't to go ruining that with an artist, or with anyone.’
Claude glared at me, her face full of spite. ‘Just because you and Papa don't share a bed doesn't mean I too must be dry and hard as a shrivelled old pear!’
For a moment I thought I would hit her across her plump red mouth so that it bled. I took a deep breath. ‘ Ma fille , it's clearly you who knows nothing of me.’ I opened the door. ‘Béatrice!’ I bellowed so loudly it carried throughout the house. The steward must have heard it in his storerooms, the cook in his kitchen, the grooms in the stables, the maids on the stairs. If Jean were in he would certainly hear it in his chamber.
There was a short silence, like the pause between the lightning and the thunder. Then the door to the next room burst open and Béatrice came running through, the ladies behind her. She slowed when she saw me standing in the doorway. The ladies stopped at intervals in the room, like pearls on a string. Jeanne and Petite Geneviève remained in the doorway to my chamber, peeking out.
I reached for Claude's arm and pulled her roughly to the door so that she was facing Béatrice. ‘Béatrice, you are now my daughter's lady-in-waiting. You are to remain with her at all hours of the day and night. You will go with her to Mass, to market, to visits, to the tailor's, to her dancing lessons. You will eat with her, ride with her, sleep with her — not in the closet nearby but in her bed. You will never leave her side. You will stand by her when she pisses in the pot.’ One of the ladies gasped. ‘If she sneezes, you will know it. If she belches or farts, you will smell it.’ Claude was crying now. 'You will know when her hair needs combing, when her courses run, when she cries.
'At the May Day feast it will be your task, Béatrice, and all my ladies, to see that Claude comes close to no man there, either to speak to him or dance with him or even to stand next to him, for she cannot be trusted. Let her have a miserable evening.
‘First, though, the most important lesson my daughter must learn is respect for her parents. To that end you are to take her immediately to my mother's at Nanterre for a week — I will send a messenger to tell her she may be quick with the whip if she needs to.’
‘Maman,’ Claude whispered, ‘please don't — ’
‘Quiet!’ I looked hard at Béatrice. ‘Béatrice, come in and get her packed.’
Béatrice bit her lips. ‘Yes, Madame,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘Bien sûr.’ She slipped between me and