The Lady and the Unicorn. Tracy Chevalier
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it is a battle for love.’
‘I know nothing of love,’ Papa growled. ‘What would you have? I suspect you are familiar with it.’
I had an idea, and tapped Nicolas’ leg. After a moment one of the drawings floated to the floor. ‘Oh! Pardon, Monseigneur. I am so clumsy.’ Nicolas crouched down to retrieve the drawing. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘C’est mon seul désir.’ Then I bit him.
Nicolas stood up.
‘Is your ear bleeding?’ Papa said.
‘Pardon, Monseigneur. I knocked it against the table leg. But I have had a thought. What about “À mon seul désir”? It means—’
‘That will do,’ Papa cut him off. I knew that tone – it meant that the meeting had gone on for too long. ‘Show your changes to Léon and bring the finished paintings here a fortnight after May Day. No later, as we leave for Château d’Arcy by Ascension Day.’
‘Yes, Monseigneur.’
Papa’s legs moved away from the table. ‘Léon, come with me – I have things to discuss with you. You can accompany me as far as the Conciergerie.’
Léon’s robes swayed as he began to move, then stopped. ‘Perhaps we should remain here, Monseigneur. It’s more comfortable for discussing business. And Nicolas is just going, aren’t you, Nicolas?’
‘Yes, certainly, as soon as I collect the drawings, Monseigneur.’
‘No, I’m in a hurry. Come along.’ And Papa was gone.
Oncle Léon still hesitated. He didn’t want to leave me alone with Nicolas.
‘Go,’ I hissed.
He went.
I did not come out from under the table, but remained there on my knees. After a moment Nicolas climbed in to me. We gazed at each other. ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,’ he said.
I smiled. He was nothing like the kind of man my parents intended for me. I was glad. ‘Are you going to kiss me, then?’
He had me on my back and was on top of me before I could think. Then his tongue was deep in my mouth and his hands were squeezing my breasts. It was a strange thing. I had been dreaming of this moment ever since meeting him, but now that there was a body on top of me, a bulge grinding hard into my belly, a wet tongue in my ear, I was surprised by how different it felt from what I had dreamed.
Part of me liked it – wanted the bulge to push even harder, and not through so many layers of clothes. My hands wanted to touch every part of him – squeeze his cherry bum and measure his broad back. My mouth met his as if it were biting into a fig.
But it was a shock to have someone’s wet, thrusting tongue in my mouth, to have so much weight squeezing the breath from me, to have his hands touch parts of me no man had ever touched. And I had not expected to think so much when a man was with me. With Nicolas I found words accompanying everything we did – ‘Why is he doing that? His tongue is so wet in my ear,’ and ‘His belt is jabbing into my side,’ and ‘Does that feel good?’
I was thinking too of my father – of being under the table in his chamber, and of the value he placed on my maidenhead. Could I really throw it away in a moment, as someone like Marie-Céleste had? Perhaps that more than anything stopped me from truly enjoying myself. ‘Should we be doing this?’ I whispered when Nicolas had begun biting my breasts through the cloth of my dress.
‘I know, we’re mad. But we may never have another chance.’ Nicolas began pulling at my skirt. ‘They never leave you alone – not the daughter of Jean Le Viste with a mere painter.’ He lifted up my skirt and underdress and ran his hand up my thigh. ‘Now this, beauty, this is mon seul désir.’ With that he touched my maidenhead, and the surge of pleasure I felt was so strong that I was ready to give it up to him.
‘Claude!’
I looked behind me and saw Béatrice’s face upside down, glaring at us.
Nicolas pulled his hand from under my skirt, but he did not immediately jump off me. That pleased me. He looked at Béatrice, and then he kissed me deeply before slowly sitting back on his knees.
‘For this,’ Béatrice said, ‘I really will marry you, Nicolas des Innocents. I swear I will!’
Béatrice has told me the bodices of my dresses have become too loose. ‘Either you eat more, Madame, or we must call in the tailor.’
‘Send for the tailor.’
That was not the answer she wanted, and she kept her big dog-brown eyes on me until I turned from her and began playing with my rosary. I’d had the same look from my mother – though her eyes are shrewder than Béatrice’s – when I took the girls to visit her at Nanterre. I told her that Claude did not come with us because of a stomach ache that I suffered from as well. She didn’t believe me, just as I hadn’t believed Claude when she made her excuses to me. Perhaps it is always thus, that daughters lie to their mothers and their mothers let them.
I was just as glad that Claude didn’t go with us, though the girls begged her to. Claude and I are like two cats around each other, our fur always ruffled. She is sullen with me, and her sideways looks are critical. I know she is comparing herself to me and thinking that she does not want to be like me.
I do not want her to be like me either.
I went to see Père Hugo after I got back from Nanterre. As I sat down on a pew next to him he said, ‘Vraiment, mon enfant, you cannot have sinned so much in three days that you need to confess again already.’ Though his words were kind his tone was sour. In truth he despairs of me, as I despair of myself.
I repeated the words I had used the other morning, staring at the scratched pew in front of us. ‘It is my one desire to join the convent at Chelles,’ I said. ‘Mon seul désir. My grandmother joined before she died, and my mother is sure to as well.’
‘You are not about to die, mon enfant. Nor is your husband. Your grandmother was a widow when she took the veil.’
‘Do you think my faith is not strong enough? Shall I prove it to you?’
‘It is not your faith that is so strong, but your desire to be rid of your life that is. It troubles me. I am sure enough of your faith, but you need to want to surrender yourself to Christ—’
‘But I do!’
‘—surrender yourself to Christ without thought of yourself and your worldly life. The world of the convent should not be an escape from a life you hate—’
‘A life I detest!’ I bit my tongue.
Père Hugo waited a moment, then said, ‘The best nuns are often those who have been happy outside, and are happy inside.’
I sat silent, my head bowed. I knew now that I had been wrong to speak like this. I should have been more patient – taken months, a year, two years to plant the seed with Père Hugo, soften him, make him agreeable. Instead I’d spoken to the priest suddenly and desperately. Of course, Père Hugo did not decide who entered Chelles – only the Abbess Catherine de Lignières had that power. But I would need my husband’s consent to become a nun, and must get powerful men to argue on my behalf. Père Hugo was one of those men.
There was one thing that might still sway Père Hugo. I smoothed my skirt and cleared my throat. ‘My dowry was substantial,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I’m sure that if I became a bride of Christ I would be able to give a portion of it to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in thanks for the succour it has given me. If only you would speak to my husband …’ I let my voice trail away.
It was Père Hugo’s turn to be silent. While I