My Brother's Crown (23 page)

The two women stepped into the apartment to find Estelle resting on the chaise lounge in the sitting area. They passed through the room quietly and quickly.

In the bedchamber, the baby was tucked beside a sleeping Amelie, the drapes around the bed pulled back to let in fresh air. Flames roared in the fireplace, making the room almost unbearably hot.

“Ah, peace,” Catherine whispered, quickly taking off her cloak.

“Momentarily,” Grand-Mère responded.

Catherine relayed Pastor Berger's words about the Good Friday service. Amelie stirred. Catherine lowered her voice even more. “I will stay here so you can go.”

Grand-Mère shook her head. “You will go.”

Catherine nodded. She hadn't expected her grandmother to leave Amelie. She certainly could do without the dragoons in the house, but she was enjoying the camaraderie of staying in Grand-Mère's room with Amelie and now Estelle too.

Catherine took her covering from her head and shook out her hair. “Perhaps this would be a good time to write to Suzanne.” She sat down at the desk and then glanced up at her grandmother. “What should I tell her?”

Grand-Mère put her hand to her chin. “Say I hope to go see her. I know it has been years, but she is still a dear friend. Maybe she will be able to help us.”

Her eyes met Catherine's and they shared a look of anticipation mixed with concern.

“Such a trip would depend on Amelie's recovery, of course,” Grand-Mère continued. “And the dragoons… I will not leave if I think that would put Amelie and Estelle at risk.”

“Of course not,” Catherine murmured.

“I suppose… tell her about Amelie and the baby, and that I must wait to decide about traveling until Amelie is well. Write that if I can travel I am not sure who would come with me. Say that I need to speak with her about… our current situation.”

Catherine nodded, taking a feather from the jar on the desk and running it along her cheek. Then she began to sharpen the quill with her small knife.

“Tell her I would like her advice.” Grand-Mère sat in the chair next to the desk. Catherine met her gaze. “If I cannot come in the next few weeks, I will put the matter in a letter, but I would much rather speak to her in person.”

Catherine set down the feather and opened the bottle of ink.

“Add more. Make it interesting. Your letters bring her joy.”

Suzanne had lost her husband the year before, and it clearly warmed
Grand-Mère's heart to know that Catherine's letters comforted her friend.

Grand-Mère stood and turned toward the bed. “After you are finished with Suzanne's letter, write to my brother in Paris and tell him I am considering a trip—nothing more.” Grand-Mère yawned then, her eyes watering a little. “I am going to rest while the baby sleeps,” she said. “There is a reason God gives newborns to the young and not to the old.” A few minutes later, she was on the other side of Amelie, tucked under the covers too.

Catherine thought through each sentence and chose her words carefully. She wrote everything Grand-Mère asked and then added more, about how beautiful the spring flowers were and about the walk across the river the day before. She left out being harassed by the dragoons—both times—though she did mention the dress shop and talked a bit about Janetta.
My friend has been to Paris and London too. She will go to Rome in the autumn.

Then she wrote about the market. She described how big the fish were and how pretty the greens looked in the farmer's cart.

Finally she told Suzanne that she hoped to meet her in person someday, but they would all have to trust God with the possibility of a trip and that she would write again soon.

As the ink on the last page dried, Catherine stared at Amelie and the baby. Grand-Mère once said she had always longed for a house full of children. When only the two of hers survived, she still hoped for a house full of grandchildren. But then both of her daughters-in-law died, leaving only Jules, Catherine, and Amelie between them. As neither of her sons remarried, that seemed to be the end of it—until now, at least, with the addition of a great-grandchild, tiny Valentina.

Jules used to say that Catherine had been spoiled after their mother died and that as the youngest she always got her own way—coercing her cousin Amelie to ride all over the countryside with her, visiting the print shop whenever she pleased, and speaking her mind all too often. He had teased her about it when they were younger.

But he had not held her independence against her then. In fact, he had encouraged it—just as he had encouraged her education. When
Catherine was fifteen and Jules twenty-two, their father died, saddling her brother with so much responsibility that it changed him into someone harsh and impatient and almost always angry. That was the man she knew now. But once upon a time, before all of that, he had actually been a pleasant sort, one who sometimes teased her, yes, but who also treated her with love and kindness.

Back then he was always playing the role of headmaster, making sure she was learning her lessons, giving her books to read, and expecting her to report on them. And then there was his secret code. When she was nine, Jules invented it to help her with studies. At the time, she believed him when he said it was unbreakable, though in retrospect she realized it had not been all that sophisticated. Pulling from surplus copies of booklets and pamphlets at the shop, Jules would take some leftover printed matter and a piece of graphite and then go through the text circling certain letters. When he was finished, he would give that text to her, and she would have to go through it herself, find each of the circles, write down their corresponding letters on a piece of paper, and then use Jules's formula—a designated pattern of counting off and crossing out various letters—to decode them.

If she did it all correctly, once she was finished she would have a secret message he had created just for her. Usually it was something silly, such as “… on the Bridge of Avignon, we all dance in a ring…” a line from a children's song she loved. Occasionally, though, it would be something more serious, such as a brotherly reprimand: “Young ladies walk, never run, especially at church.” Sometimes it was something exciting. “Look in the hall cupboard for a
petite gateau
.” She would run off to find a little cake he had hidden there for her earlier.

His plan worked. She mastered reading and writing and counting in no time and gained more independence in both thought and action because of her skills. Jules was quite proud of her. One time she caught him bragging about her to a client in the shop, saying how smart she was. “Too bad she is a girl,” he had added, “or we could use her to proofread our galleys before printing.” The fact that such a thought had even crossed his mind was a tremendous compliment.

She sighed. She missed those days. Now he was too serious to joke
or tease at all. Or teach her anything new or even reminisce about their childhood.

The baby stirred. Grand-Mère sat up and reached across Amelie, taking the little one in her arms before settling back down.

Catherine knew Grand-Mère did not want to leave Lyon. Did not want to leave the house she still longed to see filled with children. Did not want to leave those she employed and served. But unless by some miracle the persecution of the Huguenots came to an end, soon she would have no choice.

There was no denying the family was on the cusp of change. Catherine had been writing about their lives, little narratives on this and that, for as long as she could remember. She'd hung on to many of those pages over the years, keeping them together in a stack in the bottom drawer of the desk.

For now, she retrieved a fresh piece of paper to pen a new journal entry. When she was done, she slid open the drawer and added it to the pile, face up so that it wouldn't smear before the ink was dry.

It wasn't long before Grand-Mère was up with the baby. “Go tell the housekeeper we need another cot in here for Estelle. Get more cloths for Valentina and ask when she will attend to the soiled ones.”

Catherine found the housekeeper in the lounge, cleaning out the fireplace. The two maids had left a month ago, afraid to continue working for a Huguenot family. This housekeeper would likely soon follow suit, though if she did, Catherine would not be critical of her. Leaving would be the prudent thing to do.

She relayed Grand-Mère's instructions to the woman, who looked up from the floor with an expression of despair spreading across her face. “I still have the rooms upstairs to see to and your grandmother's chamber, plus all the sweeping and the other fireplaces. And the mending to do.”

“I will help,” Catherine said.

The housekeeper gave her a withering look.

Ignoring her implication, Catherine added, “The wet nurse is a seamstress. I will ask her to assist with the mending.”

“I'm not sure what your grandmother will think…”

“She'll be fine with it. Our lives are changing. It can't be helped.” Grand-Mère's eyes were too poor to sew anymore. Catherine could offer her assistance, but she had not mastered the skill enough to do finishing work. She hoped Estelle would be willing to lend her talents to the cause.

The housekeeper told Catherine to look on the top shelf of the cupboard in the hall for more cloths. “Then get the mending in the basket on the bottom.”

“
Merci.
”

A short while later, Catherine and Estelle were settled down at one end of the kitchen table with the mending while Cook sat at the other end, peeling parsnips to roast and serve with the fish. “The men do not want to be traveling back and forth between here and the shop,” Cook said. “So they will not be home for the noon meal. We will dine in the late afternoon, before church.”

“
Très bien,
” Catherine said, and then she added that her church would be gathering in a home tonight instead of at the temple.

Cook raised her head from her peeling. “Has it come to that already?”

Catherine shrugged. “At least for now.”

“What about your Easter service?”

“Oh, I hope it's at the temple.” Their building was simple and plain compared to the cathedral—too plain, in Catherine's opinion—but it was all they had. “Surely we'll be safe in the daylight.”

“Who knows anymore,” Cook said, picking up a carrot. “Except God. And why He is allowing all of this is beyond me.”

Catherine agreed with Cook but held her tongue, not wanting to sound heretical.

Estelle was quick with her needle, working on Jules's shirt while Catherine mended Amelie's chemise. After a time, Grand-Mère came for Estelle, who put away her mending and went to the bed chamber to nurse the baby.

“And perhaps a bowl of broth for Amelie,” Grand-Mère added,
turning to Cook. “She says she is not hungry, but she needs to eat something.”

Cook dished it up from the pot over the fire.

When Catherine entered the chamber a half hour later, the baby was fed and in Grand-Mère's arms while Estelle held the bowl of broth for Amelie, trying to coax her into taking just one bite.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

Catherine

G
rand-Mère chose to have dinner in her room with Amelie and Estelle, leaving Catherine and Jules to eat alone in the dining room.

“We need to hurry or we will be late for the service,” he said as they took their places across from each other at the table.

Catherine reached for the bell to signal the footman, which was usually Grand-Mère's job, but Jules snatched it away from her. Catherine narrowed her eyes at her brother. He was like a little tyrant, grabbing more and more control of both the business and the household. Worse, he could not see what he had become.

After he put down the bell, Jules bent his head in prayer. “
Merci, Seigneur,
” he prayed, “for Your sacrifice, for this food, and for loving us. Help us to love each other. Amen.”

Catherine wrinkled her nose. He seemed so hypocritical. Grand-Mère would chastise her if she said such a thing out loud, but she did not understand how her brother could be so cold one moment and then speak to God with such sincerity the next.

“Do you think it's safe for us to leave Grand-Mère and Amelie here?”

“I have the dragoons under control,” Jules answered.

Catherine raised her eyebrows. Did he fancy himself a miracle worker now? “Pray tell.”

He shook his head. She had thought him in denial, but this seemed more like pride to her.

“Did you speak with our solicitor today about Amelie's situation?” Catherine asked.

“
Oui.
”

“And?”

“It's none of your concern.”

Of course it was her concern, but she chose not to respond. The guards from the convent had not come to the house today to try to take her cousin back. Perhaps the solicitor had sent a letter to Mother Superior already.

They dined in silence after that, and when they had finished, Jules rang the bell once more. Catherine excused herself and headed down the hall to retrieve her cloak.