Written on Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Rachelle was swiftly beside her, trying to calm her. Usually Idelette was the composed one. This time her cheeks were flushed and the lashes on her pale blue eyes twitched nervously.

  Rachelle took her arm and led her back to her chamber.

  “Do not worry, sister. She has no idea that I suspect her. This summons should come as no surprise. I never finished the gowns Princesse Marguerite wanted me to make for her at Amboise. The dreadful rebellion and massacre took place and stopped everything. Now there is a journey to Spain.”

  “Spain!”

  “Oui.” Rachelle restrained a shudder. “There is to be a meeting about Marguerite’s marriage. The Queen Mother also wishes for a gown to wear when she is received by King Philip. Not that he appreciates such things, I have heard. He is dour, always wearing black. Perhaps it is his conscience. He is responsible for so many deaths in the Inquisition, he looks as though he is at a perpetual funeral.”

  For a moment, the brightness in Idelette’s pale blue eyes reminded Rachelle of her old spirit as she must have envisioned the creation of a gown for the Queen Mother of France. Then the look faded to concern.

  “When will this journey to Spain take place?”

  “She did not say in the summons. I suspect it will not be until after the colloquy this fall. Probably next spring.”

  “Our parents will be most upset over this. You will be at Court alone.”

  “Not entirely. Sebastien and Duchesse Dushane are at Fontainebleau, as is Andelot.”

  At the mention of Andelot, Idelette’s mouth tightened.

  “I will be able to visit you in Paris,” Rachelle continued. “You will be with Madeleine. And should she ever come to Fontainebleau, you could come with her. It is not often we can gather as three sisters.”

  “I should rather die on my bed than show myself enceinte to — to anyone who knows me at Court.” Her breathing came hurriedly with emotion. “I shall never be able to look them in the eye.”

  “It is not your shame. This came to you uninvited. You did not willingly play the fool.”

  “It matters not to me. The results are the same. I am enceinte. Even if I went to stay with Madeleine, what then? In a few months everyone will see. Should I walk about Court growing big with a beast’s child?”

  Idelette ran her palm over her stomach. “I used to dream of having enfants of my own, but little did I know it would end like this for me.”

  She looked up, firming her mouth. She entered her chamber and walked to her bed and sank onto the edge. There was an urn on the table, and she poured herself a glass of water and sipped it.

  Rachelle stood in the doorway, entered, and closed it. She stood for a moment, lost for words.

  “Nenette has gone to the weavers’ huts for Père and Mère,” she said quietly. “Will you come down to greet the comte?”

  “Non. He does not like me. I remember the way he looked at me when we were at Chambord. Undoubtedly, I am the only woman at Court he did not like. Why that was so, I cannot say, but I do not wish to be in his conceited company.”

  “Perhaps you misunderstood Maurice’s look, sister. There is not a woman with fairness he does not appreciate.”

  Idelette shook her fair head firmly. “Non, there was dislike in his eyes. I remember it well, and it was most unpleasant, I assure you.”

  Madame Clair was right. Idelette did need to get away from the location of her ordeal, but she would never appear in public now, not even if she went to stay with Madeleine until after the birth. Idelette had begun wearing somber colors which made her skin appear sallow. Her once soft mouth was too often seen drawn into a tight molded line, pinched at the corners.

  Rachelle’s anger festered at the thought of the selfish beast who had brought this change upon her sister. But then, if she began raising difficult questions about her own loved ones, why not also inquire why God allowed thousands of Huguenots to die at the stake, be torn limb from limb on the rack at the Bastille, or languish in a hundred other painful situations? Indeed, why only the Huguenots, why not also inquire of the Protestant Dutch? She could not pick and choose the situations that troubled her just because it was her sisters. They were all somebody’s sister, somebody’s brother.

  She remembered what Pasteur Bertrand said. The earth was in rebellion against God, Satan was still loose, prowling about seeking whom he may devour, and the fruits of sin were rampant and would run their course until the final judgment. And God’s redeemed were not yet removed from the results of sin. As God’s rain and sunshine fell on the just and unjust alike, so the sufferings that were the result of man’s rebellion came to all. But there the likeness ended and the great divide began;for God gave a promise to His redeemed, that as their loving heavenly Father, He would make all things, good and bad, dark and light, work together for good for those who were His own.

  “Where is the comte now?” Idelette asked.

  “Hmm? Oh. Downstairs. Look, Idelette, he expects to speak with you while he is here. Can you not merely show yourself at dinner tonight?”

  Idelette sank into the chair, pale and rigid. She shook her head firmly. “How can I? How can I possibly explain?”

  “There is nothing to explain. He has no idea. How could he? And besides that, is it not better that the true facts come out about what happened than to allow ugly whispers that will surely come instead? Even if you hide away for nine months, you will not be able to hide the enfant once it is born.”

  Idelette dropped her forehead into her hand. “I do not know. I am confused, afraid, so very angry — ” She clenched a fist. “My life is ruined.”

  Rachelle hurried to her and dropped to her knees beside the chair. “If I were in your place, I would be more than angry, ma chère soeur. If you do not wish to see him, you need not do so. But is it not wiser to speak the truth of what happened? Let the shamefulness of the Duc de Guise’s men come to light.”

  Idelette closed her eyes. “I cannot escape that shame. But there are ways for a child to be born in secret I have heard. They do it at Court all the time — a king’s mistress will have a child under a secret name away from Paris. Oh, why should this happen to me? It is unfair. Did I not pray every day? And did I not read our Bible in French, though I risked death?”

  “Bien sûr! But yes, you were more faithful than I, sister. Oh, do not think such hurtful things against yourself as though God allowed it to happen because you had sinned against Him. What happened had naught to do with your lack of dedication to the Savior, but because we live in a time when Satan has great wrath against us. He wants to ruin those whose faith remains steadfast in Christ.”

  “You are right. Oui! But oh, what will become of me, of this enfant?

  Should I not just end my life and be done with such shame?”

  “Idelette!” Rachelle rose to her feet and looked down at her sister.

  “You are not well. That is why you are saying these things. It will turn out, you will see. The Lord will help you. Somehow, someway, He will.”

  “How can this turn out for good? How?”

  “I do not know. But God’s Word can be depended upon in the darkest circumstances of life.”

  “What of my ruined honneur?”

  “Your honneur is not ruined. You were violated. Your honneur remains.”

  Idelette dropped her head against her hand again and let out a frustrated, angry breath. “What man will ever have me in marriage now?”

  Rachelle folded her arms. “Many, unless they are fools.”

  Idelette smiled ruefully. “My loyal sister.” She wiped her eyes and smoothed her ashy blonde hair away from her cheek.

  “Andelot Dangeau is twice the galant as any at Court,” Rachelle said.

  Idelette turned to her with a strange look. “Andelot . . . Oui, a fine boy.”

  “He is no longer a boy, sister. He is quite handsome and dependable.

  If a woman were looking for a husband, then Andelot would be a fine catch.”

  “But,
he is yours.”

  “No, he is not.”

  “He is too young for me anyway.”

  “Only younger by a few years. Once you have the enfant and time passes, by then he would make a wonderful husband!”

  Idelette actually smiled at her. “Ma chère sister, the matchmaker. Non, he is yours. He has always been yours. He is most attached to you.”

  She was not the matchmaker, but her parents. She wondered what Idelette would say if she told her their mère wanted Andelot to marry Idelette.

  “I confess, I want another,” Rachelle said wearily.

  Idelette looked at her. “You ask far more than I, ma soeur; you ask for the moon and stars too.”

  “Since we like to discuss impossible things, why not?” Rachelle smiled.

  Idelette dabbed her eyes with her gathered handkerchief. “I am feeling sorry for myself, that is all.”

  “I am hoping you will see how God has not changed just because your circumstances have. If God was faithful, true, and good a week ago — then He is so now. Bertrand always says God is not capricious.

  Remember, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Things turn out far differently than our plans, and there is naught we can do but trust and go on.”

  Idelette was the calm, stoic daughter, the sensible one, the prayer warrior, the Bible student, the daughter who could sit with Père and the Geneva minister who came to call and discuss doctrine sensibly when they asked her. How often she had seen the pride in Père’s eyes as he looked at Idelette, and the minister showed his admiration. When Père had brought theology students home from Geneva, it was to Idelette he introduced them first. Idelette, who sat with them carrying on discussions about Calvin’s Institutes. It was sober Idelette who surged ahead in the spiritual race, growing in patience. How many times Rachelle had heard Père say that “Idelette will marry a pasteur, wait and see. The finest pasteur in all Geneva’s theology school.”

  And now Idelette was the injured lamb, the perplexed saint who cried out in confusion and doubt.

  “I thought I knew my Lord . . .” Idelette crumpled her handkerchief and passed it from one hand to the other as she frowned. “Then something like this happens, and suddenly I am a ship torn from its moorings, tossed by wind and storm. He allowed this nightmare to come upon me.

  If anything more happens to us, I shall swear we are all related to Job.”

  As she mentioned Job, Idelette turned toward her. Her eyes burned with an intensity Rachelle had never seen before. “Why did not the Lord protect me?”

  Rachelle was struck by the rage in her question.

  Rachelle spoke after several minutes of silence, not facing her but watching the curling flames destroying the wood on the hearth, oddly thinking that it was in the wood’s ruin that warmth came to her.

  “You ask me to answer so profound a question? I cannot. I will ask a question of you.”

  Idelette looked up at her with a puzzled look. “Ask me a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “What question?”

  Rachelle faced her soberly. “You are grieved because you say God did not protect you. Why did our Lord not protect them all? If you can answer why He did not send angels to protect them all, you may have your answer why these things happened to you.”

  Idelette wrinkled her brow.

  “Monsieur Lemoine used his fields to allow God’s people to meet, knowing it could mean his arrest. He even built a new barn to keep us from the weather. Yet the Lord permitted him to die by the sword. Now his wife is a widow. She will lose the fields unless she and her son recant.

  Children died, and Madame Hershey — and our petite sister Avril.” She said her name with a small choke. “And what of Cousin Bertrand’s injuries, and James Hudson who arrived from England just in time?” She turned toward the thin, drawn face of her sister. “And me.”

  Idelette looked at her and widened her eyes. “You? What befell you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You just implied — ”

  “That naught happened to me. And it is what troubles me. If I had not been late in arriving, if it had not been that Mère asked me to wait a few minutes longer to bring the scarf to Madame Hershey, what happened to you may have happened to me, or I might be dead like Avril.

  Sometimes I feel guilty I was not there . . . As if it should have been me instead of Avril.”

  Idelette closed her eyes and shook her head showing disbelief. “I vow, you are hard to understand, Rachelle. You should be counting yourself favored. God’s Providence. That is why you were late.”

  “Yes, but I would not say I was favored. It may be that, unlike you, I could not endure such a trial, so I was kept from it.”

  “Who can answer such questions?”

  “Did you not say just minutes ago that we are all like the offspring of Job? Then perhaps part of the answer is that your faith is being tested — and it is much more precious than silver or gold.”

  Rachelle thought it wiser to urge Idelette to speak, for she was not ignorant of the truth.

  Idelette dropped her head into her hands and shook it silently.

  The silence grew, the dry wood cackled like an old witch, its sparks going up the chimney into the black, starless night.

  Finally she spoke, her muffled voice uttered: “I would tell you God does not change with the winds of adversity. He is not capricious. He is good and faithful today, as He was yesterday, and He shall be tomorrow.

  The events of our lives are as the roaring wind upon a feeble leaf, but God holds the wind in His fist. I would tell you that evil will hound our steps until the moment of our death, but that our Savior is greater than all the hosts of evil that Satan can hurl against us.”

  Rachelle remained a moment longer, pondering her words, then, feeling there was nothing left to be uttered, turned and went to the door. She looked back. She was remembering the verse from Ephesians 6:14 that had come to be used as a motto for suffering Huguenots after a woman prisoner had carved the words into the wall of her cell.

  “Tenez ferme,” she said softly.

  Idelette turned her head and their eyes met. A smile came to her lips.

  She nodded. “Merci, ma chère Rachelle.”

  Rachelle left her sister to wrestle with her trials, with a faith sorely tried, but in Rachelle’s mind, standing firm in the faith.

  WITHIN TWO DAYS, RACHELLE was ready for her journey to Fontainebleau. Her personal trunk was packed with her finest Court frocks and slippers, while the bolts of Macquinet silk and velvet and lace were arranged carefully within the enclosed coaches.

  Nenette was going as her grisette, and twelve-year-old Philippe, who had lost his mère in the barn attack, was now with her as an aide who would also run her errands.

  On a sunny morning, the coaches were lined up and ready for departure. Comte Maurice had his men-at-arms in stately position as though the caravan were bringing royalty itself. Dressed grandly as ever, he was bidding Père Arnaut adieu and vowing his life would be exchanged for the safety of Rachelle should so great a sacrifice be in his fortune to make. It was not at all clear to Rachelle whether her père believed him. She knew that he was not impressed with Sebastien’s neveu and was not pleased to be sending Rachelle off to Court, while he and Clair went to England, and Idelette to Paris.

  A lettre arrived from Madeleine which finally helped to decide the matter for Idelette. She would not remain at the château as she had wished, but would go to Paris to stay with Madeleine and petite Joan until Père Arnaut and Mère Clair returned from England with Cousin Bertrand to attend the colloquy.

  Arnaut and Clair would not yet be leaving for Calais and England, for there was yet much preparation to ready the silkworm eggs and leaves and new mulberry seedlings for the voyage. It was deemed wise that Idelette should travel with Rachelle as far as Orléans and then go on to Paris, while Rachelle would go to Fontainebleau.

  It was clear that Madame Clair was troubled about sepa
rating from her daughters at such a time. Both Rachelle and Idelette tried to assure her they were able to care for themselves.

  Rachelle walked toward the coach holding her hand case of burgundy velvet with her name inscribed in gold, which contained all manner of sewing equipment: special needles and pins, cutting instruments, and spools of colored silk thread from Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. She also carried Grandmère’s gold thimble as a reminder of whose steps she followed — which affected the other mission on her heart at Court.

  She did not pause long enough to consider what she would do if she could prove the Queen Mother had poisoned Grandmère. Even so, she was bent on knowing the truth.

  As Rachelle came down the veranda steps she saw that Idelette was being helped inside the Macquinet family coach by Maurice himself.

  Idelette wore a loose-fitting cloak, unusual for such a warm day, and she wondered if Père Arnaut had spoken to Maurice of his daughter’s condition. She had noticed a solicitous behavior toward Idelette that he had never shown before.

  Now, as Idelette entered the coach, having said her adieus to her parents, Rachelle bid her mère au revoir.

  Clair drew in a breath, but her dignity and elegant composure remained. Taking Rachelle’s arm, she drew her aside.

  “You will not mention Grandmère’s death or Madeleine’s frailty, Rachelle. Do not give her cause to suspect for a single moment that you look upon her with even a butterfly lash of suspicion, understood?”

  “Mère, do not worry; I have been in her presence many times, and I know what to do. But if I always avoid mention of their illness, and what befell them, she may grow suspicious.”

  “This is most distressing. I had longed to bring you with us to England to meet the Hudson family, and James writes that he hoped you could be there when the gown is presented to Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, Mère, and I as well. It seems that all our paths are leading us in different directions.”

  Rachelle put her arms around her and kissed her cheek.

  “The separation will not be long, God willing. We will all meet again for the colloquy at Fountainebleau. I shall pray that the trip to Spain does not come this year. So be wise at Court, and give no cause to the fickle gallants to think of you in their frivolous ways. Keep your faith to your own heart and count much on Comte Sebastien and Duchesse Dushane. Ah, but we must not live in fear but trust in the good hand of our Father through all uncertainty. His presence is with you, ma petite, and His angels, may they keep your steps.”