The Bee and the Orange Tree

by Melissa Ashley

  A sound of laughter and there was Lise, walking closely beside Father Étienne, turning her pretty head to look up at him. Marie Catherine was reminded of his visit to the brothel and steeled her resolve. The priest expressed his condolences, and she brushed them away. From her bag she removed the veil Matthias Carlier had sent for Nicola to wear to her execution, the letters he had written for Marie Catherine to pass on. To her immense relief, Father Étienne confirmed that he would be acting as Nicola’s priest.

  ‘The bishop’s thankful I’m stepping in on his behalf. He talks in flourishing sermons, but when it comes to consoling a condemned prisoner, he’s not quite able to muster our Lord’s strength.’ Taking her fingers in his, as if in preparation for his duties the following day, he enquired if she had anything else for him to deliver to Nicola.

  She allowed him to hold her hands, even though he squeezed them too tightly for her comfort. Drawing in a breath, her eyes downcast, she spoke her blasphemous request. She could not watch the priest’s expression change as she explained herself.

  ‘While I have every respect for the religious conversion you profess Nicola has made,’ she said, ‘and that the prayers you will offer tomorrow will take care of her soul, I fear it’s not nearly enough. Your parishioner – and my dear friend – is to be tortured. Please, I am willing to beg,’ she implored. ‘Will you help us?’

  ‘It would be a mortal sin,’ replied Father Étienne, dropping her hands and moving away from her. He sat back against the bench, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.

  ‘It would not be your first,’ countered Marie Catherine, her voice grave. ‘We’re not asking you to perform black magic. I am not a witch.’

  Father Étienne wrung his fingers through his grey hair. He glanced at her face, a tide of secrets washing behind his eyes. But she saw through the murky water all the way down to the floor of that river, the slimy-skinned eels winding through the reeds, the mossy, barnacled timbers of a sunken boat, the silver wriggling flash of a school of fish.

  ‘If you’re unwilling on my behalf, and on behalf of your parishioner, then might you consider it as a favour to Angelina? She’s tormented by the verdict. Put yourself in her shoes.’ Marie Catherine knew immediately that she had touched a nerve, though she had no choice but to apply further pressure. She reminded Father Étienne of Angelina’s troubles at Saint Anne’s, explained how the suicide of her friend had almost caused her to turn her back on God. He had promised to help them, and look at what had happened – the Catholic Church had all but signed Nicola’s death warrant. Assisting them to carry out their plan was the least he could do.

  Marie Catherine lowered her eyes again. She would count to one hundred, awaiting his response. If he still needed convincing, she was prepared to again raise the matter of his visiting the brothel. It felt as if she had stumbled into a war between men and women, and she was merely girding herself for the next battle. The more Father Étienne resisted, the faster the blood in her heart pumped, her determination to convince him as deadly as any strike from a sword. She sensed the bounds of reason loosen; she could see how outlandish her proposal was, and yet she could not change course on the campaign to have her demands met. Even if it meant reminding the priest of his failures, humiliating him through and through.

  ‘I just told Father Étienne I’m no witch, but perhaps I lied,’ commented Marie Catherine.

  Angelina stood at the kitchen table, dressed in a maid’s skirt and blouse, an apron tied at her waist. Her medical kit lay open and she had been pounding herbs. ‘What did he say?’ she replied, tracing a finger over the text of one of the medical manuals she had borrowed from the priest.

  Marie Catherine removed a little brass box, in the shape of a seashell, from the pocket bag tied to her belt and placed it on the page her daughter was reading.

  ‘Well done, Maman,’ Angelina whispered, flipping open the catch and checking the contents. ‘It’s perfect.’

  Marie Catherine enquired if any messages had been delivered in her absence, and Angelina pointed to a small pile of envelopes on the table.

  ‘Is it difficult to prepare?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Angelina, glancing at her, watching as she opened the first envelope. ‘I read several formulae to check on the dosage, but the apothecary’s preparation is ready for use. No wonder the tincture’s so expensive – it has powdered ambergris, gold and pearl mixed into it. And a lot of brandy.’

  Marie Catherine nodded, her lips pressed together in concentration. Deidre had written that there were several seats available if they wished to watch the execution together. They would be viewing it from an apartment belonging to a friend of Pierre’s that overlooked the Place de Grève, where the scaffold was to be erected. There had been an explosion of demand to hire such places, and the owners were asking as much as ten pistoles for a viewing spot, more than their quarterly rents. They would have to let Deidre know immediately; she had been inundated with requests and the positions were filling quickly.

  ‘I am glad to help Nicola, of course, but I must say, I think she was a fool to attempt such a thing,’ said Angelina, eyes on her work. ‘As though she would not be found out.’

  Marie Catherine put the letter on the table. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Come, Maman. She has every motive, and there are witnesses. You do not truly think her innocent of the crime, surely?’

  ‘Of course I do. What do you imagine I’ve been doing these weeks in rushing around and trying to have her freed? Speculating like this is beneath you. I raised you to know better.’

  Angelina made a sound from deep inside her throat. Was she scoffing? She did not look away from her task. ‘Perhaps you were masking your own guilt, trying to make it go away. Like your other mistakes.’

  Marie Catherine drew a chair out from the table and sat down, her legs weak. ‘If you think for a moment I had anything to do with the attack on Claude Tiquet, well—!’

  ‘Well what?’ demanded Angelina, in a low voice. ‘You’ll send me back to Saint Anne’s?’ She wiped her hand on her apron. ‘Well, Maman, I have news for you. I won’t be going!’ Her daughter stood glaring at her, her arms spread apart, her knuckles tightened into fists and pressed against the table’s surface. She was breathing heavily.

  ‘After this?’ said Marie Catherine, sweeping her hands to indicate Angelina’s medical equipment. She offered a small smile, perhaps with levity she could reach her daughter.

  Angelina’s defensive posture relaxed. She looked away. ‘I didn’t really think you were involved. Alphonse suggested it to me, because you asked him to assist with Nicola’s case.’

  Marie Catherine recoiled. ‘The conniving little beast. He should keep to writing fairy tales,’ she muttered. From an outsider’s viewpoint, perhaps her immense concern about Nicola’s predicament seemed a little unusual. But she had been carrying out her duty as a friend.

  Angelina recovered her composure. She asked Marie Catherine to not think poorly of Alphonse. ‘It’s a natural conclusion to draw, and he’s not the only one, I imagine, given what you did to Papa.’

  ‘What I did to your papa?’ Marie Catherine gave a shrill laugh. ‘Please, tell me what new crimes he claims I’ve committed against him?’

  ‘It’s an old one, Maman. Which has been kept secret from me. His incarceration in the Bastille?’

  There was a heavy silence. ‘Have you finished the preparation?’ asked Marie Catherine, her voice brusque.

  ‘Almost,’ replied Angelina.

  ‘Have the courier deliver it to Father Étienne. And then join me in my chamber. We have letters to write.’

  Angelina nodded meekly. Her face was flushed; her hands trembled as she folded away her medicine kit.

  Sophie helped Marie Catherine shuffle up the stairs, settling her into the chaise longue in her chamber. Although it was early afternoon, Marie Catherine asked her maid to pour her a large glass of brandy. Sophie then unfolded a blanket across Marie Cathe
rine’s legs, placing the writing tray over the top. Marie Catherine would not tax Angelina with the task of transcribing the letters she needed to write, to Marguerite du Noyer, to Deidre and Theresa, in which she planned to negotiate a reduced price for a viewing position at Nicola’s execution. The situation was nothing short of mortifying but must be faced.

  Angelina sat opposite her, though further away from the fire, writing a letter of her own. Her knees were propped on a footstool and she wound her hair around her fingers as she composed. After Marie Catherine had collected her jumbled thoughts together, when she had organised her defence into a semblance of cohesion, she asked her daughter how long she had known the details surrounding the circumstances of Baron d’Aulnoy’s imprisonment.

  ‘Not very long, Maman. And I’ve not been told the story. Only that you and Grandmere were involved.’

  She had known this hour of reckoning would come with her youngest daughter, as it had already with Deidre and Theresa. She had paid the Baron to secure his silence, but it seemed the imminence of death had loosed his lips.

  ‘You must understand that I was just a girl, a thorough provincial, when I first arrived in Paris,’ began Marie Catherine. She paused dramatically. ‘My marriage to your father was forced, arranged between himself and your grandmere. I was just thirteen when my own Papa died. Mother had our estate auctioned: the furniture, the paintings, the horses, all sold. And then two years later, it was me, traded like a chandelier or Turkey carpet, for coin. Whatever fancies I had cultivated about how I might live when I grew up did not count a whisker.

  ‘I was fifteen – recall yourself at that age – when I learned to perform the matrimonial duties of a wife. Whether from cowardice or indifference, I could never decide, your grandmere neglected to prepare me for what lay in store. As if she assumed the fibres of my heart were knit into the same design as hers, she who kicked her legs apart for any pomaded, idle chevalier who so much as glanced her way.’

  ‘I’ve never heard you speak so unkindly about Grandmere,’ Angelina interrupted, her voice a whisper.

  ‘Brace yourself, my dear,’ replied Marie Catherine, her eyes dark with peril. ‘I’m only just beginning.

  ‘My experiences were not unusual for a girl of my station. Like all but the most fortunate of women, I buried two infants. But you know this. I had barely a moment to grieve, for I was immediately with child again. All might have turned out differently if it were not for your grandmere and papa constantly arguing over who had the greater claim to my inheritance. I recall the time but poorly. I was frequently sad and exhausted; all I wished for was sleep and to be left to myself. I was no longer a child, but not yet fully mature, and I was trapped in a treacherous land between the two, by turns arid as a desert, and then awash with floodwaters. I did not recognise the waif I had become. All she wanted was to survive. She let herself be influenced by the wiles and whims of those who professed to love her most.

  ‘I was pregnant with Theresa when Mother concocted her plan. She discovered François had stolen one hundred thousand livres of her money in a single transaction. While she never wasted the opportunity to insult my husband, nor to express her regrets that it was his name signed to my marriage contract, something changed in her attitude, and she vowed that this theft would be his last. She tried to have our marriage annulled, but neither church nor state would comply.

  ‘Your father liked to voice his frustration with France’s incessant fighting with Spain and the Netherlands; he could be detailed in his criticisms about the King raising funds from the nobility to fill his war chest – he worked as a comptroller, so it was perhaps only natural. He’d also been a loyal solider in his time. Mother, hearing his complaints on one too many occasions, invented a scheme to entrap him for speaking out against the sovereign. Perhaps this would land him in the Bastille a while, and she could tie away her money.

  ‘I cannot entirely blame her, for I allowed her to convince me her plan was the only solution to my woes. Perhaps I would be granted the solitude of desertion. Forgive me for not properly considering the consequences. I could not see past my fourth pregnancy in as many years. I had already buried two infants and did not think I could weather the loss of another. Being François’s wife seemed to be a sentence of constant childbearing and I could not stand that as my future.’

  ‘Papa told me you hired men to trick him into making seditious speeches,’ admitted Angelina.

  ‘If only that were the end of it,’ said Marie Catherine. ‘He had friends of his own intervene with the King, and a hunt was called for the scalps of the fellows who conspired to have him jailed. The men were apprehended and tried; they named your grandmere and me as co-conspirators. Though I was almost ready to give birth, I was made to flee Paris or risk being sent to the Bastille myself.’

  ‘What if your plan had succeeded? What would you have done? He could have been executed, you would have blood on your hands.’

  Marie Catherine paused, put off balance by the question. There was more to the story. Silently, she begged that Angelina not press her for every last detail. If she told her what had really transpired, she would lose her forever. She needed to change tack. ‘Can you understand that I would never advocate for Nicola to follow in my footsteps?’ she whispered.

  ‘Hence your fight for Nicola’s freedom,’ said Angelina, raising her eyebrows. ‘It might have been you!’

  Marie Catherine let out a slow breath, nodding in agreement. ‘Precisely.’

  Angelina put down her quill, pausing thoughtfully. ‘Though I do not comprehend why you’re still financially involved with Papa. Why would you not sever things completely with him when you had the chance? Imagine the coin you would have saved.’

  Marie Catherine said she agreed wholeheartedly. ‘You have a fine mind, Angie. I have put that very case to your papa more times than I can recall. But he refused to forgive me. And I allowed guilt to turn me into an unwise judge – at least when it came to my purse strings.’

  Angelina folded the letter she had been writing. She adjusted her position on the chair, sitting up straight, her hands clasped neatly in her lap. She took a breath before speaking, ‘I would like very much to believe your confession, Maman. But I cannot say I’m satisfied. It’s as if you wish to turn me against Papa, when it was you who worked to bring about his downfall. How can this be true, when you continued to meet with him? I can only conclude that you’re offering me partial truths.’ She paused, tapping a finger to her lips. ‘Why do you seek to stain what few memories I have of him, especially when he is so unwell? He told me a peculiar story the other day. He said that when I was twelve, he tried to remove me from Saint Anne’s. He was prepared to bring me to his home and have me live there. As you were not. You preferred to have me out of sight, consigned, just like you tried to consign him, to a cell forever. You claim to have fled Paris. Where did you go? How did you fare? What did you do? There are so many holes in your story I’m left with more questions than answers.’

  A sudden draught blew through the chamber, slamming shut the balcony door. Marie Catherine jumped. Who was this canny stranger, holding herself with such poise on her chair? What events had forged the shining metal of her inner being? Not for the first time, she was impressed with her youngest daughter. She had made the right decision in introducing her to Parisian society. Such a rare individual was wasted on the Church.

  Marie Catherine met Angelina’s gaze. ‘Have you not listened to a word I have spoken?’

  Angelina glanced away, a flicker of impatience moving across her features.

  She softened her voice. ‘Your father did not mean for you to live with him. Whatever trinkets, whatever charming ruffles he had boxed and delivered to your room, they were no more than clever ploys. Whatever do you think his intentions were? When I learned he had planned to hold a coming-out party for you I was horrified. I protected you! You were a child and he would have married you off to one of his feckless old cronies. All I ever wished was for you to m
ake your own choices. I did not want to foist my own foul youth upon you. Can you not see it? Do you not believe me?’

  ‘I might have come to live with you. Did that idea not cross your mind? Did it ever occur to you I might be lonely?’

  Marie Catherine could find no simple answers to Angelina’s charges. Perhaps her daughter was correct. In her determination to save her from arranged marriage and early motherhood, she had failed to consider any other concerns. All that had mattered at the time was keeping her safe. At Saint Anne’s her innocence was guarded from premature destruction and theft, her education assured. ‘I thought you were content,’ she countered, ‘I thought you had a calling.’

  ‘I was pretending!’ shouted Angelina, slamming her writing tray on the floor and standing up. She stood before the portrait of Marie Catherine in her Spanish robes and medallions. ‘I didn’t know anything else!’ She turned around, angry blotches reddening the skin of her neck, ‘Did you ever pause to think how cruelly you treated me, having me edit your stories – you the great author! Tale after tale you sent me, all those bewitched maidens and princesses confined to towers, trapped in ugly skins – how well you captured their boredom, their ambitions, their painful isolation. But theywere all given their freedom, rewarded with love and permitted to return to the world. Did you ever pause to consider how I might feel? I wasthose women, I felt what they felt, every word of it. But the great fairy who invented them – my own mother – did not see fit to grant her own daughter the freedom she so easily granted her characters. I worked hard to make you proud of me, but it came at a price.’

  Marie Catherine sat stunned. How could she not know Angelina felt like this? How had she been so blinkered, so unaware of the suffering of her youngest daughter? And yet of course Angelina felt these emotions – Marie Catherine herself had created them, sewn them into her tales. For Angelina. To her complete astonishment, for the first time in months, she felt the stirring of an idea. Her fingers itched to grasp her quill.