The Lady and the Unicorn

by Tracy Chevalier

  ‘I'm sorry,’ I said to my son. ‘I thought you were talking about Sight, where he has made the Lady look like Aliénor.’

  Everyone looked down at Sight, and Aliénor raised her head. ‘I was angry,’ I lied quickly, ‘because I think it cruel to have a blind girl stand for Sight.’ I said nothing about the unicorn being in my daughter's lap and what that might mean. I watched Georges and the other men as they looked, but they didn't seem to notice. Men can be thick sometimes.

  ‘It does look like you, Aliénor,’ Georges Le Jeune said, ‘with your crooked eyes and your crooked smile.’

  Aliénor turned bright red and fumbled with the wool in her lap.

  ‘Will we keep them like this, Papa?’ Georges Le Jeune continued. ‘We're not meant to change figures that have already been agreed with the patron.’

  Georges was rubbing his cheek and frowning. ‘We may have to use them as they are — I don't remember what the faces were like before. Do you, Philippe?’

  Philippe was staring hard at the painting. Then he raised his round eyes to Aliénor, and I knew he was as troubled as I by the changed designs and what that could mean. Luckily Philippe keeps secrets — he is almost as quiet as Aliénor. ‘I don't remember,’ he said. ‘Not enough to change them back.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Georges said. ‘We'll just have to weave them like this and hope no one notices.’ He shook his head. ‘Damn that painter. I don't need yet another worry.’

  Aliénor jerked her head at his words, and for a moment she looked as sad as the Lady in Sight. I bit my lip. Had Nicolas painted her as the Virgin who gets the unicorn only because he desired it, or had it indeed happened?

  I began to watch my daughter — watch her the way I should have when Nicolas was here. I studied her with a mother's eye. She seemed no different. She was not sick in her stomach, or more tired than we all were, or having headaches or tempers. All of these things had happened to me when I carried her and Georges Le Jeune. Nor was her waist thick or her belly round. Perhaps she had managed to escape the trap that men set for women.

  In one way she did change — she wasn't as curious about things as she had been. It used to be that she was always asking me to describe something, or to tell her what I or others were doing. Now I'd begun working on her trousseau at night when we couldn't weave. As the year grew old and the work days shorter, I wasn't so tired by the day's end and could do a bit of sewing after we ate. On nights when I worked on shirts or handkerchiefs or head-scarves to fill her chest, Aliénor didn't ask why I wasn't joining her at the tapestries, or what I was working on instead. Indeed, she seemed happy to sew alone. Sometimes I would glance over at her by the wool mill, or in the garden, or helping Madeleine by the fire, or bent over the tapestry, and she was smiling a smile I hadn't seen before — that of a cat who has eaten well and found a place by the fire. Then I felt sick and knew in my heart that the trap had caught her.

  It was her blindness that gave her up. Aliénor has never understood how others see her. I was forever pulling leaves from her hair or wiping grease from her chin or straightening her skirt because she didn't think of people seeing these things. So when she did at last begin to thicken, she thought her heavy winter skirt covered it but didn't know that the whole way she stood and moved had changed.

  There wasn't one moment when I knew for certain she was with child. It crept over me as twilight does, so that one day in November when I saw her in the garden stepping awkwardly among the cabbages she must gather before the snows began, I simply wondered when I should tell Georges. I should've told him weeks before, of course, back when he was fretting about Aliénor's bed. Every dowry must have one, and he had been to see a carpenter, returning to worry over its cost. ‘There's not a sou to pay him,’ he told me, ‘unless I use the money meant for Jacques for the last lot of wool. Jacques will be furious as it is when I tell him she can't go to him until February.’

  ‘When will you tell her?’ I asked. Aliénor still didn't know of what was planned for her.

  Georges shrugged. He is no coward, but he didn't relish seeing his daughter so unhappy.

  I was no coward either, but I didn't tell him what I suspected, and I didn't ask her. Of course I should have, but I didn't want to disturb what peace we had in the workshop. During those many months of weaving, Georges and I had put off problems, to see to them after the tapestries were done. Everything halted — the house was dirty, Aliénor's garden was shabby, Georges wasn't looking for new work for the next year, I wasn't going to market or keeping up with the goings-on. I am ashamed to say even our prayers were cut short, and we neglected feast days. We worked on the afternoons of All Saints' and All Souls' when we should have remained in church.

  But Aliénor's problem could not wait. A baby cannot be put off to another day.

  It was Thomas who spotted it. Of all the weavers his were the eyes that roamed the most, that could not stay fastened on the work under his fingers. If anyone moved about the workshop — especially Aliénor or Madeleine — his eyes followed them. One morning Aliénor stood at the side of one of the looms, handing across a bobbin of white wool to Georges, who was just beginning the Lady's face in Sight. Joseph and Thomas were on either side. As she leaned against the loom the shape of her belly was revealed to anyone who wanted to see it. No one did — save Thomas, who was sitting close to her and looking for an excuse to stop his work.

  ‘So, Mistress of the Wool,’ he said, copying Nicolas, though without the charm, ‘I see you're fattening up nicely. When is the harvest?’

  I pressed the pedals of the shed hard so that the whole loom clattered, but the noise couldn't cover his words. When my loom went silent the workshop was as well.

  Aliénor dropped the bobbin onto the warp threads and stepped back. She pressed her hands to her sides, but that movement caught her skirt and pulled it tight across her belly so that if anyone hadn't understood Thomas before, they did now.

  It seemed my husband was the longest in taking it in. When Georges weaves he's lost in his work, and doesn't leave it quickly. He stared at Aliénor but didn't seem to see her, though she stood facing him, hands clenched at her sides, head bowed. When at last he did understand, Georges looked at me, confirming his thoughts in the grim line of my mouth. He stood up, the bench creaking, Joseph and Thomas shifting away to give him room.

  ‘Do you have something to say to me, Aliénor?’ he said quietly.

  ‘No.’ Aliénor was even quieter.

  ‘Who is the man?’

  Silence.

  ‘Who is he?’

  She didn't move or speak. Her face looked broken.

  Georges stepped over the bench and knocked her to the ground with one heavy blow. Like any mother, Aliénor protected her child, wrapping her arms around her belly as she fell. She struck her head against the loom bench. I stood up from my bench and went to step between them.

  ‘No, Christine,’ Georges said. I stopped. There are times when a mother cannot protect her child.

  There was a movement in the doorway. Madeleine had been peeking out, and now disappeared. A moment later I saw her run past the workshop windows.

  Aliénor sat up. Blood was running from her nose. Perhaps the sight of that vivid red stopped Georges' hand. She got up unsteadily, then turned and limped across the workshop and out to the garden.

  Georges looked around, at Joseph and Thomas and Georges Le Jeune and Luc all sitting in a line like judges, staring up at him. ‘Go back to work,’ he said.

  They did, one by one bowing their heads over the tapestries.

  Georges looked at me and his face was desperate. I jerked my head towards the house, and he followed me there. We stood side by side at the fire, staring down into it. Until I felt its heat I hadn't realized how cold I'd been in the workshop.

  ‘Who do you think the father is?’ Georges said. He hadn't made the connection between what the Lady in Sight was doing and what Aliénor had done. In a way I hoped he never would.

  ‘I do
n't know,’ I lied.

  ‘Perhaps it's Jacques Le Bœuf himself.’ Georges was trying to be hopeful.

  ‘You know it's not. She would never do that with him.’

  ‘What will we do, Christine? Jacques will never take her now. He'll probably never dye wool for us again. And there's the bed money I've already paid that is his.’

  I thought of Aliénor shuddering in the Sablon when she spoke of Jacques Le Bœuf, and a part of me was glad she was spared sharing a bed with him, though of course I couldn't say so.

  Before I could respond there were footsteps outside again, and Madeleine came in, with Philippe de la Tour behind her. I sighed — one more outsider to witness our shame and Aliénor's misery.

  ‘Go away,’ Georges said before Philippe had opened his mouth. ‘We're busy.’

  Philippe ignored his rude words. ‘I wanted to speak to you,’ he said. Then he seemed to lose his nerve. Madeleine gave him a shove. ‘About — about Aliénor,’ he continued.

  Georges closed his eyes briefly and grunted. ‘So you're busy telling everyone already, are you, girl?’ he said to Madeleine. ‘Why don't you go and shout it in the market? Or get Jacques Le Bœuf and lead him here by the hand, so he can see for himself what folly has gone on.’

  Madeleine scowled at him. ‘You are all blind,’ she said. ‘You never see how he loves her.’ We stared at her — Madeleine never talks back. And could she be talking of Jacques Le Bœuf? He was not the kind of man who loved anyone.

  ‘Leave her be, Georges — Madeleine means well,’ Philippe said, his voice full of fear. ‘I've not come to mock. It's just —’ He stopped, as if terror were choking him.

  ‘What is it, then? What use can you be to us now?’

  ‘I — I am the father.’

  ‘You?’

  Philippe looked at me wildly. In a flash I understood. I held his eyes and nodded slightly so that he would take courage and go on. Madeleine must be right — Philippe loved Aliénor. Now he was going to help her — her and us too.

  Philippe gulped and kept his eyes on my face to steady him. ‘I am the father, and I would take Aliénor for my wife, if she'll have me.’

  PHILIPPE DE LA TOUR

  My wife is a quiet woman. That is no bad thing — quiet women don't gossip and aren't as likely to be gossiped about.

  Nonetheless, I wished she would talk more to me.

  She said nothing when we married except to answer the priest. She never spoke of the baby she carried, nor of Nicolas. She never thanked me. Once I told her I was glad to have saved her. ‘I saved myself,’ she answered, and turned her back.

  We weren't living with my parents yet, and wouldn't until the tapestries were done. They needed her to sew at night, not to lie with me. Though we'd knelt before the priest at the Sablon, we hadn't lain together yet, to do the things I learned from the whore in the summer. Aliénor was too big, and not yet willing. All in time, I hoped.

  When Georges and Christine went to see Jacques Le Bœuf, they told me to stay with neighbours until it was safe. I refused — I can't hide from him all my life. They never said what it was like to tell him Aliénor was to be my wife, but a few days later I saw him for myself. He spotted me across the market on the Place de la Chapelle as I was buying walnuts, and bellowed. There was time for me to run but I stood still and watched him charge towards me like a bull. I should have been scared but all I could think of was Aliénor's crooked smile. She smiled little enough for me, and she never would have done for this smelly brute. Even with him coming for me now, I was glad I'd saved her.

  Everything went black after he knocked me flat. When I woke I was lying in the snow — the first of the winter — with walnuts scattered about and Jacques Le Bœuf standing over me. I gazed at the tall filigreed windows of the Chapelle that loomed behind him and wondered if he would kill me. But in truth he is a simple man, with simple needs. Flattening me was enough. He leaned over and growled, ‘Take her, then. What use is a wife with no eyes? I'll marry my cousin and she'll be more help to me.’

  I wasn't going to argue with him. I couldn't, anyway — the smell of him made everything go black again. When I next woke he was gone and they were carrying me along the rue Haute to Georges' house. Aliénor herself washed my bruises, holding my head against the bulge in her lap. She said nothing when I asked what had happened. Only when I asked what the plant in the water was did she speak. ‘Vervain,’ she said. It was only one word, but the sound of it was like music.

  Jacques Le Bœuf left me alone after that, but insisted that Georges pay him immediately for the last lot of blue wool or he'd not supply it. Georges had already given the money meant for Jacques to a carpenter for Aliénor's dowry bed. There I was able to help him — my first useful act as his son-in-law. I had a cousin soon to marry and I convinced her parents to buy the chestnut bed, and so Georges got his money back from them. Aliénor and I could wait for a bed.

  Helping him with that made things a little less awkward with Georges — though I still caught him glaring at me sometimes. Or he would look puzzled, wondering how I could've been with Aliénor without him knowing, and why I would do it. He had trusted me once, but now he didn't know what to think. He had to accept me as his son-in-law, but instead of welcoming me into the family he was offhand and uneasy.

  Georges Le Jeune too was funny with me, and less friendly than before, even though we were now brothers. Thomas and Luc liked to snigger and tease me — that was no surprise. At least they left Aliénor alone. No one said anything to her about it.

  It was all easier to bear because Christine was kind to me. She was clear in accepting me as family, and that made the others hold in check whatever they were feeling. No one seemed to guess what had really happened, even as a clue pointing to it sat in the threads right under their noses. Good weavers as they all are, perhaps they were too close to their work to see it properly. They never thought of Nicolas — they assumed the unicorn was me. It was easier that way.

  But then, there was little time to ponder such things, for there was little time left to finish Sight and Touch. The days were short and dark. Sometimes it felt as if the bells of the Chapelle had only just rung to start the day when they rang again to end it, with little to show for it in the weaving. The cold didn't help. Tapestry workshops are especially cold because the windows and doors must be left open for the light and there are no fires for fear of sparks. Many workshops close or cut down on work during the coldest months, but of course Georges could not. Although it was only the Advent, already it was as cold as if the Epiphany were long gone. Madeleine put buckets of coals from the fire at the weavers' feet but they made little difference. Nor could the weavers wear heavy clothes around their arms or shoulders, for that got in the way of their work. They did wear fingerless gloves Christine had knitted out of extra bits of wool, but they still got chilblains on the tips of their fingers.

  Georges took the short days especially hard. The months of worry over the work had marked him. Dark rings grew under his eyes, themselves crisscrossed with red. Overnight it seemed his hair turned completely grey. He hunched his shoulders and did not speak much or with cheer. Christine wouldn't let him work on Sundays, but he was so tired that he slept as he sat during Mass at the Sablon. No one tried to wake him, even when he was meant to stand or kneel. The priest said nothing. He along with everyone else knew the workshop was in trouble.

  I came most days to the workshop to help. There were no cartoons for me to draw elsewhere — lissiers rarely get new commissions in the winter, when no one travels up from Paris and elsewhere. Besides, I wanted to be there, even just to be near my wife. Aliénor helped Madeleine, or sewed the tapestries when there was space for her. But much of the time she and I were like cats roaming through alleys in search of scraps to keep us busy. It was painful to watch others work so hard and not be able to do so as well. I envied Christine's industry, though it was still a shock to see her weaving tapestries that were meant to be passed by the Guild. Of course I
said nothing. I was family now, and kept family secrets.

  There was little celebration over Christmastide. We had the Eve feast at least, though food was scarce and dull, with no money for meat or cakes or wine. Only Joseph and Thomas did not work on the Feast of St Stephen. Christine did go to Mass for the Holy Innocents, and insisted everyone go to the Sablon for the Epiphany, but afterwards we worked rather than feasted. By then even Joseph and Thomas weren't joining the merriment in the streets, for they were close to finishing Touch and wanted the work done at last.

  They pulled ahead of the other weavers — though it was no game, and no winners — because of a problem with Sight. One day Georges looked over the tapestry and frowned at the leaves of an oak tree Christine had been weaving. ‘You've left out a bit of branch. See, it ends there and begins again there, with leaves where there should be wood.’

  Christine stared at her work. The other weavers were silent. Georges Le Jeune came over to look. ‘Does it matter?’ he said, peering at the leaves. ‘No one will even notice.’

  Georges gave him a look, then said, ‘Move, Christine.’ She went to stand by Aliénor at the wool mill, and wept as he began to unpick her weaving. I had never seen her cry.

  ‘Bonjour!’ We all turned to look at the head poking through the workshop window. It was another lissier, Rogier Le Brun, come to check on the workshop for the Guild. Georges had made such unexpected visits himself to other workshops — that way the Guild assured its members kept to its rules, lissiers didn't cheat, and the quality of Brussels tapestries remained high.

  I didn't know how long Rogier Le Brun had been there watching us. If he had seen Christine weaving there could be trouble. Certainly he had seen her crying and would wonder why. We were all thinking that as Christine wiped her eyes on her sleeve and hurried to join her husband in greeting the lissier. ‘Of course you will take some beer, and there are some spiced cakes left from the Epiphany. Madeleine!’ she called as she stepped towards the house, Rogier Le Brun protesting feebly at the food and drink. He must know how hard up the workshop was. Those cakes were a gift from a pitying neighbour.