Catherine: One Love is Enough (Catherine Series Book 1) by Juliette Benzoni

Author:Juliette Benzoni [Benzoni, Juliette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Telos Publishing
Published: 2015-02-27T07:00:00+00:00

What remained of the night was too short for Catherine to get her full ration of sleep. She did not hear Notre-Dame ring out the end of the curfew and she ignored Loyse’s brusque shaking, intended to get her up in time for Mass. Loyse finally departed alone in a fury, vanquished by her sister’s profound weariness and predicting her eternal damnation.

Catherine, oblivious of everything but the downy comfort of her pillow, dropped straight off to sleep again.

It was close on nine o’clock when she finally went downstairs to the kitchen. The atmosphere in there was stormy. Jacquette was ironing the family’s clothes on a trestle table by the hearth, using a hollow flat-iron in which from time to time she put a shovelful of glowing embers. There were beads of sweat on her brow under her white linen coif, and she pursed her lips in a way Catherine knew well. Something must have displeased her. She was obviously raging inwardly. The way she attacked the linen sheet with her iron pointed to a temper kept barely under control. Loyse sat by the window with her back turned to her. She was winding thread onto a spindle, also without speaking a word. Her thin fingers twisted the flax quickly, and the thread wound around the spindle that stood beside her. Studying the expression on her face, Catherine came to the conclusion that she and her mother must have had words.

To her great astonishment she saw that Sara had returned home. The gypsy woman must have returned at daybreak. Dressed in her usual dark-blue fustian dress with a big white apron wrapped round her waist, she was busily peeling a huge basket of Brussels sprouts for soup. She was the only one who turned round when Catherine entered the room, and she winked at her knowingly. The passionate girl of the previous night slept once more deep within this strange woman, and there was not a trace of her to be seen on that familiar face. But Loyse too had seen her sister enter the room, and she whispered maliciously:

‘Bow down, slaves, here comes the high and mighty Dame de Brazey, who deigns to leave her chamber to inspect her scullions.’

‘Hold your tongue, Loyse,’ said Jacquette coldly. ‘Leave your sister alone.’

But it took more than that to silence Loyse when she had something on her mind. Dropping her spindle, she jumped up and stood in front of her sister, hands on hips and mouth twisted unpleasantly.

‘Too grand to get up at dawn now, are we? The dirty chores, the early morning Mass are for humble people like me and your mother! While you swan about putting on airs like a princess, imagining yourself already married to your one-eyed Treasurer.’

Jacquette threw her iron angrily down on the hearth. She had gone red to the roots of her still-blonde hair. But Catherine intervened before she could launch into a tirade.

‘I slept badly,’ she said with a slight shrug. ‘I stayed a little longer in bed than usual, that’s all.

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