In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S. Haasse Page A

pillows, cushions and counterpane.
    â€œIs the Dame de Maucouvent not here?” she asked one of the young women. “The Duchess would like someone to read to her.” The girl curtsied, colored with shyness and replied in the negative. The Dame de Maucouvent was in the nursery, putting Monseigneur Louis to bed. Queen Blanche frowned and cast a look of quick concern toward the lying-in chamber. She was about to send for the governess when another young woman stepped forward.
    â€œLet me sit with Madame,” she said. “I can read.”
    Blanche had the impression that this offer did not sit well with the other women: their faces stiffened almost imperceptibly, their eyes were hostile. The young woman who stood before her was hardly more than a child; tall and slender, with white, almost translucent skin. She kept her eyes lowered modestly and her hands folded over her breast in the manner prescribed by etiquette, the upper part of her body bent slightly backwards and her head held a little to one side. The Queen was pleasantly impressed by the voice and appearance of this girl, whom she had not seen before among Valentine’s retinue.
    â€œGood. Go then, Mademoiselle,” she said, “and take the Histories of Troy with you.”
    The young woman curtsied; before she arose she looked directly at Blanche, a flashing glance, green as clear deep spring water. Those wonderful eyes struck the Dowager-Queen particularly—they reminded her of an old, half-forgotten love song which described the leaves of an early spring. She felt for a moment as though she stood in the cool spring wind in the meadows near Neauphle-le-Chateau.
    â€œWho is that?” she asked, staring after the newcomer. The women exchanged significant looks—her own women as well as those of the Duchess of Orléans. But their silence lasted so long that it impinged on the respect due to the Dowager-Queen. A ladyof the court hastened to reply in the subdued, expressionless tones of a subordinate.
    â€œMadame, that is the Demoiselle d’Enghien.”
    Servants in short jackets, with napkins slung over their shoulders, jostled past each other on the spiral staircase leading down from the dining hall to the kitchens. They carried great platters on their heads and some smaller ones at the same time on their widely outstretched arms. A double curtain of worked leather, weighted on the bottom with lead, hung at the entrance to the hall, from which rose the talk and laughter of the guests, the clatter of tableware and the sounds of music. Those servants who carried fowl took them first to the carving tables which stood at the entrance; those who had fruit, pastry and wine brought them directly to the guests.
    The feast celebrating the christening of Orléans’ youngest son was being held in a long narrow hall made even narrower by the existence of two rows of flecked marble pillars. At the end of the hall opposite the servants’ entrance stood a dais where, against a background of tapestries, the royal guests sat at table.
    Above the colonnades were galleries where the musicians and a few courtiers were. A great number of torches were burning; pages ran back and forth continually tending to these sources of light. Several of the Duke’s house dogs lay on the mosaic floor, gnawing bones and growling whenever the servants came too close to them. The musicians in the gallery played without pause on their wind and brass instruments. A dwarf squatted behind the grating of the balcony, his face pressed against the opening between two bars, gazing down at the company on the dais below him, and especially at Orléans, who was chatting politely with his neighbor, the young wife of the Duke of Berry. Later in the evening, to honor her and Queen Isabeau, the dwarf would be brought to the table in a pastry to recite a couplet composed by Louis.
    The Duke wore a crimson garment with voluminous sleeves, so densely stitched