Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

I missed a soft place to fall when I grew up, so I've made my own now, but not without help. I tease my husband, saying that he's homeschooled me and that's why I'm the person I am today. He insists that all of the talents and joy were always inside of me, but when I was young nobody showed me the way to get them out. But then I discovered writing.

My readers say I write about life and it's true. But that sentence is so boring, so simple that in today's world it wouldn't entice anyone to spend time reading the things I write about. I guess what I do is take the everyday mundane things that most people don't even notice, and bring them to life. Give them a voice so people can see the funny in them, or recognize the sadness they feel. I hate being preached to, so I'm not an advice-giver. I don't know all the answers and that's one of the reasons I write, so I can try to see the meaning in my life.

When I'm writing a column eventually there comes a part in the process where I feel agitated and it's not clear what I'm feeling, but I plow through anyway and magically, 20 or 30 minutes later, the column appears. I'm not quite sure where the column came from, in fact, sometimes when I'm reading it again the next day, in my book club email, I'm amazed that I wrote it. Just where did these words, where did this ability to write, come from?

Maybe I shouldn't be questioning where the ability came from. But as soon as I finished writing that sentence, I remembered what my mother said when I told her that I was publishing a business magazine--I clearly remember the look on her face. It was a look of confusion and amazement, shock really, and then she asked, "Just where did you learn how to do all of this?" It was as if nothing great was expected from me and she still couldn't believe that I'd accomplished such a thing--and that I was successful at it. But truth-be-told, sometimes I still stand back and look at what I do and I too wonder--just where and how did I learn these things?

I write about a lot of different topics, but a familiar underlying theme has a lot to do with self-esteem. A friend of mine shamed me when she said that the subject had been written to death, "Nobody wants to hear another poor self-esteem story." And she might be right. But people feeling lost, needing a place to check-in once and awhile, knowing that they're not the only one who feels like this--these things don't disappear just because it's not in vogue to write about them anymore. And I have just enough confidence in myself, and just enough doubt, to write about my worries and fears, to make fun of myself and invite people to laugh along with me. Hopefully when people read the things I write they go easier on themselves and find that soft place to fall.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. This week we're giving away 10 copies of the book Isola: A Novel by Allegra Goodman. Click here to enter for your chance to win. 

PROLOGUE

I still dream of birds. I watch them circle, dive into rough waves, and fly up to the sun. I call to them but hear no answer. Alone, I stand on a stone island.

I watch for ships and see three coming. Tall ships close enough to hail.

I load my musket and shoot into the air.

I see pennants close enough to touch as I run barefoot to the shore.

Rocks cut my feet and I leave a trail of blood. Brambles tear my sleeves and score my arms as I shout, Wait! Stop! Save me!

The ship's commander hears my voice and gun. Dressed in black, he stands on deck to see me beg. As I plead for help, he smiles.

When I shoot, ten thousand birds rise screaming. Their wings beat against the wind. All the sailors hear and see, but their commander orders them to sail on.

I reach but cannot stop the ships. I wade after them into the sea. In vain I struggle as wet skirts drag me down. I cry out, but water fills my throat. I cannot fly. I cannot swim. I cannot escape my island.

PART I

PÉRIGORD

1531–1539

The first point, above all others, is that earnestly and with all your faith and power, you guard against doing, saying, or thinking anything that will anger God. Never allow the subtle temptations of the world, the flesh, or the Devil to seize you. So that you live more chastely and guard yourself from sin, remember as Augustine says that you cannot be sure of a single hour. Your wretched body will die, decay, and be eaten by worms, leaving your poor soul alone to face the consequences.

(Anne of France, Lessons for My Daughter, II, c. 1517)

1

I never knew my mother. She died the night that I was born, and so we passed each other in the dark. She left me her name, Marguerite, and her ruby ring, but no memory of her. I did not know my father either. When I was three years old, he was killed fighting for the King at Pavia. Then I was rich, although I did not know it, and poor, although I did not know it. I was heir to a château in Périgord with its own villages, vineyards, and sunny fields, but I had no parents, aunts, or uncles living. Servants surrounded me, but I had no sisters or brothers, and so I was alone.

My nurse, Damienne, was my first teacher. She was an old woman, at least forty, and her hair, once red, was faded like brick. Her eyes were shrewd but tired, and all around her mouth her skin was creased in little lines like unpressed linen. My nurse was stout, her stomach soft, her bosom pillowy. When we lay down to sleep, she held me close as though I were her own—and if I was not her child, then certainly she belonged to me, for she had served my family since she was a girl.

She said my father had been noble, not just in name but on the battlefield. When his horse was killed under him, he fought on with sword and pike until an archer shot him in the neck. Wounded, my father fell, but his men broke off the arrow's shaft and bore him away. In his tent, even as a surgeon cut out the arrowhead, my father demanded to return to fight. "Take me back," he gasped while his blood streamed out in rivulets. I imagined his blood ruby red.

As for my mother, she had been a beauty. My eyes were green, but her eyes had been greener. My hair was amber brown, but hers had been gold like winter wheat. My mother's hands were elegant, her fingers long. When she played the lute, her notes were perfect, but her modesty was such that she performed only for her own ladies. As a girl, my mother had been gentle and obedient—but my nurse would do her best with me.

Damienne fussed, but she was kind. When I tested her, she forgave me. Only on great occasions did she lose patience. The first time my guardian visited, Damienne's sharp words startled me. After a messenger summoned me downstairs, my nurse scolded, "You aren't fit to be seen! Your slippers are disgraceful."

"How are they disgraceful?" I asked, as she helped me into silver sleeves.

My nurse sat me down hard and I slumped, offended, but she did not relent. "Sit straight! Do not let your back so much as touch your chair."

"Why not? What will happen if I touch my chair?"

"No questions."

"Why?"

"Oh, for God's sake."

My nurse could not read, but she had taught me how to pray. Our Father. Our Mother, Holy Mary, full of grace. At first, I imagined my own parents as I intoned these words, but Damienne stamped out this childish heresy. You did not pray to your own father and mother but to the Father and Mother of the world, the King and Queen who reigned in heaven. And so, I understood that while I belonged to the Lord and to the Virgin, they did not belong to me. This was true of my inheritance as well. Because I could not govern my own lands, I had a guardian, and he would manage my estate until my marriage. I was already betrothed and would wed at fifteen if I lived.

If I didn't, I might go to heaven. My soul would float above the tallest towers. I would not know hunger or suffer from the cold, and I would hear the angels singing. This was what I learned, but when I wondered, Why not die and fly to heaven now? Damienne said for shame. It was wicked to ask, and what made me think a wicked child could go? One with needlework so poor and lice crawling in her hair? Even now when I must look a lady, Damienne found nits. "Terrible." She pulled them off like tiny burrs. My mother hardly had lice in comparison—but she was herself an angel. I imagined her lice were little angels too.

I was wicked, just as Damienne said. My hems were ragged because I climbed rough tower stairs to see the view. Fearsome, ancient, pierced with arrow slits, our north and western towers were built upon a cliff to command and to defend the country. From there, I could see my villages, orchards, vineyards, and the green river winding, spanned by a stone bridge. As for my slippers, I had ruined them at the stables where I ran to see the horses. Damienne would hurry after me, although she wasn't fast, and stand calling to the grooms for help. Then, thoughtless as I was, I hid. I slipped behind the water troughs and stable doors—but in the end, I followed her inside.

"God's will," Damienne murmured now, because I was her constant care. She combed through a drop of oil and bound my hair so tight that my eyes widened. "Don't touch." Damienne adorned me with a circlet of pearls and held up a glass.

I laughed at the sight of myself, wide-eyed, silver stiff. "Don't you understand?"

I didn't, but I tried to humor her. Putting on a solemn face, I stepped carefully to meet my guardian. My nurse helped me with my skirts as we took the stairs.

Down echoing passageways and through a gallery, we walked to the great hall, long as a church's nave and high as heaven. This was my hall as it had belonged to my mother's family, but I came here seldom because the place was grand and I was small.

I knew as little of the château's public rooms as I did of my farms and vineyards, for, like all my property, they were mine in name only. Maids did exactly as I asked. I had three, Françoise, Claude, and Jeanne, but a housekeeper managed the girls, and she reported to my guardian's steward. Men worked my fields, but I knew nothing of them. The steward collected tenants' rents and brought these to my guardian. To him came the profit from my orchards and my meadows. To him the fruit of my vines, the apples from my trees, the walnuts harvested in autumn. These were his due. As I entered the hall, my guardian waited with an air of ownership, greeting me as though I was the guest.

Grand places were familiar to this man, but I glanced eagerly at vaulting windows and tapestries of nobles and their servants hunting. Just behind my guardian, I saw deer leaping and men murdering a stag.

"Come here, little one," my guardian said.

Curtseying, I saw Damienne's hands shaking. I noticed because I had not seen her tremble before.

My guardian was my father's cousin, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, and he was a great man because he had been the King's boyhood friend. My father had been greater still, or so Damienne had told me. As for my mother, she had royal blood. However, my guardian had the advantage because he was living.

Roberval was a voyager who sailed across the seas to defend France from English ships. For this, he was well loved at home and feared abroad, and famous everywhere. His face was pale, his doublet black, but his eyes were bright, clear, penetrating blue. His beard was peppered gray and narrowed foxlike at the chin. He sat at a dark table and kept a thick book close at hand, along with a decanter filled with wine. On his table, I saw a goblet shining like a diamond and, even better, an ebony cabinet, fitted with compartments, tiny drawers and doors.

Turning to a secretary at a smaller table, my guardian said, "Is this my cousin?" He did not know me because he had never asked for me before.

(continued on Tuesday)

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