Ma Chérie
Un
Auvergne, France, 1662
Restlessly I looked up and out of the window again, only to find still no sight of my father.
It'd been nearly a week since a last saw him. He told me he was going into Paris to check up on his old friends and attend to his stately affairs, as a Baron. In other words that meant my father, the legendary Musketeer Porthos, was going to go into the city to use my mother's Parisian home to cater to his drinking, sexual encounters with women, and then lastly seek out his aging friends and attend to any duties waiting for him…if he wasn't too drunk to remember them or remember he had left me in his country home.
Hopefully this visit won't end as the last one did, with Aramis escorting my father back to this very estate and telling me if it weren't for his history as a Musketeer he would have found his way into the Bastille.
"Mademoiselle?"
I jolted awake from my frustrated thoughts to find the head caretaker of the household standing not more than a foot away from me. She looked quite upset with her sharp and pointed features making her look more like a hawk than a woman, especially with her blonde wig piled high upon her head and the feathered hair pieces stuffed upon either side of her wig giving an appearance of inverted wings.
"Yes?" I breathlessly spoke, lowering my busy work of sewing to my lap. I had begun to sew yet another shirt for my father. According to Maria, the better my sewing skills were, the more desirable of a woman it would make me.
"I shall be leaving to the market shortly." She paused and starred at my hardly, as if I was supposed to do something in return, like protest or join her. "Before the sun's heat spoils the goods."
"Oh…" I let my eyes wander about her for a moment, still at a lost at what she was trying to hint to me through her intense stare of her emerald eyes.
She then let out a deep but inward groan," Mademoiselle, it is Monday, the day upon which your tutor and you work upon etiquette. And you have yet to show yourself in the foyer for your training." She then huffed lastly," If your father were here, he-"
"He would care less," I finished her blandly, as I carefully moved my needlework to the low sitting table besides my window seat bench. "Or have you forgotten about his unholy fornications he attends to whilst in Paris."
Her lips pinched and face reddened. Her arms straightened and her sides, while her finger tips angrily pinched together to keep the straightness of her arms. "Mademoiselle Isabeaux-"
But I cut her off again, as I stood up onto my heeled feet and used my palms to straighten out my heavily layered skirt. "Do not chide me, Madame!" I then angled my chin upwards and boldly, and most regally, starred up at her," Do not forget you work for my father who trusts me implicitly when it comes to the affairs of this estate."
Maria flinched, before she forced a curtsey to me. "Your tutor is waiting for you in the foyer."
"Inform Monsieur du Berry that I shall be in the foyer shortly." I now stared down at Maria in her deep and prefect curtsey, which she claimed was from her years of practicing and tutoring. "Also inform Phoebe to join me in my tutoring session."
"Yes, Mademoiselle." She the straightened up, keeping her eyes casted to the floor, obviously in fear of her position in this house. She was an aging woman, and not many families would hire her to keep watch upon their manors. The only reason she worked for my family now was because my mother, before her death, she recommended that Maria become head of the household when neither my father nor myself were present.
Maria lifted up the front of her skirt and quickly skittered out of my bedroom, carefully opening and closing the door behind her.
I took in a deep inhale of air to calm my nerves. Maria and I always butted heads, especially as I was getting older and my cultured. Maria claimed I had my father's unsightly bullheadedness whilst I had my mother's petite appearance with flaming red hair and alabaster skin. Some days though, I wish I had my father colossal body so I could strike people with force and handle a sword with more grace.
Yet upon dwelling momentarily upon violence in my thoughts, my eyes drifted to what also lied upon the table besides my sewing. A pamphlet which one of the elderly male neighbors brought for me so I had reading material.
The pamphlet was about the current crisis King Louis was facing in Paris and abroad. The current war with the Dutch, the food shortage across France from the army's constant need to enlarge their surplus, and the sudden Jesuit declaration of war. And now the ever increasing riots within Paris itself.
My thoughts now faded from anger to worry. If our king could not fix his problems in a timely manner the citizens would revolt and all would be lost. The country would enter a reign of terror. And I myself, did not want to be alive to see such visions. Nor did I want these fiends within Paris to somehow aggravate my ailing father into doing something all the more insane and finally lead him into the Bastille.