Finding Emilie (52 page)

“She won’t know,” Ambroise said solemnly. “That’s the other big piece of news. Anne-Mathilde died last week in childbirth.”

“Anne-Mathilde dead?” Delphine said, furrowing her brow in disbelief. She and Lili exchanged a stupefied glance.

“I’m afraid I’m at quite a loss for words,” Lili said. “I never liked her, and I can’t say I’m sad I won’t see her again, but still …”

Delphine and Ambroise were both lost in thought and didn’t seem to hear. What were they remembering about the unpleasant young woman who had come so close to ruining their chance for happiness together? Lili shuddered at the memories that crowded her mind, but most of all the terrible day at Vaux-le-Vicomte when, for her own entertainment, Anne-Mathilde casually put Delphine’s virtue in peril.

“Well,” Delphine said, “I’m going to be honest. I’m not glad she’s dead, but fairly close to it.”

Ambroise seemed relieved at the confession. “I’ve been trying to tell myself to feel some grief,” he replied, “but quite frankly, I’m having trouble.”

The room fell silent, and the click of a spoon in Jean-Étienne’s cup sounded as loud as gunfire. “So,” Lili said to break the dark
mood, “did you see her brother while you were there? Any news of Paul-Vincent?”

“I saw him when I went to pay condolences to the family before I left,” Ambroise said. “He’s quite annoyed that he won’t be permitted to go off to the American colonies to fight in their revolution. He’s the Duc de Praslin’s only son, and as his heir he can’t take the risk of being killed.”

“Paul-Vincent doesn’t seem to be the kind who would be excited about going off to fight in a war,” Lili said.

“Oh, that isn’t it,” Ambroise replied. “He wants to go to America to look around, and the war is just an excuse. What he really wants is to be a naturalist like Buffon. He sounded far more excited about seeing Indian villages than battlefields.”

He paused for a moment, weighing his words. “But someone else is going. Now that Lafayette has persuaded France to enter the war on the side of the colonies, all the talk is of fighting the British. I heard just this week that Jacques-Mars Courville will be joining Lafayette’s entourage.”

Jacques-Mars. The name still filled Lili with disgust. “So the king has finally given up on the idea of keeping him away from Versailles by making him a diplomat?” she asked with a sardonic grin. A disastrous apprenticeship in Venice had led to a posting in Germany and one in Denmark, but Jacques-Mars had been back in Paris, without explanation and without a position, since last winter.

“Decidedly,” Ambroise said. “Marie Antoinette loathes him. She wants to decide for herself how to mistreat the young ladies at court. Or more likely she’s upset that he hasn’t tried to bed her.”

Delphine shuddered. “That Austrian woman is the worst thing that’s ever happened to France.”

Jean-Étienne had been sitting silently, listening to the conversation. “Oh, I think there are quite a few equally bad things that happened before her. She’s silly and thoughtless, and she spends money like water when so many are suffering, but that’s nothing new, is it?”

Delphine sniffed. “I suppose not.”

“I think we heap blame on her because we don’t want French problems to be French people’s fault,” Jean-Étienne said. “The poverty in Paris is a disgrace—and not just there, but everywhere in the country.” As he habitually did when the subject was intense, he shoved rather than tucked a strand of loose hair behind his ear. “It’s true that an obscene amount of money is wasted at Versailles, but we all should look for ways to make things more equal, to treat the poor as deserving dignity and enough to eat. It’s not Marie Antoinette’s fault she came to a country that already didn’t care about the hunger and squalor many people live in.”

“All right,” Delphine said, with a good-natured smile. “She irritates me all out of proportion. I just remember how kind and unassuming Marie Leszczynska was, and I guess anyone would suffer by comparison.”

“Perhaps it’s not a subject for our first hour here,” Jean-Étienne went on, “but I’ve been spending much of the time from Paris thinking about how serious things have become. There’s a revolution in America because the English king is unconcerned with the burden of his taxes on the public. To finance the war against Britain in the colonies and at sea, prices have gotten higher in France for people who already can’t afford bread for their table. And bad harvests have made things even worse.”

Distracted, he dug at his hair again. “People won’t starve quietly. They’ll fight back, regardless of how much affection they have for Louis—and There’s still a lot of that, despite his wife. Times are changing and he needs to change with them, or we’ll have a quite unpleasant future, I fear.”

“I’m afraid I must concur,” Ambroise said. “Although the bickering in the salons and Parlément is partly responsible for nothing ever getting done. The king has been willing to discuss reforms for some time, though. He’s not a stupid man. He knows what revolution elsewhere could mean for him—and for France.”

Delphine got up to pour more coffee. “Please, let’s talk about
something more pleasant.” She moved the plate of pastries in front of Jean-Étienne. “The cook made your favorite—the lemon ones.”

“Yes,” Lili said, relieved to have such a frightening subject dropped. “Is the Duc de Richelieu staying well enough not to take much of your time?” Two years after their wedding, Jean-Étienne finished medical school and went into service to the Richelieu family as one of several private physicians. In return, he and Lili lived without rent in one of the family properties, an elegant, furnished hôtel near the Luxembourg Palace. He made no money from his work, so everyone was satisfied—most of all the two of them. They had sufficient funds to live comfortably and no desire for more than that.

“They’ve been well enough not to need me at all,” Jean-Étienne said, “except for the occasional aftermath of too many late nights with endless food and wine. I’ve spent almost all my time in the lab, but I certainly am missing you and Anatole.”

“I haven’t been there much even when I am in Paris, especially since Georges-Louis and Jean-François were born,” Lili scoffed.

“True,” Jean-Étienne replied, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss you. Someday when our children need you less, we’ll work together all you want.”

“That sounds both wonderful and terrible,” Lili said. “I do want to get back to science, but I don’t want my children to grow up so fast.”

Jean-Étienne laughed. “I think there will still be plenty of disease and infection when you’re ready to come work on it with me. Thank God the slaughterhouses have been moved back from the riverbank, so the blood and guts don’t get dumped in the water people carry up from the Seine to drink. Now we just have to work on laws against throwing sewage in the streets, or in pipes that go directly to the river. We don’t know how the organisms we see under the microscope from contaminated water make people sick, but we’re quite certain that’s what is doing it.”

He looked up, and Lili followed his eyes to see Emilie and Julie standing in the doorway. “We thought you might like some sugared
almonds,” Emilie said, in an obvious ploy to come sit with the adults.

Lili’s heart swelled as she looked at the two of them. She loved Julie as if she were her own child, and she knew Delphine felt the same about Emilie. Seeing them standing there, one dark and one fair, only a few months apart in age, she understood what Maman had thought when she looked at the two of them so many years ago. How deeply I was loved, she realized, feeling her throat tighten.

The two girls went to each of the parents and parceled out Emilie’s sugared almonds. When they got to Lili, she stood up and held them close to her. “I love you both,” she whispered.

“I love you too,” they said, bewildered at the moment she had chosen to say something they already knew.

Life can be uncertain and frightening, to be sure, Lili thought, but Voltaire was right. We must cultivate our garden, and mine is right here. She took an almond. “Merci, mes chéries,” she said. “How nice of you to bring these to us.”

“Oh!” Jean-Étienne said, jumping up. “In all the excitement I forgot the big surprise.” He left the room and came back with a package wrapped in paper and a leather braid. He handed it to Lili.

“Is this …?” She looked up at him. He grinned as she pulled away the paper to see a book with a leather cover and gold trim. She opened to the title page. “‘The Adventures of Meadowlark and Tom,’” she read, “‘by S-A du Châtelet with illustrations by Delphine de Bercy, Comtesse d’Étoges.’” Her voice broke, and passing the book to Delphine, she embraced her husband.

“Someday it will be those novels you want to write,” he whispered. “France needs a writer with a heart like yours.”

“What is it, Maman?” Julie asked Delphine.

“They’re stories Aunt Lili wrote when we were young, and she kept writing them as we grew up, until there were enough for a book,” she said, handing it to Lili’s daughter.

“My mother wrote this?” Emilie asked, scrunching up her face.

“I did,” Lili said, remembering back to the day she first held her
mother’s translation of Newton in her hands, and wondering if she looked as amazed and thrilled as her own daughter looked right then.

Emilie snuggled in beside her. “Read to me,” she said.

Lili opened the book. “‘Once upon a time, there was a girl living in a dreary village who wanted nothing more than to travel to the stars …”

“Do you think we can do that, Maman? Go to the stars?”

“Yes, my darling Emilie,” Lili said. “Yes, we can.”

“I already have,” she whispered, in a voice so soft it was no more than breathing.

The Adventures of
Meadowlark and Tom

by
S-A du Châtelet
with illustrations by
Delphine de Bercy, Comtesse d’Étoges

O
nce upon a time, there was a girl living in a dreary village who wanted nothing more than to travel to the stars. She had a laugh like a songbird, so everybody called her Meadowlark. Every night Meadowlark would sneak outside and hope with all her might that her wish could come true. Then, to her surprise, one night a horse made of starlight appeared in front of her. “Are you the girl named Meadowlark?” the horse asked. When she said yes, the horse snorted and reared up. “My name is Comète,” it said. “Climb on my back.” Before she knew it, Comète had galloped off with her into the night sky, leaving behind a trail of stars wherever its hooves brushed the clouds …

In which Meadowlark visits Venus, meets Tom, and learns about good manners …

W
hen Comète galloped to a stop on Venus, Meadowlark was surprised to find people weeping and laying flowers in front of a long row of rocks. “I can’t imagine any rock that could make me cry,” Meadowlark said to Comète. “Wait here—I’m going to see what’s happening.” Comète nodded his head and snorted fireworks from his white nose.

“Why are you crying over a rock?” Meadowlark asked the first person she came to.

“It’s not really a rock,” he said. “It’s my daughter.”

“Was she born that way?” Meadowlark asked.

“Of course not! Who would have a rock for a baby? The Evil Queen lined all the children up, and if the girls couldn’t curtsey perfectly and the boys didn’t bow just right, they would be turned into stone with her magic wand. My little girl didn’t keep her back upright enough, and now look at her!”

Just then a few apples fell from a tree behind Meadowlark, and she looked up. A boy sat in the branches.

“Why aren’t you a rock?” she asked.

“I told her I had a stomachache and couldn’t bow properly until later,” the boy said. “She said she would come back and turn me into stone this afternoon. That’s why I’m hiding.”

“Well, hiding doesn’t help if she’s not here. You’d better come down and practice bowing if you know what’s good for you,” Meadowlark said.

“Why bother?” the boy answered. “Even if I were perfect, she’d turn me into stone anyway. She does it for fun and no one has the power to stop her.”

Meadowlark thought for a moment. “The way I see it,” she said, “you have two choices—learn to bow perfectly in the next few minutes, or get away from that Evil Queen.”

“How do I get away? She has too much power.”

“Not over me!” Meadowlark said, stamping her foot to show she meant it. Comète heard her and came prancing over, sprinkling starlight whenever he shook his mane.

Tom jumped down from the tree. “Is that your horse?” he asked. “Can I have a ride?”

“Only if you’re brave enough to leave home forever. That’s what I did, even though we don’t have an Evil Queen in France.”

Tom drew a line in the dirt with his toe. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never been anywhere else. All my friends are here.”

“All your friends are rocks.”

Just then Meadowlark’s ears perked up at the shrill sound of a woman’s voice. “Where’s that boy with a stomachache?” the Evil Queen screeched.

Just as she entered the clearing and raised her magic wand, Meadowlark pulled Tom up behind her on Comète and they flew away in a blaze of light.

Tom sighed with relief. “I’m glad to be away from there. I might be a rock by now.”