The Ruby Talisman (19 page)
Tilly hugged her mother, nearly knocking her over in her exuberance.
‘How are you, Mum?’ asked Tilly. ‘Are you feeling better? I missed you so much.’
Juliette looked surprised, then smiled warmly. ‘Yes, amazing what a little holiday can do,’ she replied with a shaky laugh. ‘I think I slept most of the time, and read books and walked on the beach and thought about things. I missed you, too.’
‘I thought a lot, too, Mum, and I’m sorry I’ve made you sad – and Dad,’ said Tilly. ‘I’ll try hard not to be so grumpy all the time.’
Juliette hugged Tilly again, kissing the top of her head.
‘I’ll try hard, too, not to be grumpy and sad anymore, darling,’ Juliette added, her voice a little choked.
Juliette had a long, hard look at her daughter. The angry, rebellious look that Tilly had worn for so many months was gone, her face now flushed with happiness. Juliette smiled and relaxed, the tight knot in her stomach dissolving.
‘You look different somehow,’ she mused. ‘I love the new clothes, and the way you’ve done your hair. You look beautiful. But you look like you’ve spent a fortune – I hope Kara didn’t spoil you too much.’
Tilly glanced back at Kara and grinned.
‘Well, she did spoil me! Although, we bought the evening dress at an op shop for five dollars,’ Tilly explained. ‘And I love these shoes. They are so pretty. Kara bought them for me for my birthday.’
‘We couldn’t resist them, could we, Tilly?’ added Kara.
Tilly pointed her toe, did a dainty eighteenth-century curtsey, then twirled like a ballet dancer, showing off the rose-pink satin slippers. The image of Amelie and her rose pink-satin shoes flashed into her mind.
Juliette and Tilly sat at the kitchen bench while Kara poured tea.
‘Kara told me about our French ancestress, Amelie-Mathilde, and showed me the ruby necklace.’
‘I remember our grandmother telling us that story when we were little,’ Juliette said, smiling at Kara. ‘It was very romantic. Amelie-Mathilde escaped with the help of a young peasant boy, Henri. They arrived in London with nothing and started a business teaching the English how to speak French. They did very well apparently, and after a few years Amelie and Henri were married. Their daughter was my grandmother’s great-grandmother.’
Tilly smiled, her eyes prickling with tears. She imagined Amelie and Henri getting married, glad that Amelie hadn’t married some English lord.
‘That’s wonderful!’ Tilly said. ‘I’m glad she married for love.’
Juliette looked wistful. ‘Anyway, we should be going to pick up Tim from your father’s. Dad was so pleased when I rang to say you were coming to see him.’
Tilly felt her stomach shrink as they drove up to her father’s new house. She wondered if it was too late to change her mind and tell her mother that she’d rather just go home. She swallowed and thought of all the times she had faced danger in France. Surely meeting Bunny and her family couldn’t be more frightening than facing a pack of murderous French revolutionaries or brigands or Jacques armed with a pistol.
Tilly noticed Juliette take a deep breath and stiffen her shoulders.
Mum is scared, too,
thought Tilly.
Tilly leant over and hugged Juliette to give her courage. Juliette squeezed Tilly’s hand in return and pushed the doorbell.
There was a thunderous commotion on the other side of the door. The shadows of several bodies flitted behind the glass panes.
The door was flung open and there stood three boys and a girl, all aged between six and ten. The boys wore pirate outfits, and the girl was dressed in a white nightdress.
‘I’m Captain Hook,’ bellowed Tim, pushing back his eye patch with his plastic hook hand. ‘And this is my prisoner, Wendy. This is Smee and this is my first mate, Luka – and this is Nanny.’
He flung his arm around the large, black labrador at his heels. Tilly felt a twinge of jealousy. Here was her brother, Tim, perfectly at home with Bunny’s children and Bunny’s dog. She pushed the horrid feeling away and smiled at her brother.
‘Hiya, Tim. How was the weekend?’
Tim looked at Tilly in surprise. He wasn’t used to pleasantries from her lately.
‘Oh, okay, I guess,’ he said sullenly, pulling off his hook hand and dropping it to the ground.
Tilly’s heart did a flip. There was her dad, standing silently and unsure behind the band of pirates.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Tilly said, her voice shaking a little.
‘Hello, my princess Tiger Lily,’ he responded, looking at her with misty eyes. ‘Any chance of a cuddle for your long-lost dad?’
Tilly threw herself into her dad’s arms. The anger was gone. Only the hurt lingered.
‘I really missed you, Tiger Lily,’ whispered her dad, squeezing her tightly and kissing the top of her head.
‘I really missed you, too,’ Tilly whispered back into her dad’s shoulder.
Tilly became aware of two shadowy figures – one standing behind her dad and another behind her. One was Juliette, her mother, and the other was Bunny.
Her dad coughed anxiously. ‘Tilly, I’d like you to meet Bernadette, and these are her three children – Luka, Sam and Molly.’
Tilly swallowed and smiled nervously. ‘Hello,’ she squeaked.
‘Hello, Tilly,’ replied Bernadette, taking Tilly’s hand. ‘I’ve heard so much about you from Richard. You are just as pretty as he told me.’
‘Tilly looks particularly beautiful tonight,’ added Juliette in a brittle tone.
Tilly smiled at her mum. ‘I bought the dress with the money you sent me for my birthday, Dad,’ she confessed. ‘I went shopping today with Kara and bought lots of lovely clothes.’
‘I’m glad,’ he replied. ‘Well, perhaps we should head out for dinner, for our family reunion.’
Juliette took a deep breath. ‘Come on, Tim, do you have your bag ready?’
Tim sighed and reached for his bag, packed ready by the front door. Tilly suspected he was sad to be leaving the house filled with fun kids to play with.
I guess our house hasn’t been much fun lately,
Tilly acknowledged to herself.
Richard embraced Bernadette awkwardly in front of his ex-wife and daughter.
‘I won’t be late,’ he assured her. ‘Goodnight, Luka, Sam, Molly. Sleep well.’
Tilly felt a wave of anger and grief wash over her, and she consciously pushed it away.
‘Where are we going for dinner, Dad?’ Tilly asked brightly.
‘There’s a little Vietnamese place around the corner,’ he replied. ‘I remembered you and Tim used to like Vietnamese.’
‘Fantastique,’
replied Tilly, grabbing her mum’s arm and pulling her along. ‘I’m starving.’
The following Friday Tilly raced home from school, her heart singing. It had been a good week.
She could hear voices from the kitchen. Kara and Juliette were sitting at the bench drinking tea and chatting. Tim was sitting on the floor, playing with his pirate ship.
‘Hello, darling,’ welcomed Juliette. ‘Did you have a good day?’
Tilly dumped her bag on the floor and gave her mother and aunt a hug.
‘Hi, Mum. Hi, Kara. Hiya, Tim. Yes, it was great,’ replied Tilly. ‘Guess what, Mum? I got my French Revolution assignment back, and I got full marks!’
Tilly pulled the assignment out of her bag, waving it in the air like a victory flag.
‘Full marks!’ exclaimed Juliette. ‘I didn’t think they gave full marks for assignments.’
Tilly read the teacher’s comment aloud: ‘“A stunning essay, showing a detailed and perceptive understanding of the causes and effects of the French Revolution – one hundred per cent. Excellent work, Tilly.” Isn’t that great?’
Juliette grabbed the paper from Tilly and read the comment for herself, hardly daring to believe it was true.
‘That’s wonderful, Tilly,’ cried Juliette. ‘Congratulations. Kara didn’t write it for you, did she?’
Kara laughed. ‘Certainly not,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Tilly did it all by herself.’
Tilly grinned, pulling up a stool to sit at the bench.
‘And I got an A for my French test today,’ Tilly continued proudly. ‘My teacher couldn’t believe it!’
‘I can’t believe it either,’ replied Juliette in surprise. ‘You failed the last two.’
‘I know, but I love French now,’ Tilly said. ‘It is such a beautiful language. I didn’t really see the point before.’
Juliette sat down and shook her head in mock horror. ‘Okay, Kara, what did you do with my daughter? I think you’ve sent me home a changeling! I swear she is a different child.’
‘I didn’t do anything, I promise,’ swore Kara, holding up both hands. ‘I took Tilly shopping – that was all. Just like you, all she needed was a little break from everything.’
Juliette smiled. ‘Well done, Tilly. I’m so proud of you. And you remembered to unpack the dishwasher this morning. Now all we need is a miracle with maths and my life will be perfect!’
Tilly shook her head. Now that would be too much to ask.
‘Mum, would it be okay if I asked Maddie over tomorrow?’ Tilly asked. ‘I haven’t had her over for ages.’
‘Sure,’ agreed Juliette. ‘That would be lovely. I’ve missed Maddie.’
Tilly suddenly noticed that Kara was wearing the ruby talisman.
‘You’re wearing Amelie’s ruby,’ cried Tilly longingly.
‘I thought I’d wear it again,’ agreed Kara. ‘I’d forgotten about it until you came to stay last weekend and we started talking about the French Revolution. It’s too beautiful to moulder away in a safe. I felt like being adventurous today, so I thought Amelie-Mathilde’s spirit might help me.’
Tilly laughed, wondering what adventures Kara might have been up to in Annandale.
‘I’ve always loved the story of Amelie-Mathilde,’ added Juliette. ‘I used to love it when Nanna would tell it to us. I always wondered how a young orphan girl managed to escape across France during that terrible time. She must have been so brave.’
A vision of Amelie with her gurgling laugh came to Tilly, and she smiled.
‘No, I don’t think it was because she was brave,’ Tilly replied with conviction. ‘I think Amelie was just an ordinary girl like me. She just had really good friends who loved her.’
‘With friends you can achieve anything,’ Juliette agreed, squeezing Tilly’s hand.
‘Absolument,’
said Tilly with a grin.
The French Revolution, and the subsequent Reign of Terror, lasted from July 1789 to 1794. The major causes of the revolution were high taxation of the working classes, starvation and the contrasting extravagance of the nobles, who did not pay taxes.
During this five-year period, about forty thousand men, women and children were killed.
In eighteenth-century France, one in three babies died before their first birthday, mostly through infectious diseases exacerbated by poor diets.
Half of all children died before the age of ten, and average life expectancy was less than thirty years old.
It was a common practice to send babies to live with wet nurses in the country, who were paid to breastfeed and raise infants. This practice was not just among wealthy, aristocratic families, but also among middle- and working-class families. Many of these babies died through neglect and disease.
Children usually went out to work at the age of twelve or fourteen, although children would work for the family before that with household chores, harvesting and animal husbandry. Girls would work as lacemakers, seamstresses, weavers, servants, spinners, laundresses, milkmaids and so on.
Nearly half the married women died during childbirth. Most women had five or six pregnancies.
Eighty per cent of French people lived in rural areas.
The French nobles or aristocrats numbered about nine thousand families, which was approximately one per cent of the population.
In the 1780s, Paris was the third-largest city in Europe, with a population of half a million people.
About six thousand people lived in the Palace of Versailles. The palace has two thousand windows, seven hundred rooms, twelve hundred fireplaces, sixty-seven staircases and thirteen hundred fountains in the gardens. The stables held six hundred horses.
Marie-Antoinette introduced bathing to France – she had one of the few flushing toilets in Versailles.
On October 5, 1789, the market women of Paris marched on Versailles, threatening to kill Queen Marie-Antoinette. She escaped through a secret door in her bedchamber to the King’s room. The Royal Family was taken to live at the Palace of the Tuilleries in Paris, then later, after a failed escape attempt, imprisoned at the Temple Tower.
King Louis XVI was guillotined on Monday, January 21, 1793, and Queen Marie-Antoinette was guillotined at 12.15 pm on Wednesday, October 16, 1793. Many people commented on the bravery and composure the Queen showed as she was led to her execution. Dauphin Louis Charles died at the age of ten of illness and neglect. His sister, Marie-Therese, was released at the age of seventeen to marry her cousin.
The aristocrats were often referred to as ‘blue bloods’. It is thought that this name arose because you could clearly see the blue veins under the aristocrats’ fine, white skin, as opposed to the toiling peasants who had rough, sun-coarsened skin.
Many of the bodies of those killed during the revolution were thrown down into the catacombs – the tunnels under Paris – including one of Marie-Antoinette’s best friends, the Princesse de Lamballe, and King Louis XVI’s sister Elizabeth.
I have always been fascinated with the French Revolution and the beautiful and tragic Queen Marie-Antoinette. This fascination was deepened in 2007 when I spent several weeks living and travelling in France, exploring the catacomb tunnels under the streets of Paris, wandering the gilded salons of Versailles and experiencing Paris and the surrounding countryside. As I stood in the dank, dark tunnels of the catacombs – surrounded by the skulls and bones of people killed during the Revolution– I decided I must write a book set during this tumultuous time.
While much of this story is my imagination running wild, much of it is also based on real people and true events, particularly the violence and bloodshed surrounding the fall of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution. To research this story I read many books, both non-fiction and fiction. Some of these were written by people who experienced the Revolution firsthand, such as
Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie-Antoinette
by Madame Campan (1818). Others were written many, many years later, such as
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
by Antonia Fraser (2001), all of which gave me lots of facts to base my story on.
As always, this book comes to life with the help of so many people, particularly my avid proofreaders and fellow researchers – Rob, Nick, Emily and Lachie. To Zoe Walton and Brandon VanOver at Random House – thanks once again for all your hard work.
And for all the kids, parents and even grandparents who have emailed me and written to me – inspiring me to keep writing – thank you!