Vanity

Chapter 3

Hey guys i know i've been updating way too often but i just can't help it because i want to get my story out and i have hardly done any character development so in this next chapter you get to know a few more of the characters, also in a week or so i'll be going on holiday so at the end of next week i'll do a massive update because i might not be updating while i'm away, please vote and comment i really want to know what you guys think!!!!!!

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At first it was just colours, all hazy and blurred. Then she registered sounds, her name and the worried conversation between her mother and the doctor, then as if a veil had been removed from her eyes everything came into focus so quickly that it was overwhelming. When Fabienne opened her eyes she saw several faces looming above hers; her mother Bernetta’s face was the first she focused on. Her mother was one of the most beautiful women in the court; she had a kind face with small green eyes glistening like emeralds against her pale skin which did not have quite the same gorgeous colour as her daughter Therese but it was very close. Her features were not beautiful and delicate like her other daughter but they were grand and caring. Her eyebrows which slanted ever so slightly at either end but otherwise were a straight line were slanting more than Fabienne had ever seen them in worry , long lashes bordered her emerald eyes and lips which were no quite full but not quite a straight line either, she had a high jaw and long neck. She was a tall woman with large curves and hips. At the moment she was dressed in an elaborately decorated light green dress with her blonde hair done up in the traditional style that was fashionable in the court with little green birds and butterflies nestled in to the folds and little glass beads dangling from her ears. She reached up her arms to embrace her mother “Mon amour” her mother said enfolding Fabienne in embroidered dress, little fabric butterflies and rose scented perfume, “we had no hope, we thought……we thought you had left us. Oh!! And now that you’re better you might be able to go to the grand ball in a few days, Oh Mon!! But what will we do with your hair!!! I will call monsieur Amadour from Paris and he will work magic!!”

Her mother released her from the tight hug and hurriedly ran to the desk in the corner of Fabienne’s room like an excited child and started writing a letter to send to the fashionable monsieur Amodour who could work miracles on hair. Fabienne had seen him once walking out of the queens chamber with blue wigs piled high on his head, she thought he looked a bit funny with his short body and wig that was at least half a meter tall. Although when she saw the work he had done on the queens hair she was breath taken, it looked like the queen had a puffy pink cloud adorned with little cherries, fake birds and long wavy feathers attached to hear head.

While her mother was writing Fabienne looked over to her sister Aveline’s face “how long was I unconscious?” she asked, Her second eldest sister did not have the same breathtaking beauty as Therese nor the Grandeur of her mother but she was quietly pretty, with a tiny nose and mouth but large Green eyes and wispy blonde hair that was in fancy ringlets, she was very skinny and an average height. Even though she wasn’t that special on the outside she had the kindest heart of anyone Fabienne had ever known. Once when they had been in the carriage riding to their summer home, Aveline had seen a baby bird fall out of a tree and stopped the carriage just so she could go see if it was alright. It had broken its wing so she took of her travellers hat, lined it with her scarf to make an almost nest and made us drive her back to Versailles and leave her there so she could nurse the bird until it was old enough to fly. “You were unconscious for three weeks, we didn’t know if you would make it past a month”

Once again Fabienne scanned the faces around her, her sister, her mother sitting at the desk, the kind faced doctor and her sister’s servant girl Elise. Three weeks, she’d been unconscious for three weeks, which means she’d missed her little sister’s birthday and the birth of the queen’s child. That was one of the reasons that she’d gone out the night she got hit by the carriage, it was all too loud and busy as the queen went into labour, there was so many stamping feet and ringing bells in the palace it was easy to melt into the shadows in the hall ways and sneak out the back door of the kitchens which lead into an alley way that broke off from the street. Suddenly a crowd of people came banging through the double doors of Fabienne’s room; this made her mother jump out of her seat at the desk, spilling ink all over the carpet “excuse me!!! But my daughter is recovering from serious injuries and a fever!!! I don’t know who gave all of you permission to barge in here but I can guarantee that the Queen shall hear about this outrageous trespass of my daughter’s chamber”. Just as Fabienne’s mother finished her rage the group of people who were wearing outraged expressions parted to reveal the Queen Marie Antoinette who had an amused, kind smile on her face “Dear Aunt Bernetta, it is heart-warming to see how protective you are of your daughter, but I am not here with the intention to intrude in the chamber of your daughters sick bed. I was just wishing to see if she is alright. The others will not stay, for I have just been in a conference of the royal court when I saw the servant girl that I had gifted to your daughter Aveline running past the door to the throne room in such a fluster that I knew something must of happened!!” she exclaimed, then she turned to Fabienne and gave her best dazzling smile and said “ my dear bibbi (this is a nickname that the queen had made up for her after their first introduction where she had heard Fabienne’s name pronounced wrong) you cannot believe how worried I was when I heard of your condition!!” at this she ran towards Fabienne’s bed with added hisses from a cranky looking middle aged man dressed from head to heeled shoe in canary yellow  saying “ your majesty!!! You are still in a fragile state after the birth of the princess!! Please do not run!!!”. “Oh! Monsieur Antonin, it flatters me that you are so concerned but really I am alright”. She kneeled next to Fabienne’s bed, taking her hands, and said “Bibi!! Oh Mon!! When I heard of your accident I was so concerned and panicked!! But I have a surprise for you; I was going to wait another year till you turned fifteen to request this of you, but, I would like to make you my fourth lady in waiting, you will get a new more beautiful bed chamber, a seat in the court on my right side, a whole new wardrobe and best of all, we can probably get you betrothed by the year you turn sixteen, isn’t it wonderful”. Fabienne was stunned, she didn’t know what to think, she knew that this meant, she would have to move to a new chamber away from her nurse maid, mother and sisters for the first time in her life. A seat in the court, and especially on the right of the queen, is something that many people in Versailles would desire. And betrothed, at sixteen? Why so soon? She’d never really thought of marriage before, well maybe a couple of times, but never seriously. Now that she thought about it she realised that sixteen wasn’t the earliest case of betrothal she’d ever heard of, for she knew that her mother was betrothed to her father from the age of ten, even though they had not married til her mother was eighteen and her father was twenty. She must have started to look pale as the crowd at the door was giving the queen pleading glances as they were being ushered out of the door by a very agitated Doctor. She sat up; her skinny fragile hands still in the queens pale soft ones, “ I will do it” she mumbled, and then to the queen “ tell me when I am to move into my new chambers and send my new staff to me before you do, I should like to have them wait on me here for a bit before I move into the new chamber” The Queen nodded thoughtfully “ why I thought you might want to keep your old staff, but it looks like that’s not so, I suppose you want to leave you’re old maids to take care of your mother and sisters”. The Queen rose out of her position by Fabienne’s bed, pecked her on the cheek and said with a fleeting glance to her flock of colourful nobles who were giving her glances which Fabienne could only compare to that of a litter of sad puppies “I wish I could stay longer and chat but I have other appointments which I must attend to, tomorrow at around lunch you shall receive your new staff, if they are not to your liking then I’m sure that we can find you some  others who meet up to your standards.” The Queen walked over to where her entourage were waiting at the door and with a flick of her finger they drifted like a flock of sheep following their shepherd out the door. As the doctor closed the doors behind them Fabienne heard her mother fall into a chair beside her bed and with a deep sigh turned to Fabienne’s sister Aveline “Mon Ange, fetch me my shawl, I feel a draft in here”. Fabienne fell back into her nest of blankets and pillows, snuggling deep down under her quilts; here she processed the anxiety that was constraining her body. She curled up in a ball and closed her eyes. She felt herself slipping into a deep sleep and for the first time in a while she didn’t find it frightening, she welcomed the feel of the darkness enveloping her, it allowed her to forget.