Bella at Midnight (3 page)

I think God must have looked down upon us then and seen how lonely and dejected we were without our little prince. And so, not three days later, He sent a little princess to take his place.

She was not really a princess—we only called her that—but she was highborn, the daughter of a knight. Her aunt brought her to us, saying the babe had lost its mother and was in need of a nursemaid. The cook up at Burning Wood had spoken well of me, saying I had lately served as wet nurse to the king's youngest son. That was the reason they came to me, I am sure of it. For whenever gentlefolk hear you had aught to do with royalty, they think you grander than you really are—as if Julian's greatness had rubbed off on me as I suckled him and changed his dirty linen! I suppose the aunt figured that if I was good enough for a prince, I was good enough for Isabel.

Like Julian, she came from the King's City. The father had sent her here so that she might “enjoy the benefits of country life.” At least that's what the auntie said, though I was sure there was more to that story than what she was telling; I could see it in her face. But it mattered not to me. Our house felt empty with Julian gone. And as we could use the money, and as the sweet babe needed the milk I could provide, we took her in. We never dreamed how long she would stay.

I
sabel had not been with us a week when Julian came to visit for the first time. He had wept and screamed so, poor thing, that one of the ladies—to preserve her sanity, she said—agreed to carry him down to the village. After that she brought him often, for she said the prince was always easier to manage after he had been at our house. Later, of course, he came to us on his own, two or three times in a week. It was not far—only five minutes from the castle gate to our door.

When Julian first saw Isabel, I believe he thought she was some new toy we had brought in especially for his amusement! He begged me to unwrap her so that he could see how tiny her toes were, and laughed himself into hiccups when she gripped his finger in her little fist and tried to put it in her mouth.

Still a baby himself, Julian could not rightly say “Isabel.” He called her “Bel,” and later “Bella.” So Bella she became, Princess Bella. All the village called her that.

Each time Julian came, he seemed astonished by how she had grown. I know not whether he thought she would stay a babe forever, but he was wild with excitement when she learned to sit up, and later when she took her first steps. Before long they were scampering off together, hand in hand, to play out on the common or down by the river, or to sit upon the wall telling stories and blowing upon grass blades to make the sound of a trumpet.

Seeing the two of them together, you would have thought they were brother and sister. I do not mean that they looked alike—Julian was small and dark and solemn, while Bella was a wild little fairy child with pale-blue eyes and red-gold curls. Yet there was something so like in their natures, some powerful force that bound them together, beyond all explaining. Whatever it was, any fool could see that it was not Martin or Will or me that Julian came to see so often—it was Bella.

At one point he took to calling her the “mistress of his heart.” The other little pages up at the castle had all chosen some girl from the duke's court to honor in this way, and so Julian chose Bella and promised to carry her handkerchief in all his tournaments. He was far too young for such things, of course—I daresay he was only just learning to ride a horse! But they, both of them, liked to pretend, and their little game seemed innocent enough. I never dreamed aught would come of it. Indeed, I do not think
anyone
could have guessed the true consequence of that childish affection.

I only knew that I had been called upon to look after two unwanted children, to give them mother love and start them on their way. Just as in the garden, we dig the earth and scatter the seed and give water to the tender plants—but it is God who makes them grow. I did all I could for those little ones—and looking back, I see it was enough. God had His own great business afoot. I just played my small part in it. And when all was revealed, well, I marveled as much as anyone.

M
y parents thought we were asleep. And indeed, Bella was—but I lay awake, listening as they talked in quiet voices up in the loft. They did not know how the sound carried in the stillness.

Mother had often told me it is ill-mannered to listen to others in secret. But I needed to hear what she would say to Father about the steward's visit, and what it might signify for Bella, and for us.

It had happened in the morning, while I was out weeding the garden. Bella was not allowed to help, for she was only three and could not yet tell the weeds from the sallet herbs. And so she sat beside me in the dirt, asking her everlasting questions.

“Is
that
a weed? Is
that
a weed?” she asked me many times.

“Why do you
hate
the weeds? Does it
hurt
them when you pull them out? Are they
dead
now?”

To me the weeds were just a nuisance and a chore; to Bella they were living out some great tragic story! I never knew if it was her fine breeding that made her so fanciful, or if she was just touched in the head, but that child was ever a mystery to me. Once I saw her shaking a little tree with all her might, and when I asked her what she was about, she said, “I am making the wind blow!” How could you not love a creature like that?

I was about to send her into the house to fetch my hat—as much to stop the questions as to spare my head from the sun—when I looked up and saw the steward riding down the road in our direction. He worked for Bella's father, and he came over from the estate at Burning Wood every quarter to pay Mother's wages.

I had just been thinking of late how much Bella had grown, and that the steward was sure to come for her soon, just as the duke's ladies had come for Julian. So when I saw him riding toward the cottage, my chest went tight. I did not want Bella to go.

But the steward did not seem to notice her when he rode into the yard. He only asked where Mother might be. I said I would run fetch her from the back of the house, where she was doing the washing. I picked Bella up and carried her with me. I did not like to leave her there with the steward.

Mother dried her hands upon her apron and brushed off her skirts to look as presentable as might be. I saw from her face that she thought the same as I did—that he had come to take Bella away. She touched the child's curls most tenderly; then we walked together round the side of the house.

“Your wages,” the steward said, handing her a small purse of coins, just as he always did. That done, he turned to ride off again. We looked at each other in surprise. This was not what we had expected.

“Steward,” Mother called after him. “Please wait a moment! I must know what arrangements have been made for this child.”

I do not think it was easy for my mother to speak so boldly to such a man. He looked back at her in that haughty way important people do.

“She has been fostered on
you
, lady.
That
is the arrangement.”

“But sire, she has been weaned these past two months now and is growing fast. Should she not return to her father's house, to be raised up properly as a gentlewoman?”

“I have been given no such instructions,” said he crossly. “I am to pay your wages—that is all I know.” Then he rode away. Mother stood in the road for some long while, gazing after him with her mouth agape.

What did it mean, I wondered. That Bella would stay with us for always? That her father did not want her? Had he given his child away to us?

I was still holding her. She had wrapped her little arms around my neck and leaned her head upon my shoulder. Her damp curls tickled my cheek. She did not know something important had just happened.

“Mother?” I said. But she only touched my arm and walked away, shaking her head. She was greatly troubled, I could tell that much. But she said nothing more of the matter that day, nor did she mention it to Father when he came home from the forge. I think she did not wish Bella to hear what she had to say. That is why she waited until night to speak of it, when she thought we were asleep.

“I cannot understand,” I heard her say, “how he could abandon his child in this way and make no sort of proper arrangements for her!”

“Aye,” Father said, “though methinks there must be some reason for it. We cannot know the circumstances, Bea. As he is a knight, like as not he has gone to fight in the war.”

“Then he ought to send her to live with his family, if he must go to war—or with the nuns.”

“True enough. He chose instead to impose upon us. And by my troth, it galls me that he did not think to
ask
whether we were willing to raise his child or no.”

“Are you not, Martin?”

“You know I am, Bea. But he might have
asked
.”

They were quiet, then, for a time. I rose up on one elbow and looked over where Bella lay, on her pallet by the fire. Little children in their sleep are nice to look upon, as everybody knows. And Bella, so noisy and active when awake, was all the more sweet at rest. Her breathing was soft and even, her expression innocent and trusting.

It was not right, I thought, for a child to be shifted about like a sack of barley—dropped upon our doorstep and abandoned there, argued over by my parents, as though they did not want her either.
Someone
ought to cherish her.

“What if he never sends for her?” Mother asked after a while. “What am I to do then? I do not know how to raise a knight's child!”

“Rubbish! Of course you do—look at our Will! Is he not as fine a boy as any in the village?”

“Oh, Martin, you know that is not the same! Will is common born, like us. But Bella is of noble estate and must be raised up to live the life she was born to. And I cannot do that—I am ignorant of her world. I cannot even write my name! A crow cannot raise a nightingale!”

“No one expects you to train her in the lady arts, Bea. But you can teach her to work hard—same as you taught Will—and to say her prayers and to be kind and to respect her elders and suchlike. You can teach her to do the right things in life.”

“True enough,” Mother said. “I can do that much.”

“Aye, and far better than her father could, I'll warrant—as he does not seem to know
himself
what is right and needful. All the same, he may remember he has a daughter one day and send for her.” Then after a long pause he said, “Until then, well—we have our own little princess.”

“Aye,” Mother said, “I suppose we do. Though how we are to explain it to the child, I cannot think.”

“Oh, we'll find a way when the time comes, when she is older,” Father said. “For now we'll just let her be.”

I lay back on my pallet and closed my eyes, trying to imagine how that conversation would go. But I could not think of any nice way to tell her the truth: that she had been cast off, unwanted by her father. That the family she thought she belonged to was not truly hers. That they were only the people she was left with, and that they were being
paid
to look after her.

No, it did not bear telling—and the passage of time would not make it any easier. I am sure my parents thought they would explain it to her one day. But that night, young though I was, I knew they never would.