Bella at Midnight (5 page)

One day I got the notion that Will and I ought to build a little fairy castle for her, down by the river, to see her amazement and delight when she beheld it. And so we set to work upon it, meaning only to make it a simple thing and be done with it in an afternoon. But first Will suggested we pave the courtyard with river pebbles, then I said we ought to have proper crenellations, and a portcullis for the entrance, and a moat with a drawbridge—and before long we had made something quite grand and not unlike my uncle's castle (though very much smaller).

The moat was a problem at first, for each time we filled it the water soaked away into the ground. Then Will thought to line the moat with reeds and pebbles, and this kept the water in.

Each day I would bring with me some bit of fancy stuff to decorate the castle—a strip of red silk for a banner, some patterned velvet for a tapestry, and the like. I took great pleasure in the most delicate work, such as making the little portcullis out of sticks and twine. Indeed, I found I was quite cunning with my hands, a gift I had not known I possessed until then.

When it was almost finished, Will remarked that he thought it looked like a very
good
castle, but that aside from being so small, it did not seem particularly fairylike.

“We cannot find any
real
fairies, Will,” I told him.

“No, but we might catch some glowworms and put them inside.”

I thought that over. I did not see how we could keep them inside unless we closed the little shutters, and then Bella would not be able to see them, and most likely they would die in there.

“I do not think that would work, Will,” I said. “We must think of something else.”

That night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I had a great inspiration. I would tie a bit of string to the bottom of the little entry door, run it down under the ground through a conduit, and out to a place beyond the outer walls. I would make a loop at the far end so I could pull the string with my thumb—over to the side where Bella would not notice it—and the door would appear to open magically of its own accord!

“That is most ingenious,” Will said the next day when I showed him my idea. “But what will she see inside when the door has opened? If we cannot make any fairies and you do not want to use glowworms?”

“I have thought of that, too,” I said. And I told him.

At last we were ready to show Bella her great surprise. I said the king of the fairies and all his court were staying at his castle nearby, that I had spoken with him the day before, and that the king was most anxious to meet the beautiful Princess Bella—only we had to make haste, for they would not be staying long. The fairies had urgent business in the north and must be away soon.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried, dancing about with excitement, covering her mouth with her little hands. “Let us go now!” And she raced away, down toward the river.

We caught up with her and told her she must not run. She should walk slowly and show respect, for these were no ordinary fairies, but the king and all his court. She squeezed my hand and looked up at me and said, “I will, I will.” Thereafter she walked so solemnly she might have been following a funeral procession to the churchyard.

“There it is, Bella!” I said as we neared the riverbank. (I kept firm hold of her hand, lest in her excitement she fall upon the castle and ruin it.) “Now approach carefully and kneel down, as is fitting.” I felt her tremble—and such expressions of amazement and suppressed glee and even a little fear crossed her face! She kept her lips pressed together to keep from speaking or crying out, poor thing.

“You can whisper,” I said.

“Oh, look, look, look!” she said (in a whisper that could be heard from the top of the rise), pointing out every feature of our creation. She admired the drawbridge and the guard towers, crying, “Oh! A portcullis, just like Castle Down!” (She had by then forgotten to whisper and was beginning to bounce and wiggle.) I looked at Will and saw that his face—like mine—was flushed with pride. Strange as this will sound, that day remains in my memory as one of the grandest of my youth.

Bella began tugging on my sleeve. “Julian,” she said, “I want to see the fairies now! Are they inside?”

“They must be,” I said. “I suppose we ought to knock, though, don't you?”

She agreed that we ought, so I tapped gently upon the door with my finger. I waited a few seconds, then slowly pulled the little string, and the door magically opened. Bella shrieked with joy and leaned over to peer inside.

I had made tiny furniture for the great hall—a trestle table and little benches and a king's chair covered in red velvet. On the table lay a silver thimble and a note on parchment, written in strange characters. I delicately slid my fingers inside and drew it out.

“Can you read this, Will?” I asked.

“I cannot read at all, Julian,” he answered. “Not even common writing, as you know—and this looks something strange.”

We all studied it with great interest. Then I told Bella that I knew a
bit
of fairy writing, though not much. I would try to puzzle it out. So I looked at it awhile, Bella hanging on to my arm, her face eager and glowing with excitement.

“Here,” I said, “I think I have made something of this. It is from the king. He says he is most disappointed that we did not come in time, for they had to leave with the dawn this very day. But he wishes Bella to enjoy his hospitality, though he be not here to offer it in person. And so he has left behind a flagon of ale. The king regrets that it is so small, for he understands that humans are very big and drink great quantities—but, sadly, it is the largest they possess.”

I handed Bella the thimble. She took it carefully between two fingers and solemnly drank the few drops it contained. Then she held it in her hand for a moment, gazing at it with a reverence worthy of the crown jewels. At last, as if responding to some inner command, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and placed the thimble back upon the table.

“Wait!” I said. “Here is a postscript: ‘Please tell Princess Bella that I would be most honored if she would keep the flagon as a token of my esteem.'”

How she smiled then, her eyes wide with wonder and amazement! Once again she reached her little fingers through the door, this time to retrieve her prize. She clutched it to her heart with both hands and looked up at me with an expression of perfect rapture. I thought it remarkable that such a small gift could produce so much joy. It pleased me enormously—and indeed, I do believe that at that moment I was every bit as happy as she was.

Our little castle was destroyed in the first hard rain thereafter, and Bella never did get to meet the king of the fairies, of course. But the thimble remained her greatest treasure. Beatrice sewed a little pouch for it, and Bella wore it round her neck always—even when she was a grown girl and had long ceased thinking of fairies.

I often wondered, in those later years, whether Bella had figured it out—that I was the one who had given her the thimble. I rather hoped so. I liked to think that she went on wearing it out of affection for me.

I
waited three years before returning to Edward's house. I did not relish going there, you may be sure. But I longed to see Isabel again, and as I had been the one to carry her away after Catherine died, I thought I would offer to bring her home again.

Edward heaved a great, heavy sigh when I was ushered into his presence. I found him less distraught than when I had seen him last, but he still did not look well. It was as if he had—how shall I say this?—
dried up
, like a grape in the sun. No, no, that is not right, for a grape grows sweeter as it shrivels into a raisin, and such was not the case with Edward. Perhaps it would be better to say he had
spoiled
, like last week's table scraps.

He did not rise to greet me when I entered the room, nor did he offer me a seat, but I took one anyway.

“What brings you here?” he asked, with no attempt at courtesy.

“Your daughter,” I answered. “Isabel. I was thinking that by now she is likely weaned, and as you may be occupied with other matters, you might wish me to go there and bring her home. I thought perhaps it would be more convenient for you.”

“It is
not
convenient for me at all,” he said. “I have no wife to attend to a child, as you well know, and no desire to have one in the house. I told you that before.”

“But, Edward,” I said, “she is living with
peasants.
They are goodly folk, truly, but it is no place for her to learn how to dress and how to behave in fine company and all that a wellborn child must know.”

“Madam, it is none of your affair.”

“But I am her aunt, Edward, and her godmother also!”

“Then you may pray for her soul, if you like.”

“Indeed, I
do
pray for it already, Edward—every day—and do not need your permission to do so.”

He sniffed and rose to his feet. I was being dismissed.

“Edward,” I said, “I do not think it wise to leave her there much longer—she will pick up coarse habits that must only be broken later.”

“Enough!” he said. “I told you already it was none of your affair. You know where the door is, Maud—it's the place where you came in.”

“Only hear me a moment longer, Edward—”

“No, I will not! Isabel is
my
daughter, and I will dispose of her as I will!”

“Dispose!”
I was aghast. How could he use such a word in connection with his own child?

“Oh, the devil take you,” he roared, “you ugly, common, interfering busybody! Get out of my house and leave my daughter alone. Do you hear me? I will bring her home when I am ready, and not before. And if ever I have need of your assistance,
or
your opinions, you may be sure that I shall ask for them. Until that time, if I should hear that you are meddling in my affairs in
any
way, by God, I shall have you taken up by the law. And do not think I won't, out of sentiment for your sister—for I married her
despite
her family. And I have absolutely no wish to continue the acquaintance.”

“You were happy to continue your acquaintance with our father's
money
!” I shouted back. I never should have said it—satisfying though it was—for my words were like bellows to a flame. He flashed out at me, so that I feared he might strike me. I took up my mantle in haste and moved quickly toward the front entrance.

“I will gladly raise her, if you will not,” I said from the safety of the doorway.

“You will not so much as
speak
to her, do you hear me? I would rather she live with
lepers
than with you!”

Then he slammed the door.

And so I went home that day and wept my heart out. Edward seemed determined to leave that poor child exactly where she was. Whether he did it out of lunacy or spite, I never knew, but it mattered not. Either way Isabel would grow up a peasant, with no education and none of the skills or social graces expected of a highborn lady. How, then, was she to find her place in the world? Was she to marry a cobbler or a blacksmith? Or some down-at-the-heels knight who would wed her for her fortune and treat her with scorn? No one
else
would have her, of that I was quite sure—not with her coarse speech and common ways.

Hard as I tried, I could not drive the picture from my mind of my own dear sister's child out hoeing the garden, or shearing the sheep, or slopping the pigs, or plucking a chicken—work fit only for the lowest servant in my house. She would wear some awful, shabby gown, filthy, patched, and torn. Her skin would be ruined by the sun. Her hands would be calloused and filthy, with dirt beneath the nails. And her hair—so golden and downy soft when she was a babe—would be greasy and unkempt, hanging down in her face and blown about by the wind.

But then I checked myself, remembering her foster mother, good Beatrice, and how clean and well-ordered her cottage had been, and how tenderly she had held the child that day. And so I amended the vision somewhat. Now I saw Isabel running about on the common with the other children, barefoot and laughing. I saw her busy with useful tasks—spinning by the hearth, helping in the kitchen—and I began to grow rather fond of this imagined child. She was strong and eager and inclined to laughter. She held her head high, and her eyes were bright. She still wore a shabby gown, but at least it would be clean. And though she would not know her letters, she would have learned her prayers and her catechism. That was the best that even sensible Beatrice could manage. She could not give Isabel anything she did not herself possess.

And thus my thoughts returned once more to Edward and how he meant to deny his own daughter her birthright as a noble child. And I pictured Isabel once again, this time as she
ought
to have been. She was beautiful, of course, much like Catherine in her younger days. She sat beside the fire in the great hall of Edward's house with her sewing in her lap, wearing a fine silk gown and dainty slippers. Her hair was neatly plaited and coiled and covered with a linen veil. Her skin was smooth and white, her hands long and slender.