This, of course, led to “And as we were coming home, Bella said there would be snow and the ponds would be frozen soon!” and pleas to be allowed to attend skating parties. “We’re old enough now!” Pearl asserted.
With calculation, Bella had presented her finds. Now Genevieve would have a reason to wear a magnificent new, warm gown. She could attend the skating party and retire with the other parents when she got the least bit chilled, leaving the twins with their governess.
Which led to something all the doctors had told Bella, and which she had not told anyone, not even her father—although she was sure he knew it very well, and that they had been telling him this at least weekly for a long time. “More outdoor air will cure that headache faster than any medicine, and more outdoor exercise will mean less stiffness and fewer aches.”
So Bella left the twins chattering to their mother, all three of them as animated as she had ever seen them. She smiled to herself as she closed the door to her room. That should keep all three in good spirits for at least three weeks.
And that is all to the good for me!
2
AS USUAL, BELLA WAS UP AT DAWN; SHE, AND NOT Genevieve, was the one who was truly in charge of the household, and had been, more or less, since her own mother died when she was ten — roughly half her life now that she thought about it. Not that there was an inordinate amount of work to be done; the servants were all good, reliable and mostly managed things very well. Still, someone had to be in charge, or there would be all manner of jockeying for the right to have the last say in things; that was just the way that people worked.
Getting up at dawn just was not a hardship when you didn’t attend parties that went long into the night, didn’t linger at dances until you were exhausted and didn’t indulge in too much rich food and wine that kept you up all night. In the winter it wasn’t fun, certainly — it was cold and dark, and until you got the fires going again, you had to bustle about the house bundled up to your eyes. But that was more than made up for by glorious spring and summer mornings when everything was cool and fresh and smelled delicious, and the very air was as intoxicating as any wine.
When the household — downstairs at least — was up and functioning, Bella went back to her room and bundled into her bed. Not to sleep — this was when she did the household accounts, with a nice cup of hot sweet tea and a buttered muffin.
By the time she was done, the fires had warmed the house and it was no longer a trial to be up and doing.
When she had approved the menus for the day, unlocked the wine cellar, mildly scolded the boy who cleaned the fireplaces for carelessness that had nearly ruined a rug and praised the scullery maid who had saved it, checked the pantries, approved the shopping list and paid the tradesmen’s bills, it was time for Genevieve, Pearl and Amber to wake. She liked to be out of the house by then, as it allowed Genevieve the illusion that she had the ordering of the household, as the housekeeper presented her with menus and shopping lists she never read, bills that had already been paid and a vague report on the servants. Sometimes Bella had heard Genevieve boasting — or sighing — about all the work she was put to in order to keep the household in order, and she had just shaken her head.
By afternoon, however, Bella was free. The twins would be engaged with some lesson or other — a foreign language, dancing, watercolor painting or attempts to learn a musical instrument — which so far had come to nothing although their singing was superb. Genevieve had at least three friends in her rooms for a good gossip. Now was a good time to escape.
Today was the day for another of those activities on Bella’s part that made Bella’s stepmother roll her eyes, for today she had planned to visit Granny.
Everyone in the city knew Granny, whether they admitted it or not. Granny was a fixture. There had been a Granny at Granny’s Cottage for generations. She might or might not actually be a witch; no one would say, and Granny was very closemouthed on the subject. Officially Granny was the Herb Woman, the doctor for those who could not afford doctors, the confidante and giver of advice for those who had no granny of their own, and the dispenser of wisdom that had passed the test of time.
As such, of course, she was exceedingly unfashionable and not the sort of person that the Beauchamps should be associating with, in the mind of Genevieve at least. No one of their status went to an Herb Woman; they had doctors come to attend them.
Bella stopped by the kitchen and put together a basket of the sorts of things Granny liked best: a bottle of sweet wine, a block of good yellow cheese, the end of the roast beef and the ham, and a pound of butter preserved in a jar. Granny was quite self-sufficient; she grew all her own vegetables, had chickens and had good trade in her herbs and medicines for just about anything else she needed, but Bella liked to bring her little luxuries. That was trade in a way, too; the goodies for Granny’s teaching. Bella was fascinated by the art of healing, but of course it was completely impossible for a woman to become a doctor, and even if she could get the training, who would use her services? Perhaps in a place where there were no doctors — but not here, in this neighborhood. The doctors wouldn’t think kindly of competition, and Genevieve would be mortified.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Bella saw herself doing what Granny did one day, though probably not out of the cottage in the middle of the woods. That would be for another Granny — someone this Granny was working with even now, Bella suspected — and anyway, she knew that she was much, much too young to be trusted as Granny was trusted.
When the kitchen staff realized that she was going to visit Granny, she found the basket taken away from her and filled with other tasty odds and ends: some uneaten tarts from last night’s dinner, honeycake from breakfast, a parcel of bacon ends and rinds. She flung a bright red cloak with a hood over herself, gathered up her basket and went out into the cold.
The hooded cloak — a riding cloak — was entirely inappropriate for a young lady; it had been her father’s, from the days when he still had time to go foxhunting with the gentry. But it was warm and cheerful, and besides, when she went out into the woods, she had no desire to be taken for a game animal and shot.
As she made her way out of the city, taking the route that led her down a street lined with shops that catered to this neighborhood, she reflected on her own future. Now, what she had in mind was a little shop with living quarters above, perhaps in a neighborhood that had no Apothecary. If the twins were married and she was left a spinster, she had an independent settlement in her father’s will, which would more than pay for such a thing. And the truth was, such an outcome was very likely. Try as she might, and she did try, she just couldn’t picture herself married.
She nodded to the poet from next door in a friendly fashion as he emerged from the butcher’s with what was clearly a goose done up in brown paper under his arm. He saluted her with a grin and passed on, and she smiled to
