by Hannah Parry
“Sari-Bai you have a beautiful daughter, born at a most auspicious hour. She will be a warrior princess.” Sari-Bai’s smile lit the room.
They left her home as grey streaked the sky, but Isabella was not tired.
“That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, Mama-gi.”
Abhaya smiled.
“I am glad you think so because I think so too. We look for miracles everywhere not realizing they go on around us all the time. A strange thing I do not understand.” Isabella took her hand, warm and dry and smelling of mint.
“I do not understand it either.”
By the time she was twelve, Isabella could not only swear in Hindi, Pashtu and English, but she could heal most small ailments and several more serious ones. For her twelfth birthday Abhaya had made her a medicine pouch of her own, but in Isabella’s haste to leave the camp to find her father, she had not packed it.
She wished she knew who had returned her father’s satchel; who it was who knew her well enough to know what Abhaya’s pouch would mean to her. She held the pouch to her face again and it caught one of the tears, which trickled down her face.
When she returned to India with her money, she would find out who it was and thank them.
That evening, after washing and putting on her cleanest dress, she made her way down the stairs to Mrs Trotter’s apartments. The stairs were very grand, with thick crimson carpet held in place by brass rods. Portraits of tired-looking Moleseys lined the walls, deadening any sound. Holding up her lantern to look a little closer at a painting of a London landscape, Isabella paused. There was the click of a door on the floor just below her. A stream of light came from Mrs Trotter’s rooms and fell on the carpet in the gloomy hall. Isabella could hear Lady Molesey’s voice. She would wait here until Lady Molesey had gone.
The voices coming through the crack in the door were muted, but clear.
“Will you tell her?” It was Lady Molesey speaking. Isabella’s attention still wandered over the portrait in front of her.
“No, I couldn’t possibly. I promised Colonel Hearthogg.” Mrs Trotter’s voice sounded tight and breathless. Mention of the colonel’s name caught and focused Isabella’s attention.
Lady Molesey’s voice was low.
“It does seem a little harsh. What happens when she is sixteen and demands her money? Anyone can see she fully expects to return to India, after all she is more Indian than English, as one would expect from someone with her unfortunate upbringing. How will she pay for her passage if there is to be no money at the end of her service?”
Mrs Trotter was starting to sniffle.
“I don’t know. The colonel just said the regiment had fallen on hard times and all their monies had gone on arming the soldiers against Russia. He…he…” Here Mrs Trotter hiccupped. “He said the orphans from now on would just have to make do as best they could. The regiment could provide a position, but that was all.”
“I’m not sure I approve of this.” There was a pause. “Compose yourself, Matilda, the child will be down in a minute.” There was a click and the door closed.
Isabella sat down on a carpeted step.
It was funny. Of all the things that could have gone wrong, this was the one thing she would never have expected; not of her father’s regiment, the one in which she had been raised. An honourable and brave regiment, who she regarded as family. She felt as if a bucket of freezing water had been poured over her head.
How could she have been so naïve? Of course there wasn’t any money. She’d been an inconvenience and they’d had to get rid of, so they’d sent her back to England, not even having the decency to let her starve in her own country. But that would have been bad form, and the regiment couldn’t have that, something even Lady Molesey knew. She was a worthless nuisance, nothing more.
There was a pain in her chest, a tightening and a hardening, and she stood up, struggling for a moment to catch her breath. Forcing her feet down the stairs to Mrs Trotter’s apartments, Isabella had the feeling she was leaving something behind. Turning, she caught sight of the portrait of London she had so admired, but now, on closer inspection, she saw the colours were dull and the paint work flat and what she’d assumed was a wheeling flock of birds over the steeple of St Paul’s was, in fact, tiny holes made by woodworm.
Dinner was brief. Isabella forced herself to eat every mouthful, though it tasted like sand.
“Are your rooms comfortable dear?” enquired Mrs Trotter.
“Yes, quite thank you.” There was a pause. “And yours?”
“Oh yes, very. I still feel as if I am on a ship, however. The room moves to and fro at times, but I am so happy to be on land, I really do not mind.” She took another mouthful of chicken broth. Isabella wondered if disgust were showing on her face.
“What time will we leave tomorrow?”
Mrs Trotter patted her mouth with a napkin, not quite meeting Isabella’s eye.
“Well, when we are ready. Mid-morning perhaps? It being Friday, the roads may be busy and I must meet my coach at three o’clock, though I can’t imagine our business taking too long. India House is very organised.”
“Have you had many dealings with them?” Isabella asked, opening her eyes wide.
Mrs Trotter blushed.
“Well a few.”
“So I am not the first orphan you’ve escorted into service?”
“No, but I prefer to think of my being their friend rather than an escort.”
Isabella nodded.
“You’ve kept in touch then?”
Mrs Trotter flushed again.
“Well, no, but… they often moved position and it proved too difficult to track them down.” She looked apprehensive. In the past Isabella would have poured scorn on Mrs Trotter’s feebleness, but now she found she didn’t care. She lifted a silver breadbasket lined with a white linen napkin.
“More bread?” Mrs Trotter took another piece.
“Your rooms are nice,” said Isabella, looking around the luxuriously appointed room.
“Aren’t they just? I feel very lucky to have met Lady Molesey. Really, she has been too kind.”
“Yes she has.” There was a pause. “Mrs Trotter, I know this is our last night, but would you mind if I went to bed early. After all, I do have a big day tomorrow.” Isabella hoped her voice, high and false to her own ears, wouldn’t give her away.
Mrs Trotter pushed back her tray.
“Of course, Isabella. What an excellent idea.” Then she looked anxious. “You’re not sickening for something are you?”
Isabella bit back a nasty reply.
“No, I am just tired, but might I take some of your bromides to settle my stomach. Lady Molesey’s food is so much richer than what we’ve been used to.”
“Of course. I will fetch them.” Mrs Trotter bustled off to her bedroom and Isabella waited until the door between the two rooms was firmly shut. Then she shot to her feet and over to the tall window. On a small table was a heavy jade box, which she pocketed, followed by two silver snuffboxes from the mantelpiece. Mrs Trotter had left her reticule next to the sofa where they had taken their supper. From it, Isabella took a pair of tiny emerald earrings, the ones Mrs Trotter had planned on giving her daughter.
Then Isabella sat back in her seat and replaced her napkin, just as Mrs Trotter came back into the room.
“Here we are, dear, now don’t take too much, just a little with water.”
Isabella fixed a smile on her face.
“Goodnight Mrs Trotter.”
“Goodnight, dear. Sleep well.”
In her room, Isabella packed all her belongings in her bag, with the boxes wrapped up in the sari at the bottom of the bag. She dressed in her warmest clothes and taking the blanket from the bed, packed that at the top of the bag. She knew she’d need it soon. She sat on the crimson step where she had sat such a few hours earlier, and waited for the house to settle. When the grandfather clock three floors down struck one, she made her move, silently
as she’d been taught, down to the front door. Undoing the chain, she stepped into the darkness, the cold making her gasp, and then pulled the door closed behind her with a clunk.
She paused.
There was a faint glow above the city to the east. Could it be the bakeries already at work? She would head in that direction. At least she had a full belly, and something she could sell. She might not be much of a soldier, but she was still a soldier’s daughter, and she was learning fast.
Chapter 3:
Rooky
“Move along now, Missy,” came the voice of a Peeler who poked at her with his truncheon. “You can’t sleep here.”
Isabella pulled the blanket around her, but it did little to drive out the biting cold.
“Where can I sleep? Everywhere I go you’re poking at me.”
“I suggest you go back to where you came from. You won’t last a minute on these streets.” Isabella slowly got to her feet. Her head was spinning with fever. She hadn’t slept at all, maybe for two minutes at a time, too terrified someone would come to steal her belongings or, even worse, take her back to India House.
Her footsteps echoed off high brick walls, black with soot. The arches underneath which she’d sought shelter yawned at her from either side. Looking up she saw the sky, previously bright with icy stars, was now full of cloud and the air was still. Instinctively, she knew she must find shelter soon. She’d spent most of the previous day in hiding worried she might come across someone looking for her. Surely now, any searches would have been called off?
At the end of the line of arches, she found a well-made road, with light traffic moving along it: Small carts, making their way to market and larger carts carrying stones and timber pulled by heavy draught horses. A cracking whip made her jump.
“Get out the way there!”
Speeding up her pace, she moved in next to the cart and called up to the driver.
“Please sir, to where does this road lead?”
The driver spat on the ground.
“Up to Smithfield Market. Mind your feet now, I’ve got to get on.” He urged his Drays into a lumbering trot. Isabella tried to think. A market would mean food and people. She didn’t imagine she’d be the only street child to hang around a market square, but what choice did she have? If she were lucky enough to steal a piece of bread for later, then finding the market would have been worth it. At least the fever had killed her appetite and her churning hunger had all but gone. She needed rest and shelter and food. Without them, her brain wouldn’t work.
Falling in behind the heavy cart she placed one foot in front of the other, barely managing to raise her eyes off her boots, except to check it was still the same cart in front of her. At one point she stood to one side to let a coach thunder past and she felt something touch her face. There it was again. Tiny frozen kisses swirled around her.
So this was snow. How beautiful it was, though quite deadly, if the temperature was anything to go by.
An hour later, the thin blanket of snow had made all the ugly buildings look like pictures from a fairy tale. The cart stopped. Isabella pressed herself into the shadow of a doorway, and watched as the man unhitched his team and led them down a quiet mews. Her hands and feet were numb, as if the life were creeping from her body with every flake of snow that settled. Shaking them under her cloak, she wondered if the life would ever return to them, or had she damaged herself beyond repair?
She slipped from her hiding place and made a circuit of the giant building. If she’d thought the snow bad before, she’d been sorely mistaken. Now it was really coming down, blinding her as she walked and making her feet slip on the cobbles. Her cloak was no protection, slapping wetly against her shoulders.
Inside Smithfield there were lanterns hung from beams and tables had been made ready for the day’s trading. An old man swept the floor of his pitch. Smithfield Square was probably as quiet as it was ever going to get. She retraced her steps to the mews. All was quiet. Opening one of the doors at the far end of the mews she found the two Drays, knee deep in hay, munching on a feed. One of them snorted a greeting to her. Next to their boxes was a stable filled with bales of hay and straw. Isabella’s heart soared for the first time in days. That would do. The man would not be back for his horses for a few hours. She could sleep here safely, and in the morning she could see what opportunities the market would bring.
She returned to the heavy stable door to pull it closed. Outside the snow lashed at the door, as if trying to pull it from her hands. She took a last look at the now blanketed mews and the swirling whiteness. What was that? Her fevered eyes squinted at a dark silhouette. In fact, there were several and they seemed to be standing over another dark shape lying in the snow. The snow had carpeted the mews so thickly she could hear nothing, and the figures felt removed from her, almost as if she could close the stable door and sleep, thinking she’d imagined it all.
Almost, but not quite.
Pushing the door back open she walked, and then ran, as it became clear three large boys were pushing a smaller one to the ground. Isabella hated an unfair fight.
Taking a running jump, she leapt onto the back of one of them and punched him hard, in the side of his head – just like her father had taught her. The sweet spot he’d called it – where the skull became soft, and a well-positioned blow could knock a man out. He fell to the ground without making a sound. Isabella stood for a moment nursing her knuckles.
“Come on then,” she beckoned to the remaining boys with her fingertips. They remained motionless, eyes moving from the inert body of their companion to Isabella.
“What’s the matter?” she jeered. “Too scared of a fair fight?” By this time the smaller boy who’d been on the ground had got to his feet, though he was weaving back and forth like a puppet.
“Yeah, come on… not so big and scary without Jock now are you?” The boy taunted, aiming a kick at the body Isabella had just felled. The boys moved as one, and took off down the mews into the blowing darkness.
“Cowards. Didn’t even try and take their mate…”
The boy looked at her. Barely ten or eleven he had hair the colour of a Palamino’s mane, and was smothered in freckles. His front teeth were either missing or growing in and he was dressed in layer upon layer of dark woollen clothes, which gave him more bulk than he actually possessed. Like her, he was filthy and wet.
“Thanks, Miss, you done me a big favour,” he paused looking sideways at her. “Though I think I could ’ave taken them on me own.”
Isabella nodded, raising her eyebrows. “Of course you could, because you were doing very well before I arrived. The ‘lying-down-on-the-ground’ defence. It’s not one I’ve heard of, but I could see how effective it was.”
The boy’s lips twitched and then his smile spread and he threw back his head and laughed and laughed.
“Alright, Miss, you got me.”
Isabella’s fever was now so high, that she felt no cold in the snowstorm. With the excitement of the fight over, she was feeling terrible. The boy must have noticed because he pulled her back over to the stable door and ushered her inside. From his pockets he produced two stale rolls of bread and gave her one.
“This’ll make us feel better. We should stay here for a bit. Them lads’ll be back eventually and they might bring reinforcements.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, mouth full.
Then, climbing into gaps in the straw, warmed by the heat from the horses and the sweet smell of hay, the children slept.
The boy woke her at lunchtime, from a dream in which she and Bumblebee flew together through a sky filled with snowflakes. Her first feeling was relief that the fever was gone and her second was of hunger, the likes of which she could have only previously imagined.
The boy was shaking her shoulder.
“Ere, Miss, we’ve got to go. Draughtsman’s going to be back in a minute and he’ll get us with a pitchfork if he finds us in here.”
She shot to her feet, still half asl
eep.
The little boy stuck out his hand.
“I’m Midge. Pleased to meet you.”
She took it.
“I’m Isabella,” she looked at him closely. His freckled face was pale but his eyes were clear. “Are you feeling alright? You were half dead last night.”
“Naw, I’m fine. Got a bang on the head is all.” He took Isabella’s hand and rubbed it against his scalp. Sure enough there was a lump as big as an egg beneath it. He took her hand again. “Come on, let’s go.”
The snow had stopped and a clear blue sky sat above the white rooftops, which glittered and winked in the sun. Isabella blew a great breath out in front of her, amused to see it turn to smoke.
“Come on, this way,” said Midge, leading her to the top of the mews.
The market was in full swing. Carts were bringing back the day’s catch and unloading it onto the stalls, which lined the streets. Great sides of beef swung on hooks and huge sheaves of flowers were being brought up from the barges of Amsterdam. Unfamiliar smells came from everywhere and they coughed as they passed the stall of a Chinese trader as scented smoke billowed from his pipe. Straw and filth was beneath their feet and all around the people of the east end of London shouted, jostled, bartered, fought and drank.
Through the gaps in the houses Isabella caught glimpses of the river, flowing swiftly under a blanket of fog caused by a thousand chimneys.
“Where are we going, Midge?”
He threw a smile back at her.
“To get some breakfast.” If she’d had doubts about following him, the mention of food decided her. Midge changed direction suddenly, leading her off the main square, down alley after alley, each becoming narrower than the last.
“Are we nearly there?” she hissed, wondering why she felt she needed to keep her voice down. India certainly had its fair share of poverty and Smithfield Square hadn’t been very smart, but she was surprised at how rundown this part of London was. The buildings were of wood and many were broken down and empty. Slop ran down the gutters and she could see a white post sticking out from above the door of a tiny shop front. Around it was wrapped a bloody rag.