Milady
After we had gone to the village for the first time, things were never the same again. The house opened up and Mother and Father had visitors, where before Father had always gone away to see friends and Mother had only ever written letters; she would not leave us. Now the house was hardly ever empty and at first it was hard to get used to all of these people.
All in all, it was an opening-out of our lives, lives that had always been cramped and small, safe and protected. I found it very hard to suddenly have to learn how to deal with strangers and it took a very long time for me to be really comfortable with most people. For Hob it always seemed to come more easily, as if her belief in herself was stronger than anything anyone might say or do and Beauty found it easiest of all – there was no one in the world who would not respond well to her if she simply smiled at them.
There were only three things in our lives that did not change: we were not allowed to go into the forest; there were no mirrors in the house; and there were no roses in the garden. I had always had this picture of a grand and impossibly magnificent flower in my mind whenever we heard the story of the prince and was more than a little disappointed when I learned that the humble, pinkish white flowers growing on thorny vines over just about every wall in the village were roses. David’s mother said that what I had in mind was a different kind of rose and showed me a picture in a beautifully illustrated book of flowers which was the only book she owned. It looked a little more like what I had in mind. She seemed surprised that we had no roses in our gardens – after all, we had just about every other kind of flower in the world. The gardens were one of Father’s passions.
We soon settled into a new routine and the next few years passed swiftly. There were lessons in the mornings; after a few years Father started to ring in a series of governesses and tutors to take us further on in our studies than either he or Mother could or had the time to. Father insisted that we should be educated as far as we wished, and would hire specialist tutors in any subject we showed a particularity for. Hob and Beauty benefited more from this than I, as I was something of a daydreamer then and found it hard to pay attention for any significant length of time, particularly when a subject bored me, as most of them did. Much later, it turned out that I had clearly absorbed more than I had thought at the time, but then I was content to be the dunce of the family and let my little sisters compete. Not that there was much competition, really. Beauty worked the harder, but Hob seemed to find it effortlessly easy to learn and never seemed to lift a finger to do it, a thing which caused more fights amongst us than anything else at the time.
In the evenings, Mother insisted that we should learn the ladylike arts of music, dance, art and sewing. Here we all did well, having equal talents in these areas, particularly the music. Music lessons were my favourites, as it was easier for me to make up any deficiency in effort with natural talent. We all learned to play the harpsichord, recorders and harp and here again Hob was the best, but when it came to singing, it was my moment. My poor middle sister had the voice of a startled crow and soon begged off singing lessons in order to save all of our ears; she taught herself to whistle instead.
The afternoons were our own, and we frequently went down to the village. David became the best of our friends and we spent all our free time together. Sometimes the other children would join us, but we were never so close and they remained cautious and wary around us, but we didn’t care. It was the most carefree time of my life.
And then, one rainy summer’s day Mother felt ill and then on the next, sunny, day she didn’t get out of bed at all. They never told us what was the matter with her, but she couldn’t ever seem to get out of bed for a very long time and whenever we went in to see her she was tired and listless and we couldn’t stay long. She had all sorts of doctors come all the way from the city to see her, one after the other and then all together. I listened behind the door, but none of them could seem to agree what the problem was or what they should do. Some of them suggested one thing and some another, but the only thing they all agreed on was that she should go somewhere warmer.
