Belle's Song (28 page)

I ran my finger round the bell’s crown. My father regarded me candidly. “Don’t be worried,” he said. “There was no miracle about my walking, so nobody’s going to hold you to the promise you made before you disappeared. You’re not cut out for bell founding. We both know that.”

I rang the bell. The clapper didn’t hit true at once. It needed to settle on its thong. I rang it again. The sound it made was pretty as a stream in summer. I rang it again. “I just said walking, I didn’t say how. I swore before God and St. Thomas.”

“Indeed,” my father agreed. There was a certain irony in his voice. “But St. Thomas, like all other priests, held that we’re all made in God’s image, and if we’re made in his image we must have some of God within us. I’m using my bit of God to release you from your promise. Is that convoluted enough for you?”

“It’s not so easy, Father,” I said, and knelt down, avoiding his legs.

He took my hands, though the angle was awkward.
“I think it’s something else that’s not so easy. Am I right, sweetheart?”

He hadn’t called me that since the accident. Tears pricked my eyes. “Life’s just one terrible bargain after another,” I whispered. “I’ve said things—done things—I don’t know how things will end.”

He stroked my hair. “You think God keeps a tally like the summoner?”

“Or the devil does.”

He drew my hands to his heart. “Belle, Belle, Belle. You think you’re so important that there’s a tally book just for you?”

I felt his palms for the calluses that my mother used to count with pride. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”

He removed one of his hands and rang the little bell again. He was pleased with it. “Well, Belle,” he said, blowing away the last of the dust, “it’s time you did.”

We remained together, my father and I, until he grew chilly and uncomfortable and my knees began to hurt. Then I got up, opened the workshop shutters, raked out the fire, and fetched a broom. My father made no comment as the widow and I worked together. By midday the room was clean.

It was 9 November when my father strode into the Tabard. His upright appearance was not, of course, a complete surprise, because it was impossible to keep things secret on our street. Peter Joiner, perhaps with
the widow’s connivance, had organized a party of people to welcome him. Everybody was there: the miller, six prostitutes, a bargeman or two; the usual crowd. They shook his hand. Some brought their children for him to touch, convinced of a miracle despite my father showing off his calipers and calling Peter “God’s joiner.”

“You’ll never persuade them it wasn’t a miracle,” I said, and only then told him about Luke and the cloud. My father supped his ale. “Luke, not Walter,” he commented.

I blushed. “He’s gone.”

“That’s hard.”

I nodded.

Master Host was, as usual, full of gossip, and a casual inquiry elicited a torrent. “Didn’t want to say, with your father just on his feet and that, but I’ve been to the fish market this morning and the place is awash with rumors. They say the king’s returning to take his rightful place at Westminster. He’s less than ten miles away. He could be here tomorrow.”

“What kind of welcome will he get?” I poked the fire, trying to keep my voice light.

“Who knows!” Master Host said. “The fishmen couldn’t decide if they wanted him back or not, nor the butchers neither.”

“What about the guildsmen?” I asked.

Master Host laughed. “Your pilgrimage whetted your appetite for a career in the city, eh?”

I tried to toss my head in my old style. “Why not? Or even at court. Powerful men make things up. I make things up. Where’s the difference?”

This delighted him. “Belle for Lord Chancellor! What do you think of that, John Bellfounder?”

“I’ll ring her in myself,” my father said.

“You’re going to reopen the business?”

“I am.”

“With Belle as partner?”

“I thought you said she was going to be Lord Chancellor.”

Master Host guffawed. “Drinks on the house! Whatever London decides tomorrow, we’ll celebrate tonight.”

It was late when we got home. After the widow and I had helped my father to bed, I paced my room until a gray dawn broke. When I got downstairs, the widow had already lit the fires and gone to buy milk. My father, too, was up. He was sitting with a drawing board on his knees, his legs neatly bent today and the caliper prongs sticking through his trousers like small horns. “It’s a good thing I sat in the dark at the trial,” he said, “or they’d have seen at once how the ‘miracle’ worked. I’m going to get Peter to make a higher table.”

I nodded and crouched by the hearth. We waited, my father drawing and me staring into the flames. I don’t know how long it was before the widow burst in, gesticulating backward. She’d left the front door wide open. And then
we heard them, the bells: “St. Martin Vintry, St. Jude’s, St. Mary’s on the Wharf, St. James Garlickhythe, St. Michael at Paternoster, White Friars, St. Mary Overie.” It was my father who did the reciting. “Where’s—”

A huge peal burst like a thunderclap. “St. Paul’s,” my father said, and he began to rise. “St. Paul’s!”

The bells were wild. “Who are they pealing for?” I cried. “The king or the commission?”

The widow didn’t know.

“Can I go, Father? Please? I’ve got to know!”

He hugged me. His eyes were alight. “My bells,” he said, “my bells, welcoming me back to their world. Yes, go, Belle. But be careful.”

I rushed passed the widow and down the street. Everybody was outside, pulling on shawls and boots against the clammy dew. The sun was struggling in vain through the clouds. I never felt the cold. I just ran. I counted madly. Four pigeons, seven gaping children, two old men with red hats, eight barrels—surely there’d be a ninth? There wasn’t. I counted one knife-grinder, seven chickens, five goats. I tried to divide my steps but kept losing my place. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know what I had counted. I ran in a circle and found myself near the oculist’s shop, and there were three people standing there. I paused, midstep, and counted them carefully. One, two, three. They turned at my cry. Luke, Walter, and Master
Chaucer. And they were shouting the words that everybody was shouting: “God save the King!”

We stood, strangely awkward, while the city erupted around us. Walter, as always, tried to make things easy. “You see, Belle, those who didn’t see the summoner’s book destroyed were reluctant to believe it really had been and, in the end, the momentum we created couldn’t be stopped. So, dear Belle, we did deliver London for the king.” His eyes glittered rather than twinkled. He was edgy, not joyful. He couldn’t look Luke in the eye, nor Luke him. Neither was sorry that Master Chaucer stood between them, his writing box under his arm.

“Dulcie’s well. I retrieved both the horses, and Granada and Dobs are back from St. Denys,” Walter said.

“I’m glad,” I said.

Somebody in the crowd began to dance.

“Come home with me,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else.

“We’d be delighted,” Master Chaucer said at once. “Now, we can’t walk four abreast in this crowd, and Luke and I’ve been together so long that Luke needs new company. You walk with me, Walter, and would you mind carrying my box?” Walter took the box. “We know the way, Belle,” the Master said. “You’re just next to the Tabard. Isn’t that right? On you go.” As Walter brushed past, he cast a pleading glance. He didn’t have
to remind me. I knew what he didn’t want me to say to Luke. I wouldn’t break that promise.

Luke and I walked behind. There was so much to say. I could say almost nothing. “Your bruises are healing,” I said at last.

“Yes.”

“What exactly happened?”

“The monks found a song and teased me with it. I fought them. I was expelled.”

“Luke, please look at me.”

He turned slowly. I didn’t know what he was reading in my face, but behind his glasses those gray eyes melted from steel into cloud. “I’m sorry, Belle. It was just a shock, in the courtroom. I knew you’d marry Walter. I just didn’t expect … didn’t expect”—he crunched his heel hard into the mud—“I didn’t expect to find him in your bed so soon.”

Without breaking Walter’s confidence, I could have said that I’d lied. But that would lead to more questions, and, in the end, Luke would inevitably draw the right conclusion. I couldn’t allow that. I felt every bit of happiness drain away. We walked in silence. The Master and Walter disappeared.

At the top of our street I stopped. “I’d forgive you,” I said.

He frowned and took his glasses off. His hair, cut by the monks, was growing back, but he still looked shorn
and very far from my Helmetless Knight. I didn’t care about that. I wanted to touch his hair, to smooth it down, to feel his scalp again.

“You’d really forgive me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He fiddled with the arm of his spectacles. “Then you can’t love me very much.”

We reached our front door. I opened it. Luke stepped inside.

Master Chaucer was in the back with my father. Walter was with the widow, who, thrilled, was extolling my virtues to him. Had Luke not been there, it would have been very comic. As it was, it was insupportable. I cut in. Crestfallen, the widow went back to the hearth but was soon humming into her pot.

We heard laughter. “Come and see my father’s workshop,” I said. We went through.

My father was showing the Master how his calipers worked. The Master was stroking his chin. His foxy look was quite returned and he filled his clothes again. “Genius,” he said, “the hinges especially.” He tapped them. “Joiners are of much more use than writers.” He inspected Luke and me closely. “Be that as it may, I’ve some little presents, and I think now’s the time to give them out. Would you mind, John?” My father shook his head. “Well then.” He reached inside his jacket and brought out several sheaves of parchment, all cut to the size of a schoolbook.

“I’ve written a story for you,” he said, handing them to Luke. “I know it’s not quite traditional with presents, but I wonder if, before you take the story away, you could make a fair copy? You’ll recognize the beginning. It’s a story we began on our journey.” He gestured to my father’s table. “There’s space enough there for the writing box. Set it down, Walter.”

Walter did so. Luke, mute, opened the box, cleaned his spectacles, prepared a quill, and began.

“Now to you, Belle,” the Master said. He seemed slightly less sure. “Your present involves asking a favor.” He coughed. “I’ve got such an idea, but some of it comes from you and I want to use it as my own. I want to write about our pilgrimage.” My eyes widened with alarm. He continued quickly, raising his hand. “Just a collection of pilgrims telling stories to each other on their way to Canterbury—a way of passing the time. Each story will be different. Some may have little morals. Others will just be stories that I already know and adapt for my pilgrims to tell.” He paused to look at Luke, who was no longer writing, only reading.

“Where’s the favor in that?” I asked, puzzled.

“Remember the anecdotes you wove?”

I remembered very well. “Some of them were unkind,” I said, “and yet the same people were kind to me.”

“That’s true,” the Master said. “Luckily, few people recognize themselves in books.” He glanced at Luke again.
He was still absorbed. “I’d dedicate the whole work to you, naturally, in gratitude for your inspiration and for other things”—he gave me a very meaningful stare—“and it’ll take me some time to write. In principle though, do I have your permission?”

“Of course you do,” I said.

“You weren’t thinking of writing such a work yourself?”

“No,” I said. “Not a work like that.” I hesitated. “The story I write will be a love story.”

Master Chaucer held my gaze. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what great writers write.”

“It’ll be a tragedy,” I said.

His smile was quizzical. “Always difficult to tell how a tale is going to finish before you get to the end.”

There was a movement from the table. “Ah,” said the Master. “What did you think of that, Luke?”

“It’s a good story,” said Luke slowly. “I hope I’ve understood it.”

“What’s it about?” my father asked.

Luke didn’t look at my father. He looked at me. “It’s about a girl who’s almost unfaithful to the man she loves.” He paused. Nobody spoke. “It’s about forgiveness,” he said, and in front of everybody, without any hesitation at all, he kissed me like a knight who, after a long journey, is claiming what is rightfully his.

18

And thus with every bliss and melody
Palamon was espoused to Emily,
And God that all this wide, wide world has wrought,
Send them his love, for it was dearly bought …

Adventures would be much more enjoyable if you knew that everything was going to turn out well in the end. As it is, I don’t think you enjoy them at all except in retrospect, and even then you have to be careful. Once Luke and I were married and he began to help my father in his business, it would have been easy to turn the pilgrimage into something greater than it was, and to depict ourselves as heroes and heroines, with everybody against us as villains and crooks.