Isabella Rockwell's War (5 page)

“That is it,
exactly, the poor woman. You will make a good healer one day for
you have the gift of seeing.”

Isabella at
only nine years old hadn’t known what Abhaya had meant by this, but
instead found herself drawn to watch Abhaya at work.

“How does that
work?” Isabella would ask a thousand times as Abhaya chopped,
ground and mixed plants together, occasionally thrusting a handful
of leaves under Isabella’s nose.

“Smell,” she
would command. “What does that smell of to you?”

“Mmm,
lavender,” replied Isabella.

“Yes, but what
else?”

Isabella
breathed again, eyes closed.

“Umm, sort of
like iodine, just at the end,” she hazarded a guess.

Abhaya nodded
vigorously.

“Exactly. We
can use it to clean wounds. And smell this. What does it make you
think of?” The leaves this time smelt sweet and her mouth started
to water.

“Yum, I want
to eat them.”

Abhaya
smiled.

“Again you are
right. If you had an upset stomach you could eat this and it would
be soothed. Now, what about this?” The leaves this time were black
with a faint tinge of red and when Isabella inhaled she jerked her
head back quickly. They smelled bitter and sulphurous.

“Ugh! What is
that?”

“What does it
make you think of?”

“That I’m
going to be sick.”

Abhaya nodded
again.

“If you’d been
poisoned I would give you this – Ipecac – which would cause you to
vomit all the poison up before it would have a chance to kill you.
And here – this one?” Abhaya crushed a small white flower, shaped
like a bell.

Isabella
breathed in again.

“Why, that
smells like chalk, like Miss Parson’s blackboard eraser.”

“This is
Comfrey, also known as Knitbone and it makes bones grow. Bones and
chalk are made of the same thing, hence the smell.”

From that time
on, Isabella could be found helping out in Abhaya’s impromptu
clinics, helping to set Grandfather Bilraj’s broken ankle, and
trying not to be sick as Abhaya neatly stitched together head
wounds before plastering with a thick paste of guar gum, which set
hard and helped the wound to heal without a trace.

Once, when
she’d been eleven Abhaya had woken her in the night.

“Come, child,
you must help me. I need another pair of hands.”

Quickly they
had trodden through the velvet night, past the parade ground, to
the home of one of the Risaldurs of her father’s regiment. A young
woman lay white and silent on her bed, though sweat beaded her
brow. Isabella never forgot the look of relief on the woman’s face
when she saw Abhaya. Abhaya poured some water onto a cloth and
dropped essence of mint onto it, wiping down the woman’s face and
then her whole body.

“So then
Sari-Bai, this naughty baby, where is she?” The woman despite the
pain of the contraction, which rocked her, smiled.

“I do not know
Mother. The pains continue, but with no result.”

Abhaya felt
Sari’s stomach, handing the cloth to Isabella who tentatively wiped
the woman’s brow.

“These babies
have their own timekeeping, but let us see if she might arrive
before the dawn. Isabella,” she gestured towards her pouch and
said, “mix me a tincture of four dops of the black Cohosh and seven
of the blue.”

Isabella’s
fingers moved swiftly, though she was nervous. It was vital not to
get the doses wrong, such was the strength of the two medicines.
Abhaya held the woman’s hand as she swallowed the mixture, then
Isabella helped the woman to turn on her side.

“Now try and
get some rest.” The woman was asleep in an instant. An hour later
Sari-Bai shuddered.

“Quickly
Isabella, help Sari to sit up.”

Isabella put
all of her weight behind Sari-Bai so she would have something to
push against and, just for a moment dared to glance down to where
Abhaya’s hands waited under a clean towel. A tiny dark head was
emerging, and with one more triumphant shout from her mother, a
baby, purple and slippery shot into Abhaya’s hands. Abhaya rubbed
her briskly, and the baby let out an enraged howl, the purple cast
driven from her skin with every breath of air she took. Wrapping
her tightly, Abhaya handed the baby to her mother.

“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.