SIX

"Lizzie? Lizzie! Pay attention girl!" At the mention of my name I snapped to reality. I had been day dreaming of swimming in the river.

"Sorry Momma." I whispered as I sat up straighter and tried to pay attention to what Prior James was saying. Our church was a small place about a ten minute carriage ride away from our Manor. Our whole town went there. Papa even made our stable boys go. Naturally they had to walk so they always left earlier than us.

I casually looked around at the old people sitting close to us. Some were sleeping and some were nodding along with whatever the Prior was saying. There were a couple of other children who like me, were bored senseless. This place was boring. It was made of stone and the windows were small and up too high to see out of. And the "pews" were just wooden benches, nothing like the pews at the cathedral where Aunt Kitty lived.

Momma turned to me and glared. I jumped and faced forward. Papa always picked the front of the church. He would stand and let us slid in, youngest to oldest. So I was always sitting next to the wall. Lydia would sit beside me then Jane. Momma was next to her and papa was in front of the altar, the closest to God. Momma said he liked sitting there because he wanted God to know how thankful he was for three beautiful daughters but half the time he was cursing at God for giving him "three highly opinionated daughters." For six year old me, church seemed like the minutes were years.

When church finally ended Momma and Papa normally let the three of us walk home. Jane would hold my hand tightly and Lydia would walk ahead with the stable boys. She wasn't very girly. She liked to play in the mud and wrestle with the dogs. She even got into a fight once. And she was always making people laugh. I could barely make momma smile.

At 11 years old Jane was the eldest. Momma always said that she was going to be a great mother one day by the way she was always mothering me and Lydia. Unlike Lydia, Jane was very quiet and smart. She was the smartest person I know. She could do sums so quickly. And her poems always made momma cry. I only made Momma cry when I did something wrong.

But Momma would tell me that I was the one she worried about the least. "You'll marry one day." She told me. "You have that golden hair and those beautiful purple eyes. I have a great confidence that you will have many suitors in your lifetime." She smiled and would kiss my cheek.

"Lydia!" Jane shouted as we watched Lydia grab one of the boys and push him into some mud.

"Stop it Lydia!" I copied Jane because she was smart and it seemed like the right thing to do.

"Papa's going to be furious that his outfit is messed!" Jane snapped and yanked me to move faster.

"Oh he'll be fine! I'll just tell him it was my fault." She shrugged and kept walking laughing with the other boys. The boy blushed as he wiped the mud off his clothes. He was 7 and he was new to our house. He was always so afraid to get in trouble. Apparently his mother sent him there so he can learn and become someone's squire.

"Are you ok?" I asked as a hand came out of no where and helped him off the ground. He nodded and raced off.

"Your sister is something." Tad said smiling at us. Thaddeus Beaumont was one of Papa's stable boys. He had once been a kitchen hand but he had such a strong love for horses that Papa paired him up with our horse tamer and was training him on how to care for horses. Papa said if he truly loved what he was doing and tried his best then one day he could go on and work in the kings palace. At 13 though Tad never seemed to interested in the future. He liked to run and hunt rabbits and lay on the roof looking at the stars.

"Unfortunately she's out of my control." Jane said standing straighter and walking ahead. Her cheeks went pink and I couldn't understand it.

"Jane are you feeling alright?" I asked staring up at her.

"Of course." She snapped. "Watch where your putting your feet your about to step in…" and then I felt it. The hot squishy wet feeling of horse droppings covered my right foot. I closed my eyes and pictured my mother's horrified face. Jane shook her head and Tad chuckled. "I told you." She said dropping my hand and walking ahead.

"Come on Lizzie." Tad said holding out his hand.

"I can't go home with…poo on my shoes!" I said tears filling my eyes. Tad looked at me and then at my shoes. He looked around and sighed.

"I have an idea. Here quick give me your shoes." He said. I sat down and carefully peeled off my gross leather shoe.

"And the other one."

"Why do you need both?" I asked doing as he instructed.

"Because you're going to say that you didn't see a huge puddle and you walked through it." He said carrying my shoes to the stream close by. He plunged my dirty shoe into the water and started wiping the dung off.

"But that's a lie! Lying is a sin!"

"It's not really a lie. You didn't see the pile of manure on the ground and you walked through that." He dunked my good shoe in the water and smiled at me.

"But now I have to walk home with soaking wet shoes!" I whined and he rolled his eyes at me.

"Well walk bare foot then. It's not so bad once you get used to it." He said sticking his hands in his pockets and walking ahead of me. I took two steps, stepped one sharp little rock and then put my soaking shoes on. Tad smirked down at me as I appeared beside him. "Good choice." He called out to Jane for her to wait for us and raced ahead to her. I stared at the 13-year-old boy and felt a flutter in my stomach. It was a weird feeling that made me happy and scared at the same time. The whole way home Jane kept asking me if I was alright and I couldn't answer. My tummy was turning too much for words.

The sight of our manor made my stomach hurt a little less. The whole walk home I listened to Jane and Tad talk about horses and the different types of tricks he was teaching Sampson, his favourite one. They kept asking me if I was feeling well and the only response I could give them was a nod of my head. I feared that I would throw up my breakfast if I spoke one word.

As you walked along the main road the back of our house was first seen. When our house was constructed, Papa said, they did it all wrong. Our main gate was facing away from the road so if we were ever attacked then we would be in serious trouble. Momma always said "God Forbid!" when Papa talked like that but he liked to make sure we were prepared for the worst.

The one thing I loved about our timbered gate house was the carvings of swans on either side of the door. They were our sigil papa said, they represented our family. The gate house had one huge window where our guards would sit and watch and call down to unknown travelers. They also had little doors in the solid wooden gate that they would open to see who was calling on us. When we arrived the gates were open due to Papa's carriage. I smiled at Sir John, our oldest knight and continued through to the garden. The doors slammed behind me and my tummy felt a little better.

When you stood in the garden, which wasn't really a garden but a small field, you could see our whole house. The manor was surrounded by a tall stone wall. On the left was the south tower. This is where Momma and Papa slept. The south tower had three floors. The main door led into the first floor which contained a well. In the winter this well was always the coldest. One time Lydia was walking along the ledge of it and almost fell in. Sir John saved her and was rewarded a brand new horse. The second floor was their sitting room. Here Momma and Papa would talk and drink tea in the early morning. Momma did a lot of knitting and Papa would smoke his pipe by the large stone fireplace. When Momma was sad she often was found sitting by the window looking out over the back garden. The third floor was where they slept. They had a huge bed, made of special wood that had carvings of swans swimming and trumpeting. It was made of goose feathers and when you laid on it you sunk into it, like it was a cloud.

The second floor had its own door that led out to the front garden. And it had its own entrance into Papa's Solar. Papa told me once that a solar was supposed to be a room with lots of windows where people could sit in the sun without getting cold. Momma always rolled her eyes and said it was a useless room especially when our great hall had 12 magnificently large windows in it. Regardless papa loved this room. In the Solar there was a large fireplace with carvings of battles that Papa loved to talk about. Most were about King Arthur and all his victories. In the middle of the room was Papa's desk where he read and answered all his letters. On either side of the room was window seats overlooking the gardens. I loved to sit with him and read a book while he worked so he put cushions on the west side so I would be more comfortable. On each side of the fire places were two windows. Papa called them peep holes. These holes looked out onto the Great Hall. He said he would watch to see that we weren't up to mischief when we had our lessons. I was always on my best behavior in case he was watching. The first floor of the solar was Papa's library. It too had a fireplace but it was just a small one so the books wouldn't get damp, he said. It was barely ever lit. It had a door that led out to the front garden and another that led into the great hall.

The Great Hall was where we had all of our parties. It's main entrance was close to the North tower and the kitchen. There were twelve floor to ceiling windows with real glass in them. The sun was always shinning in this room and Jane often liked to dance around in here. During the warmer months we would have our lessons in here and in the winter months the great hall was left empty. With no fireplace it was hard to stay warm in here. The best times were when we had parties. Three large tables would be placed in the room to make one very long table. Then when dinner was finished being served the tables would be moved to the walls and the floors would be free for dancing. I loved when we had parties.

The Great hall had a staircase on the north side that led into all three floors of the North tower. The first set of stairs led down to the first floor where the north tower well was kept. This well was used for the horses and the baking. One time, our cook Betsy pulled up water and there was a dead mouse in the basket. Momma made sure that the water was boiled three times before we used it. Mice carried illness and we weren't allowed to touch them. Lydia and I still fed them pieces of cheese and even named some of them.

The staircase up had two landings. The first landing led into Jane's room. The second floor was all stone, even the fireplace. There were four small windows that looked over the pond. In the winter they were shut with wooden shutters and a piece of fur hung in front to keep the cold out. Jane rarely ever stayed in there for too long. She longed for the sun and for brightness.

The second landing led to the third floor, our room. This landing gave the best view of the whole Great Hall and sometimes Lydia and I would sit on the ledge and watch the parties below. Papa said that originally the north tower only had two floors and that once Lydia was born he decided to add the third floor. It was made of timber and had six large windows, two on each wall, that overlooked the pond below and the main road. This room was the nursery. Lydia and I shared it, along with our wet nurse, Sissy. Our bed was made of cotton and was along the back wall. It wasn't as big as Momma's but it was big enough for me and Lydia. Sissy's bed was under the east windows and she always wore three sweaters and had four wool blankets when she went to sleep. There was always a frigid breeze, she complained, and with no fireplace she was always frozen. I never seemed to mind and neither did Lydia. We too had wooden shutters for the winter and pieces of fur but Lydia hated closing the windows so they were almost always open.

The kitchens and stables were built of wood in the front garden beside the North tower. Sometimes when Betsy was making bread the smell would float in through our windows and wake us up. It was a small kitchen with a stone cooking pit and a large wooden table where the staff would eat. The kitchen led into the stables that held the four horses, three cows, one sheep and one pig. There were a couple of chickens too but they had their own house where they laid their eggs. The stable boys would sleep in the hay lofts and sometimes in the winter Papa would let them sleep in the great hall, allowing them to clear away a bit of the hay and build a small fire. The guards would sleep in the gatehouse and Betsy slept in the kitchen on a small bed in the corner.

I sighed as I looked up at the home I loved and watched the people move about it. Three boys were unhooking Papa's carriage and there was smoke coming from the kitchen. Momma was standing by on the landing by the solar door and spotted me before I could dash into the great hall.

"My God! What have you done to your shoes?" Momma screeched when I climbed the small staircase up to her. I looked down at my wrinkled, muddy, untied boots and tried kicking some of the mud off.

"I accidentally walked into a puddle." I said without looking up.

"Elizabeth Bennett you are completely careless with your things!" she scolded. "I have a good mind to never let you walk home again!" My head shot up and tears filled my eyes.

"Oh Mary. She's a child of six. Let her be." Papa said from inside the solar. He was sitting in the chair by the fire place.

"Give me your shoes." She sighed defeated. I slipped them off as a lady should and carefully handed them to her. She cringed and grumbled as she carried them away. I looked at Papa. He smiled and patted his knee. I raced and jumped on him causing him to groan and then chuckle.

"My my Lizzie. You're getting too big to sit on my lap." He said and when I pouted he grabbed my chin. "I still love you no matter how big you are." He kissed my cheek and I smiled. I climbed off of his lap and headed for the kitchen. I heard Tad's laugh and my stomach turned.

"Papa?" I said stopping at the door.

"Yes my dear?" He said looking up from the pipe he was packing.

"My tummy feels…funny."

"Funny? Do you mean you are feeling unwell?" He asked worried. I shook my head and then shrugged.

"It's just not right." I said. He narrowed his eyebrows and looked confused.

"You should ask your mother. She knows more than me." He winked at me and I smiled.

"Ok Papa." I blew him a kiss and then went looking for Momma. As I headed for the North Tower well I passed Betsy bringing hot cakes up to my sisters. I stopped and smelt them but then felt my tummy turn. I cringed and kept walking.

"What's wrong honey? You don't want my hot pies?" She placed a hand on her round hip and narrowed her dark brown eyes at me. Her black curly hair was poking out from her cap and her cheeks were pink from the heat of the cooking pit. I shook my head and hugged my tummy. "Are you feeling unwell?" She asked pressing her cool hand to my head. I was tired of explaining it so I said yes and kicked myself for telling two lies today. "Well you go and lie down. I'll send some tea up after lunch." She kissed my forehead and sent me upstairs. I avoided eye contact with any of the staff and just walked up the staircase to the third floor. I opened my bedroom door and sighed. It was a bright room and all the windows were open. The wind made the room cooler than it was downstairs. I climbed into the bed that Lydia and I shared and curled up on my side. As I lay there I thought about my tummy and ran my hands over it telling it to stop feeling peculiar. I realized I was in my church clothes and quickly changed into my night gown. I was just crawling back into bed when Momma walked in.

"I heard your not feeling well? Probably a chill from your wet feet." She said placing my tea on the night table and feeling my head. "You don't have a fever."

"I don't feel sick I just feel funny." I said.

"Funny? What does that mean?"

"I…I…my tummy. It's acting odd."

"Do you feel like you have to be sick?" I shook my head and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"No Momma I promise! It's just…" I heard Tad's voice from down below and my stomach turned again. I groaned and rolled onto my side. She looked at me and then looked out the window. "Every time I think about Tad my belly feels ...different." I said. She gave me that look again and I sighed. "Remember that time that Lydia brought home that big bag of frogs?" She nodded with regret. "Well she liked to shake the bag and the frogs would jump around a lot. My tummy feels like that." She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"Frogs?" I nodded. She studied my face and then smiled. She even laughed. For the first time I had made Momma laugh. Except I wasn't trying to make her laugh. I frowned at her and she gently touched my face. "Oh my darling girl. It's called a crush."

"A crush?"

"Yes. It's a feeling you get when your heart begins to love someone."

"Love?" My eyes went wide and I sat up straight. "Ugh! Bleh! I don't love him Momma." She laughed again.

"You don't love him yet. But you're heart has told your brain that you might love him one day and your brain is worried so it makes your tummy bounce around like frogs." I looked down at my tummy and shook my head in wonder.

"That's so strange." I said.

"It's a big part of being an adult." She smirked. "Lie down and drink your tea. I'll come up in an hour and see if the frogs have gone home." I smiled and did as I was told. When she opened the door I thought of something.

"Momma?" She turned to me. "Why is it called a crush?" Her smile dropped and she sighed before smiling again.

"Because most of the time they end up making your heart feel like it's being crushed into little pieces." She said. I felt my eyes go wide again.

"I don't want to have a crush anymore." She smiled and shook her head.

"No body does. But it'll go away. I promise." She smiled and then closed the door behind me.

I lay in bed for an hour before Momma told me to get up. I put on my plain green play clothes and was sent outside with Lydia and Jane to enjoy the sun. "Who knows when it'll come back with all this rain that we have had." I blinked into the light as we stepped out onto the back garden patio stones. We played a game of skip, where we through a rock and could only step on four stones to get to it. Lydia made up the game and therefore she always won due to new rules. It was frustrating. So eventually Jane gave up and I followed her. She sat under a large tree and opened a book of blank pages Papa had made for her. It was so she could keep her poems neat and organized.

"What do you write about Jane?" I asked laying on my stomach beside her. I picked a dandelion from the grass and started pulling the petals off.

"A lot of things." She said looking up at the sky.

"Like what?" She closed her eyes and pulled the pins from her hair. I watched her mesmerized as she shook it out. She was so beautiful. She had long dark hair which she now started wearing in buns on her head. Momma said that a girl reaches a certain age that wearing her hair down becomes a privilege. Her hair fell from the bun and naturally curled down her back. Her nose was straight, her lips were small and her skin was porcelain white. She looked at me with bright blue eyes, like the sky on a cloudless day and smiled.

"Well Lizzie, sometimes I write of the birds and the trees. Some days when I am sad I write about my hurts and pains, normally on those days the rain is a big part of my poem. But mostly I write of love." She smiled at me.

"Love? What do you know about love?" Lydia said throwing herself on the ground beside Jane. Lydia was also beautiful but in her own way. Her hair was long and dark but wild. It's curls were always wind swept and the only time she wore it up was when Momma made her. She often complained about the pins hurting her head and as soon as she could her hair was down and her play clothes were on. Her eyes were dark blue with a white ring around her iris. It was like looking into the night sky. They always twinkled with amusement and her smile was contagious. She had a few crooked teeth but they were white as anything.

"I know more about love than you do." Jane said offended.

"I don't know anything about love." Lydia said with a raised eyebrow. "And I don't plan on ever wanting to know." She made a face of disgust at me and I giggled.

"You don't ever want to be in love?" Jane asked with a crease in her forehead. She always got it when she worried.

"Never. Love is for fools."

"Do you not want to find someone to spend your life with? Do you not want to get married?"

"Ugh absolutely not! Marriage leads to babies and I definitely wont get fat for someone else. Plus then I have to act like a proper lady once I am married. And that's no fun." Jane smirked and shook her head.

"One day you'll change your way of thinking."

"And one day you'll be an old fat married lady with children hanging off every limb." Lydia pulled on one of Jane's arms and mimicked a baby crying. Jane laughed and then trying shushing her but Lydia just smiled. "Think you can handle it Janey?"

"Jane will be an excellent mother one day." Tad said appearing out of nowhere.

"And how do you come to this conclusion Monsignor?" She said mocking his French background.

Tad was born and raised in our house, therefore making him English. But his mother had been French and when people learned about his French background they made japes at Tad. Papa often talks about that day that Tad's mother stumbled up to the gatehouse and knocked frantically on the door. She was, as she claimed, a nobel Frenchwoman who had been sent here to marry the Prince. But along the way her carriage was overrun by bandits and she got lost. Papa never gave me the details but I heard that one of the bandits did something bad to her. Papa said that the night she arrived it was pouring rain and Momma was in bed, crying about the second baby they had lost that year. He said all Momma did was cry those days and that Tad was a Godsend. His mother was cold and sick and about to birth the baby.

Papa said Momma jumped into action, called the help of all the female staff and together they brought little Tad into the world. He said he never made a sound, barely cried when he was born and rarely fussed thereafter. Papa said he was only inconsolable once and that was the day his mother died. A week after she had given birth her sickness took over and she passed away. She named him Thaddeus Beaumont and left him a ring with a family crest on it. Papa said that they often wondered if they should bring him to the courts. But Momma said they would send him back to France and he would be raised in a horrible orphanage. Momma begged Papa to let her raise him and until Jane was born it was as if he was their own flesh and blood. When Jane was born Papa said that people started talking about them raising some French woman's baby. He said it was the hardest thing they ever did sending him to the stables to be raised by the staff. He said even Tad had a hard time adjusting, and at two years old it was like he had lost his family all over again. Even though he was still in the same manor he was not allowed to eat or play with Jane and my parents.

Over the years, and especially when Papa realized he would have no sons, he still treated Tad as one of his own. They often went on hunting trips and always entertained us with a match of swordplay. Tad had not grown up as my brother but was definitely one of the family.

Jane hissed at Lydia but she just smirked up at Tad. He was so used to it that he smirked back at her and shook his head.

"Because she has you to teach her how much work it will be to tend to children. Especially ones so needy as you." Jane giggled and Lydia scowled.

"How rude!" She said pretending to be offended. Tad smiled down at Jane and she blushed again. I frowned at her and Lydia laughed.

"Well I guess you'll never find out, will you Thaddeus? She'll marry some old fart from the north and you'll have to stay here and marry a common wench with your own litter of stable boys." Tad frowned and then his fists clenched and his face went red.

"Lydia that is not kind!" Jane shouted. Lydia looked up at Tad and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Stable boys should remember their place." She said standing up. Normally she would have been shorter than him but because of the hill the tree grew on she was at his eye level.

"Lydia!" Jane hissed again. Her face was a red as a tomato.

"Nobel ladies should remember that us stable boys are the ones who make sure your horse is cared for and that your family is protected at night. They wouldn't want to be attacked in the middle of the night due to unfaithful stable boys." Lydia's smirk fell from her face and she held her breath. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds and then Lydia laughed.

"Come now Tad. I was only teasing! Let's not make harmless threats and ruin our dear friendship." Lydia said kissing his cheek. He stared at her and then forced a smile.

"Ladies." He bowed. "Always a pleasure." He stormed off into the Great Hall and slammed the door behind him.

"Must you always do that to him? You know how much he hates being teased about his status." Jane said with a sigh. She drew a flower in the corner of a page. Lydia sighed and shook her head.

"Oh Jane. Please don't be so silly as to fill your head with those ideas. It will never happen." Lydia said and I blinked at her confused.

"What will never happen?" I asked sitting up. Jane stood up suddenly.

"You don't know that! You cannot possibly foresee the future."

"I know Momma and Papa would never allow it. You're a nobel. He's a peasant. It never works." Jane blinked at her and a tear rolled down her cheek.

"You are a cruel, cruel child." She spat at her and she ran off. Lydia frowned and it was very quiet all of a sudden.

"Why is she crying?" I asked watching Jane disappear through the stone wall and out into the corn field.

"That is a prime example of what love does to someone Lizzie. Remember that." I stared at the open door where my oldest sister had disappeared through and wondered how she had fallen in love. Did she have frogs in her belly too? Did she want to throw up and laugh at the same time? And who was she in love with?

"Come little sister. Let's play cat and mouse." Lydia said with a hunger in her eyes.

"You always catch me." I complained.

"You'll just have to run faster." She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I'll give you a ten second start. One. Two. Three." I stood up took one last look at the door and raced off as fast as my little legs would carry me.