Lily felt her own heart thumping heavily in time with every drumbeat of the music as the dancers met and swirled and parted. “So what do ye do?”
“Well,” Thomas said, “there’s an old saying: we have to live for the living, and not for the dead. And I try to remember that.”
Jamie was ready to talk about other things. “How do you learn to sail ships?”
“There are different ways. You can apprentice…”
Their talk became technical. Lily lost interest, and focused instead on the dancers and Jean who was living her life for the living and finding new happiness, and Lily wanted that, too, only…only…
“May I have this dance?”
She had not noticed Mr. Bell coming in. He wore his best Sunday coat, like a gentleman, and he bowed low to her, offering both hands to help her hop down from the barrel. She did, and then suddenly she was a part of the dance with the rest of them, learning the new steps and gaining in confidence, living her life for the living.
*
Lily had been warned by Jean to not expect much of the Bells for Hansell Monday, being that it was her first and she was yet so young. “Mr. Bell lives very handsomely, but mind that he’s a tradesman and his pockets only go so deep,” said Jean. “He’ll be giving hansell also to the muckmen and the town musicians and how many others who have served him through the year, so take the coin he gifts ye and be grateful for it, even if it’s small.”
Small gifts suited Lily, so she did not make complaint. Nor did she tell Jean this would not be her first hansell, since the old Laird of Inchbrakie had been generous with his servants the first Monday of each new year in accordance with tradition, and had always pressed a shiny silver half-merk piece into her hand, stamped on one side with the king’s head and on the other with a cross.
It would be too much to hope that Mr. Bell would give her such a gift, but Lily still awakened with a feeling of excitement.
She tried to hold it to herself as she helped Marion to dress, an extra task that had been added to her morning chores, though it was one she welcomed for the added time it gave her with her friend.
There, too, she had been warned by Jean, “Ye can’t be friends with those ye serve.”
But Marion had told her, plain, “We are friends, Lily.” And they were.
This morning Marion seemed also near to bursting with anticipation, and too restless to sit still while Lily brushed her hair. Instead, she spun round on her stool and looked at Lily’s face intently. “My father’s right. Your eyes are blue. I am so glad,” she said, and with that comment unexplained, they went downstairs.
At breakfast, after Nanse and Lily had brought in the dishes to the family, Mr. Bell rose from his chair and bade them wait.
“Nanse, we are grateful for you,” he said, and while Lily could not see the coins he gave the older woman she could hear them clink and knew he’d given more than one. Nanse thanked him, and the swordslipper moved on to Lily, patting at his pockets as though he’d mislaid his purse.
“Now, I had a wee gift for you also, my dear, but I cannot think where…？”
“Here it is, Father!” Marion leapt from her place at the table and, tugging a paper-wrapped package from under his chair, turned to face him beseechingly. “Do let me give it! You said that I could.”
“Aye.” He smiled at both girls in turn, and stood back.
Lily had not expected an actual gift. In bemusement, she opened the package as carefully as she was able—more carefully when she felt soft velvet under her fingers. And then, when the paper had fallen away and she saw what it was, she stared.
Marion, finally free of the need to keep the secret, blurted, “It’s a hood! Exactly like my own, the one you think is bonny, only mine is crimson because red’s my favorite color and we had the seamstress make yours blue, to match your eyes.” She looked at Lily, waiting. “Say you like it?”
Lily touched the velvet, cautiously, and still could not believe it. “It’s so beautiful.” Too beautiful for someone of her station, but to tell them that would be ungrateful, and that would be wrong. Besides, she wanted more than anything to have and keep that hood. It took an effort to look up, but she met Marion’s expectant eyes and said, “I like it very much.” And then she looked at Mrs. Bell, still seated at the table, and at Mr. Bell, who stood to one side watching her, and told them, “Thank ye. ’Tis a kindness I do not deserve.”
“Of course you do,” said Mr. Bell. Coming close, he took the blue hood from the remnants of its wrappings and with sure hands tied it over Lily’s head, then held a silver knife up from the table with its flat edge to her so that she could see her own reflection in its polished surface. “There, you see? That face deserves much kindness. And a hood, else you’ll be like to lose your ears next time we walk to church, the wind has been that cold of late.”