The Bell Tower
“Ursula! The bells! We have to go….”
Ursula ground her teeth and balled her hands into fists behind the dressing screen in Sidonie’s room. “It doesn’t fit. Just go without me.”
“Oh, honestly!” And then Ursula was being yanked by the hand out from behind the screen and twirled around by Sidonie, who gasped: “Just look at you. I just knew it was the right dress. The green velvet brings out the red in your hair. Come on now, we’re late!” And then Ursula was being swaddled in a fur cloak and dragged downstairs to where the burgermeister and his wife were waiting impatiently at the door. Ursula curtsied clumsily and apologized, but Frau von Neubeuern seemed not to hear. She clapped her plump, pale hands to her red lips and exclaimed:
“Fraulein von Koppl! Well now, aren’t you a vision? Sidonie, my dearest, what wonders you have done. You do have an eye for a gem in the rough.”
“I know!” Sidonie hooked her arm through Ursula’s and puffed out her chest even more than it had already been puffed with some strategically placed lavender sachets. “You’d never know I dragged her out of a hospital just two hours ago.”
Ursula felt her ears flush and opened her mouth to protest once again that the von Neubeuerns should head on to Mass without her. But it was too late–she was being bustled along by the women out into the snowy night, across the square to St. Hildegarde’s.
The von Neubeuern family pews were across the aisle and two rows back from the graf’s. Ursula had never sat so close to the altar. Even when her father’s business had been doing very well, his donations to the church had only merited a pew level with the baptismal font. She hadn’t set foot in St. Hildegarde’s since his funeral. Luckily for her, Elisabeth never attended Mass–claiming an allergy to the incense; it was the one thing Ursula could think to thank her aunt for. Even now, her heart pounded at her ribs, trying to get out. She tried not to look at the spot in front of the dais steps where her father’s coffin had sat, black as a trap door opened in the world, just waiting for her to stumble too close and drop through. She turned her gaze instead up and around at the flaming chandeliers, the light glinting off gilt frames and cornices. The stained glass was dark as dried blood. Ursula’s hands shook, and she knotted them in the fur of her cloak. She felt like crying.
Then, a trumpet blew, and everyone was standing. The graf was coming up the aisle with Mathilde and his retinue. As they were led to their pew, the burgermeister stepped out to greet the graf, bowing to one knee. In the pause, Ursula caught Mathilde’s eye.
Mathilde had been the one, earlier that afternoon, who had brought Sidonie through the hospital to where Ursula was decanting the spirits they gave for coughs–steeped with healing herbs and sweetened with honey. “There you are!” Sidonie had exclaimed. “You can’t imagine my shock when I went to that ratty old tower of yours to find you and your aunt said you were here. In the castle of all places!”
“Came to find me?” Ursula echoed, confused, as she wiped her hands on her apron.
“Yes, silly goose, it’s the day of my mother’s dinner. Remember? You’re coming to my house to get dressed and then we’re going to Mass, and dinner after. Come on!” And she had seized Ursula’s hand and pulled her toward the door. “There isn’t much time now since I had to trudge all the way across town hunting for you. Well, Mikael brought me on the donkey. But we can both ride back!” She tugged again, and Ursula looked desperately to Mathilde.
“But Mathilde needs me.”
“No, Mathilde does not,” said the matron with a sparkle in her eyes.
Ursula couldn’t help herself now as she saw that kindly face in this least kindly of places; she waved. She realized her mistake instantly as the motion caught the attention of the graf, who glanced at her for a moment, then away, then back. He was dressed in his robes of state, his hair and beard combed, crimped, and oiled to a glossy mahogany. He wore a golden circlet on his brow, golden rings in his ears and on his fingers, and a massive jeweled cross around his neck. Somehow in his finery he was twice as terrifying as he had been on Gletscher’s back. But as it dawned on him who she was, that daybreak smile of his spread across his lips. He bowed to her ever so slightly, a mischievous glint in his eye, before moving up the aisle to his pew. Ursula felt herself turning purple with embarrassment; the laugh that Mathilde was obviously clamping between her lips as she passed didn’t help. The von Neubeuerns turned round to find what the graf had been staring at, and Sidonie seized Ursula’s arm and sighed, loud enough for everyone two pews back to hear: “Did you see that? The graf smiled at me.”
Fortunately, trumpets kicked up again, and the lutes and drums joined in to start the advent hymn. The congregation sang it out, full of holiday cheer. Frau von Neubeuern handed Ursula a beautiful illuminated family prayer book, and Ursula had never been so grateful for anything in her life. She stuck her face in the precious little volume, turning page after page, reading Psalms, tracing intricate vines and trees full of partridges beside the text, and didn’t look up until it was time to file out of the pew and head back to the von Neubeuerns’ for the Sunday feast.
The Rookery 