Once upon a time in old England, just outside of a small Cornish village by the sea, there lived a very poor old couple who lived alone with their lone grandchild, a shy little girl named Aramanthe. As the old couple grew even older, they found themselves worrying very much about what would happen to their shy little granddaughter after they died.

Therefore one day when Aramanthe was a lonely teenager, and Job, the son of the local Blacksmith came to ask for Aramanthe’s hand in marriage, the old couple was overjoyed. It was true that neither they nor Aramanthe knew Job or his family very well, but there had never been another suitor for Aramanthe’s hand, and as they felt they had little time left on earth, the old couple and Aramanthe decided it would be best to accept Job’s proposal of marriage.

“Be a good wife,” the old couple told Aramanthe. “You are not beautiful, but you are talented and smart. Keep a beautiful house, give in to your husband when he wants to have his way, give him children, and you will always be well taken care of. It is all for the best.”

And so Aramanthe and Job were married in a very pretty wedding. Shortly after Job built Aramanthe a new cottage on the edge of the village, the old couple passed away. Aramanthe was very sad, but she was glad that her grandparents had died knowing she would be taken care of by her new husband, Job, and she resolved to be, according to her grandparents’ last wishes, the very best wife she could be.

The problem was, marriage was not turning into anything that Aramanthe thought it would be. While she was a relatively plain girl, Aramanthe had always had a lovely singing voice, one of the most beautiful in the land, and she loved to sing to herself while she cleaned the cottage, Job, who, it turned out was not as talented a blacksmith as his father, claimed that her singing hurt his ears and made it difficult for him to concentrate while he banged iron all day.

Every time Job missed with his hammer and struck his thumbs, he blamed her singing for distracting him. Unfortunately, only after they were married did Aramanthe find out that Job had never really wanted to marry her at all.

Before Job had come to see Aramanthe’s grandparents, Job had been a very difficult and spoiled boy, going out all night with the lads in town and lying about, confident that his father would simply give him the smithery when he was old enough and his father tired enough.

Job had been very angry when his father had told him “I will not let you anywhere near the smithery until you show some responsibility in life. Find a wife, get married and build yourself a home. Show me you can be a man and then I will think about letting you apprentice with me.”

The truth was that Job did not really want to work, but the smithery produced a lot of money, and Job wanted some of it, so he had looked around the local villages for a potential candidate for his new wife.

There were several village girls he had already met, but he quickly found various reasons to discount them. Matilda the Miller’s daughter was as spoiled as Job, and would no doubt end up spending any money that Job brought home as quickly as it came in – and besides, Job had plans to spend any money he made on himself.

Heloise the butcher’s daughter liked Job, but she really wasn’t pretty enough, and Job didn’t want the other lads in the village laughing at him for not being able to get a pretty wife. Belinda the Weaver’s daughter was truly the prettiest girl in the village, but once when they were children, Belinda had laughed at Job and turned her back on him when he had tried to talk to her, and Job had a long memory.

He would NEVER forgive Belinda the Weaver’s daughter for snubbing him.


Finally, one morning while Job was loafing around in the village square with the other lads, he noticed a new girl, who was in town to sell eggs in the farmer’s market. He hadn’t seen her before.

“Oh, that’s Aramanthe,” one of the lads had said. “She’s an orphan who lives with her grandparents over by the Great Cliffs. “ Job had watched Aramanthe for a while and had gradually decided that this might be the girl for him. She was certainly not ugly, though maybe she was a little on the skinny side. More importantly, she was not so pretty that she might look down at Job’s proposal in marriage. She seemed quiet. She looked like she would keep a good house and that his family would approve of her. She would probably not be much trouble.

Yes, Job had thought, this one might make a good wife.

Therefore one day the following week, Job had walked all the miles outside of the village to the Great Cliffs, where he found the cottage where Aramanthe lived with her very old grandparents. He had proposed, his proposal had been quickly accepted, Aramanthe and Job had been married, and now they were living in a cottage of their own.

Unfortunately, nothing was turning out “happily ever after” in this marriage. While the Blacksmith had fulfilled his promise and had apprenticed his son Job, Job was not as talented at smithing as his father had been, the work was a lot harder than he thought it would be, and he did not make as much money as he thought he should be making.

This made Job very angry most of the time, and he would come home and take his frustrations out on Aramanthe. “Your singing gives me a headache. I cannot work when I have headaches. It’s all your fault that we are still poor. I should not have chosen you for a wife.” No matter how Aramanthe tried to be a good wife, no matter how clean she kept their cottage, no matter how frugal she tried to be with the little money Job brought home, or how tasty she made his dinners, nothing made Job happy.

“I could have married a much prettier girl,” was all Job would say. “Your food tastes like sawdust.”

This went on for many years, during which Aramanthe was very sad, and she cried often for her mistake in marrying the blacksmith’s son so quickly, without knowing him well enough to see that no wife would ever be good enough for him.

There were only three things that helped Aramanthe feel a little bit happy.

The first was that her old grandparents had died before they could see how unhappy she had become.

The second thing was that Aramanthe had given Job three beautiful children, one girl and two boys, who kept Aramanthe company and gave her all the love that Job did not.

The third thing that made Aramanthe happy and the only thing left that reminded her that she was special was her beautiful singing voice. No matter how unhappy she was with her life, no matter how trapped she felt, even when the children cried, Aramanthe would go off into the meadows and sing to herself. No one else in any of the villages ever had a voice like hers, and when she could sing by herself, she could forget that she had made a mistake in marrying Job, and daydream of all the wonderful things that might have happened to her if only anyone outside of the village had ever heard her sing.

Surely she would have been a very famous person, if only her grandparents had not convinced her to marry Job the Blacksmith’s son.

One day while the children were crying more than usual, Aramanthe felt that she could not stand another minute, and she went off into the meadows to be by herself and sing.

“There goes your mother,” Job said with a scowl. “Always off to sing in the meadow. At least we don’t have to listen to you.” As usual, he was lying on the only straw mattress in the cottage, eating his usual afternoon supper of pottage, bread and cheese. “You children keep quiet, I have a headache from your racket.”

“Mama, don’t go,” the children begged, but Aramanthe was already gone.

On this particular afternoon Aramanthe sang to herself in the meadows longer and with more feeling than usual. The sound of Aramanthe’s voice was so beautiful that it seemed even the birds would stop chirping in order to listen to her.

Aramanthe sang and sang, closing her eyes and imagining in her head that she was singing for the King of England himself in the great palace in London. “Aramanthe, you have the most beautiful voice in all the realm,” she imagined the King saying. “You were obviously meant to be royalty, and I have fallen in love with you. Would you be my Queen?”


In fact, Aramanthe was so carried away by this particular vision on this particular afternoon, that it took her a moment to realize that there were not in fact thousands of courtiers applauding her performance, but only a handful of individuals. Startled, Aramanthe looked up, and was shocked to see that she was NOT alone in the meadow! It was a traveling party of perhaps a dozen men, who had been following the main road beyond the bluffs, who had indeed heard Aramanthe singing and had been curious enough to follow the voice and see where it was coming from.

The most well dressed of the group, a swarthy, portly sort of fellow, approached the startled Aramanthe first. “Hale, Mistress. Please permit me to introduce myself. My name is Wolcott, I am sorry that my party has startled you. We were greatly enjoying listening to your beautiful voice.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” blushed Aramanthe.

“We were just surprised to hear such lovely songs so far out here in the countryside. Ordinarily we only hear the best musicians back in London, at the King’s palace.”
Aramanthe swallowed and felt her mouth go dry. “The King? Did you say the King?”

Wolcott nodded. “Yes, indeed, my lady. I am the King’s solicitor. We have recently traveled to Penzance to oversee the final details on a new ship for the King’s Fleet. And who might you be?”

Aramanthe cast her eyes down. “I am Aramanthe, wife of the second Blacksmith in the village of Knave-Go-By.” Aramanthe felt sad again. For a moment she had felt like a celebrated artist, and being forced to remember that she was nothing but the wife of a blacksmith, and not even the first blacksmith in the village, robbed her of that special feeling all over again.

Wolcott the solicitor regarded Aramanthe carefully. “It is curious that a beautiful voice should be so wasted on a blacksmith’s wife. It is too bad, I had thought for a moment that I might invite you to return to London with our party. The King is a great lover of music, and I should think he would have been very interested to hear someone with your talents perform for him.”

Aramanthe looked up sharply. “The King … would like to hear me?”

“Well, no matter. You have a husband and a home here in …. Well, whatever this village is called. No matter, sometimes things just don’t work out.” And with that, Wolcott the solicitor turned to return to his traveling party and resume their journey home to London.


He was not yet ten steps away, however, before Aramanthe cried out, “Sir, if you please, Sir, please don’t go ! I should like to go with you, Sir, please take me with you!”


Wolcott stopped short. (Privately, he had hoped this was what would happen.)

“Yes?” he said.

“Please take me with you. I will go with you to London. I would love to sing for the King. Please, kind sir, let me go with you.”

“But what about your husband?” Wolcott did not mention Aramanthe’s three children, of course, because Aramanthe herself had forgotten to mention them, so entranced had she been by the very thought that this man might actually take her to perform for the King!

Why, they might not want her at all if they thought she was just a plain old housewife somewhere. Having children was NOT at all glamorous.

“Please, give me a small amount of time to get my things. Tarry here just a short while, and I will be right back – just please don’t leave without me!”
Aramanthe had never run so fast in her life …. She was a rabbit, a deer, a gazelle! She was going to see the King ! She was going to London ! What dresses would she bring? What would she need?


When she burst through the door of the cottage, she found Job snoring on the straw mattress, an empty jug of beer beside his head. The children, who had been waiting all afternoon for their mother to return, were overjoyed to see her.


“Mama! Mama!” They cried, embracing her. Sadly, Aramanthe gathered the children around her, and in whispers, so as not to wake Job, she explained as quickly as she could what was happening.


“Children, you know I love you dearly, you are the only things that have made me happy these past years, but I must leave you now. A very important man is going to take me to London, where I am going to sing for the King himself. Please understand that this is a wonderful opportunity for us all.”


“But we will miss you, Mama! Who is going to take care of us?”


“Don’t worry, your father will take care of you. You have heard him, he doesn’t really want me around anyway, I give him headaches and make him unhappy. He will be happier without me here, and I will be happier where I am going. Isn’t that the most important thing, that Mama and Papa won’t fight anymore?

You will still have this nice cottage here, and your Papa has a good job at the smithery. Your grandfather will always make sure your Papa has a job and you will never do without. In fact, when I am in the City and become famous, I will be able to send you more toys than I could ever give you if I stayed here. Don’t you want more toys?”

The children were doubtful. “Yes, toys are good. We like toys. But we love you better. Please stay with us.”


Aramanthe could only shake her head. “It is all for the best. I will be able to do so much more for you children when I am a famous singer. Someday you will be able to say that you are the children of the renknowned singer, Aramanthe, and you will be so proud that you will know that your Mama once did the right thing. Now be good children and run along to play. It is all for the best.”


The children continued to cry softly, which made Aramanthe sad, but she had no time for sentiment. This was her one chance to get out of the village of Knave-Go-By for good, and fulfill all her dreams. The children would have to understand that they would miss her, but they would get over it. After all, she had lost her own parents when she was young, and hadn’t she gotten over it?

When she was finally done packing, she leaned down and kissed each child softly on the forehead.
“I love you, my sweet children. Remember that I will always be your mother and I will always love you. Trust me, it is all for the best.”


And with that, Aramanthe raced away. It again made her heart break to think of her children’s tearstained faces, but she had no time to turn around. She would have to be strong. This was all for the best, she said to herself, over and over again. It is all for the best.
In short order, Aramanthe joined back up with the traveling party of Wolcott the Solicitor, and off to London they went. After a journey of several more days, the party finally arrived in the Great City of London, and Aramanthe found herself in awe. She had never in her small village life seen the sights she saw in London, and everywhere she looked, there was something new to marvel over. The vast crowds of people, the tall buildings, the colorful markets and the constant din of streethawkers trying to peddle their wares.
“Ribbons here! Tuppence for three! Ribbons for your hair!”
“Oranges! Get your Oranges, Fresh Oranges!”
Aramanthe hardly knew where to look first, though she did remember the one thing that was always at the forefront of her mind. “Sir, please, when do I see the king? When can I perform for the King?” Aramanthe just knew that as soon as the King heard her sing, that her fame would be instant, her future secure, and wouldn’t her children at home be proud of her then?
Wolcott the Solicitor answered Aramanthe smoothly. “Soon, my lady, soon. First, you do understand that we must properly prepare you to be worthy of being in the King’s presence. Coming from the country, we must do a lot of work on you to help you better fit in with the kind of people the King is used to having around him. Right now it is obvious that you are from the country, and that will just not do.”
“You mean I must wait to perform for the King?” Aramanthe’s face fell.
“Only a short time. I promise. Trust me, it is for the best.”
Soon, Wolcott had Aramanthe installed in a small room in a boarding house near his own home, where he could keep an eye on her. He indeed had serious plans for her. It was true that she was a plain thing, not much worth looking at, but he felt he could work with her and definitely turn her into a performer that might please the King mightily. That much of it was true. There was only one thing that Wolcott had not actually told Aramanthe, which was that Wolcott did not in truth know the King at all. Though he was in the King’s service, and an important man who earned a good living, Wolcott had never actually met the King. It was only when he had accidentally stumbled upon this plain little country housewife out in the middle of nowhere, hearing her lovely voice, that he had hatched his plan to make her into his ticket to finally become close to the King. He, Wolcott the Solicitor, might even become a favorite!
Yes, he had stretched the truth a bit to Aramanthe, but it would all work itself out. It would definitely all be for the best.
So, over the course of many weeks, which turned into many months, which turned into several years, Wolcott worked with Aramanthe. They had cleaned her country teeth, they had given her proper perfumed baths to make her rough country skin as smooth as silk, and as fragrant as Jasmine from the Orient. Wolcott bought Aramanthe the most beautiful wigs made from the finest and softest hair, and helped her tie it up in ribbons. He paid for Aramanthe to have singing and dancing lessons, and to play the harpsichord. They buffed her country nails to a high gloss and Wolcott paid for Aramanthe to have the most beautiful clothes.
Better yet, Wolcott paid the fees for halls where Aramanthe could practice performing in front of a live audience, and he was exceedingly pleased by her progress. Eventualy, of course, Aramanthe herself had discovered that all of Wolcott’s promises hadn’t been completely the entire truth, but she had managed to forgive him. After all, even she had not been able to live up to all her promises. Although she had intended to see her children as often as she could over the years, it was just too difficult. The journey back to the country was too long, and when she got there, Job, who had never gotten over his anger at her leaving, would yell horrible things at her and refuse to open the door. The entire blacksmith’s family turned their backs on her for abandoning her children, and people scoffed at Aramanthe for her new “fancy” city ways, as if they were not good enough for her any longer.
After only a few visits, Aramanthe resolved never to return to the village again.
It was true that Job had been furious to find that Aramanthe had left for the Great City of London. She had not even asked for his permission! And she had left him with three children who did nothing but cry and cry for their mother. Job spent a lot of his time early on hiring the village letter-writer to send mean angry letters to Aramanthe in London.
“You are a bad mother. You were a bad wife. The children and I are happy with you gone.”
Then, on other days, when Job was feeling melancholy and even a little bit sad that he didn’t have a wife, because in truth he hated to cook and clean and look after the children by himself – and Aramanthe hadn’t really been all that bad at those things – and he would have the letter-writer say,
“Please come home and let us try again to have a good marriage. The children miss you and I miss you. Please come home to the village and we can try to be a happy family again.”
Of course, Aramanthe would always write back, “I am sorry I can never return to the village. We were never happy. I have a chance to be happy and famous here in the City. I know you will take good care of the children. It is for the best.” And at these times Job would become furious all over again, slamming doors and yelling at the children.
“It’s your fault your mother doesn’t want to come back. You are bad children and I would not want to come home to you, either. Look at this mess. Get to work. I am going out.” And, to the eldest daughter, “Take care of your brothers. Make them dinner and watch them.”
And so, the eldest daughter, a smart, kind girl named Amelina, would do her best to watch her two younger brothers. She missed her mother terribly, but eventually got used to taking care of the cottage on her own. She found it tiresome to care for her two younger brothers, who were always getting into trouble, but at least when she was taking care of them, it meant that her father wasn’t home to stomp around the house yelling at the kids and blaming them for everything from their mother leaving to the dog wandering off to the state of the old straw mattress, which hadn’t been turned or fluffed since Aramanthe had been home, getting musty and littering the cottage’s dirt floor.
Aramanthe would sometimes have a good day if a letter came from Aramanthe, her famous mother in the Great City of London.
“Dear children,” the letters would say. “I think of you all the time. You should all see the wonderful things I see in London every day. I wish you could be here with me. Mr. Wolcott takes me to all the most wonderful shows in the City, and introduces me to all the most interesting and important people. Work hard at home and take care of each other. Did you get the toys I sent you?”
And Amelina would think, “Mama, I don’t need toys, I just need you here to help me.”
The children did get the toys that their mother sent, with as much frequency as she could. Amelina had received a lovely new doll, which one of the younger boys promptly broke, and a pretty new dress, though it was in a size too small for Amelina. “You must eat less,” Aramanthe wrote, “and then the dress will fit. All of the young women in London are beautiful and slender.”
The two boys, Robin and Rory, received toy horses and toy swords, which they ran around with, whooping and yelling, until Job and his throbbing head could take no more, and then he would whip them with sharp, stinging switches cut off the cherry tree over by the well. Only when Job had whipped the boys so soundly that they could only produce stifled cries was Job satisfied. “Stop that crying. You children are lucky I am still here to take care of you. It is more than your bad mother ever did for you.”
Job never whipped Amelina. There was something in Amelina’s eyes that told him to steer clear of her. The boys always listened to him, however. They knew better than to risk a whipping.
Finally the day came when Job decided that he did not want to take care of the children at all, and with no notice, he sent the children with another traveling party in to London. “Go stay with your fancy mother. She can take care of you for a change.”
The journey into London was dangerous for three small children traveling on their own, and several times Amelina had to warn the two younger boys to stay with her and not wander off into the perilous woods full of thieves and wild boars, but finally they were left at the doorstep of a fairly nice house in the middle of the frightening city. When the door was opened, the woman who had promised Job to take the children to London held out her hand. “That will be three pounds for delivery of these kids.”
“Why, what for?” said the flabbergasted maid inside the house. “Who are these children?”
“Our mother is Mrs. Aramanthe Smith,” said Amelina. “We have come to visit her.”
The maid, shocked, disappeared into the house and, after a short delay, returned with money to pay the woman for the children’s safe passage into the city. As Amelina, Rob and Rory were led into the house, Amelina clearly heard one of the maids whisper to the other, “I thought she was always sending those toys to her sister’s children. Now look at that one. How old does that make the mistress?”
Amelina stared in quiet wonderment at her mother’s apartments, which she had never even imagined would be this pretty. The walls were covered in fine fabric, the furniture was polished to a high gloss, and there were several portraits on the walls, all of Aramanthe. At least Amelina thought it was her mother. The face looked the same. Everything else looked very different.
“Children!” said Aramanthe, and all the children stared. They had not seen their mother in over two years. She looked nothing like they had remembered, though their mother had indeed occasionally sent them small portraits ofherself out to the village every so often. The mother they remembered had been soft and plain.
This mother was …. Someone they did not recognize. Her hair was cinnamon red, curled and pulled and beribboned. Her lips and cheeks were painted. They could smell her perfume from halfway across the room. Her dress was full of as much lace and smocking and frills and trim as a dress could be. Jewels dangled from her ears and across her bosom. Rings adorned her fingers.
“My adorable children, how are you? I have missed you so!” She came over to hug Amelina and the boys. The boys, overjoyed, hugged their mother desperately, covering her with kisses. Amelina hugged her mother a bit more stiffly. She was not sure what she had expected, but she wasn’t sure it was this mother.
“Mama, Mama, is this where you live? Will you take us to the park? Will you buy us more toys? Will you feed us sweetmeats and candy and cake?” The boys whooped and danced around, while Amelina stood still. She had wandered over to a cabinet filled with lovely china plates and glasses. At home, she and the boys had eaten off the same dented pewter dishes ever since she could remember.
“What, are you so special that these aren’t good enough for you?” Job had always said, when Amelina asked for a new plate at Christmas. “No need to spend good money on something new when what we have will do fine.”
And the furniture! The objects of art. The carpets! Amelina had never once imagined her mother living in such luxury.
“Is this all yours, Mama?” Amelina asked her mother.
“Well, not really. This is the home of my friend and protector, Mr. Wolcott. He is a very important man in London, and he has done very much for me. We should all be so grateful to him. Remember all those toys and things I send to you? He has been responsible for much of that. He has helped me to become a very well-known singer here in the City, and soon, I will be singing for the King himself! Won’t that be wonderful?”
“I thought you were going to sing for the King a long time ago,” Amelina observed.
Aramanthe stiffened. “You children don’t know anything about what things are like in the City. Things are far more simple back in the village. You could not understand how things work. I am a very important singer right now, and in fact I have heard that the King has indeed been asking about when I might have time in my schedule to see when I might perform for him. So please do not ask ridiculous questions that you could not know anything about.”
“Is Mr. Wolcott our new father?” One of the boys asked.
Again, Aramanthe became rigid and aloof. “No, he is not your father, as he is not my husband. He is my friend and protector. Your father is your father Job the Blacksmith, back in the village. Did he send any money with you?”
Amelina shook her head. The boys shook their heads.
Aramanthe abruptly changed subjects. “You must all be very kind to Mr. Wolcott and show him your best manners. I will count on you children not embarrassing me. Also, you are not to leave this house while you are here.”
“How long can we stay?” One of the boys asked. “This is a really nice house, and we miss you, Mama.”
“Not long. You can stay for a short visit, but you must go back to the village soon. You see, don’t you like all the lovely things I can send you? Well, people in London are very particular about their performers. I am known as Mrs. Smith, and I am so beautiful that people here in London – very important people - think I look so fresh and young that I could not possibly have children as old as you are. Much less three children! Therefore, we cannot take any chances that you will meet anyone I know professionally.”
“Can we meet Mr. Wolcott?”
“Of course you may meet Mr. Wolcott. He would like to meet you, too. We talk all the time about you.”
Amelina watched her mother carefully. Somehow she didn’t believe this, but she kept quiet for the moment. What was her alternative?
Later that night, after the children had been shown the upstairs maid’s quarters, where they were told they could sleep and keep their things, they were all shown down to dinner and introduced to their mother’s benefactor.
“Children, this is Mr. Wolcott. He is a very important solicitor here in London. He attended the University at Oxford. That means he is among the most educated men in the kingdom! Aren’t you in awe that he has taken such an interest in us?”
Amelina believed her mother about Mr. Wolcott being one of the most educated men in the kingdom, mostly because as soon as they all sat down to dinner, Mr. Wolcott never stopped talking. Not even while he was eating, and apparently Mr. Wolcott liked to eat. A lot. The dinner was actually even a little bit exhausting, as Amelina tried to listen to everything Mr. Wolcott had to say, all the while trying to keep up with his pace, for as soon as Mr. Wolcott was finished with one course, he would ring for the next course, and if the children weren’t finished, that was too bad for them.
Mr. Wolcott talked about everything from people at Court to the best places to be entertained, or the best places to travel for a rest from city life. France, he declared, was the absolute center of all culture and class. “Your mother, Aramanthe, and I have traveled to Paris twice a year ever since I have been managing her career. No sooner do we arrive home than we receive letters asking when we will return so that they might have the pleasure of listening to her perform.”
Amelina was startled. Her mother had found it a simple thing to travel half a dozen times to Paris, and yet she had not visited the village in Cornwall in two years? This was something she had not known, and she looked at her mother to see if she was duly embarrassed by this revelation, or wondered what her children would think, but her mother didn’t appear to have noticed. It was as if she believed her children could hardly be thinking of anything other than how impressed they were by their very important mother and all the exciting things she did, and weren’t they so much luckier than other, more ordinary village children?
“Perhaps you children someday will have the good fortune to hear your mother perform.”
Amelina wondered about this and guessed it would involve not letting anyone know that “the great Aramanthe” was her mother. She looked at her two younger brothers and wondered if they were having any of the same thoughts that she was, but it didn’t seem so. They were very much merely rapt at the wide variety of food they were getting to eat, foods they had never before heard of in their lives, much less tasted. Their father back at home, Job the blacksmith, usually just boiled up meat and potatoes in a big pot over a fire (or asked Amelina to do this), sent the boys to the well for water, and that was dinner. Every so often someone in a neighboring cottage might bring over some bread if they had extra, in case Job’s house needed some. (It always did.)
The children spent several days with their mother, and even left the apartments once or twice, though only before Aramanthe put on a disguise, to keep people on the street from “recognizing her.” Before long, however, Aramanthe gently explained to the children that it was time to go home to the village again.
The boys cried. “We want to stay with you. We like it here.”
“But there is no room for you here. As I have told you, there is no place for children here.”
“But there is lots of room here. And we don’t need much. We want to live here. The food is good here.”
But Aramanthe shook her head. “I’m sorry, children, it is impossible. Where would I send you to school? The streets of London are dangerous, and the other children here in the Big City would just as soon knock you down and steal your things as they would look at you. Go back to the pretty village, where you have a home with your father. Besides, I am traveling so much with Mr. Wolcott, I couldn’t possibly look after children, who will take care of you? Go home, I will send you money and more toys when I am able.”
Amelina, however, shocked her mother by saying, “I’m sorry, Mama, I am not going back.”
“What?” Aramanthe’s jaw dropped.
“I am not going back. I do not have to live here, but I am not going back. I am a smart girl. I would like for you to find me a place with a nice family where I may look after their children. I do not mind hard work. But I am not going back to the village. Papa can take care of the boys.”
Aramanthe did not at all know what to make of this, and so she consulted with Mr. Wolcott as to what to do. “If she will not stay in the village, what are we to do with her? She can’t be left with nowhere to go. How would that look if something terrible happened to my daughter? “
“Don’t worry, we will find a family to take her. She can work honestly to earn her keep. Families are always looking for good, honest, smart girls. And if she goes with a good family, perhaps we might be introduced eventually to more important people who can help your career. And mine.”
And so, the boys were packed off back to the village, while Amelina was sent to live with a gentle family in Surrey, where she would be companion to the family’s two daughters and supplement her board by helping watch the family’s youngest children. She was very anxious in the beginning, going off to live in a strange place, but as Aramanthe told Amelina, “you have made your bed and you will have to lie in it. You will find your own way.”
The family’s name was Knox. They were not royalty, but were gentle country people, who put great store in hard work, honesty and respect for others. Amelina had at first been hesitant about living with a strange family, but soon came to love them. She had never known that all families did not fight, or lie, or do their chores without complaint. Unlike Amelina’s old house in the village, this house was clean. Meals were always served on time, and indeed, not only did all the family members help with making the dinner, but all the family member helped to clean up after the meals were done. Amelina was fascinated by the Knox family. She admired them greatly, and worked as hard as she could to be as much like them as she could be. For the first time in her life, Amelina was happy.
One person who was not happy was Job, back in the village. Since his father had passed away, the smithery had really gone downhill. Without his father to tell him what to do, Job could not keep accounts properly. He argued with the apprentices he hired, and could not keep any of them. Because this left him without help, Job could not keep up with the demand for ironwork, and the village people started going to the blacksmith in the next village (who also did better work, the people whispered). Job brought home less and less money, and became angrier and angrier, until finally he wrote Aramanthe in London and demanded that she also make arrangements for the two younger boys, as she had done for Amelina, or else, Job threatened, he would send the boys to her door again. By return letter, Aramanthe agreed quickly, and duly made arrangements to send the boys away. Robin, who was better with numbers, was apprenticed to a money lender, and Rory, who had a talent for talking anyone into anything, was apprenticed to a merchant who sold snake oil from town to town.
For her part, Aramanthe was the happiest she had been. After many years she was not only regularly giving concerts, but she was also no longer the blacksmith’s wife. After seven years had passed, Job was able to declare to everyone that his wife had abandoned him, and this left them both free to remarry. And while not a single woman in the village was crazy enough to marry the slovenly, surly Job and move into his messy, run-down house, Aramanthe had married Mr. Wolcott, who continued to support her in the high style to which she had long since become accustomed.
In fact, Aramanthe had lived in luxury for so years now, she could hardly remember what it had been like to ever have been poor. In a City as large as London, it was quite easy to tell anyone anything she wanted to, and that she did. First she took years off her age, telling everyone she was at least ten, and then fifteen years younger than she actually was, and for the most part, people were generally willing to go along with her, as Aramanthe would fly into a serious temper if anyone even hinted that she was less than the most beautiful young woman, with the most lovely voice they had ever heard.

Now unburdened by having to send money out to Job for the upkeep of the children, Aramanthe spent money like water, on jewels, clothes and any and all manner of amusements to occupy her time. She loved wine and sweets, and often stayed up until all hours of the night with friends who would all tell her how wonderful she was. She would then luxuriate in sleeping late into the morning, and sometimes even the afternoons.

And best of all, Aramanthe was finally going to sing for the King himself! She could not stop talking about it, and wrote to all the children about singing for the King as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Aramanthe invited all the children to come see her sing, telling them “this is the moment you have all been waiting for. This will be the most important moment in your lives.”
However, Aramanthe was so preoccupied with preparations for her performance that she forgot to send any money for the children to come see her. The boys, having no money of their own, could not make the trip all the way into London.

The Knox family paid for Amelina to come to see her mother sing for the King. Aramanthe was so happy to see Amelina, who had grown into a young woman during all this time, but pleaded with Amelina to make sure to call her “Mrs. Wolcott” and not to tell anyone she was her daughter. “You can be my niece, if anyone asks,” said Aramanthe. “It is all for the best.”

And so Amelina was invited into the audience to hear her mother Aramanthe’s most important performance, the performance of a lifetime. As she took her seat in the theater, far on the side of the theater with an obstructed view of the stage, Amelina could see the Royal Box, though it appeared empty. The curtain finally went up, Amelina watched he mother’s performance carefully. She hadn’t heard her mother sing for so long that she had almost forgotten what she sounded like. It was very funny, in all this time she had heard so much about her mother’s wonderful voice, that she had half expected the heavens to open up when her mother started to sing, but all Amelina heard was a woman with a very pretty voice, much like any other singer she had ever heard. Better than many, to be sure, though not the best.

Halfway through the performance, there was a murmur through the audience, and Amelina looked over to see the King himself in the box. As always, everyone stared at the King throughout the performance, though they all tried to pretend that they were watching the woman on stage. However, the King stayed only about half an hour, and then left. He, who had heard the best of the best, was in the end not that interested in hearing Aramanthe, who was after all not so incredibly talented that she could hold a King’s attention.

After the performance, Aramanthe and Mr. Wolcott and all their friends celebrated this most special of all nights, the night that Aramanthe sang for the King of England. Around the table, no one had the heart or bad manners to tell Aramanthe that the King had left early, and Mr. Wolcott could not bring himself to admit this out loud.
“You must be so proud of your aunt,” people around the table told Amelina, who did the only polite thing, and nodded.

After the “celebration dinner”, Aramanthe thanked Amelina for coming, gave her yet another autographed drawing of herself, and then announced that she was embarking on a new singing tour around Europe as Mrs. Smith-Wolcott, (hyphenated names having the most prestige ) the singer who had performed for the English sovereign.

And so Amelina went back to live with the Knox family, and from that time on only saw Aramanthe every year or so around the holidays, if she happened to be invited. Sometimes, however, if Aramanthe and Mr. Wolcott were traveling, Amelina and her brothers received no invitations at all, and they were left to their own devices to figure out how to celebrate the holidays. Because all of the “children” now lived in such distant places, however, they all drifted further and further apart.
Amelina wasn’t bothered very much. She had long since grown accustomed to having no family to depend on, and given the family that she had, she didn’t mind very much if she didn’t see them over any holidays. One of the sons in the Knox family had fallen in love with her several years earlier. They had been married in a small ceremony that Aramanthe had insisted on catering, where she insisted on singing at the reception, and Amelina and her husband eventually had three children.
Her younger brother Robin married a farmer’s daughter and they had four children. Rory, the youngest, married a goatherder’s daughter and they also had a baby.
Lonely and isolated back in the village, Job sent letters from time to time to each of the children, mostly talking about his small dog or accusing them of not taking care of him in his old age, as was their duty. Sometimes he claimed to them that the smithery was still doing a brisk business, and hinted that if they wanted him to leave them all his money in his will, they needed to write him a letter every day. Amelina threw Job’s letters into the garbage. Robin and Rory tolerated Job because they were always up for more money.
Aramanthe eventually grew older, as we all do with time, and after a certain point even she could no longer claim that she was a young woman. All her face paint made her look dreary, all the wine and sweets had long since made her fat and soft, and all her old friends from Aramanthe’s “famous salons”, sick of hearing about how Aramanthe had sung for the King of England, had long since drifted elsewhere.
Mr. Wolcott had also tired of Aramanthe, but was too old, fat and lazy himself to do anything about it. He still heard Aramanthe talk all the live-long day about how she had once sung for the King of England, but he no longer actually listened to her. As often as he could, he went to his offices in Central London to work, so he could spend as little time as possible in Aramanthe’s company. She was no longer interesting to him. Besides, he had to keep working as hard and as much as he could, because Aramanthe always spent all of his money as fast as he could earn it. She had holes in all her pockets and could not leave their apartments without buying something. She bought shoes in sizes too small for her feet, clothes in sizes too small for her body, and jewels she could not really afford, all in the belief that the very next trinket or luxury would be the one to make her feel “special” again.
Aramanthe also continued her other bad habits of taking no exercise, sleeping late, drinking and eating far too much, and gambling, and grew older and more haggard by the day. Frustrated at being unable to find anyone to pay attention to her, Aramanthe found herself reaching out to her children after all those years of paying attention to herself.
“Come visit me,” she said “but you must stay in a hotel, I cannot watch children, they interrupt my sleep.”
Sometimes the children would come, sometimes not. Sometimes Aramanthe and Mr. Wolcott would also visit “the children”, although those were very trying visits, for Aramanthe was no longer used to the country life, and she could not stop being “Aramanthe, the famous singer who had sung for the King.”
People in the country who had never heard of Aramanthe wondered why she acted so full of herself, and always admitted that they were not quite sure who she was. That was not a problem, however, as Aramanthe was always eager to be able to tell a fresh set of ears exactly who she was, how she had worked her way up from a virtual orphan to a lowly blacksmith’s wife, through all of her travels (by the end she had seen every country in the world, and there was nothing she wasn’t an authority on) all the way building up until the story about the night she sang for the King himself.
The funny thing was, with time, the story continued to change.
One year Aramanthe added that she had a standing ovation at her performance for the King. The next year she added to the story that the King had been so touched by her performance that he had given her a kitten from one of his own personal Royal Cats, though Amelina herself had been with Aramanthe the day she had purchased it for half a crown from a vendor at the farmer’s market. The year after that, Aramanthe added that the King had sent a note inviting her to his personal apartments that very evening, but she had declined, claiming she could not have disappointed her good friends who wanted to take her out for a celebration dinner. The year after that, Aramanthe claimed that the King himself had “called her regularly” because he simply could not forget her.
Most of the country people who heard Aramanthe’s stories were interested in listening, if only because they didn’t know anyone else in the country who had such stories. When Aramanthe would depart the country from one of her visits to her “children”, the country people who had met her would say “your mother is so interesting” or “your mother is so different” or “your mother is quite the character.”
When Mr. Wolcott was nearby, he liked to say “One thing you can say about Aramanthe, is that she’s Never Boring! I call her NB for short.”
To her great shame, Amelina once overheard one of the country people saying “They should call her B.S. for short.”

Time wore on further, and Aramanthe grew older and weaker. Her memories of being a young, attractive and vibrant woman were long gone, and at the end, she didn’t even have her voice to amuse people with. Finally Aramanthe realized that she had reached her golden years and that she would need someone to take care of her.
And so she went to her youngest son, Rory, her baby, who she thought would show her the greatest devotion because she had always given him as much money as she could when he had written her for loans.
“Please, my son, take me in and care for me in my old age, as I have always given you money when you were in need, and now I am in need of care.”
But Rory could not take Aramanthe. “But when I married my wife, I asked you to pay her debts, and you did not, and now we have a baby and we have no room for you in our cottage. In fact, we are currently in debt to our landlord, so if you could send us five hundred pounds, that would be all we need to help us get by. Until next time, that is.”
Next, Aramanthe went knocking on Robin’s door.
“Please, my son, take me in and care for me in my old age, as I have always given you money when you were in need, and now I am in need of care.”
But Robin’s door was closed. “When I married my wife, you did not like my wife, and so now, she does not like you. We have four children, and our extra room was long ago given to my wife’s mother, who has helped care for our children since they were babies. We have no room in our house.”
Last, Aramanthe went to Amelina and her husband. Amelina had always been the most difficult of daughters, but she had the most money and the biggest house, and so Aramanthe went to Amelina.
“Please, my daughter, take me in and care for me in my old age, as I am in need of care.” Unlike when Aramanthe approached her sons, she did not even make a pretense of giving money to Amelina, who knew well that they had never received any.
“The most important thing is to take care of family,” Aramanthe added.
However, Amelina surprised Aramanthe. “I am so sorry, but my job now is to care for my husband and the family I have now, not the family from my past.”
“I don’t understand, I have always been there for you, haven’t I always sent you money and toys.”
“I am sorry, Mother, but as I remember, you once told me that the most important thing is for everyone to be happy. It makes me happy to be with my family. It would make me unhappy to be away from them in order to have to take care of you. I am sorry, it is for the best.”

Aramanthe was shocked, and more than upset, because Amelina was her last resort. “But I am your mother. I am the only mother you will ever have. You are my daughter.”
“Yes, it is true that you are my mother, and I am your daughter. However, that is not how we have conducted our lives. Look at it this way: you have never wanted to be a mother, and therefore I have been unable to learn how to be a daughter. I am just too independent. There is traveling I would like to do, and things I would like to do with my time with my husband, and if you were to come live with us, it would be terribly inconvenient. What would we do with you when we traveled? Who would care for you? You have a nice set of apartments in the City, and Mr. Wolcott will take care of you. Or maybe not, but I am sorry, you have made your own bed, and you will have to lie in it. I know you will find your own way.”
“What do you mean? How could you do this to me after all I have done for you?”
“I would like to hear what hat have you done for me.”
“Again, what about all the gifts I have sent you?”
“Why did you give me the gifts? Were they gifts, or were they payment for my love? For money does not buy love; actions do.”
“I care about you and your children very much. I have sent gifts to them.”
“When you remember, and not all the time. You do not even know my children’s middle names or birthdays. Yet you expect all of us to know when your birthday is.” Amelina’s heart was beating furiously, but she stood her ground.
Aramanthe was stunned.
“But I am your mother,” Aramanthe kept repeating, paler by the second.
“No, you are Aramanthe, the singer who sang for the King of England. It is unfortunate that after all you have sacrificed for him – your youth, your family, and years of your life – for all these sacrifices, I don’t happen to see the King here. Perhaps you should go to the King and ask him to take care of you, considering all you have done for him.”
“How can you turn on me like this? You are a bad daughter!”
“Trust me, mother, you will be taken care of, and I will send you toys every month, or, at least as often as it is convenient for me. If you send me thank-you notes, I will think about sending you some more toys. Trust me, I do love you dearly, you are my heart, but this is all for the best.”

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