CHAPTER TWO
"Jack?" Constance called as she pushed the front door open.
"We've company." It was, perhaps, a silly precaution to take – in the event that Jack and Peter had given the afternoon over the lovemaking, they weren't likely to be doing so on the main floor – but better safe than sorry.
Neither Jack nor Peter materialized at her words, and she could only hear the faintest murmur of voices from upstairs, and so her worries were quickly allayed.
She and Isabel had the front room to themselves.
"Jack is your . . . husband?" Isabel asked as she set Walter down.
The child, evidently overjoyed to be free after the tyranny of a five-minute period spent in his mother's arms, immediately set out to explore his new surroundings, clambering up on Peter's work bench to examine the contents of the table.
"My brother," Constance said, scanning the table to make sure there was nothing on it that Walter might injure himself with.
There was not: custom had been so slow of late, she hadn't even bothered to take out her needles or her shears in days.
"He lives here with my husband and I – he's a journeyman cooper, but he shares his workshop with three others, and there's hardly room for a mouse to bed down in the evening.
Easier by far for him to sleep here, and we've space enough.
" She neglected to mention that the reason they had space enough was that Jack and Peter shared the bed upstairs while she took the one on the main floor; some details were better kept private.
"Shall we go into the kitchen? I've water in the cistern for you to wash with. "
Isabel retrieved Walter from the table – which he was, by then, crawling atop of – and followed Constance into the kitchen.
Some of the early spring chill still lingered in the air, and so Constance busied herself coaxing the kitchen fire to full flame before filling the pot with water and setting it on the hob.
When she glanced over her shoulder at Isabel, she saw her guest still lingering in the doorway, as if uncertain of her welcome.
"You may as well sit down while you wait," Constance offered.
"The water won't take long to heat. Or I could find you a new dress to change into, I'm sure that one's uncomfortable.
" She left the pot to its own devices and went over to the trunk where she kept her spare odds and ends of clothing.
Most were her fault – dresses and tunics that she'd tried and failed to sew for customers, ending up with misshapen seams and crooked hems that they'd flatly refused to pay for.
There was also an old pair of hose that had been darned past the point of use, and – a silly bit of sentiment on her part, as she'd never have any use for it – a baby's tunic that Matilda had given her when she first married, in the expectation that she'd soon have a child to dress it in.
She'd held no such hopes for herself, but there was no telling Matilda that.
"You needn't worry about the water." Constance glanced back at Isabel again to see that she'd taken a seat on one of the stools, perched on the edge like a bird prepared to take flight at any moment. "I can wash in cold water as well as warm, it's no trouble."
"You'll summon my sister with that kind of talk," Constance said, just for the sake of seeing Isabel smile.
"Besides, the fire heats the room, so we all have the benefit of it.
Ah, here we go –" From the bottom of the trunk, she retrieved a shift and a dusty pink kirtle, unlaced and with gores that lay as slant as a falling-down shutter.
The woman who'd requested it had been florid with indignation when she saw what Constance had produced, and while Constance couldn't blame her entirely, she did sorely miss the coin that would have come from such a commission.
A household of three did not eat cheaply.
Isabel took the kirtle and shift from her, her face betraying no emotion. "This was made for you?"
"I should hope not, I'd have drowned in it," Constance said. "But the woman it was made for is about your height, so it ought to fit. Enough for an afternoon's wear, anyhow."
"The woman it was made for?" Isabel frowned. "So it belongs to someone else?"
"She didn't want it." Constance shrugged. "Said it wasn't worth a brass farthing, and I suppose she wasn't wrong. It was my first attempt at making one myself, and I'm no great hand with a needle. Still, it should serve for an afternoon."
Isabel turned the dress over in her hands, examining it, and Constance pushed back a moment's defensiveness.
It really wasn't a well-made garment, so she could hardly blame Isabel for noticing.
Still, it was fit for purpose at that moment.
She was considering saying so - for Isabel was shivering, and Constance would hate to see her catch cold out of vanity over her clothes - when Isabel said, "Is there, ah - a place where I might .
. ." She trailed off, glancing around. The kitchen was a small one, so there wasn't much to see.
"To change, you mean?" Constance said. "My bedroom is across the way, you may make use of it if you wish." She thought that would be an end of Isabel's hesitation; still, Isabel bit her lip, and Constance felt twin twinges of irritation and confusion. What could possibly be causing her to hesitate?
"And your husband?" Isabel asked. "He's not . . . I mean, he won't . . ."
Ah. "Peter is resting upstairs," Constance said.
"He's been unwell of late, and it's quieter up there.
You'll not be interrupted." Evidently, Isabel was shy: Constance had known women who preferred to dress behind a screen, or who asked that she take their measurements rather than Peter, but Isabel's reticence seemed somewhat excessive.
Still, it was her choice. "You'll be wanting this," Constance said, and took the water off the hob. The surface had begun to bubble, but it settled quickly when removed from the heat. "If you want to wash up. Have you another dress at home?"
Isabel took the water with a nod.
"Give yours to me, then, and I'll wash it," Constance said. "Wear the other one home, and you can come back for yours' later this week. Easier for everyone that way."
"I -" Isabel looked for a moment like she might argue, but then she shut her mouth. "All right. I'll be back in a moment. Walter -"
"I'll watch him," Constance said. Walter had found a wooden spoon and crawled under the table with it, cheerfully whacking it against the floor: she doubted it would be any trouble to keep an eye on him.
"He'll only be underfoot while you change.
Go on, now." She had found, sometimes - with customers as shy and hesitant as Isabel seemed to be - that taking a firm hand helped.
Not being harsh, not precisely - but they did well with instruction, when indecision would otherwise have swallowed them whole.
And it seemed to work with Isabel as well, for she nodded, picked up the pot of water, and retreated out the door.
"It's just across the way," Constance called after her, though the directions were somewhat redundant: her bedroom was the only other side room on this floor of the house, and therefore impossible to miss.
She heard the door snap shut and, satisfied that that duty had been discharged, bent to look at Walter under the table.
"Well," she said. "How shall we occupy ourselves while your mama is busy? "
Walter paused in his noisemaking, peeking out from his hiding spot. "Mama?" he said. His eyes roved the room, confirming that his mother was nowhere in sight, and his next utterance was sharpened with alarm. "Mama? Where?"
"She'll be back, don't you fret." He still looked worried, so Constance slid down far enough to scoop him up and bring him out from under the table.
Probably she shouldn't have drawn his attention to Isabel's absence; he might not have noticed, otherwise.
But it was done, and now here they were, and she could easily keep him distracted for the time being.
"What have you got there, hmm? Are you making soup for us? "
Walter narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to trust this strange woman who had swept him in off the street. Then his face split in a wide grin, and he brought the spoon down on the table with a resounding bang. "Drum!"
"Is it, now," Constance said, struggling to keep her composure.
Probably she should distract him with something before they all ended up with pounding headaches courtesy of his music-making, but she knew better than to simply try prying the spoon out of his hands.
Instead, she reached to one side with her free hand, groping for the small chest of toys she kept tucked into the corner beside the fireplace until she managed to find it and reach in.
A moment's rummaging was all she required to come up with her prize - a little toy horse on wheels - and offer it to Walter.
"What about animals? Do you like those?"
The answer was, evidently, "yes," for the spoon was immediately forgotten and dropped on the floor in favour of this new distraction.
Walter slid from her lap, and set to pushing the horse across the floor, chortling and clapping his hands whenever he managed to give it a hard enough shove that it went flying across the room and crashed into the opposite wall.
It was not a quiet game, precisely, but Constance would gladly take it over the spoon.
Just to be sure, she retrieved the offending utensil from where Walter had dropped it and stowed it in her apron pocket: out of sight, out of mind.