CHAPTER TWO #3
"As you will it, Mother," he said, grinning.
He nodded to Isabel with a, "pleased to meet you -" Isabel's answering nod was terse - then retreated, his footsteps fading on the stairs.
Isabel, Constance noticed, relaxed the moment he stepped away from the door: perhaps it was having her exit blocked that had spooked her.
Constance had been doing rapid calculations in her head since she and Isabel first ran into each other in the market - her jumpiness, her reluctance to return home, her clear anxiety when Jack came in - and was coming to several very ugly conclusions about just what she was going home to.
"You're sure you won't stay?" she said again.
Isabel shook her head, shifting Walter in her arms. "I really must be going," she said. "I thank you, again, for your hospitality and the clothes. I will return with them as soon as I am able."
Constance got to her feet. "Allow me to show you out, at least."
"No need." Isabel offered her what was clearly meant for a smile, but resembled nothing more than a grimace of pain. "I am accustomed to finding my own way."
There was nothing Constance could say to that, and it would be churlish to follow Isabel out after she had just been rebuffed.
She sank back down in her chair and stayed where she was, listening as the front door opened and shut behind Isabel.
She could hear Peter and Jack's quiet murmurs upstairs, and thought of going to join them, but she could not impel herself to rise again.
She felt suddenly very tired; and as she thought of that last look on Isabel's face, the feeling only went on growing.
# # #
"Where have you been?" Hilda was on her as soon as Isabel stepped through the door. "We must have supper on the table in three hours, and still no fish to be had! Did you think it fit to dally at the market while our guests went hungry?"
The guests had doubtless not arrived yet, but Isabel did not say as much. "The market was very busy." She handed the basket of cod to Hilda, who hardly glanced at it. "I'll take Walter upstairs, he's late for his nap."
"You'll go upstairs and see to the girls," Hilda snapped.
"They're to dine with us, and they must be readied for it.
Comb and plait their hair, see that they're wearing their best dresses, and don't neglect their veils or tippets.
If I see either of them come down with their clothes awry or their faces unwashed . . ."
She went on, but Isabel had stopped listening.
"I'll see to them," she murmured, then turned away and went up the stairs.
Walter, who had stopped fussing when they were halfway home and begun to doze on her shoulder, had been stirred by Hilda's scolding and was once again agitating to be let down.
Isabel waited until they were in the nursery with the door closed behind her, then set him on the floor.
He really was late for his nap, but there was no use putting him in his cradle: he'd only climb out of it.
What he needed was to be rocked and sang to sleep, but there was no settling him before she had the girls ready: if they were late, Hilda would certainly come upstairs to find out why.
"Finally, you're here," Aline said. She was seated at her dressing-table, her hair unbound and loose over her shoulders.
She was still wearing her ordinary dress; the fine one Hilda wanted her in was, Isabel knew, hanging in the wardrobe next to Petronilla's.
At thirteen and ten, both girls were more than old enough to have started preparing themselves before Isabel arrived, but why would they, when they had the pleasure of being waited on hand and foot to look forward to?
Isabel went to Aline silently and took a comb up from the dressing-table.
Aline had beautiful hair: soft and smooth and honey-coloured, entirely unlike the dull yellow frizz of her mother and sister.
She knew it, too, and always made a point of catching Petronilla's eye and tossing her head whenever Isabel brushed their hair for them.
She did it again just then, and Petronilla - who was sitting on the bed, drumming her heels against the floor - scowled.
She divided Aline's hair into two halves, then combed each one out until all the tangles had been vanquished.
Aline made a point of yelping loudly whenever she hit a snag, but Isabel ignored her.
It was best not to give her anything more to fuss about: she was always prowling for something she could use to tease and poke at Isabel with.
Better to get the task done silently and quickly, so that she could see the girls off and put Walter to bed.
A familiar tugging at her skirts almost made her wince.
When she looked down, she saw Walter, holding tight to her dress and using it to pull himself to his feet.
She braced herself for the sound of fabric ripping, and let out a silent sigh of relief when the stitches held.
The relief was short-lived. "Up," Walter demanded, pulling at the dress to emphasize his request. "Mama, want up. "
"Not just now," she said, letting go of Aline's plait just long enough to reach down and touch Walter's head. Even that was a step too far: Aline whipped her head around to glare at her. "We'll be late," she said, "if you don't hurry up."
"Mother will be angry," Petronilla added from the bed.
Isabel gritted her teeth and went back to work. Walter - on whom Aline and Petronilla's warnings had made no impression at all - redoubled his efforts to make himself heard, pulling once again on her skirts as his voice rose in a whine. "Up, Mama, up. Up. Mama, mama, mama -"
"Will you shut up?" Aline snapped at him. "You dreadful brat, I'm sick of your noise."
Isabel did not know if Walter understood her words, but he certainly grasped her tone. His eyes went wide, mouth snapping shut for a breathless moment: then his face crumbled and he let out a long, piercing wail.
"I hope I never have such a child," Aline said to her sister over the sound of Walter's sobs.
Isabel still held the end of her plait in her hand, and experienced a brief urge to yank on it hard enough to make Aline cry like she'd made Walter.
But sense won over impulse quickly, and she merely pinned the plait into place and stepped back.
"You're done," she said shortly, then bent to pick up Walter, who stretched both arms up towards her with a whimper.
"You've got to do mine still," Petronilla said, bouncing up from the bed and sliding onto Aline's stool seconds after she vacated it. "And lace us into our gowns and pin our veils on."
Isabel paused, crouched down next to her son as he clung to her and wept.
He was tired and frightened and wanted the comfort of his mother's arms; so far as she was concerned, Aline and Petronilla could go down to supper in soup-stained aprons with their hair full of tangles.
But there was Hilda to consider: if Isabel disobeyed her, or disregarded the girls in favour of her son, she would be made to answer for it.
And Hilda had the power to sever her from Walter forever, if she so chose.
In that light, letting him cry uncomforted awhile longer - though it tore at her to hear his weeping - was the kinder choice.
She gave his back a last rub, then stood, wishing she could block her ears against the sound of his redoubled sobs.
"Soon," she murmured, too low for anyone else to hear. "I'll be there in a moment, I promise."
If the job she did combing, plaiting, and pinning Petronilla's hair was not as good as the one she'd done on Aline's, she doubted anyone would notice or care.
After that, it was the work of a few minutes to see them both dressed, veiled, and sent off to join their parents downstairs.
She waited until the sound of their footsteps on the stairs had faded away, half-certain that one of them would come bursting back in with some new demand, before she went to see to Walter.
His cries had wound down to sniffles while she saw to the girls, but he burst out in fresh wails when she picked him up. "I know," Isabel said, swaying slightly on the spot as she stroked his back. "I know. I'm sorry. Oh love, I'm so sorry."
Walter clung to the front of her dress, his sticky face pressed tight to her neck.
His cries had grown louder when she first picked him up, but they subsided quickly as she rocked him.
She carried him over to their little nook in the corner and sat down on the bed, settling him in her lap.
He turned his face against her chest, and she sang under her breath, stroking his back in time to the music until his breathing grew soft and even, and the hands he had fisted in her dress relaxed.
She tilted him just far back enough to see his face: he was asleep, eyes still red and swollen, but closed.
She could put him down in the cradle safely now, but she didn't move.
She wanted to hold him awhile longer; and besides, she was so tired.
How much more could they withstand?