CHAPTER FOUR #2
Margery appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a scowl so black that Constance had to smother a smile.
It wouldn't do for Margery to think that her troubles were being laughed at, even if she was being histrionic about it.
Once Constance had schooled her expression, she offered Margery what she hoped was a reassuring look.
It didn't work; her scowl only deepened, and she crossed her arms across her chest with a huff.
"Your aunt's here," Matilda said briskly, "and you're to go out walking with her. You've been indoors all day, and you need some good clean air. Come down, now."
Margery's descent down the stairs was accompanied by the loud thump-thump-thump of her feet, as she made sure to stomp as hard as she could on each step.
Constance, nearly overcome once again, bit the inside of her cheek.
Once Margery was on the ground floor with them, Matilda reached up to tug at her coif, which had slid almost off her head. "And pull this up, you'll catch cold."
Margery swatted her mother's hand away. "It itches."
"A cold would itch worse," Matilda retorted. She tried to pull the coif back into place, but Margery only snatched it off, balling it up in her apron pocket. Matilda sighed. "Wear a proper cloak, at least."
"I don't need one."
"You'll not go out without it."
"Then I won't go out."
"Oh, for - !" Matilda threw her hands up. "Out of my sight, the both of you. I've too many chores to attend to to waste time quarrelling."
While mother and daughter had been arguing, Constance had stood up, setting baby Sam down next to Sarah, and retrieved a cloak from the peg beside the door.
"Let's go," she said, pitching her voice to be heard over Margery's huffs and Matilda's grumbling.
"I'll carry this, and you can put it on later if you like. I don't mind."
Margery said nothing, but her tread across the floor to where Constance was standing was at least a little quieter. "I'll have her back for supper,"
Matilda nodded to her, already hurrying over to separate the children on the floor, who were squabbling over something or other. Constance held the door open for Margery, then went out after her, making sure to shut it tight behind her.
They walked in silence for several minutes, up the street and then around a corner, to the broader avenue that led to the town square.
Margery's shoulders were hunched against the cold, her hands tucked into her armpits, but she did not ask for the cloak.
Constance observed this for a spell, then wordlessly held it out.
Margery still said nothing, but she took it with a gruff nod, wrapping it tight around her shoulders.
Constance kept her face carefully impassive, and went on walking.
"I know why you're here," Margery announced at length.
They had made it to the town square, where the well stood, and she'd stopped walking at the very edge of the square.
There was a girl sitting on the edge of the wall, about Margery's age, and a boy leaning against the stones beside her.
She'd tossed her head back, laughing; the sound carried easily on the breeze.
Watching them, Margery's face had darkened again.
"Oh?" Constance said. She knew from experience that there was no use starting the conversation herself: if Margery felt herself being steered, she would only shut down and refuse to speak at all. She had to be the one to broach the subject, or it wouldn't be broached at all.
"Mother sent for you," Margery announced, her voice grim.
"She means to have you talk me into marrying Simon.
Well, I won't marry him, and I don't care what you or Mother or anyone says about it.
" She punctuated this with a vicious kick to a clod of dirt that sat on the ground near her foot; it went rolling away, coming to rest against the wall of a nearby building.
"I see," Constance said, still keeping her tone mild. She said nothing more, and after a beat, Margery looked over at her, brow wrinkled in confusion.
"She wants me to be married," she said slowly, as if she feared Constance hadn't understood her the first time.
"She wants me for a - a reward for Simon, for doing so well at his apprenticeship, as if I were a sweet she's giving one of the little ones for behaving well.
She doesn't care a bit whether or not I want to.
She doesn't care about me at all - she only wants me out of her house for being too troublesome.
And once I'm wed to him, all my life will be keeping his house and cooking his food and bearing his children until I'm dead.
" Her voice, which had started out strong, was wobbling by the time she was half-finished with her speech, and collapsed entirely into sobs as soon as she'd forced the last word out.
Silently, Constance put an arm around her and guided her to sit on a nearby bench, then let Margery bury her head in her shoulder and sob her heart out.
She made no soothing noises, or other attempts at consolation: in this mood, Margery would only view them as condescension.
So she let Margery weep until her tears ran dry, then said quietly, "What would you do instead? "
Margery sat up, dashing the tears from her face.
"I want to do more," she said, and there was a light in her eyes that made Constance's heart throb with fondness, despite the circumstances.
"I want to see the world beyond Linden – I want to see the world beyond England.
I want to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, like Queen Eleanor did, and see the tradespeople and their silks and spices and – and the animals the Crusaders wrote of, with the humps on their backs.
And I want to know how to read and write so I may write my own stories about my travels, and everyone may read them, and I'll be as famous as Geoffrey Chaucer, and I'll be invited to court to meet the king.
I don't want to stay home and have babies like Mother did, I want to live. "
Constance absorbed all this in silence. Some of Margery's fantasies would never come to pass, whether she married Simon or not – she was more likely to die in a ditch on the way to the Holy Land than make it there and back and become a celebrated chronicler.
But for all that, she found she couldn't fault her niece's ambition.
Margery had been restless from the time she could walk, always anxious to take to her heels and run and climb and explore.
Perhaps they all should have realized years ago that she would be discontented with the life of a townswoman.
But hindsight was useless now, and her response to her niece had to temper understanding with practicality.
"The road to the Holy Land is a dangerous one," she said at length, "and there are many who do not survive it. Would you choose adventure over safety?"
Margery set her jaw. "Uncle William did. I can be as brave as him."
"Have you said as much to your mother?" She hoped not: Margery's words had made her wince, and she could only imagine the effect they may have had on Matilda. Constance missed her baby brother, but Matilda had all but seen him as her own child, and her grief when he had run off had been fierce.
"She wouldn't listen if I did," Margery said bitterly.
"She only ever mentions his name to scare the little ones – she tells them that they'll be lost forever if they follow in his footsteps.
I'd rather be lost than do what she wants.
Uncle William must have thought the same, or he wouldn't have run.
I ought to tell her so. It's her fault he went. "
"That would be a cruel thing," Constance said.
It was true but there was a practical dimension to her advice as well: she could only imagine the explosion that would ensure if Margery did voice her thoughts to her mother.
There was a hypocrisy to it – hadn't Constance thought the same, many times over?
– but she preferred prudent hypocrisy to delivering her sister a killing blow.
"She loved your uncle very much, you know – loves him still.
And she does care for you, just as she cares for your brothers and sister.
That's why she warns them against following him – why she wants to see you safely wed. She doesn't want to lose you."
Margery sniffled, dragging her sleeve across her face. Constance fished in her apron pocket and came up with a handkerchief, which she handed to Margery; she scrubbed her cheeks with it, then blew her nose. "If she truly loved me," she said, "she'd listen to me."
"She doesn't think of love the way you do," Constance said, as gently as she could. She knew what she had to say next would not be received well, but she still had to try. "As you grow older, you'll begin to see it as an action instead of a feeling. It's hard to understand when you're young."
As she'd expected, Margery scowled at that – but she hadn't expected what came out of her niece's mouth next, which was, "Do you love Uncle Peter?"
Constance blinked. "Do I . . . ?"
"Love him," Margery said, impatient. "Mother says you do.
She says you didn't at first, and you didn't want to marry at all, but then you fell in love and it changed your mind.
She says I'll learn to love Simon, just as you learned to love Peter, and I may as well wed him and then love him.
Is that how it happened? Did he change your mind? "
Of all the ways Constance had anticipated this conversation going, this was not one of them.
She ought to have – Matilda had already cited her example as a reason for Margery to accede to the marriage, so of course Margery would want to know more – but she'd assumed Margery would be too wrapped up in her own unhappiness to concern herself with what Constance thought and felt. More fool her.