CHAPTER FIVE
The last of the winter chill had, it seemed, almost lifted.
In its place was a light breeze that carried upon it the fresh scent of spring.
No flowers yet emerged from the slushy much that covered the streets, but a few brave shoots of green grass could be seen rising above the mire.
It was not quite warm enough to go without a cloak, but it was warm enough to let one's cloak hang open to reveal the garment below.
Isabel walked at a measured pace, the better to enjoy the change in temperature.
The sun had, at long last, emerged from behind the clouds, and she lifted her face to enjoy its warmth as she walked.
Living in Linden, the sun never seemed as warm as it had in her country childhood – the awnings of the buildings, crowded cheek by jowl as they were, blocked all but the most determined beams – but it was still better than the winter's gloom.
When she reached the tailor's shop, she saw that Constance was enjoying the weather as well as she was: all the shutters were thrown wide, and the door was propped open and wedged in place with a piece of wood.
Constance was seated just inside the doorway, her sewing spread out across her lap.
She looked up with an easy smile as Isabel came in.
"Good afternoon. It's a beautiful day, is it not? It seems a shame to spend it indoors."
"Where else may it be spent?" Isabel replied.
She handed her latest embroidery – the right and left sleeves of Leah's wedding gown, now decorated with bands of golden oak leaves around the wrist. It had been a simple enough job – Leah's wrists were not especially large – but Isabel still could not help the ember of pride that flickered to life inside her as Constance examined the pieces, her eyes alight as she followed the tracery of the vines with her fingers.
She had not realized how vain she was regarding her handiwork until Constance had begun to praise it.
"It's beautiful," she said, once she had examined both. She lay them in the basket at her feet, then held up the piece she was working on – the bodice front, still unadorned. "You mean to match it here?"
"At the very bottom, where the waist begins.
" Isabel bent to indicate the section in question.
"And then two more bands about the skirt.
Possibly one outlining the neck as well, if she wishes.
" It was more than she'd ever done to a single dress before – her own were only embroidered at the cuffs – but this girl and her family had done Constance a kindness in commissioning the dress to begin with, so they ought to make it as sumptuous as possible.
Besides, it was meant for a wedding – and one the bride seemed genuinely excited about.
Isabel's memories of her own wedding were all coloured by what had come after, but she did at least recall glorying in the finest dress she'd ever had occasion to wear.
"She will, I think," Constance said, "for she likes pretty things, or so her father tells me.
And he will certainly encourage anything that beautifies it further.
" She let the bodice fall back into her lap.
"As to going outside, would you not prefer a jaunt around the town in such weather?
Surely it would be preferable to staying indoors. "
Isabel did not quite pull a face, but from the way Constance's eyebrow quirked, she was certain her thoughts were evident nonetheless. "To enjoy the smell of offal and dung and refuse rotting in the streets? Hardly."
Constance laughed. "It's not so bad as all that. Especially now, with the rains washing last year's leavings away. It will smell fresh for weeks to come."
"Nothing in town smells fresh," Isabel rejoined. "You don't realize it because you've lived here all your life."
"And you haven't?" Constance asked. Isabel had not realized, until just then, that Constance had no idea where she'd come from.
It was such a commonly accepted – and derided – fact of her existence, and her circle was so small, she had come to assume that everyone she spoke to knew it automatically.
The peasant girl with country mud still clinging to the hem of her skirts after all these years, her manners rustic, her speech unpolished; the fact that she had learned to blend in among Geoffrey's circle, made herself small and inoffensive, and spoke as well as any merchant's wife made no difference.
When something was said often enough, it took on a ring of truth.
A villein she had been, and a villein she always would be, no matter who she married.
"I was born in the countryside," she said.
She did not add, in a wattle-and-daub cottage that we shared with a cow and heated with dried dung.
There was honesty and then there was laying herself bare.
Constance had not asked for the latter, and Isabel did not intend to offer it unprompted.
"At this time of year, the flowers are beginning to bloom, and everything smells clean and new.
My brother and I used to walk down to the mill-pond, and I'd gather fresh rushes for the floor while he played by the water.
" Saying it aloud tugged the memory fully loose: her apron full to bursting with greenery, Matthew's gleeful yells as he splashed in the shallows, Isabel keeping one eye on her work and one on him to make sure he didn't fall into the pond.
Matthew darting closer to the water's edge, teasing her, then dancing back when she shouted.
More than once, he'd tripped and fallen, but never too far out: he'd always come up spluttering and laughing, his clothes soaked through, and his hair plastered to his forehead with mud.
It had driven her mad then, knowing she'd be scolded for letting him get dirty.
It seemed so long ago, now. With a start, she realized that the Matthew of her memory was nearly identical to Walter now.
Had he really looked like that, or was the present writing over the past in her mind?
"It sounds beautiful," Constance said, breaking into her thoughts. "When did you leave?"
Isabel could almost feel the thud of her rapid descent back to earth.
"When I was fourteen," she said. "My – that is, I came to town to find work.
" The story of her mother and father dying was, she decided, something else she could keep back: she had no wish to invite pity, especially for something long past. "I've not been back since. "
Constance nodded, looking thoughtful. "Would you like to? While the weather's fine?"
Isabel blinked. "You mean – now?"
"Why not?" Constance shrugged, getting to her feet. "There's nothing more for you to do with these pieces – it's left to me to sew them together, and that can be done just as well outdoors as in. Besides, I'd like to see this mill-pond of yours. It sounds like a fine place."
Isabel was silent for several moments, struggling to come up with a sensible reason to refuse.
She couldn't find one: it was unorthodox, certainly, but it harmed no one, and nobody who might object need ever know of it.
Walter was safe with Elizabeth and would be until she arrived to fetch him; Hilda didn't expect her back until supper.
She had at least four hours to herself, and it surely would not take that long to walk to the mill-pond and back. So why was she hesitating?
"You'll want a cloak," she managed, finally. "We both will. The grass will be wet."
"A good thing you're wearing one, then," Constance said. She reached back to the peg on the wall behind her, pulling down the cloak Isabel had returned the previous week. "And a fine one at that, embroidered by a master of her craft. Though you’ll have to be careful not to let the damp spoil it."
"It's made of sturdier stuff than that," Isabel said, and felt something inside her crack open.
Perhaps it was simply the flattery that Constance seemed to dole out as naturally as she breathed.
Perhaps it was the memories that still clouded her vision.
Or perhaps it was the smile Constance offered her, and the hand outstretched towards her – open and easy and so warm.
If she could somehow bottle that smile up, she thought, it might smell like an afternoon by the shore of the mill-pond. Clean and new.
"Let's," she said in a rush, before she found some reason to gainsay their mission. She reached out to meet Constance's hand, and let Constance close her fingers around her own in a light squeeze. Her grip was sturdy, callused and yet somehow comfortable.
The tailor's shop was not far from the town gates, and so, in no time at all, they were walking down the path that Isabel had not trodden on in fifteen years.
It did not vary greatly from what she remembered – country roads, she supposed, did not change much over time.
The greenery here was bolder than what she'd seen in town, with primroses and snowdrops already blooming in clusters by the roadside.
She reached out to pluck some, after a moment's hesitation – no one would judge her for it, and there would be plenty left over.
She brought her makeshift bouquet to her nose, inhaling deeply. It smelled, somehow, like home.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Constance watching her.
"Here," she said, and went to extend her arm, but Constance was too quick for her: she leaned in close to sniff the flowers, the loop of her braid brushing against Isabel's arm as she did so.
Isabel wasn't altogether certain what to do with this proximity, so she held herself rabbit-still until Constance leaned back.
"I see what you mean," she said. "About the smell. "
Isabel's answering smile was shaky, though she could not have said why. "I thought I remembered it right."