CHAPTER FIVE #2
The mill-pond was a little ways outside the cluster of houses Isabel remembered from her childhood.
That was fine: she had no desire to venture onto the commons or see any of her old neighbours.
She was far happier putting a hand on Constance's shoulder, directing her off the main path to a tramped-down footpath made from years of villagers traveling to the pond's edge.
The terrain was, as she had predicted, both wet and muddy, but that was remedied with their cloaks spread across the grass.
Out here, without the awnings blocking the sun, it was warmer than it had been in town: warm enough that Isabel felt no chill, despite being left in only her kirtle.
The spot they had settled on was far enough from the water's edge that the ground was still firm, but close enough that they could reach out and touch the surface of the pond if they stretched.
Isabel, remembering the chill of the early-spring water, kept her hands clasped in her lap.
Constance, who must have had no such memory, pulled her shoes and hose off and reached out to touch the water with her toes.
She snatched them back with a yelp as soon as they made contact, and Isabel was surprised to feel an easy laugh bubbling up in her throat.
She tried to swallow it – it wouldn't do to be unkind – but Constance looked at her and pulled a face, and she laughed anyway.
"That's my folly punished," she grumbled good-naturedly, pulling her hose back on. "I thought the sun would have warmed the water by now. More fool me."
"You weren't altogether wrong," Isabel said, once her laughter had run itself out.
"The very top of the water is warm, when it's still.
It's just that the sun hasn't touched the deepest parts of the pond yet, and when they wash up against the shore, it chills the rest of the water.
Look –" She pointed. The breeze – as with the sunlight, stronger here than it was in town – was ruffling the surface of the water, sending little waves up to touch the shore before they retreated back to the centre of the pond.
The water closest to them was foamed with movement.
She remembered, when she was very small, asking her father what made the foam, and him telling her that they were bits of cloud that had fallen out of the sky.
Another moment she hadn't thought of in years: somehow the day, or the location, or Constance's presence, was drawing these old memories up and out.
Like a purgative meant to draw out bad humours – only these weren't bad, for all they came flavoured with the pain of old losses.
"I'm surprised you were allowed to play here," Constance said, interrupting her thoughts. "It seems an easy place for a child to drown."
"Children did drown, sometimes," Isabel said.
That, at least was not a memory that cut too close – the children who'd lost their lives in the mill-pond had been familiar to her, but no more so than a passing nod in the street.
"And I was never permitted here alone, when I was small.
My mother or father would bring me, when they came to see the miller.
And later, when my brother was small and I was a little older, I'd bring him to play here, while our mother and father were working in the fields.
Sometimes other children came with us, since their parents were likewise occupied.
I was always the oldest." Most often, it had been Elizabeth who came with her – always a blessing, since Elizabeth had been more cautious around the water than Matthew was, and he would usually hold back for her sake.
She wondered if Elizabeth or Matthew remembered those afternoons; they had been so little.
"Matthew liked to pretend a great deal, when he was small," she added, unprompted.
Now that the floodgates had been opened, memories were rising up too thick and fast for her to hold them back.
And this one, at least, was pleasant. "He had a little toy boat our father carved for him, and he'd tie one end to a string to keep it from drifting too far out.
He'd tell me stories of sailors and sea monsters – I've no idea where he got the notion.
I recall once, he –" She stopped, remembering quite suddenly how that particular memory ended.
"He what?" Constance prompted.
Isabel sighed. "You'll think me ridiculous."
"I won't!" Constance sat up straight, her hands clasped around her knees. "God's honest truth, I won't. I promise."
Isabel sighed again. It wasn't a painful memory – at a remove of twenty years, she could even see the humour in it – but still .
. . "I was sitting here on the bank while he played at the water's edge – he called me over to see something, I don't recall what.
So I came and leaned over the water and –"
Constance leaned forward. "And what?"
Isabel refrained from sighing a third time, though she wanted to. "And then a frog came leaping up out of the water and hit me in the nose."
Constance's face did something Isabel had never seen before; it was as though she was attempting to swallow her own mouth.
Even that couldn't disguise the quiver of her lip as she tried in vain to choke laughter back, or the way her cheeks purpled with the effort.
It was a valiant attempt, Isabel had to grant her that.
"You may as well laugh," she said, a trifle sourly, "I fear you'll burst if you don't." That was all the prompting Constance needed to double over, gasping with mirth.
The sound of her merriment was enough to prompt a smile on Isabel's part, much as her dignity was still stung by the memory.
"It wouldn't have been so bad, if he hadn't gone racing back home to tell everyone he could find.
The other children were croaking at me for weeks afterwards, and someone put a frog in my shoe.
I can only hope it wasn't the same frog.
" Fortunately, she'd noticed it before she actually put the shoe on – but she'd fancied at the time that the slime had lingered all day.
She never had liked frogs; they, at least, were a part of life on the green that she did not miss.
"Did he do it on purpose?" Constance asked, once she had gotten herself under control.
She was wiping tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes.
The laughter had left her cheeks pinker than usual, and her eyes sparkling.
She was as colourful as a saint in stained glass – but stained glass would never suit her, Isabel thought.
She was too full of life to be frozen in a church window.
"I can't see how he would have managed it," Isabel said. "My brother gets along well enough with animals, but I doubt he could train a frog to jump on command. The creature seemed as surprised as I was."
"I don't doubt it was," Constance said, with a shake of her head. "But brothers will find a way. Jack and Peter once found a snake in the woodpile and managed to smuggle it into the house and onto Matilda's pillow. She left both their ears red and ringing for that one."
Isabel cocked her head slightly. "I thought Peter was your husband?"
"Oh, he is." Constance leaned back on her elbows now, one ankle crossed over the other.
She was the picture of easy comfort; Isabel, who could feel every pebble and clod of dirt underneath the cloak she sat on, envied her that.
"But he and Jack have been thick as thieves all their lives.
I don't even recall how the three of us met – we simply were, from the time we were old enough to walk and talk.
It's one of the benefits of having a brother just a year younger than me – when Peter and I were wed, he'd already been part of the family for years. All we did was solemnize it, really."
Isabel looked down at her hands. Even if she and Matthew had been separated by less than five years, she thought – and even if Elizabeth hadn't always been his dearest friend, with no question of one of the village boys taking her place – she wouldn't have had much luck looking for a husband among his peers.
She'd been far too bent on escaping the milieu they'd been born in to ever consider tying herself to it permanently.
Although Matthew surely would have pushed her in that direction, if he'd been a little older.
Perhaps he would have been right. "Is Jack your only brother? "
"Mmm, no." The cheer on Constance's face rippled briefly, like a cloud crossing the sun.
"I've three altogether – Henry's the oldest, he went into a monastery.
And William's the youngest, but –" That ripple again.
"He ran off years ago. He left word saying he meant to go to London, and we've heard nothing since then. I've no idea if he's even still alive."
"Oh." Isabel thought of Matthew disappearing somewhere out of her knowledge or reach, and shuddered. "I'm sorry."
Constance fiddled with a loose thread dangling from her sleeve.
"Don't be. It was what he wanted, and I have to commend his courage in going to seek it.
" Her smile was tinged with sadness, but with some fondness as well.
"Matilda – she's my older sister, the only other girl in the family – was beside herself.
Truth be told, I think he may have run in part because of her – she's always been a harsh taskmaster, and she kept a close eye on us all.
But I can't blame her for it. We needed looking after – our mother died when Will was born, and our father was no use after that – and she did her best, even if it was trying sometimes. "