CHAPTER SIX #6
"What use is crediting that when it comes to the matter at hand?
" Matilda asked. "Shall I praise her skill in minding her chores even as she walks herself off a cliff?
If she is as rash as you say, no hard work or good-heartedness will prevent her from making choices that will damn her future prospects in an instant. "
"She's more likely to make those choices if she feels you won't credit her either way," Constance said. The details of Matilda and Margery's previous argument were delicate ones, but they had to be discussed. "Did you really call her unclean?"
"Is that what she told you?" Matilda sounded affronted, which neither confirmed nor belied Margery's story - righteous indignation was no indicator of truthfulness.
"I said that a girl who wandered the streets by night would be seen as living an unclean life, and it mattered not whether she did or no.
People will talk, and the truth does not matter to one whose name has been blackened.
Cautioning her against the consequences of her actions is not the same as flinging baseless accusations. "
"I don't know that she sees the difference," Constance said.
"And what am I to do about that?" Matilda rubbed her temples, her eyes squeezed shut.
"I cannot protect her future and her feelings both, and if I must be harsh with her to keep her safe, then that is what I will do.
Soft treatment will do her no good. Unless you think I ought to coddle her and let her do as she pleases? "
"I did not suggest any such thing," Constance said, keeping her voice level, "and you know that."
Matilda pursed her lips, arms crossed; then, as if she were a puppet with its strings cut, she slumped down in her chair, chin to her chest. "Then what do you suggest?" she said. "If you've some notion of how to manage her, then by all means, tell me. Nothing else is working."
Constance took a measured pause before she spoke again.
The truth of it was, she didn't have any real solution to offer - the bottom of the matter was, Matilda wanted different things for her daughter than Margery did, and there was no reconciling the two.
The best any of them could hope for was to let matters lie for the moment, and revisit it later once tempers had cooled.
Her suspicion that tempers would not cool for a good five years at least was better left unvoiced.
All that was required for the moment was a temporary truce.
"Leave her be for now, as regards to Simon," she said finally.
"The more you press, the harder she will fight.
Apologize for your conduct - no, wait," she said, as Matilda opened her mouth to protest. "I've spoken to her and managed to impress on her that her own conduct has not been all that it should have been.
She will apologize if you will. After that, let it lie awhile.
She will settle if she feels herself safe - it's only when you back her into a corner with threats that she fights and runs.
And don't make insinuations about her future, it will only rile her further. "
"And is she to offer anything in return?" Matilda asked, waspish. "Or am I simply to indulge her like a cosseted cat?"
"That, you must decide between the two of you," Constance said. "I think she will not go running away at all hours, at least. But you must speak to her directly and ask her for what you want. She won't respond well to deals being made over her head."
"And I suppose you know a great deal about it, childless as you are," Matilda grumbled.
Constance hid a smile behind her hand. She knew her sister well enough to recognize when capitulation was on the horizon.
"Very well, I'll speak to her. But I cannot promise to leave off matters with Simon forever.
She is promised to him, and she needs to understand it. "
"She understands it, she just doesn't like it," Constance said.
"Give her time. Let her settle. She may surprise you, one day.
" Privately, she thought it unlikely: Margery's temperament might settle as she grew, but her visions for her future would never accede to her mother's.
But that was a matter for another day. "And if you find the fights are starting again, you may always send her to mine.
I can't keep her overnight, with Peter the way he is, but I would welcome her help around the shop of an afternoon.
" Whether Margery had any aptitude for tailoring or not, she had no idea; but at least it would separate her from her mother before either one of them flung an insult that could not be taken back.
"I may well do so," Matilda said with a sigh, getting up from her chair. "All right. I'll speak to her, and see what accord we might come to. Don't look so smug, it doesn't suit you."
Constance was fairly certain she looked nothing of the sort, but she knew when Matilda was not to be pushed.
"Good," was all she said, getting up from her own chair.
"I'll be off home, then - Peter will be waiting.
" She paused, then added, "She is a good girl, you know.
And she loves you. She wouldn't be so upset with you, otherwise. "
"Hmph," was all Matilda said in response, flapping a hand at her. Constance took her meaning, and took her leave.
The afternoon she stepped out into was soft and golden - the last of the winter weather appeared to have finally retreated, and the tranquility of early spring had arrived to take its place.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her nephews off to the side of the house, shrieking with laughter as they kicked a leather ball back and forth.
Ordinarily she would have stopped to talk to them, or even play with them awhile; but the day's events had left her exhausted, and she longed for the quiet of home.