CHAPTER SIX #7
As she passed by the workshop, she slowed her step, peering inside.
Richard wasn't there - most likely he'd gone off to do some errand or other - but Simon was, bent over his pottery wheel, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Constance had known Simon, vaguely, since he was ten years old and first apprenticed to Richard, but she still felt that she hardly knew the boy.
He was not Richard's son by blood, but he certainly was by manner - like his master, he spoke little and argued not at all.
Constance had no firm impression of his character, though she knew Matilda spoke truthfully when she said she would not give her daughter to a cruel man - but there was a wide gulf between cruelty and compatibility, and she had no idea whether or not Margery and Simon would be able to cross it.
"Hello there," she called.
Simon looked up from his work, squinting.
"Oh," he said, "hello." He stood, wiping his hands on his apron, and Constance took the opportunity to take the measure of him.
He was tall, with gangling limbs that all seemed too long for his torso and a face covered in angry red spots - but what boy wasn't, at that age?
His brown hair was cut bluntly across his forehead, and his shoulders were rounded even as he stood upright.
A consequence, she assumed, of spending hours bent over the pottery wheel.
It was impossible to tell the shape of him, wrapped as he was in a baggy tunic, but she suspected that his body - whether it be doughy or angular - was of little interest to Margery.
"Do you seek my master?" he asked, wiping his hands on his apron again.
He was still squinting: Constance had assumed at first that his eyes were adjusting to the afternoon's brightness, but now she thought the squint might just be a permanent feature.
"He's gone to the blacksmith's to fetch a new poker, but Mistress Louet is in the house if you have need of her. "
"I know, and I've spoken to her already." Constance offered Simon a smile. "I was hoping to speak to you, in fact."
His expression - which before had been one of slight, if placid, confusion - solidified into bafflement. "Oh?"
"Oh," she confirmed. "I'm told you're to marry my niece, isn't that so?"
He went on looking baffled, and Constance came to a belated realization. "I'm Constance," she said. "Mistress Louet's sister, Margery's aunt. Aunt to the whole passel of them."
"Oh!" With this exhalation, his face cleared. "I - yes, I'm to marry Margery. Er, so Master Louet tells me."
Constance tilted her head to one side, examining the specimen before her.
His face told her nothing: they might have been conversing about the weather, or the price of wool, or the upcoming planting season, for all he betrayed any emotion on the matter.
It could be, she supposed, that he was simply one of those who kept his thoughts off his face - but still.
"Are you pleased?" she prompted gently. "Margery is a fine girl, but I know not everyone will be glad to hear their future arranged for them so neatly.
" That Margery herself fell into that group was, she thought, a topic better not broached.
She didn't intend to start any more trouble than had already been raised.
Simon shrugged, his face still neutral. "I do as my master bids, Mistress Constance."
"Mmhmm," she said. "And Margery? What do you think of her?"
He shrugged again, looking at her from under his fringe. "A fine girl, Mistress. As you say."
"Indeed," she said. Coaxing him into conversation - much less any confessions regarding his own feelings - would evidently be no mean feat. "Have you given any thoughts to how you will live?"
His look did not change. "We will have a house, and I will work in the pottery, Mistress. What else?"
"Nothing else?" she prompted. "How will you pass the time together?
A man may toil the day away, but he must have some leisure.
Feast days and the like. And a wife does like to feel herself wanted.
" Most wives, she silently corrected herself - but that was another matter altogether, and would only confuse Simon if she raised it.
It was not one that needed consideration just now, at any rate.
"To share a life with someone is no small thing. How will you manage it?"
Simon scratched his nose. "I suppose we'll work most days, and rest on feast days. And I'll, er . . ." He was visibly groping for something to say. ". . . compliment . . . her . . . housework?"
Constance gave up. Simon might be keeping his innermost thoughts private, or he might simply not have any.
Either way, she would get no more out of him this afternoon.
Their conversation had, however, done nothing to allay her worries about Margery's future: unless Simon somehow grew into a witty conversationalist and eager adventurer between now and the day they were wed, he would make her niece unhappy indeed.
It was hardly his fault, but that would be little comfort to Margery.
"I suppose you will," she said. "At any rate, I must be off home. I bid you good afternoon, Simon, and -" Ought she say it? "And a happy marriage, whenever it may come to pass."
"Thank you, Mistress," he said. She thought she detected a strain of relief in his voice; certainly he dropped back down to sit at the pottery wheel before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, bent forward so his face was cast in shadows.
Constance sighed, then reached up to adjust her coif - it had started to slip while she talked to Simon - and set off towards home.
Disaster had been averted, at least in the immediate future; but she felt certain that some new calamity would arise as soon as the old one had been put to bed.