CHAPTER TEN #2
Beside her, Constance cleared her throat, and Isabel shook herself out of her reverie.
"The wearer makes the dress," she murmured.
Leah - who did not appear to have noticed her woolgathering - had stopped spinning, and was now hugging herself in delight.
In spite of what the dress portended, it was difficult for Isabel not to feel her joy catching.
She was so obviously and effusively happy, it made everyone in the room smile just to look at her.
"My work would be a paltry thing without anyone to wear it. "
"You make too little of yourself." Constance was leaning on the tabletop, giving Isabel a sidelong look even as she smiled at Leah.
"Your work is exquisite, I've told you a dozen times.
It's a piece of luck that you've been paired with such a happy bride.
" Isabel blushed and looked down, and Constance addressed herself next to Leah.
"When your intended sees you, he'll think you a princess. "
"He already does," Leah's mother said dryly. "If Baruch made any more of you, it would turn your head entirely. Come here, your veil needs fixing."
Leah went, apparently unconcerned with her mother's mild reproach. Her mother - Belia, Constance had called her - straightened Leah's veil where it had begun to droop on one side, then pinned it in place and patted her cheek, her face softening. "You look very well."
"I look well because I'm happy," Leah said, laughing, and threw her arms around her mother. "I'll look better on my wedding day."
"Will you be happy then?" The question from Margery - who Isabel had entirely forgotten was in the room - prompted her to turn and look at the girl.
She was sitting on a stool beside the work table; she'd been in the shop, helping them with a new order, when Leah and her mother had arrived.
She'd subsided quickly into a corner then, which had taken Isabel by surprise - Margery did not strike her as shy by nature - but now she was leaning forward, watching Leah and Belia with a furrowed brow. "When you're married?"
"Of course!" Leah turned to face Margery fully, her face still lit with a smile.
It struck Isabel then, how few years there were between the two of them - Margery was nearly fifteen, and Leah no older than nineteen at her reckoning.
Five years, and a world of difference. They were consequential years, of course - but Isabel suspected that the difference in their ages was not the sole reason for their diverging outlooks.
"Baruch and I have been waiting to wed for nearly two years.
Papa wouldn't allow it until he was established in his trade.
" She hugged herself again. "I promised him I'd wait as long as it took, and I prayed every day for God to bless us. And He did."
Margery did not look convinced. "But you'll have to keep his house from now on, and have his children. Won't you be bored?"
"Margery," Constance said, gentle but unyielding. "That's enough."
"What else would I do?" Leah looked genuinely baffled at Margery's line of questioning.
"I want to have his children. I've always wanted that.
We've already decided we'll call a boy Vives, and a girl Ester.
I want four children altogether, so they'll all have someone to play with.
I was so lonely when I was small." She caught her mother's eye and smiled apologetically.
"Though I had my cousins to play with, of course.
Anyhow, Baruch will go into business with another goldsmith, and we'll build a fine house of our own out of oak, with paintings on all the walls.
I love to paint. And he says he'll have a chain made for me all studded with pearls, but I don't care so much about the pearls.
I just want him." She looked at Margery, her head cocked to one side.
"Haven't you a sweetheart of your own? You'd understand if you did. "
Margery's answering look was blank. "I don't want one."
"Perhaps you don't now," Belia said with a gentle smile that Isabel knew Margery would bristle at.
"You're bound to change your mind when you're grown.
" She patted her daughter's shoulder. "Leah and Baruch met when they were small, so it was all settled long ago.
But not all women are so lucky. Besides, you'll have your own household when you wed - surely that will be a great blessing for you, to oversee matters as you see fit.
I know I was pleased to be out from under my mother's eye, when the time came. "
Margery pursed her lips, but said nothing.
Isabel stepped around the table and laid a gentle hand on her arm.
"Will you go into the bedroom?" she said.
"I've left my purse in there, and I've a sampling of threads to show Leah before she goes.
" She no longer feared an eruption of ill-chosen words from Margery - she'd held her tongue far better than Isabel would have anticipated, given their prior conversations - but she still thought it best to send her out of the room to settle awhile.
The fact that her purse was not, after all, in the bedroom - it was under the workbench, where she'd left it when last she visited - would keep her occupied for a good while. Margery went, still looking pensive.