CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
Isabel felt her own face go soft at Constance's words; ordinarily, she had more control over her expression, but she could no more have stopped herself in that moment than she could have pushed down the swelling bubble of happiness she felt in her chest. Without getting up, she nudged her chair across the floor until she was sitting within arm's length of Constance, and held her free hand out towards her.
Constance needed no further prompting: her own hand closed around Isabel's, warm and solid and safe.
They sat there like that without speaking as the rain drummed on the roof and Walter's fit wound down to sniffles; there was nothing either of them needed to say, for they understood each other perfectly.
# # #
By the time Walter had been properly settled, the church bells were ringing sext, and it was time to eat.
Constance fetched trenchers and frumenty left over from breakfast, waving off Isabel's offer to help.
Walter, still feeling fussy, pushed away the porridge Isabel attempted to spoon into his mouth, and Isabel - who recognized a losing battle when she saw one - gave up and let him content himself with bread and butter.
"Should we go up and eat with Peter?" she asked, when she saw Constance filling a bowl for him. She'd not thought of him all afternoon, which she thought she ought to feel guilty for, but it seemed a greater sin to make merry in the kitchen while he lay alone upstairs.
"He wouldn't appreciate it," Constance said, frank.
"With his hands the way they are, he doesn't like being watched while he eats.
And he would assume we were watching him, even if you kept your eyes averted.
He and Jack usually take their meals together upstairs - Jack's the only one he'll let help him with the spoons. "
While Constance was taking the bowl upstairs, Isabel got up and went to the window.
The shutters had been closed all afternoon, in deference to the weather, but she cracked one open to look outside.
Sure enough - as she'd already known from the near-constant grumble of thunder overhead and the patter of rain on the roof - the storm had not abated while they'd sat inside.
Now, it was getting dark - but not so dark that she could not see the downpour coming down in sheets.
There would be no walking home in this. She shuddered to think of the state of the streets: whenever a bad storm swept through, they turned to ankle-deep mud, thick and dark and foul-smelling from the sewage that washed up out of the gutters.
She could accept the ruin of her shoes from trekking through the muck, but not the idea of groping through the dark with Walter in her arms, praying that lightning did not strike them and that they would not trip and fall and drown in a ditch.
The world turned hostile quickly, when the rain fell.
"I doubt Jack will be back before morning," Constance said behind her, and Isabel started; she hadn't heard her come back.
She was already seating herself at the table and reaching for her own bowl.
"There's a bed for him at the cooper's, and he's not foolish enough to brave this. " She paused. "I hope."
Isabel returned to the table to sit across from her.
She had heard the implicit message in what she'd said: anyone who attempts to travel in this weather is courting death.
It wasn't even that she disagreed. But the thought of what Hilda would say if she stayed out all night was a compelling argument for taking the risk - or it would be, if it weren't for Walter.
"We can't impose," she hedged. "And surely you've no cradle to hand." It was a weak excuse and she knew it, but she had to at least make a show of trying.
"I do, in fact," Constance said. "Or a cot, rather - but it will serve well enough, for a child of his age.
Matilda gave it to us when we were first wed - she hoped we'd have children of our own soon.
" Her smile was ironic, but Isabel could detect a tinge of wistfulness in it as well.
"We keep it under the bed upstairs. He can sleep up there - Peter can keep an eye on him and call down for you if he wakes in the night. "
Isabel looked down at Walter. Now that his belly was full, he was half-dozing in her arms, his head listing to one side; she doubted he would stay awake much longer.
She knew from experience that he was likely to sleep until morning once she'd settled him, and Peter was good with him, besides.
Still, it would be the first time in his short life that he passed a night further than a few feet away from her.
They would both survive it, certainly; but that didn't mean she wouldn't be up half the night, sick with worry.
And what if he woke, and it was dark and he was in a strange bed, and she wasn't there? He would be scared out of his wits.
Constance must have read some of her reticence in her face, for she touched her arm gently.
"Peter has a bell," she said, "that he rings for Jack or I, if we don't hear him calling.
He'll be able to summon you, if Walter needs you.
And Matilda's little ones have slept up there before without incident.
They seemed to see it as a grand adventure. "
Isabel did not quite doubt that, but she did doubt that the children in question were of an age with Walter at the time.
Walter wasn't even old enough to conceive of a grand adventure, much less view a night under an unfamiliar roof as such.
But still - where else was he going to sleep?
On the floor in Constance's room? Would she build him a nest out of blankets and hope that served?
That would surely make for a worse night's sleep than a proper cot would.
Besides, it wasn't as if he'd never slept apart from her at all; he napped often at Matthew and Elizabeth's, when he stayed there for an afternoon, and Elizabeth had never reported any problems. Between the two of them, Isabel was the one who was struggling: she simply had to get past it.
"Very well, then," she said, and took another bite of her supper. "Will you show me to the cot, when we've finished our meal?"
Once supper was over, Constance took her upstairs to Peter's room.
Peter himself seemed entirely unsurprised by her presence, and it occurred to her that Constance had already discussed the matter with him when she'd gone up earlier.
She and Peter acted so little like husband and wife, it always came as a surprise when Isabel remembered that they were five years wed, and had known each other a long time before that.
Constance pulled the cot out from under the bed - it was big, bigger by far than Walter's cradle, but at least that meant he wasn't likely to roll over the side - and already made up with blankets.
Isabel sat on the edge, Walter in her lap, and crooned to him while he looked up at her with wide, anxious eyes.
Her singing, which normally soothed him within minutes, seemed to be having no effect: he whined and leaned as far as he could out of her arms, trying to squirm out and onto the floor.
"A long day indeed," Constance murmured. When Isabel looked, she had settled herself cross-legged on the floor, her chin propped on one hand. "I find myself in sympathy."
"He can tell I'm worried," Isabel said, feeling herself flush. She ought to be able to hide her nerves better than this, but her arms were stiff and her shoulders tensed, and she didn't doubt that was behind Walter's fussiness. "It frightens him."
Constance held her arms out. "May I?"
Carefully - it would not be the first time Walter executed a sudden, energetic flip out of her grasp - Isabel passed her son to Constance.
Constance settled him in the crook of her arms, tapping him lightly on the nose.
"There now, little miting," she said. "You'll sleep well on all these pillows, won't you?
And on a great bed, like a growing boy ought to.
" She swayed gently from side to side, singing almost too quietly for Isabel to hear.
She recognized the tune: lullay, lullay my lovely, one she sang often to settle Walter on stormy nights.
She'd sung it to Matthew as well, when they were children; she had vague memories of her own mother singing it to her in her turn.
She hadn't realized Constance knew it. She'd always thought of it as a sort of secret only mothers knew.
Walter fussed a little when Constance first took him, but he calmed quickly, watching her face with wide eyes.
He glanced at Isabel, who offered a reassuring smile, and that seemed to be the last piece required to quiet him.
His eyelids began to droop; the first few times, he forced them back open, fighting sleep, but it was a losing battle.
After a few minutes, his head tilted to the side, coming to rest on Constance's breast, and his breathing grew slow and even.
Constance went on singing and rocking, moving seamlessly from one song to the next - blow northern wind, send me my sweeting - without stopping for breath.
Behind Isabel, Peter leaned down to speak softly in her ear. "She has a soft touch for little ones," he said. "She always has."