CHAPTER FOURTEEN #3
If the two had not consummated their relationship a dozen times over before ever setting foot near an altar, Constance would be very surprised.
But if Matilda's thoughts ran along the same lines, she gave no sign of it.
She only nodded. "Then we will all discuss things then.
As I say, you have been foolish, and reckless.
But I would not see any of you suffer for it when there is no need.
I'm merely grateful that you are home safe, and that Simon shortly will be as well.
" She paused. "And Nelly too, I suppose. "
Margery stared at her mother a moment, astonishment still plain on her face.
Then she made a sort of squeaking noise and flung herself forward into Matilda's arms. Matilda caught her, looking not a little surprised herself.
Then she seemed to come to herself, hugging her daughter tightly.
Behind her, Richard seemed to have softened somewhat; at least, his face was no longer florid.
Matilda was saying something into Margery's ear, too quietly for Constance to hear.
Margery stepped back from her, smiling. It was not the proud, defiant smile that Constance was accustomed to seeing on her niece's face, though her character still shone through it.
It was the smile of one who had braced herself for battle and found herself welcomed warmly instead.
She did not think she had seen Margery smile like that at Matilda since she was a babe in arms.
"Now," Matilda said briskly to her daughter, "go upstairs and brush the mud from your cloak and your dress - saints preserve us, it's as if you went tramping knee-deep in the muck.
And take your shoes off and put them outside before you go, I'll not have dirt tracked on my clean floor.
Once you're presentable, there's dinner to prepare and mending to be done.
Go on now, I don't want those clothes to stain. "
Margery did as she was told, still smiling like she could not quite believe what she had heard.
Once she had gone upstairs - Constance heard the children's voices rising in a hubbub as she opened the door, and presumed that they were all crowding Margery with questions as once - she turned to her sister.
"You're truly not angry with her? There'll be no marriage to Simon, now. "
Matilda sat down hard in her chair. Constance rather suspected that her knees had given out.
"Ask me again tomorrow," she said, "once all this is settled, and I may say differently.
But when I thought her gone -" She pressed a hand to her mouth.
"There could be nothing worse. She spoke so ceaselessly of traveling, I feared I had pushed her too far and she had taken to the road.
But she is here, and she is safe, and I cannot be angry on that account.
As to her match with Simon -" She gave a little half-shrug.
"There will be other matches for her, maybe even ones she will be more amenable to.
And perhaps, with Simon no longer a concern, she will cease her talk of pilgrimage. "
"She might," Constance said gently, "or she might not.
" Matters being settled with Simon would likely soothe Margery's relations with her mother for the time being - although Constance thought Matilda's response to the escapade had done far more to repair their bond than anything to do with Simon.
But she doubted very much that Margery would abandon her dreams of travel just because the immediate threat of marriage had been removed.
If Matilda believed otherwise, Constance thought, she was in for a nasty shock.
"I am not so foolish as to assume it," Matilda said, almost as if she had divined Constance's thoughts.
She sounded faintly amused. "But that may be managed later.
For now, my children are home and safe, or about to be.
All else may be settled later." She turned to look at Richard.
"You have work to do this afternoon, do you not? "
Richard rose from his chair, still frowning. "I do," he said, "though it will take twice as long with Simon absent. I suppose you think I should forgive him his absence, as we've adopted a habit of lenience?"
"We have done no such thing, so cease your sulking," Matilda said. "You may punish him as you wish, so long as we remain true to our promise and he stays under our roof. You will say the same, once you've had a chance to calm yourself. Go on."
He left, a nonplussed look on his face as if he'd just been hit over the head with a wooden board.
Constance suspected arguments with Matilda often left him so; her sister had a way of felling opponents with sheer force of will.
She also suspected that Matilda was right, and he would return to his customary good temper shortly.
As Matilda had said, they'd both had the raising of Simon since he was young, and it would take a hard heart to turn him out of doors after ten years.
"Good, you're here," Matilda said. Constance glanced up to see Margery descending the stairs, now in a clean dress and hose.
"There's parsnips and leeks on the sideboard, and a knife.
Set to chopping them while I build the fire up.
Constance, you're welcome to stay for supper if you like, but you'll be put to work along with Margery if you do. "
"Thank you," Constance said with a smile, "but I had better get back to Peter. If you'll permit me a word with Margery before I go?"
Matilda flicked a hand, go on, and Constance sidled to where Margery had done as her mother instructed and taken up the chopping knife. "It was a kind thing you did," she murmured, "helping Simon and Nelly as you did today."
Margery's face split in a grin. "I had fun. It was like an escape in a song or a story."
She was right about that, Constance thought with some amusement: it was precisely the sort of frolic one might expect to hear a minstrel singing of.
For that reason alone, she suspected Margery had had the better part of planning it.
"Is that why you were so set against the match?
Because you knew Simon wanted Nelly instead? "
Margery tossed her head with a snort. "I didn't want him," she said.
"I never did. I want to travel, as I said.
I never knew about Nelly until I caught them together behind the tavern last month, and then Simon begged me to help.
And I did, because that way we'd never have to marry. Are you better now?"
Once again, Margery had leapt from topic to topic so quickly, Constance was struggling to keep pace with her. "Better?"
"Since last week," Margery said impatiently. "Isabel left, and then you fell on the floor. Are you better now?"
"Oh. That." Memories of Isabel, which had been pushed to the side while the immediate crisis was dealt with, now came flooding back.
She gave Margery a tight smile. "Yes, I'm better.
Or I will be. It will pass." It always had before, after all.
Even Emmeline's memory was no longer as painful as it had once been, though it felt fresher now than it had in recent years.
Losing Isabel had pulled those wounds open again, and laid new ones atop of them. Still, it would pass. It had to.
"Good," Margery said, and re-applied herself to chopping the turnips. "Are you sure you won't stay longer? There's so many vegetables to chop."
Constance laughed a little in spite of herself.
"I have faith that you will manage it," she said.
"And I do truly need to get back to Peter.
" When she did get back, she'd have to thank him for serving as such a ready excuse to slip away when she wished to.
"I will come back soon enough. Or you may come to me - you are falling behind in your sewing lessons after all. "
A roll of the eyes was all she received in response to that, but she didn't mind.
She paused on her way out the door to squeeze Matilda's hand - "Do come back soon," Matilda said, "the children have been asking after you -" and then went out the door, into the fresh spring air beyond.
It was not cold, not really, but she still huddled inside her cloak as she walked.
She thought of Simon and Nelly, presumably rejoicing in the success of their gambit; she thought of Peter, and Jack, who was likely home with him by now.
She thought of them, and she thought of Isabel, shut up in her niece's house - and herself, and the cold bed she would sleep in tonight.
She thought of all of them, and of Emmeline too, and wondered when she would stop feeling cold.
# # #
Isabel had thought time in Hilda’s house would pass much the same as it had before – before the tailor’s shop, before Leah and her dresses, before she’d had work to keep her mind and her hands occupied.
Before Constance. She hadn’t anticipated how much slower each hour seemed to drag now that she had experienced life with joy and purpose.
Hilda’s jibes, against which she’d long since developed an armour, cut to the quick.
The girls, who both knew exactly why Isabel no longer went out, took delight in teasing and poking at her until she snapped at them, then ran to their mother to complain.
Even Walter was out of sorts, fussing and whining when she tried to put him to bed, fighting every instruction she gave him, unsatisfied with every toy or game she offered.
After two weeks of this, Isabel thought she’d have to leave the house somehow, or she would lose her mind.
“I thought I might take Walter to visit his aunt and uncle,” she said to Hilda, who was embroidering in the solar. Just the sight of the needle and thread in her hand made Isabel want to scream, but she forged ahead anyhow. “He misses his cousin.”