Page 55 of The Tailor's Treasure

"Margery," Constance said, and her niece fell silent.In the doorway stood Isabel, with Jack and a girl Constance did not recognize standing behind her.The girl could be Hilda, Constance supposed, but she doubted it - she was of an age with Margery, if she had to guess, not old enough to be wed and mistress of her own household.Of greater concern to her was the frozen look on Isabel's face, and the grimace she could see on Jack's over her shoulder.She had seen Isabel look like this before, on the afternoon they'd first met, but that look had been absent for weeks, now.What had prompted its return?

"I'll be off," Jack said."Master Thorel will be wanting me back at the cooper's.I only stopped by to deliver your message."He gave Constance a look that was clearly full of meaning, but she could not decipher it: the only emotion she could make out was pity.Her stomach dropped.

"Will you come and be seated, then?"Constance said to Isabel, then "forgive me, I think I've not made your acquaintance."This, she directed to the girl at Isabel's shoulder, who scowled in response.Perhaps shewasHilda, then.

"This is Ellyn," Isabel said, taking a step further into the room, "she is employed in my - in the kitchens.Hilda requested that she accompany me this afternoon."She reached into the basket hanging from her arm and produced a piece of cloth, which she held out to Constance."The embroidery you asked for."

Constance had asked for no such thing, but she stepped around the table and took it from Isabel's hand anyway.Isabel's eyes kept darting to Ellyn, then back to Constance with a look Constance could read all too well: they could not speak freely in Ellyn's presence, even less so than they might have with just Margery in the room.

"Margery, will you take Ellyn into the kitchen?"she said."I'm sure we've honey cakes left over from dinner."

Margery, bless her, did not argue.She took a step towards Ellyn, smiling, but the other girl only shook her head."Mistress Marillac said I'm to stay with her all the while she's here, so's she behaves herself."

Constance could not have accounted for what her face did just then.Beside her, Margery gawped openly."Behaves herself how?"

"Never mind it, Margery," Isabel said.If the look on Isabel’s face had not been enough to convince Constance that something was dreadfully wrong, the sound of her voice would have done it.It was flat and colourless, and Constance was familiar enough with Isabel by now to know what it meant: it was the way Isabel spoke when she had gone beyond fear or anger, and had numbed herself entirely to her surroundings.

Constance tucked the embroidery Isabel had given her into her apron pocket, the better to give herself a moment to collect her thoughts."Will you be staying for supper, at least?"she asked."Your presence would be welcome, and there is more than enough to go around."

"Thank you, no," Isabel said in that awful voice.Constance was torn between a desire to take Isabel in her arms, and an equally fervent need to simply shake her until she broke out of her trance.She did not know which would work, if either of them would."I am not permitted to stay long.I only came to tell you that I may not return.Mistress Marillac requires that I remain at home from this day forward."

It was a piece of good fortune that Constance was already standing with her knees locked, or else they would have given out underneath her."What?Why?"

"Of account of your brother," the girl, Ellyn said from behind Isabel."On account of how she's been spreading her legs for him.My mistress won't have it any longer."

Margery's mouth dropped open.Constance made a choking sort of noise in her throat.Isabel did not outwardly react, except for a slight tremor around her mouth."Mistress Marillac would not appreciate you speaking so coarsely, Ellyn."

"'S what she said," Ellyn said with a shrug, and went back to examining her nails.

"She did not use those words, so far as I know," Isabel said."But she is of the opinion that your brother and I have been -" She swallowed with a click, "- conducting ourselves lewdly, and that I must forsake his company or else leave her household.A woman engaging in such behaviour is no fit guardian for a child, after all, and she is very concerned regarding Walter's well-being."The mention of her son's name provoked the first outward show of emotion Constance had seen from Isabel since she entered the shop that day: just the slightest twitch of her lips, there and gone in a flash.But it had been there.

Constance stared at Isabel, willing her to say something -anything- that might indicate what she was thinking.Isabel had never been demonstrative, not in all the time Constance had known her, and obviously neither of them could acknowledge the truth here in this room.Not when doing so would put Mistress Marillac's most malicious imaginings to shame.But surely there was something to be said - something that could break apart this ridiculous lie that Isabel's niece had concocted.Did she even believe it?Did it matter?What Hilda thought of Isabel was hardly Constance's concern - she was far more worried about wresting Isabel from her clutches, by whatever means necessary.Surely Isabel felt the same?

"What we spoke of, when last we met," Constance said, slowly, carefully, "about Walter's wardship -"

Isabel made an abortive sort of slashing gesture with her hand, a clear warning: don't.Behind her, Ellyn looked up.Constance swallowed hard.How much Ellyn understood of the situation, she didn't know; but it seemed clear enough that her allegiance was to Mistress Marillac.Was there anything she could say in Ellyn's presence that would not be carried back to Isabel's niece?And she would not leave - would not grant them a single stolen moment of privacy where they could speak without concealing their meaning behind careful words.

"It is not to be thought of," Isabel said."I am unable, for all the reasons I explained to you before.And even if I was able, my mistress would not hear of it.She is - very interested in his well-being."Her face was very pale, but for two spots of colour high on her cheeks."As are my stepsons.As -" She glanced at Ellyn."As am I."

"But -" Desperation was making Constance frantic: her heart pounded, her palms itched.She felt as though a cord was being drawn tight around her chest, squeezing until she could not draw air into her lungs.It was not only the thought of losing Isabel - although that in itself was a sharp, stabbing pain that would have driven her to her knees, had she not braced herself with a hand on the table - but the thought of losing Isabel like this, for such ridiculous reasons, without even trying to find another way.There was always another way.She had to believe that."But - I mislike this edict of your mistress's, as if you had anything to answer for.You and Jack have done nothing, are nothing to each other, so how may she forbid you my company on his account?Surely she must be reasonable enough to hear sense."

Behind Isabel, Ellyn rolled her eyes.Constance was seized with the sudden, strong urge to slap her.She was not accustomed to violence, nor did she enjoy settling disputes with brute force.But all the emotion gathering in her breast needed venting somewhere, or she would explode.

Ellyn, unfortunately, did not appear to realize this."Don't know what you want with her company anyhow," she said, "she's a sour thing."

Constance rounded on her, her ears burning."You are not called upon to speak of her character," she snapped, "nor to question my -" She stopped.She had been about to saydesires, but realized just in time how it would sound.Likely, Ellyn would not understand - in Constance's experience, few people recognized the bonds that could be formed between women like her and Isabel unless it was flaunted under their noses.But she still couldn't take the risk.For her part, Ellyn seemed to take no notice of her abortive argument: she only tossed her head and rolled her eyes again.

When Constance looked at Isabel, she saw that her fingers were working at the hem of her apron, worrying the fabric as it unraveled.It was the only outward sign of her distress."You recall," Isabel said, slow and measured, "that I spoke to you, once before, of - offers I was not free to make, which I had erred in making regardless.We were in this room, in fact."

It took Constance a moment to place the memory.When she did, she recoiled from it: Isabel, standing just where she stood now, swaying on her feet as she stumbled through a speech she was hardly coherent enough to form.Her haunted, hollow eyes, her attempts at holding herself upright against the onslaught of exhaustion that had driven her nearly to collapse."No," she said, her mouth dry, "no, Isabel you cannot mean - you did not mean -"

"I meant it then," Isabel said."And I mean it now.I was right in what I said.You simply persuaded me otherwise for a time."She bit her lip, and it broke Constance's heart."I wish you had not.I was more contented when I understood my lot."

Constance clenched her hands into fists behind her back."Were you?"she said."I recall differently."She could have gone on - she wanted to go on.She wanted to describe the Isabel she remembered from those first days of their acquaintance, the way she had shied away from honesty and flinched at gentle touch.She wanted to set that Isabel against the one she had known in the last few weeks, who had smiled softly and let herself rest with her head on Constance's shoulder and known pleasure for the first time in her life.She wanted to present these two Isabels to the Isabel who stood before her now, and ask if she could truly say that she had been happier before.

But she couldn't.Not only because of Ellyn, although she was certainly part of it.But she couldn't hurt Isabel and more than she'd already been hurt, was hurting.Her husband had hurt her, her niece was hurting her, everyone hurt her.Constance would not join their ranks.

She put a hand to her apron pocket, then remembered she had left her purse on the shelf under the sewing table, and went around to fetch it.She pulled the drawstring to shake the coins into her palm, then thought better of it and stepped towards Isabel, proffering the purse."Your payment, then," she said."For that last piece."