Page 6 of The Tailor's Treasure

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"Where have you been?"Hilda was on her as soon as Isabel stepped through the door."We must have supper on the table in three hours, and still no fish to be had!Did you think it fit to dally at the market while our guests went hungry?"

The guests had doubtless not arrived yet, but Isabel did not say as much."The market was very busy."She handed the basket of cod to Hilda, who hardly glanced at it."I'll take Walter upstairs, he's late for his nap."

"You'll go upstairs and see to the girls," Hilda snapped."They're to dine with us, and they must be readied for it.Comb and plait their hair, see that they're wearing their best dresses, and don't neglect their veils or tippets.If I see either of them come down with their clothes awry or their faces unwashed ..."

She went on, but Isabel had stopped listening."I'll see to them," she murmured, then turned away and went up the stairs.Walter, who had stopped fussing when they were halfway home and begun to doze on her shoulder, had been stirred by Hilda's scolding and was once again agitating to be let down.Isabel waited until they were in the nursery with the door closed behind her, then set him on the floor.He reallywaslate for his nap, but there was no use putting him in his cradle: he'd only climb out of it.What he needed was to be rocked and sang to sleep, but there was no settling him before she had the girls ready: if they were late, Hilda would certainly come upstairs to find out why.

"Finally, you're here," Aline said.She was seated at her dressing-table, her hair unbound and loose over her shoulders.She was still wearing her ordinary dress; the fine one Hilda wanted her in was, Isabel knew, hanging in the wardrobe next to Petronilla's.At thirteen and ten, both girls were more than old enough to have started preparing themselves before Isabel arrived, but why would they, when they had the pleasure of being waited on hand and foot to look forward to?

Isabel went to Aline silently and took a comb up from the dressing-table.Aline had beautiful hair: soft and smooth and honey-coloured, entirely unlike the dull yellow frizz of her mother and sister.She knew it, too, and always made a point of catching Petronilla's eye and tossing her head whenever Isabel brushed their hair for them.She did it again just then, and Petronilla - who was sitting on the bed, drumming her heels against the floor - scowled.

She divided Aline's hair into two halves, then combed each one out until all the tangles had been vanquished.Aline made a point of yelping loudly whenever she hit a snag, but Isabel ignored her.It was best not to give her anything more to fuss about: she was always prowling for something she could use to tease and poke at Isabel with.Better to get the task done silently and quickly, so that she could see the girls off and put Walter to bed.

A familiar tugging at her skirts almost made her wince.When she looked down, she saw Walter, holding tight to her dress and using it to pull himself to his feet.She braced herself for the sound of fabric ripping, and let out a silent sigh of relief when the stitches held.The relief was short-lived."Up," Walter demanded, pulling at the dress to emphasize his request."Mama, wantup."

"Not just now," she said, letting go of Aline's plait just long enough to reach down and touch Walter's head.Even that was a step too far: Aline whipped her head around to glare at her."We'll be late," she said, "if you don't hurry up."

"Mother will be angry," Petronilla added from the bed.

Isabel gritted her teeth and went back to work.Walter - on whom Aline and Petronilla's warnings had made no impression at all - redoubled his efforts to make himself heard, pulling once again on her skirts as his voice rose in a whine."Up, Mama, up.Up.Mama, mama, mama -"

"Will you shutup?"Aline snapped at him."You dreadful brat, I'm sick of your noise."

Isabel did not know if Walter understood her words, but he certainly grasped her tone.His eyes went wide, mouth snapping shut for a breathless moment: then his face crumbled and he let out a long, piercing wail.

"I hope I never have such a child," Aline said to her sister over the sound of Walter's sobs.Isabel still held the end of her plait in her hand, and experienced a brief urge to yank on it hard enough to make Aline cry like she'd made Walter.But sense won over impulse quickly, and she merely pinned the plait into place and stepped back."You're done," she said shortly, then bent to pick up Walter, who stretched both arms up towards her with a whimper.

"You've got to do mine still," Petronilla said, bouncing up from the bed and sliding onto Aline's stool seconds after she vacated it."And lace us into our gowns and pin our veils on."

Isabel paused, crouched down next to her son as he clung to her and wept.He was tired and frightened and wanted the comfort of his mother's arms; so far as she was concerned, Aline and Petronilla could go down to supper in soup-stained aprons with their hair full of tangles.But there was Hilda to consider: if Isabel disobeyed her, or disregarded the girls in favour of her son, she would be made to answer for it.And Hilda had the power to sever her from Walter forever, if she so chose.In that light, letting him cry uncomforted awhile longer - though it tore at her to hear his weeping - was the kinder choice.She gave his back a last rub, then stood, wishing she could block her ears against the sound of his redoubled sobs."Soon," she murmured, too low for anyone else to hear."I'll be there in a moment, I promise."

If the job she did combing, plaiting, and pinning Petronilla's hair was not as good as the one she'd done on Aline's, she doubted anyone would notice or care.After that, it was the work of a few minutes to see them both dressed, veiled, and sent off to join their parents downstairs.She waited until the sound of their footsteps on the stairs had faded away, half-certain that one of them would come bursting back in with some new demand, before she went to see to Walter.

His cries had wound down to sniffles while she saw to the girls, but he burst out in fresh wails when she picked him up."I know," Isabel said, swaying slightly on the spot as she stroked his back."I know.I'm sorry.Oh love, I'm so sorry."

Walter clung to the front of her dress, his sticky face pressed tight to her neck.His cries had grown louder when she first picked him up, but they subsided quickly as she rocked him.She carried him over to their little nook in the corner and sat down on the bed, settling him in her lap.He turned his face against her chest, and she sang under her breath, stroking his back in time to the music until his breathing grew soft and even, and the hands he had fisted in her dress relaxed.She tilted him just far back enough to see his face: he was asleep, eyes still red and swollen, but closed.She could put him down in the cradle safely now, but she didn't move.She wanted to hold him awhile longer; and besides, she was so tired.

How much more could they withstand?

She had understood - or thought she understood - the bargain she was making when she agreed to stay on in Hilda's household.By law, she had no rights to her child: her husband had willed his guardianship to his family and left her no recourse but to beg permission to stay with him.She'd accepted the offer to work, unpaid, for her niece in exchange for the ability to stay with and look after Walter: at the time, she would have agreed to anything to keep from being separated from her son.Now it was nearly a year later, and doubts had begun to creep in.She'd known Hilda was likely to be peevish - her experience with Geoffrey had taught her to expect as much.But she had not grasped, before meeting her in-laws, just how many demands they would make of her, how much delight they took in taunting her like mastiffs at bear-baiting, or how their conduct would affect Walter.How could she shield him from this, when she had no way to escape and no choice but to stay and bear it?

More than once, she had thought it might be better for Walter if she gave him up.Geoffrey's choice to make his eldest son the guardian of his youngest had been borne of nothing more than spite - but was her own subsequent failure to keep him safe not a sign that he'd been right?Perhaps if she did leave, Hilda and the others would be more kindly disposed towards him; perhaps he could become part of the family in truth rather than theory, if his hated mother was no longer there to plague her in-laws.But she couldn't bear the thought.It was the most selfish she had ever been, and she knew it - more selfish even than praying for and then having Walter to begin with, knowing what sort of family she was bringing him into.But the thought of giving him up tore her in two.Shewouldbear everything Hilda and her daughters subjected her to, because the alternative was losing her child, and if that happened, she didn't think she could bring herself to go on.She just had to get better at looking after him, find ways to protect him from the reality of their situation until he was old enough to understand.She'd survived a similar fate as a girl: surely she could pass that on to her son.

Walter was fast asleep, now snoring slightly in her arms and drooling on her shoulder.She lifted him gently from her lap and into the cradle, bending to tuck his blankets in securely around his shoulders.He didn't stir, but she hadn't expected him to - he was a deep sleeper, once she'd gotten him to sleep.Small mercies.

With the girls downstairs and Walter asleep, she had a brief window of freedom in which she could do as she wished.She had put aside most of her former pastimes with the advent of Geoffrey's death and Hilda's arrival - with so little space of her own in the house, she could no longer keep a loom or a spinning wheel, nor did she have money for other diversions.The one thing she had kept was her little box filled with needles and thread for sewing and embroidery: she could justify their presence with the fact that the whole household benefited from her labour.Of late, she'd been working on a little purse for her sister-in-law, as thanks for the times she'd hosted Isabel at her table.It was almost done, but it still needed some finishing touches: she should be able to manage it before Walter woke up.

She stretched an arm up to the shelf where she kept the embroidery box, then frowned: her dress had tightened around her upper arm so much that she couldn't lift it above her head.When she looked down to unlace the front of her kirtle, her frown deepened.When had she put on a pink dress?

Owing to her exhaustion, the answer was slow in coming: this wasn't her dress at all, it was the one Constance had loaned her.In all the commotion with Walter and the girls, it had slipped her mind entirely.She made short work of the laces and wriggled her way out of the sleeves, then stepped out of the dress and held it out in front of herself for inspection.What was it Constance had said?She said it wasn't worth a brass farthing, and I suppose she wasn't wrong.Isabel hadn't paid much attention to the construction of the garment when she put it on, but now that she was examining it more closely, she could see what Constance meant.The gores had been cut on the bias, and so they hung unevenly, dragging at the seams; the sleeves, meanwhile, had been cut on the grain, and so they were tight and stiff where they should have been yielding.It shocked Isabel somewhat that Constance hadn't known better: how did she run a tailor's shop and still make such common mistakes?It was no great surprise that the woman who'd ordered it had refused to pay, though Isabel did feel a pang of sympathy for Constance at the thought.Poorly made or no, it must have taken several days to finish.

For all the errors in construction, it was still a pretty dress.The wool was a soft shade of pink, the colour of a blush: Isabel could easily imagine a young girl donning it to impress a sweetheart.She herself always looked sallow in pink, but that was down to her complexion.And while the garment couldn't really be salvaged for sale - not without new sleeves, anyhow - it could at least be embellished in places.Embroidery along the seams would hide the spots where the gores sagged, and if the sleeves were replaced or patched, the embroidery could disguise that as well.It would be nice to look at, at least.And Isabel knew very well how to make ugly things presentable.

She reached up again for the embroidery box and took it down from the shelf.The purse she'd intended to work on was sitting on top of the box, but she set it back on the shelf and rummaged through the box until she came up with a spool of deep green thread.Vines along the hem and around the waist of the dress would do the trick nicely, and green would complement the colour of the wool.It would be more than an hour's work to complete, but the more she thought on it, the more she liked the idea of the project.She could return the finished dress to Constance as a gesture of thanks for her help, and exercise her own skills into the bargain.

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