She may have fallen in love on the spot. Even years later, she wasn’t entirely sure. All she could recall was that the focus of her scholarship—her academic drive—vanished in the moments they first stood chatting politely in the drawing room about the English countryside. Jean-Phillippe was not a tall man, though easily several inches taller than Constance, who suddenly no longer regretted being short. He was broad in the shoulders. His teeth were bad, which she found endearing. When she spoke, he looked at her closely, his eyes never leaving hers, as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered. In time, she learned this was merely a habit. She saw him do that with other people, especially young ladies, and it galled. He wasn’t a wolf, or a cad, just a man in love with the effect he had on women.
Before she realized any of that, however, he suggested that they go visit Middleham Castle together. Though it didn’t bear directly on any of his own work, he thought such a visit would be most amusing. She must bring a notebook, camera, and sturdy shoes. Despite her fascination with him, she found his suggestion condescending. She knew perfectly well how to prepare for a trip. Yet she responded as if his words contained a rare and remarkable genius. She hated herself for feeding his ego, even as she came to adore him that much more.
The afternoon they arrived, the sky threatened a drenching rain. Constance had no umbrella. She’d been distracted at the last minute back in London, unable to find her purse, which she’d left in her room hanging on the doorknob. They walked through the ruined castle in silence. The place was theirs alone, except for a black and white dog who appeared at the top of a tumbled-down stone wall and barked once at them, then trotted off.
Their conversation stayed on neutral ground. Had he ever visited the States? He had, once to see friends in New York before the war. Could he ever see himself living there?
“New York, certainly. A marvelous city. You are from there?” he asked.
“No, upstate. Then college in Massachusetts. Returning to Rhode Island at the end of the summer.”
“Rhode Island. Is it anything like the Island of Rhodes?”
She didn’t respond. He lit a cigarette and offered her one. She shook her head.
After that he spoke about Professor Spalding, his taste in furniture and art, the questionable skills of his cook who never failed to serve watery potatoes and tough beef. Constance hadn’t found the food distasteful. She was grateful for a free place to stay. Her room was at the top, under the roof, in what had once been maids’ quarters. It faced the garden and was full of light. Jean-Phillippe’s room was below ground, also in the quarter of former servants, and accessible by a set of stairs descending from the street.
Jean-Phillippe continued his assessment of Professor Spalding’s home. The hot water took a long time to come up, there were water stains on the ceiling in the upstairs bath, the window in his room didn’t close all the way, allowing a near-constant draft that he was certain would end up in his chest. Constance had never heard a man complain so much about domestic matters. She wondered if he were a homosexual. When she turned her ankle on a broken bit of stone, he caught her securely, then kissed her hard. She didn’t wonder anymore. He released her and continued walking, as if the moment had never happened.
She behaved as calmly as he, feeling anything but. Their tour of the ruins came to an end. The rain picked up, and they walked briskly down the road to the nearby town of Middleham and a tavern called The Duke of York. The place was empty, except for one table by the windows occupied by two white-haired men bent over a chessboard. Jean-Phillippe suggested a whiskey. Constance accepted. He helped her remove her coat and asked the barmaid if he might drape it over the empty wooden bench in front of the fire. The barmaid did that for him, brought the drinks, and asked if they wanted anything to eat. Jean-Phillippe ordered a sandwich. Constance asked for nothing. She was unable to keep up her end of the conversation.
He talked on, about his childhood, his family, his studies. He became flushed from the whiskey. She hadn’t touched hers, then drank it quickly. The burn it left in her throat was unpleasant. She asked to be excused for a moment. She went to the washroom and stood, gripping the sink, and splashed water on her face. She heard a radio playing in the room on the other side of the wall. The sound led her down the hall to a small private parlor where the same barmaid was pouring tea for an old woman. The old woman sat with a blanket on her lap and something she was sewing in her hands. The barmaid asked Constance if she’d gotten turned around and come there by mistake.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I heard the music. It sounded so lovely,” Constance said. It was a piano piece by Brahms. Classical music had been a favorite of Lois Maynard’s. Constance knew a lot about the major composers, thanks to her. The old woman looked up at Constance with watery eyes. Their color was arresting, a cobalt blue. There was a chalky quality to them, too, as if for her, light had dimmed. She was beautiful, Constance thought. Calm. At peace.
“This is my grandmother,” the barmaid said.
The old woman said something in what Constance recognized as Gaelic. There had been an Irish student at Smith, and she rambled wildly in her native tongue when upset. The old woman lifted her hand, and Constance shook it. Her palm was smooth and soft.
“She wonders if you’d like to sit with her for a bit,” the barmaid said.
“Oh, I can’t right now. I’ve got to get back to my friend.”
The barmaid nodded. “Well, I best get back, myself. Never does to leave them too long on their own. They’ll be wanting something. You’ll come again, I hope?”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to. We’re just here for the day.”
The old woman’s hand was still in Constance’s. The other rested on her needlework. It was a painted canvas that had been unrolled and sewn carefully. The stitches were even and regular. Some, though, were messy and skipped a space or two. It was proof of the old woman’s failing eyesight, Constance thought.
Constance and Jean-Phillippe took rooms at the local inn because Jean-Phillippe complained of not feeling well. In the morning his head hurt, his muscles ached. He blamed the poor weather. Constance could sense in his voice a condemnation of her for the outing, which he himself had suggested. She poured him a cup of hot tea. He accepted it without a word. He sat before the fire in his room, a shawl around his shoulders, slumped and small.
The moment she was free, she returned to the tavern. Someone else was serving the patrons, a man this time. Constance explained that she’d been invited. He merely nodded at her and went on wiping down the bar.
She found the old woman and the barmaid again in the private parlor. The barmaid explained that serving in the tavern wasn’t her regular job, that her uncle, the man Constance had passed on the way in, had been sick the day before.
“My name’s Tess. Didn’t properly introduce myself before. This is Maeve,” she said. Both women wore wool sweaters and skirts. Maeve had several thin silver bracelets on each arm that jingled as she raised and lowered her cup. Her hearing was keen, Constance observed. The sound of muffled laughter from the dining room next door caused her to turn her head in that direction.
Constance said that she was staying on a few days because her friend was under the weather, and hoped they could direct her to a nice lady’s shop because she’d brought no change of clothes.
Tess recommended a place called Lady Alice, then suggested that the owner of the inn, Mr. Townsend, might be able to lend Constance’s friend something, because the gentleman’s shop carried very substandard merchandise, though as she recalled, the friend was on the short side, while Mr. Townsend was not. Constance said nothing. Tess sensed her unease and continued to talk. How did Constance like England? Was it so very different from America? How had people over there handled the war
and the rationing? Did Constance have any brothers who’d enlisted and met with misfortune? Here Tess paused. Her expression said someone close to her had been lost. Maeve put her gnarled hand on Tess’s smooth one. The quiet went on for a few moments more.
“That’s a lovely piece of work you have there,” Constance told Maeve. Maeve nodded and said what must have been “thank you.”
“She has no English?” Constance asked.
“Oh, she speaks it as well as you or I. But in the last few years she’s returned home, as it were. She’s lucky I understand her. No one else seems able to,” Tess said.
Constance picked up the end of the tapestry. It had been years since she’d held needlework. Maeve handed her the entire length of canvas. Constance unfurled it. It measured roughly one foot high and two feet across. Only the first third had been sewn. It depicted the stages of a woman’s life, from left to right, entitled Girlhood, Betrothal and Marriage, Motherhood, and lastly, Widowhood.
“She received it when she was young and put it away. Lately, though, she’s wanted to get at it,” Tess said. She poured Constance a cup of tea.
Maeve said something.
“She’s says you’re welcome to try, if you like,” Tess said.
“Embroider, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Tess handed her a woven wooden basket full of yarn. There was a small package of steel needles.
Constance politely declined, made small talk, finished her tea, and went back to the hotel. Over the next few days Jean-Phillippe lay sick, cranky and needy by turns. He begged Constance to sit in the chair by his bed and read from a volume of Tennyson poems. But he soon grew tired after only one or two and dropped off. Constance had cabled to Professor Spalding about the illness. The local doctor had looked in and confirmed that it was influenza, and that no secondary infections had yet taken hold. Continued rest was called for, but within the week, the doctor said, he should be well.
Mrs. Townsend, whose husband owned the inn, along with her daughter helped see to Jean-Phillippe, freeing Constance to visit Tess and Maeve. She worked on the tapestry. It was lovely to feel her hands push and pull. She delighted in the area she filled in around the bride at the altar.
Then one morning Jean-Phillippe finally sat up in bed and complained about his soft-boiled eggs being cold. He didn’t thank Constance for bringing them. He asked if more wood could be brought for the fireplace. Constance went down and made the request to Mrs. Townsend.
That afternoon, unhappy with the new skirt and blouse she’d bought because they were both too big, she sewed in silence, alone then with Maeve since Tess was needed once more in the pub.
“Your life will contain none of these,” Maeve said in clear, though heavily accented English.
“I’m sorry?”
Maeve waved her hand over the tapestry. Constance sewed for a few minutes more. She considered Maeve’s odd statement. Tess returned, and Constance made her good-byes. She and Jean-Phillippe were returning to London the following day, she said. Maeve asked Constance, once again in Gaelic and translated by Tess, to bend down so she could receive a kiss on her cheek. Constance did so. Maeve said something else.
“She wants you to have it,” Tess said.
“The tapestry? Oh, no, I couldn’t.”
“It’s no use to her anymore.”
Constance accepted the rolled up canvas, which she carried under her arm back to the hotel, glad the day was dry, for a change. Back in her room, she spread it out on her bed and studied the piece as a whole. She could distinguish her stitches from those added by Maeve before her eyesight dimmed. An experienced needle worker could always see a different hand. In one corner were stitches that were different still, which meant that someone else had worked on it, someone other than Maeve.
Constance learned that she was right when she got a letter from Tess, which Maeve had dictated. It began with an explanation that her address had been obtained from the hotel where she had stayed with Jean-Phillippe. Maeve wanted to share the tapestry’s history. It came to her from a woman who had employed her as a chambermaid right after the turn of the century. At the time, Maeve had been in love with the footman (this was a large Irish country estate). The footman wasn’t interested in her, and Maeve had tried everything she knew to change his mind. I thought if I did what I ought not to do, he would be gallant and offer to marry me. She cut to the chase. She offered herself to him, and he turned her down. Naturally, she was devastated. Though she always thought of herself as strong and capable, the footman’s disregard caused her to unravel. She could not contain her misery, and one day her mistress, Lady Norbury, summoned her into her private parlor and demanded to know the cause of her constant tears.
At first, Maeve thought she would keep quiet, not wanting Lady Norbury to think her wanton and unsuitable for her position in the household. But Lady Norbury was an intelligent woman, and rightly suspected that her troubles were romantic in nature. She asked Maeve to sit and compose herself. Then she asked if she knew how to embroider. Maeve did. Lady Norbury gave her the tapestry and told her to sew a few rows to calm herself. Maeve continued where Lady Norbury had left off, with the young girl dressed in white, preparing for her First Communion. Maeve worked row after row. It was effortless, and did in fact bring a sense of peace. She even went so far as to suggest that it was the memory of herself at that age, full of hope and the will to do God’s work, that soothed her soul.
He would have made you very unhappy, Lady Norbury said after a time. Maeve didn’t need to ask to whom she referred. She didn’t believe her words, but soon the footman was discovered to have been involved in the theft of Lady Norbury’s prize silver candlesticks, and went to prison.
Constance put the letter away.
For the rest of the summer she spent her days reading at the library, taking page after page of notes. Soon she felt as if she’d exhausted anything of interest about Anne Neville, who turned out not to be such a compelling figure after all. She wrote of her concerns to her thesis advisor, who responded by saying that perhaps she should focus her efforts on a woman who played a more significant role.
Constance considered. She needed a figure she admired. Elizabeth Cady Stanton came to mind. In high school, Constance had gone on a field trip to Seneca Falls and learned about the early efforts to get women the vote. Another possibility was Carrie Nation, wielding her axe. Then there was Margaret Sanger, though she was still living, which made her less appealing as a research subject, from a strictly historical perspective.
Constance put forward the first two, saying she understood that this would represent a major shift in her area of expertise. Professor Reynolds was firm. Do not discard the point in history that you have already begun to investigate. Changing course now will make you appear flighty and unreliable as a scholar. Constance was taken aback. Would he have said the same to a man? Surely not. Was it that he found it inappropriate to shed light on an attempt to give women political parity? Or, in Nation’s case, to deny men the pleasure of drink? Frustrated, sometimes to the point of tears, Constance returned to the War of the Roses.
It was Jean-Phillipe who suggested Margaret Beaufort. He was familiar with her from his own work, because she was the mother of Henry VII. Constance dug in, and soon discovered that Margaret was driven to secure her son’s place on the throne and devoted her entire life to that one result.
Mothers made sacrifices for their children all the time, didn’t they? So what about this particular story bothered Constance so much? That one of the most powerful women of her day was only as valuable as the man or men she supported? Constance thought that the woman she should write about was Anne Boleyn, for whom Henry VIII established the Church of England so they could marry. But no, she was really just another vi
ctim in the end when she couldn’t bear a living son. Her daughter, though, Elizabeth I, bowed to no man. Now there was a fine topic!
But Professor Reynolds again discouraged her. Stick to your chosen time period. Build on what you have.
So, she did.
While she worked diligently, sometimes frantically, over the remaining weeks, Jean-Phillippe spent his time wandering the city rather than on his own research, and returned late, drunk, often with the smell of cheap perfume.
They encountered each other one morning at breakfast. Professor Spalding had gone out, and they were alone. Jean-Phillipe accused Constance of shunning him, and that this was the cause of his bad behavior.
When she didn’t answer, he said, “Here I am, trapped under the same roof with the cruelest of women, one who intends to break my heart. It is unbearable.”
Constance dropped two lumps of sugar into her cup and stirred her coffee. The clock on the wall clicked out the seconds. The silence went on. And as it did, Constance felt as if she were moving away, further and further into herself. Before, such a transit was always toward a greater darkness. Now it was toward light.
She knew he was insincere; she also knew that he was unaware of it. He truly believed he was in love with her. He needed to believe it.
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