“
Just as she nearly decided that the women of Cassarick led hard, lean lives, two chattering girls passed them going in the other direction. They wore morning dresses and were perhaps going off to call on a friend or to visit the early markets. Their flounced skirts were shorter than those currently worn in Bingtown and showed off their soft brown shoes. They wore lacy little shawls, and their hats were designed to look like large, folded leaves. She turned her head to look after them, and for a moment a familiar envy flooded up to drown her spirits. They looked so cheery busy, chattering away together. When they came to a bridge, they linked arms and clattered across it together, whooping little hoydens when they reached the other side.
“What makes you sigh?” Leftrin asked her, and she realized that she was staring after them.
She shook her head, smiling tightly at her own foolishness. “I was just thinking that somehow I skipped being that age, and I’ll always regret it. I often feel I went from being a girl to being a settled woman, with none of the giddiness in between.”
“You talk like you’re an old woman, with your whole life lived.”
A sudden lump rose in her throat. I am, she thought. In a few days, I’ll go home and settle down to what I’ll be for the rest of my life. No adventures ahead, no changes to anticipate. Nothing to anticipate except leading a proper life. She swallowed and by the time she could speak, she had more appropriate words. “Well, I’m a married woman with a settled life. I suppose what I miss is a sense of uncertainty. Of possibility waiting just around the corner.”
“And you’re saying you never had that?”
She paused because the truth was somehow humiliating. “No. I don’t think I did. I think my life was more or less mapped out from the beginning. Getting married was a surprise for me. I didn’t think I’d ever marry. But once I was a married woman, my life settled into a routine that wasn’t much different from when I was single.”
He was silent for longer than was his wont, and when she glanced over at him, his mouth was strangely puckered as if he strove to keep words in. “Just say it,” she suggested, and then wondered if she was brave enough to hear whatever judgement he held back.
He grinned at her. “Well, it’s not polite to say, but if I were a man and married to a woman such as you, and she said to another fellow that her life as my wife wasn’t much different from her life when she’d been single, well, I’d wonder what I was doing wrong.” He raised his eyebrows at her and whispered in a ribald tone. “Or not doing at all!”
“Captain Leftrin!” she exclaimed, genuinely shocked. Then, when he burst out laughing, she was horrified at joining in.
When they both paused for breath, he held up a warning hand. “No. Don’t tell me! Some things a wife should never say about her husband! And here we are, anyway, so our time for chat is over.
”
”