"It shows?" was all she said.
"Of course it does," Cordelia replied. "Now tell me, girl. Has he been on thee?"
"Yes ... no ... no."
Aunt Cord sat in her chair, knitting in her lap, eyebrows raised, waiting for more.
At last Susan told her what had happened, speaking in a tone that was mostly flat - a little tremble intruded toward the end, but that was all. Aunt Cord began to feel a cautious sort of relief. Perhaps more goose-girl nerves was all it came down to, after all!
The substitute gown, like all the substitutes, hadn't been finished off; there was too much else to do. Maria had therefore turned Susan over to blade-faced Conchetta Morgenstem, the chief seamstress, who had led Susan into the downstairs sewing room without saying anything - if saved words were gold, Susan had sometimes reflected, Conchetta would be as rich as the Mayor's sister was reputed to be.
Blue Dress With Beads was draped over a headless dressmaker's dummy crouched beneath one low eave, and although Susan could see ragged places on the hem and one small hole around to the back, it was by no means the tattered ruin she had been expecting.
"Can it not be saved?" she asked, rather timidly.
"No," Conchetta said curtly. "Get out of those trousers, girl. Shirt, too."
Susan did as she was bid, standing barefoot in the cool little room with her arms crossed over her bosom .. . not that Conchetta had ever shown the slightest interest in what she had, back or front, above or below.
Blue Dress With Beads was to be replaced by Pink Dress With Applique, it seemed. Susan stepped into it, raised the straps, and stood patiently while Conchetta bent and measured and muttered, sometimes using a bit of chalk to write numbers on a wall-stone, sometimes grabbing a swag of material and pulling it tighter against Susan's hip or waist, checking the look in the full-length mirror on the far wall. As always during this process, Susan slipped away mentally, allowing her mind to go where it wanted. Where it wanted to go most frequently these days was into a daydream of riding along the Drop with Roland, the two of them side by side, finally stopping in a willow grove she knew that overlooked Hambry Creek.
"Stand there still as you can," Conchetta said curtly. "I be back."
Susan was hardly aware she was gone; was hardly aware she was in Mayor's House at all. The part of her that really mattered wasn't there. That part was in the willow grove with Roland. She could smell the faint half-sweet, half-acrid perfume of the trees and hear the quiet gossip of the stream as they lay down together forehead to forehead. He traced the shape of her face with the palm of his hand before taking her in his arms .. .
This daydream was so strong that at first Susan responded to the arms which curled around her waist from behind, arching her back as they first caressed her stomach and then rose to cup her br**sts. Then she heard a kind of plowing, snorting breath in her ear, smelled tobacco, and understood what was happening. Not Roland touching her br**sts, but Hart Thorin's long and skinny fingers. She looked in the mirror and saw him looming over her left shoulder like an incubus. His eyes were bulging, there were big drops of sweat on his forehead in spite of the room's coolness, and his tongue was actually hanging out, like a dog's on a hot day. Revulsion rose in her throat like the taste of rotten food. She tried to pull away and his hands tightened their hold, pulling her against him. His knuckles cracked obscenely, and now she could feel the hard lump at the center of him.
At times over the last few weeks, Susan had allowed herself to hope that, when the time came, Thorin would be incapable - that he would be able to make no iron at the forge. She had heard this often happened to men when they got older. The hard, throbbing column which lay against her bottom disabused her of that wistful notion in a hurry.
She had managed at least a degree of diplomacy by simply putting her hands over his and attempting to draw them off her br**sts instead of pulling away from him again (Cordelia, impassive, not showing the great relief she felt at this).
"Mayor Thorin - Hart - you mustn't - this is hardly the place and not yet the time - Rhea said - "