He did not move, even though she had come too close for comfort.
“Do you notthink,” she said, “that if I had wanted to know more about her or to find her anytime in the years since I grew up, I could have done it? Do you not thinkDoracould have done it ifshehad wanted? What my mother did to Dora was ten times worse than what she did to me. She destroyed Dora’s wholelife. And she must have caused our father unbearable pain and embarrassment. She must have hurt Oliver dreadfully. Do you think we could not have found her if we had wished? Any of us? We did not wish.Idid not wish. Idonot wish. Sheabandonedus, Flavian. For alover. I hate her.Hate, do you hear me? But I do not enjoy hating. I choose rather not to remember her at all, not to think of her, not to be curious about her. I will never forgive you for finding her andgoing to see her.”
She was gasping out her words, trying not to let her voice rise again. She stopped talking and glared at him.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“Howcouldyou?” She brushed past him and went into her bedchamber. She stood at the foot of the bed, clutching the bedpost.
“Blocked memories, s-suppressed memories, memories we do not even know we are supposed to have—they all damage our lives, Agnes,” he said. “And our relationships.”
“This is about you, then, is it?” she asked him, whipping her head about to glare at him.
He had turned, though he still stood in the doorway. He looked broodingly at her.
“I think, rather, it is aboutus,” he said.
“Us?”
“You were the one who s-said more than once that we did not know each other,” he reminded her, “and that if we w-were to marry, we needed that knowledge. We married anyway, b-but you were right. Weneedto know each other.”
“And that gives you the right to pry into my past and seek out my mother?” she asked him.
“And we n-need to know ourselves,” he added.
“I know myself very well,” she retorted.
He did not say anything. But he shook his head.
His words repeated themselves in her head and left her feeling shaken. His knowledge of his own past, and therefore of himself, was marred by an uncertain memory. But that was not the same thing as a memory one had deliberately chosen to turn off for very good reason, was it?
“I will help you remember, if I can,” she said. “And we will work on our marriage. I am determined that we will.”
“Youare determined,” he said. “Youwill helpmer-remember. So that I will be all better, and everything will be well with our marriage. By all give on your part, all take on mine. Because you need nothing. Because you have never needed anything but a little quiet c-control over your world. You gave in b-briefly to the wonderful chaos of life by marrying me against all your better instincts, but now you can control your m-marriage by helping me remember—if thereismore to remember.”
She turned suddenly to sit on the side of the bed, though she kept one hand on the bedpost.
“Is that why you went?” She was almost whispering. “Todosomething for me?”
“I thought perhaps you n-needed to know,” he said. “Even if what I discovered was no more savory than you expected. Even if the knowing did not change anything. Even if you never w-wanted to see her for yourself. I just thought you needed toknow. So that your mind would no longer keep touching upon the wound that has been festering deep inside since you were a child.”
“Is that what has been happening?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I just thought it was something I could do for you.”
She gazed at him, and their eyes locked on each other’s.
“By the time I w-went, though,” he said, “there was another, more urgent reason.”
She continued to gaze.
“Divorces applied for by petition to Parliament are rare enough and p-public enough to be remembered,” he said. “Someone wanting to know more about a Mr. D-Debbins of Lancashire and asking a few questions would almost inevitably discover thathehad once m-made such a petition and had b-been granted his divorce.”
Her eyes widened.
“I do not know to how many p-people you have mentioned your father’s name,” he said. “I m-mentioned it the afternoon I called upon Frome and his lady and Velma. I am sorry. It did not occur to m-me that—”
Agnes had jumped to her feet. “My father’s identity is no secret,” she said. “I am not ashamed of my father.”
