Page 9 of A Rogue's Downfall
She had not known that about him. Until their conversation at dinner last night, she had not even thought of him as a child. A whole person. A manwho had come to the present moment after twenty-eight years of living and experience. There must be somuch to know. She felt a sudden pang of loneliness.He was her husband, and she knew almost nothingabout him. He knew almost nothing about her. Theywere strangers.
But she was his valentine. During the day, perhaps, they could do something about the situation. Unlesshe meant the day to be romantic in a strictly physicalway. Perhaps he planned to touch her and kiss her,and leave her lonelier than ever tomorrow. Physicalintimacy without any sort of knowledge of the otherperson, without any sort of friendship could only makeone achingly aware of one’s essential aloneness. Sheknew that from bitter experience.
“I always vowed,” he said, “that if and when I had children of my own, I would not neglect them. No,this will not do, will it? The trees have grown thicker,and the slope will get steeper soon. I’ll tether thehorses here, and we’ll go down without them.”
The lake was not ornamental or man-made. It was surrounded by trees and was at the foot of steeplysloping banks. It was a place where Amy had comefrequently the summer before as she grew heavierwith child and heavier too with despair. She had usedto sit on the bank, staring into the deep water, tryingto make sense out of the turn her life had taken.
“It is easy to slip here,” he said, taking her hand in a firm clasp. “I would hate to see you hurtling downthe slope and plunging into the water.”
She laughed. “I came here often last year,” she said, “when I had an ungainly bulk to carry about withme.”
“Did you?” His hand tightened on hers for a moment. “I spent many days here as a boy, swimming— another forbidden activity—or climbing trees ormerely sitting, weaving dreams. Ah, look at that.”
It was not just a stray clump of primroses but a whole bank of them, all in glorious bloom as theyfaced the unobstructed rays of the sun across the lake.
“Oh, springtime!” she said, and the unexpected ache of an unnameable longing brought tears to hereyes. “There is no time like it, is there? What wouldwe do if spring did not come each year? I have longedand longed for it this year.”
“Have you?” He spoke quietly, and lifted his free hand to blot one spilled tear with his thumb. “Wasyour heart really set on going to Hester Dryden’sparty?”
She closed her eyes. No, it was not that. It was just that spring always brought with it new hope, a promiseof something new, some reason for living. Her son washer reason for living. But even so there was so muchsurrounding emptiness. So much loneliness. She remembered suddenly, and for no apparent reason, theday her husband had returned to London, two daysafter their child’s christening. There had been nowarning. Merely the formal visit to her sitting roomlate in the morning to take his leave. A stranger goingaway again, taking everything with him, though shehad not known that there was anything else to betaken.
She remembered the unwilling, self-pitying tears. The knowledge that she was alone again—though hehad spent no time with her even before he left. Allhope went with him.
He felt the ground, found it to be dry, and drew her to sit beside him and beside the primrose bank.He still held her hand.
“You were there,” she said. “So soon after. Before there was time to wash him properly and wrap him.Husbands are not usually summoned until everything has been made pretty, are they? Were you waitingoutside the door?”
She had had the confused impression that he had been there very soon. Too soon.
“Inside the door,” he said. “Did you not know that I was with you for the last two hours? Did you notknow who it was who sponged your face with coolwater?”
Perhaps she had known. But it had always been too dreadfully embarrassing a truth to admit. She hopedshe had been wrong. And it was too puzzling a truth.Men did not witness such scenes. Why had he?
“It is not surprising you did not know,” he said. “You had a far worse time of it than most women.The doctor thought you were going to die.” His handtightened painfully about hers.
“You came because you thought I was going to die?” she asked.
“I came,” he said, and he inhaled slowly, “to see— to see what I had done to you. If you were going todie, I was going to witness the death I had given you.I could not share it. That was the damnable thing.But I could punish myself with it. It would have beensomething I could never have erased from mymemory.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Instead,” he said, “I witnessed the terrifying miracle of birth. And I heard you laugh. You laughed at me when you were holding my son all blood-streakedon your stomach. You looked up at me and said,‘Look.’ And then you cried. Do you remember?”
She remembered it clearly. It was the one clear memory in a foggy recollection of pain and exhaustion. She had wanted him to bend over her, to touchthe baby, to kiss her. She had not realized until thatmoment how much she had hoped that the birth oftheir child would bind them together as nothing elsehad. She had yearned for a sense of family. Instead,he had looked down at the baby, his face stony. Shewithdrew her hand from his in order to clasp her armsabout her knees and rest her forehead on them.
“Yes,” she said.
His fingers touched the back of her neck as his lips had done at the breakfast table. She no longer wantedthe romance she had yearned for then. He was incapable of tenderness. She had learned that in the pastyear. She did not want the mockery of a valentine’sromance with him. How would she bear his goingaway again?
“I did not intend talking about that,” he said. “I did not intend talking about the past at all. I intendeda day out of time.”
“How can we pretend that we both came into existence only today?” she said. “And how can we pretend that we met only today? The past is there. The present cannot be divorced from it. The present iscolored by it.” She listened dismally to her own words.She wished they were not true. She wished she couldaccept the gift of the day that he had offered. It wouldbe some small something to take into the future withher. But she had spoken the truth.
He sighed and ran his knuckles lightly back and forth across her neck. “I suppose you are right,” hesaid. “The past cannot be changed either, can it?”
“No,” she said against her knees.
There were several moments of silence. “How you must wish it could,” he said.
