It would appear the man had thrown himself into estate management rather than his marriage.
At least he’d given up gambling.
Losing his money twice would surely finish him off.
Lily wouldn’t have liked it either, but it was not as horrific a thought. What would being poorer take away that she would truly miss? Was she not already found to be wanting in the things that mattered?
If she considered any of it for a length of time, the despair would overwhelm her. She could not become one of those women that stayed in her rooms and turned invalid due to fits of nerves and distress, emotionally teetering on the tip of a pin. She had to keep placing one foot in front of the other, her eyes fixed on the future, even if it had no bright promise.
After all, things could have been worse. Her husband could have been a true villain, an evil man who had no care for humanity or any other living creature. Thomas was a good man and a good master to his tenants.
If she didn’t find herself occasionally pining for his love, she might not have had a quarrel with him at all.
But every now and again, she did pine, hopeless though it was.
And every now and again, it hurt a little more.
Lily looked up as Rainford Park loomed before her, quickening her steps just a bit more as the clouds in the sky began to darken and hang with foreboding heaviness. If rain did fall, it would be a perfect day to shut herself up in the music room and play until her fingers ached. It was one thing she could say with certainty about her married life: there was always a beautiful music room at her disposal.
Though it likely wasn’t intended as a gift, or in any way significant toward her at all, she liked to pretend that her husband had intentionally situated this and their London home with a perfect arrangement for her love of music and her abilities to play. She had situated each of the rooms in each house, of course, but she hadn’t been involved in the purchasing of either house, and the layout of those rooms had been set before she had ever become Mrs. Granger.
There was something to be said for the peace and joy she found through her playing, especially when her heart was particularly tender.
Not that it was so on this day. She had no particular complaints, wasn’t especially pining, and held no misery of note. She was only tired.
Again.
It was astonishing how exhausting living a life of polite distance could be.
Her encounter with Mrs. Robbins today had been simple enough, bringing a basket of food and some tinctures the housekeeper had made up for the unwell children. The woman had been so grateful to receive such things and had offered Lily a hand-knitted shawl she had finished the day before. Lily had tried to protest, given she could just as easily purchase an article of clothing without taking a possible source of earning a little income from a tenant. But Mrs. Robbins had insisted, so Lily now carried a beautiful, thick shawl that she felt rather undeserving of.
After all, she did the same thing once a week for any in their care that the local clergyman thought might be in particular need. It was simply something a woman of station did for those in her neighborhood without much thought for true sincerity. Of course, she wanted her tenants and fellow parishioners to be well and to have enough, and she had always been on the better side of average good Christians, but she could hardly claim the goodness of her heart being particularly involved here.
Was that something to be held against her? She rather thought it was a responsibility of hers, not a true act of service. These were questions she would have loved to discuss with her husband, were they on speaking terms that weren’t verging on the tangential.
But as he only tended to care about the actions she took up and not the feelings those actions engendered, they were not. Facts only, rarely details. He never wanted to discuss thoughts and feelings with her, only their tasks and duties, and even then, they were short discussions. Once in a great while, one of them would mention some details pertaining to their families, and a brief but recurring tangent of familial relations was permitted.
It was the strangest sort of life she led.
How could she have loved a man who saw her so little? Yet he hadn’t always been so hopelessly blind where she was concerned. Thomas had once been sweetly shy, gentle in his attention toward her, and content to converse with her on any topic or subject that came to mind. They’d never had a courtship, but she’d felt sure they’d been on the cusp of one.
Then her father had announced their engagement, and in the next breath mentioned Thomas’s financial ruin. It did not take great intelligence to find the connection between them.
The sweet, gentle, content Thomas she had known and loved had never been seen again.
Now there was only her husband. He was a decent man, a polite man, and a careful man, but he was a stranger even still. Five years of marriage, and she barely knew him.
Someday, if she ever found the courage, she would approach the subject of children. It would, of course, require a certain degree of physical intimacy between them, but those interactions could be limited to the bare minimum, once they bore fruit. Two children, perhaps three, and then he need never trouble himself with her again.
She could only think that he found something about her distasteful, given they had never
