the herbaceous border, its flowers still little more than dark mounds in the damp earth, a few green shoots here and there.
“Well, if there were not pain in it, and no risk,” she mused, “then anyone would do it. It would hardly need someone special.”
Tryphena said nothing. Her face was sunk deep in thought, and perhaps memory.
“Tell me something about her,” Charlotte said at last as they reached the path and their boots crunched on the gravel. Subtlety was not going to work. “She must have been much admired. I expect she had many friends.”
“Dozens,” Tryphena agreed. “Before she came here she lived with a whole group of like-minded people who believed in freedom to live and love each other as they chose without the superstitions of society, and the hypocrisies, to limit them.”
Charlotte thought it sounded more like license, but she refrained from saying so—what was freedom to one person frequently appeared selfishness and irresponsibility to another. Some of the difference was merely the passage of time—and having children of one’s own for whom one could see all the dangers of the world; the desire to protect them was overwhelming.
“It takes a lot of courage,” she said aloud. “The risks are great.”
“Yes.” Tryphena stared at the ground as they walked, very slowly, along the path to the shallow steps. “She spoke about it sometimes. She told me of the sense of exhilaration they had, how intense passion could be when it is utterly true, no law binds you, no superstitious dread holds you or inhibits you, no rituals make you wait or try to hold you in an anchor after the fire and the honesty had gone out of it.” There was such bitterness in her voice, such a depth of emotion, that Charlotte could not help wondering at Tryphena’s own experience of marriage. She glanced at her and saw no softness in her eyes or mouth, no warmth in her memories at all. Had she wanted the marriage herself? Or was it something arranged by her family, and she had agreed to it, willingly or unwillingly?
“It is all so”—Tryphena furrowed her brow, looking for the word—“so … clean! There is no pretense.” Her eyes became fierce, her lips pressed together. “No ownership by one person of another, no slow eating away of independence, of self-esteem and the knowledge and beliefs of who you are. Nobody says ‘You must think this way, because I do.’ ‘You must believe that, because I do.’ ‘This is where I want to go, so you must come, too.’ A marriage of equals is the only sort that is worth anything! It is the only sort which has honor or decency or any inner cleanliness.” Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her arms seemed locked right up to her shoulders. “I will not be second-rate … second-class … worth only second-best!”
Charlotte wondered if Tryphena had any idea how much of her own hurt she betrayed in her words. Some of this might be Unity’s thoughts, but the passion was Tryphena’s. “I think if somebody loved you, they would want you to be the best you possibly could,” Charlotte said gently, walking up the steps beside her. “Isn’t that what love is, wanting someone to fulfill all the best in themselves? But then you would want the same for him, wouldn’t you? And be prepared to give something that might cost you quite a lot, to that end?”
“What?” Tryphena turned her head, looking surprised.
“If you love, you stay, even when it isn’t convenient, or fun, or easy,” Charlotte elaborated. “If you leave the moment you no longer feel like staying, isn’t that simply selfishness? You are talking about freedom to please yourself, freedom from hurt or boredom or duty. Life is about giving and being vulnerable, which is precisely why it needs both courage and self-discipline.”
Tryphena stared at her, stopping on the gravel close to the glasshouse. “I don’t think you understand at all, Mrs. Pitt. You may think you are a fighter for freedom, but you sound just like a traditional woman who is prepared to do exactly as her father and then her husband tell her to.” Her words were so angry they had to come from her own experience. “People like you are the ones who really hold us back. Unity truly loved, and she was terribly hurt. I could see it in her eyes, and sometimes catch it in her voice.” She looked at Charlotte accusingly. “You are speaking