“Where I was placed,” he said.
“You feared him.”
“Yes.”
Maria looked at the fire.
“When did their marriage change? Was there a moment?”
“No single moment,” Nicholas said. “A series of adjustments, I would assume. The lovers were a routine occurrence by the time I was old enough to know anything.”
Maria nodded slowly. “And he… why the lovers?”
Now that she had started to question things, she did not know how to stop herself.
“Because he would not be denied what he wanted,” Nicholas said. “And because it was easy for him to find applause. There was always someone to open a door and look the other way.”
“Did anyone ever speak to him about it?”
“Not in a way he would hear,” Nicholas said. “
“I keep wondering what would have become of me here. If I had grown up in that house,” she finally admitted out loud.
“He would have arranged your days and your prospects. If you bore it, he would have called it success,” Nicholas replied with ease.
“Then I am spared one kind of training,” she said. “I will not call it luck, but I will call it a mercy.”
“Yes,” he said.
She lifted her chin a little.
“I did not come to accuse him through you. He is past my questions. But now that I know, I do not wish to repeat their marriage.”
“Then you will not,” he said.
“How does one keep from it?” She tried to smile and did not quite manage it. “It seems too easy to fall into shape.”
“By staying small and steady,” he said. “And hoping to have a healthier marriage than those that were before you.”
“Can one learn that without seeing it?” she asked, suddenly vulnerable.
“Yes,” he said. “It is learnable work. I am still learning it.”
She looked at him, lost in thought.
“Forgive me,” she said, after a moment. “I am clumsy with these questions. I have never had a man to ask.”
Nicholas shifted.
“If there is awkwardness, we may keep it between us until it wears itself out.”
“I am not certain mine ever does,” she said, sighing.
“You do not need to prevent me from seeing it. I have seen it too often from the other side.”
“I have been told that men like him are inevitable. I would be grateful if you would tell me they are not.”
In earnest, she was thinking about Stephen again. Would their marriage follow the same path? The thought of him taking on other lovers made her shudder, and the thought of herself… no, she did not even want to consider the possibility.