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They happened to glance through that window there, on their way to the door, and they saw you and Joe …’
‘Oh my God.’ Nora turned away again, overcome with embarrassment.
Liam was silent for a moment, trying to compose himself, to remain calm. ‘That is why I went to church. I had to think, Nora. I was fairly certain that you had never lost any of your love for Joe Carney. I realise that the circumstances under which we were married left you very little choice, that you did not marry me for love but out of a sense of duty to the child you thought you were carrying. But God planned it that way, Nora. It was His will. He meant you to marry me. He knows what is best for each and every one of us, and it is not for us to contravene His divine will. I thought you had accepted that. I thought we were laying the foundations of a happy family life. I thought—I hoped—that in time you would look back and realise that God, as always, was right in this case too. Remember that what we think we want, what we think might be good for us, does not always turn out to be what we expected. Only God can see into the future. He knows what is right for us, all the way through our lives.’
Nora had not moved. Her head was bowed, and her eyes were fixed upon her lap where her hands lay lightly clasped on her red gingham apron.
‘I went to church for help to see things more clearly,’ Liam went on in a slow, calm, quiet voice. ‘The Reverend MacNevin’s revelations had quite cluttered up my vision. I needed to clear my eyes and mind to enable me to see the road ahead. It was quiet in the church, and I had peace to think. And as usual I turned to St Augustine. What would he do? He himself, you know, was once in the kind of situation you are in, Nora. Out of the muddy lusts of the flesh and the bubblings of youth, he described how mists fumed up and beclouded and overcast his heart so that he couldn’t tell the brightness of love from the fog of lustfulness. Neither can you, Nora. That is your trouble. You can’t distinguish love from lust. Augustine in your position wished so much that someone had opened his eyes to the truth, that someone had shown him there was a limit to the pleasures of his licentious behaviour so that, as he put it, the tides of his youth might have cast themselves on the marriage shore and thus kept within the object of a family as God’s law prescribes. You have a family, Nora. You have a husband who loves you dearly. You have a son. You do not need to break the laws of God.’
Liam paused. Nora was showing no sign that she was even listening, that she had heard a word he said. Anger almost overcame him again;
Libros Libertad 