Cecily shook her head slowly. She might have guessed that was the trouble. But she had hoped that she had been able to put her sister’s mind more at ease at her debut ball.
“Are you mad?” Cecily asked, keeping her voice light and carefree. “Why should you not get to finish the Season? You deserve the moon, and I would go and fetch it for you, if it were only possible.”
Agnes gave a small chuckle, but Cecily could feel her continued sadness.
“And I feel the same about you, Sister,” she said. “I simply do not think it is fair that you cannot have the same opportunities that I do.”
Cecily sighed, giving her sister a patient smile.
“You must not concern yourself with what is fair, Sister dear,” she said. “Firstly, life is sometimes not fair. I am hardly the first person to have something tragic happen to them. And secondly, even if that were not true, you are not to blame for any of it. So, why should you be punished for something over which none of us had any control?”
Agnes was silent for a moment, but then Cecily heard her sniffle.
“Do you remember when we were girls and we were playing in the kitchen with the dishes?” she asked softly.
Cecily blinked, confused. She remembered the incident clearly. She just did not understand why her sister had brought it up right then.
“Of course,” she said.
Agnes took a shaky breath.
“Do you remember when I threw the flour in your eyes?” she asked. “It took us ages to wash it away from your eyelids. What if that was the reason that happened to you?”
Cecily stared at her sister for a long moment. She wanted to laugh at the wild notion. But her sister’s pain was genuine, if unfounded, and she did not want to hurt her feelings.
“Oh, Aggie, darling,” she said, throwing her arms around her sister. “You don’t really believe that a silly stunt from childhood did this to me, do you?”
Agnes nodded, sniffling against her shoulder.
“I think it is at least possible,” she said.
Cecily pulled away and cupped her sister’s face.
“Aggie, please, listen to me,” she said. “Mr. Thompson told Father that there is never any simple explanation as to why this happens to people. We do not know why it happened, not any of us. But I am certain that the flour did not make me lose this part of my vision.”
Agnes shook her head, covering Cecily’s hands with her own.
“How can you be so sure, though?” she asked. “You just said the doctor does not know for sure what caused it.”
Cecily allowed herself to giggle but only for the sake of trying to cheer up her sister. Agnes’s pain always hurt her far worse than her own, and she would do anything to take it from her.
“If flour were dangerous in that way, all the cooks in the entirety of London would be blind,” she said. “And besides, even if it did cause blindness, it would have done so immediately. Or at least within a couple of weeks. Not all these years later.”
Agnes paused, seeming to consider Cecily’s words.
“I cannot say that is anymore reassuring,” she said with another sigh. “I think part of me wanted to believe I had figured out what caused your blindness, so that we might have a chance at finding a solution.”
Cecily shook her head firmly.
“You must accept that this is simply how things are,” she said gently. “You cannot continue to drive yourself mad trying to understand or fix things for me.”
Agnes huffed.
“I cannot just accept this for you, Sister,” she said. “I cannot accept that I am expected to have a normal life when you cannot.”
Cecily hugged her sister once more.
“You fail to understand one important thing, Aggie,” she said, stepping back once more. “I am quite happy and at peace with remaining a spinster. And I am sure that, as time passes, I will become more capable of doing things for myself, so that I am less dependent on so many people.”
