““Florence realised she had stumbled across an empty truth, self-evident enough in retrospect, as primal and ancient as danegeld or droit du seigneur and almost too elemental to define: in deciding to be married, she had agreed exactly to this. She had agreed it was right to do this, and have this done to her. When she and Edward and their parents had filed back to the gloomy sacristy after the ceremony to sign the register -the supposed maturity, the confetti and cake- was a polite distraction. And if she didn't like it, she was alone responsible, for all her choices over the past year were always narrowing to this, and it was her fault.””
