The inclusion of this article in The Lesbian Premodern was what spurred me to track down Bennett's more extensive article on this memorial, and thus to create the podcast episode on joint same-sex grave memorials through the ages. Artifacts like this and the context around them always inspire me to imagine the personal stories of the women involved. Maybe my imaginings drift far afield from the lives they actually did live, but as a writer of fiction, I'm content to dream up some of the stories they could have lived. What caused Elizabeth's death at so early an age? A sudden fever? An accident? She and Agnes must have been close for their bond to be commemorated so significantly thirty years later. Was that why Agnes never married? Because her heart had already been given? But this wasn't an age when marriage was driven by romance. What reason did Agnes give her family for choosing not to marry? What pressures were brought to bear? Or did fate simply hand her that option coincidentally? Where did Agnes spend those thirty years after Elizabeth's death? Had they been together at Elizabeth's home of Etchingham and Agnes stayed on as an unofficial member of the family? Or did Agnes live out her live in her own family home, surprising them all at the end with her choice of resting place? Therein lie the seeds of so many stories!
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