“You look foolish. And you look disgusted. For the love of Mary, you look as though you are constipated and on the toilet. Don’t look like someone is behind you with a gun pointed at your head, forcing you to smile. You look thoroughly ridiculous. Don’t smile with your teeth, they are not at all your strongest feature.”
She had another teacher bring out a mirror for the girl to look at her smile because she couldn’t find the words to describe how unattractive it was. “Look for yourself,” she said, holding up the mirror.
Tears began to form in the girl’s eyes and her chin began to wobble. It seemed impossible that she could form a pretty smile after this. But she produced a delicate, sympathetic, and kind smile. It was possibly the most tender and pretty smile of the day. The headmistress then held the mirror up to her face so she could see it. There was a drop of women’s bitterness in anything of beauty. The headmistress nodded. The girl had realized that a smile is something forced. It is not for women to enjoy. A woman ought to be pleasing to others, even when she was at her most miserable.
The other girls learned the difference between their normal resting face and a smile. They learned to be conscious of their faces at all time. And to make sure it wore a pleasing smile even when they were distracted.
Sadie was another story. The headmistress said she would stand in front of Sadie all night until she presented a normal smile. Sadie’s smile was perfect. But she made it and dropped it so quickly. It was as if to show she was perfectly capable of making a smile, but she chose not to. Smiling abruptly implied sarcasm, which was about the worst attitude a girl could convey.
Also, she was not smiling with her eyes. It was quite a feat to do this over and over again. To smile with your mouth but not your eyes was almost always an indication of sociopathy. It displayed a cleverness and control that was quite unattractive in a girl.
There was a look of such hatred and malaise and coldness in Sadie’s eyes when she smiled, the headmistress was shocked by it. She contemplated at that moment that Sadie wasn’t learning a thing while she was at boarding school. She was going through the motions of propriety without internalizing any of it. The headmistress saw exactly why her mother had sent her all the way across the ocean to be rid of her. She also suspected the duel had not been an accident, but something Sadie had planned.
The headmistress struck her staff on the desk. She yelled that all the girls would stand there until Sadie learned to smile.
The girls were not actually dismayed by this punishment. There was nowhere they would rather be. They wanted to see if Sadie might manage to hold out. They hadn’t been able to themselves. They wanted to see whether holding out was even an option. Was it possible? And if Sadie could hold out, what would she gain from it?
Finally when dinnertime came and Sadie had still not produced an appropriate smile, the headmistress sent all the girls off to eat. And then she let Sadie go too. At which point Sadie smiled the most lovely and heartfelt smile and turned and hurried off to dinner.
CHAPTER 12
Another Mary, Quite Contrary
Louis decided he would take Marie to visit the factory one afternoon. Louis wanted Marie to understand her position in the world. He had not been born to this, and the enormity of it never ceased to please him. He wanted Marie to know she was living a life no one else had.
The carriage descended the hill and rode for a time on Sherbrooke Street. This was the area where the residents of the Golden Mile came to do their shopping. Women and men stepped out of their carriages in the latest fashions. Women especially, who wore dresses that were works of art. When the doormen helped them step out of the carriages, they were concerned not only for the safety of the lady but also of her dress.
As the carriage entered the poorer neighborhood known as the Squalid Mile, Marie noticed an immediate change. The carriage stopped for a moment as a man passed in front of it. He wore a shabby coat the color of mossy water. He smiled at the carriage and tipped his hat as though he were a handsome fellow. His yellow, pointy teeth reminded her of those that rats had. A woman wearing gray fingerless gloves approached the carriage and banged on the window. The edges of her fingernails were completely black.
There was a child walking barefoot down the street in a wool coat. Marie could not imagine walking down the street and having everyone looking at your toes. You might as well be naked. Marie had only seen wretchedly poor people in plays. But they were so much more alarming in real life. She had seen dragons in plays as well, and it had in no way prepared her for seeing one walking down the sidewalk exhaling flames.
The street was filled with carriage traffic. The driver began to shout at someone in French and there was a responding chorus of cursing carriage drivers. “Merde! Va te faire foutre! Ta gueule!” She had forgotten how many people spoke French in Montreal, since the Golden Mile was almost entirely English. She had learned a very polished French in school, of course, but she had never expected to actually use it. The French they were speaking sounded nothing like what she learned at school. Marie had not realized how sheltered she was from a whole world that was only a short carriage ride away.
Inside the factory, Marie was surprised to see so many children. There was a small girl working frantically at a table sewing the tops of the sugar bags together. The girl had pins sticking out of her mouth. It made her look like a voodoo doll. She was so thin that Marie could see her bones sticking out of her flesh. Little girls were supposed to be bouncy and rosy. So what sort of creature was this? She had a longing to reach out and touch the girl, to make sure she was actually there.
The girl was not the type of person she would have imagined working at a sugar factory. She had pictured the women being very fat and jolly, the way anybody who eats sweets all day would be. She imagined that since they worked around sugar their lives would be characterized by the sweet substance. They would be allowed to take home bags of sugar from the factory every day. They would always have friends over for tea. Because what in the world could be more wonderful than sugar in tea?