Louis was taken aback. “Why in the world do you want anything to do with that Arnett character?”
“I want Sadie back.”
He had not expected this response from Marie. He understood men and their machinations. He could see their motives and their actions coming from miles away. He found them boring for just this reason. And even though Louis found women to be absurd, conniving, opaque, neurotic, and unpredictable, he had never met one he had found boring. Louis was reminded once again that all women are unknowable. They all have at least one secret that they are keeping from everybody else. A secret that changes everything you thought about them.
But he still hadn’t expected Marie to have a secret. He had spent so much time with Marie. Her whole life, in fact. They had never been separated a single night. He had told her so many years before not to bring up or think about Sadie. And she hadn’t. She had never mentioned Sadie after that moment. So he assumed she had forgotten her. He assumed the reason she had never brought Sadie up was because she was no longer thinking about her. But she had been pining for that girl all along.
What did he know about female friendship? He didn’t know women could be so attached to each other. He assumed that they only spent time together when there were no men around. He was shocked.
It was the revelation that he did not understand Marie or any woman that swayed his decision. He was almost glad when Mrs. Arnett did arrive at his office, so he could get it over with. He consented to the engagement.
Marie was so bubbly and delightful. She would be destroyed by marriage. Louis couldn’t bear for a man to look at her with contempt and disgust and to sneak off behind her back to enjoy himself with other women. He didn’t think it was possible for a man and woman to be happily married. They had been trying it throughout human history and it never worked. It was the one thing about the world he was certain of. He was now consigning his daughter to a fate that would almost certainly be unpleasant. But what choice did he have?
A lily in the windowsill nodded off abruptly. The head of the flower dropped to the floor at Philip’s feet, as though a woman had dropped her handkerchief in hopes that someone would pick it up.
CHAPTER 17
The Return of Sadie Arnett
Twenty-one-year-old Sadie Arnett was sitting in the communal room of her boarding school in England, reading a book. Sadie was wearing an abominable striped dress and black boots that had been polished to hide the scuff marks. She had grown up to be beautiful, of course. Her dark eyes were intimidating and her lips strangely red. She had been living in England for nine years. Many of the other girls had left much earlier, having being sent for by their families. She was the eldest girl there, and worked as a tutor to other students rather than going to class.
Sadie was ready to never be called for and to be cast out. She was aware this was a fate common to artists. And destitution was an asset to a writer’s biography.
Sadie was abruptly summoned to the headmistress’s office. The headmistress’s collar was so tight, it looked as though the brooch had been pinned into her throat. She informed Sadie she would be returning to Montreal.
“And why is that?” Sadie asked.
“You should be delighted,” the headmistress answered.
* * *
As the ship set sail from London to Montreal at the beginning of September, Sadie had a sense of how different she was from the last time she had sailed. She wasn’t afraid of the ship. The ship was taking her to a place she knew very well. And she had read and thought so much about the world that nothing could really be considered the unknown anymore.
While she was sitting on the deck, she did not think of the family she would soon be reunited with. Her thoughts often returned, despite herself, to Marie. She would see Marie again. What would she think of her? She always imagined Marie was up to the most marvelous things. She would be embarrassed when they met again. All she had was a sketchbook filled with perverted observations to show for all the days and years she had been away. She could sense her characters in the sketchbook falling all over the place as the ship rocked, rolling around in their bloomers with their breasts hanging out. Her longing to see Marie and her resentment that her friend had seen so much more of the world than her was all mixed up in Sadie’s mind. The convoluted thoughts of Marie caused her to puke on her boots. Or perhaps it was simply seasickness.
* * *
She stepped off the ship. A porter carried a stack of trunks behind her. The porter was surprised by the weight of most of the packages because they were filled with books. Not at all the usual weightless frivolities that were in a woman’s trunk. Her mother and father were waiting there. Sadie’s father wore a bowler hat. He had a very thick mustache he wore turned down. He believed it made him look serious. But Sadie believed it made him look sad and dour. She knew he was an established politician now and his continued success was the quest of the whole family.
She no longer thought of them as her family. Why should she? They clearly didn’t love her. And by not loving her, they had given her permission to close her heart to them, to forget they existed. She had contempt for them as they had contempt for her. Whether the contempt had originated with her or with them, she couldn’t say. It was in a part of her childhood memories she no longer had access to. She had assumed they would never send for her. She stopped in front of her mother and stood stiffly, refusing any display of affection. She shook her parents’ hands.
* * *
Of course Mrs. Arnett should have known this moment was coming. But some part of her had believed she would never have to see Sadie again. She was so used to her being gone that she couldn’t imagine her here. The ocean had kept them safely apart. She was very alarmed by the notion of Sadie returning, even with the coup of marrying into the Antoine family. Naturally she could defend the exile to Sadie, but how could she explain never visiting her or sending her a gift or pocket money or anything at all?
The institution Sadie had been sent to was supposed to be one that ironed out the wrinkles in girls’ personalities. But she was under no illusion this had been the case with Sadie. Sadie’s will wouldn’t have been broken. She knew Sadie had outwitted the school and was still a bitch.
Sadie had been so hateful before she left, when Mrs. Arnett hadn’t done anything to merit it. Wouldn’t it now be explosive? It might give her cancer. There was something powerful and dangerous about Sadie’s hatred. She had known it when her daughter was a girl. And now Sadie was a grown woman.