When Louis went home after speaking to Mary, he felt trapped. There was always a woman who was trying to get something from him. He began to think about his dead wife, Hortense.
He wished Hortense hadn’t died. He wished he had treated her better. He thought if she were here right now, he would love her and he would have a life partner. And he was so alone in the world. Marie would be leaving. She would never adore him in the same way once she realized what he had allowed with her marriage. And at that moment he felt a wave of self-pity from which he would never recover.
Louis returned to his womanizing ways with a vengeance. No one was sure why.
CHAPTER 21
The Death of a Ladies’ Man
Marie kept crying when she thought of Sadie and the exile she had caused. Perhaps her love was poisonous. Perhaps every time Marie tried to express her love, it would end up harming the object of her affection.
She had gone through so much effort to get Sadie back to Montreal. She would have preferred Sadie were still in Europe than be here but lost to her. When she heard that Sadie had run away to the poor parts of the city, she sent a man to find out whether this were in fact the case. He returned that evening with a report.
“I asked a group of streetwalkers whether they had seen anyone fancy strolling around. They knew someone who fit the description right away. They say she speaks with a British accent. Not because she’s from England, but because she thinks she’s better than everybody else.”
“Yes, that’s her.”
“She had ink all over her fingertips. She always carries a large black book for writing in around with her.”
“Yes, yes, that’s her.”
“I just missed her apparently. If I’d have been there five minutes before, I would have seen her choking on an oyster she slurped too quickly.”
He was not sure where she was living as of yet, but would be able to tell her soon. Marie shook her head no and wept in frustration. She couldn’t bear to hear Sadie’s adventures for a spell. Because no matter what Sadie was doing, it was infinitely more fascinating than what she herself was engaged in. Sadie was wandering around in the realms of the new. She remembered the old poem that had caused so much strife between them. Sadie had gone off to Goblin Market.
Marie found Philip’s resemblance to Sadie to be almost painful now. She hated that all the Arnetts had been privy to everything in Sadie’s notebook but she hadn’t. They thought it was all filth, but she was sure she wouldn’t. She would have thought it was beautiful. She still wanted to ask whether Sadie had written about her. But she felt that even if Sadie had, it would be in a manner her mother and brother might not even recognize. Sadie might have written about a rose in a way Marie would recognize as herself.
Her attachment to Philip only served to alienate her from Sadie. Sadie saw her as one of them. She felt like ending the engagement. But she knew it would cause a scandal. She and her father never cared about scandal, given that they were the most powerful and richest family in the Golden Mile, but the Arnetts were a special case. It infuriated her that they had this power. She cursed the stupid maid Agatha, who was stupid enough to run in front of a bullet and tie her to Sadie’s wretched family for life. She felt trapped and frightened by the Arnetts. If this was the way they had treated Sadie for acting out on her own and doing what she pleased, what would they do to her?
She sat dutifully and miserably with Philip on a park bench in front of a pond the ducks had all abandoned to fly south. The air was cold, and she pulled her fur wrap tightly around her neck. There was a red leaf that floated to the surface of the water like an image appearing in a developing photograph.
“Have you had any news from Sadie?” Marie asked.
“She’s insane. She’ll end up dead in the river. As you know, we all read her diaries, and quite frankly, she’s the type of girl who ends up cavorting with men. She has no virtue. And when she allows herself to be murdered, it will honestly be a godsend for the family.”
“It is strange to hear you talk that way about your sister.”
“Perhaps. I am sorry she is to be your sister-in-law once we are married.”
“I wish only one thing from you,” Marie said.
“What is that?” Philip said, eyeing her suspiciously.
“You stop trying to put Sadie away in the madhouse. I just want you to let her be.”
“If that makes you happy. As long as she doesn’t interfere with the family, we are happy to pretend she is dead. It would be a scandal to have her put away. It is better for everybody if she simply disappears.”
In that way Marie felt at least she had made some effort to protect Sadie. Even though Philip had expressed he was acting in his own interests, she liked to feel she was protecting Sadie by staying with him. She reflected on her own tragic nobility for a moment.
She wished she could marry Sadie instead of Philip. Sadie would be forced to stand next to her and be photographed. And that photograph would hang on the wall. Sadie would be forced to live with her and have breakfast with her every morning. Sadie would have to tell her where she was every moment of the day. She would be legally bound to her. Marie had never quite realized the potential for imprisonment marriage was. It startled her. She didn’t know what to think.
* * *
Then Louis died suddenly of a heart attack. The facts behind his death were not known to the general public. But he had died doing what he loved best.
He was on top of a maid from Dominica named Flore. She had a petite body and a large round head, which always gave the impression she was somehow defying physics by not toppling over. He was amazed at his own prowess. He loved to put the full weight of his body on a girl. He always found it made them come faster. He loved the intensity of it all. He loved pounding away at a girl. He was always thrilled by how much force a woman’s body could take while being fucked. In any other circumstance when you showed them force, they were hurt and wounded.
He liked giving women orgasms. In that way he could never feel guilty about seducing the women. It could never be considered rape if the girls had an orgasm. He turned their orgasms against them. He considered their orgasm to be a form of consent.