Sarah had made a terrible fuss about going with them, and had flatly refused to go, almost until the end. And finally, it was Jane who had made the difference. She had gotten into an out-and-out shouting match with her younger sister, calling her names, accusing her of being cowardly, and telling her that it was not her divorce that was ruining their parents’ lives, but her refusal to pick up the pieces again, and that they were all damn sick of it, and she’d better pull up her socks, and quickly. The motives behind the attack didn’t really occur to Sarah as she listened to her, but she was overcome with a wave of fury at what Jane said to her, and the very anger she felt seemed to restore her.
“Fine, then!” she shouted back at Jane, tempted to throw a vase at her. “I’ll go on their damn trip if you think it’s so important to them. But none of you can run my life for me. And when I come back, I’m moving to Long Island permanently, and I don’t want to hear any more garbage from anyone about what it’s doing to their lives. This is my life, and I’m going to live it the way I goddamn well want to!” Her black hair flew around her head like ravens’ wings as she tossed her head, and her green eyes flashed angrily at her older sister. “What right do any of you have to decide what’s good for me?” she said, overwhelmed by fresh waves of outrage. “What do you know about my life?”
“I know you’re wasting it!” Jane didn’t budge an inch. “You’ve spent the last year hiding out here like a hundred-year-old recluse, and making Mother and Father miserable with your gloomy face. Nobody wants to watch you do that to yourself. You’re not even twenty-two years old, not two hundred!”
“Thank you for the reminder. And if looking at me is so painful for all of you, I’ll be sure to move out even faster when I get back. I want to find my own place anyway. I told Father that months ago.”
“Yeah, right, a falling-down barn in Vermont, or a collapsing farmhouse in the wilds of Long Island. … Is there any other punishment you can find to heap on your head? What about sackcloth and ashes? Had you thought of that, or is that too subtle for you? You’d rather go for the big time, something miserable, like a house with a hole in the roof and no heating, so Mother can worry about your getting pneumonia every year. I have to agree, it’s a great touch. Sarah, you’re beginning to make me sick,” she raged at her, and Sarah had answered by sweeping out of the room and slamming the door so hard that some of the paint fell off the hinges.
“She’s a spoiled brat!” Jane announced to them afterwards, still fuming. “I don’t know why you put up with her. Why don’t you just force her to go back to New York and live like a normal human being?” Jane was beginning to lose patience with her by spring. She had suffered enough by then, and she felt that Sarah owed it to all of them to at least make an effort to recover. Her estranged husband certainly had. There had been an announcement in the New York Times in May that he was engaged to Emily Astor. “How nice for him,” Jane had said sarcastically when she’d heard, but Sarah had said not a word about it to anyone, although her family knew it must have hurt her deeply. Emily was one of her oldest friends, and a very distant cousin.
“What do you suggest I do to make her live like a normal human being?” her father asked. “Sell the house? Take her back to New York in a straitjacket? Tie her to the hood of the car? She’s a grown woman, Jane, and to a certain extent, we can’t control her.”
“She’s damn lucky you put up with her. I think it’s high time she pulled herself together.”
“You have to be patient,” her mother had said quietly, and Jane had gone back to New York that afternoon, without seeing Sarah again. Sarah had gone off for a long walk on the beach, and then had driven off in the old Ford her father kept there for Charles, the butler.
But in spite of her determination and stubbornness about remaining apart from society, Jane’s words had obviously reached her In June she quietly agreed to join her parents in Europe. She told them at dinner one night, and tried to pass it off casually, but her mother stared at her in amazement. And her father clapped his hands when he heard the news. He had been just about to cancel their reservations, and give in to her refusal to go with them. He had decided that dragging her around Europe as an unwilling prisoner would have been no treat for anyone, not for them, and certainly not for Sarah.
He didn’t dare ask her what had convinced her finally. They all credited Jane with Sarah’s change of heart, although, of course, no one said a word to Sarah. As Sarah stepped out of the car at Pier 90 that afternoon, she looked tall and slim, and very serious in a plain black dress, and a very severe black hat that had once been her mother’s. She looked beautiful but austere, her face pale, her eyes huge, her dark hair pulled tightly back, her perfect features free of makeup. And as people looked at her, they noticed how beautiful she was, and how sad she looked, like a strikingly pretty, much-too-young widow.
“Couldn’t you have worn something a little happier, dear?” her mother said to her as they left the house, but Sarah only shrugged. She had agreed to go to humor them, but no one had said she had to have a good time, or look as though she were going to.
She had found the perfect house on Long Island before she left, an old deserted farm, with a tiny cottage sorely in need of repair, near the ocean, on ten untended acres. She had sold her wedding ring to put a deposit on it, and she was going to speak to her father when they got back about buying it for her. She knew that she would never marry again, she wanted her own place to live, and the farmhouse in Glass Hollow suited her to perfection.
They had ridden to Pier 90 that morning in silence. She was thinking about the trip, wondering why she had agreed to come. But if going with them made them feel that she had at least tried, then maybe her father would be inclined to help her buy the little farm when they returned If that was the case, then it was worth it. She loved the idea of fixing up the old house anyway, and she could hardly wait to do it.
“You’re very quiet, dear,” her mother had said, gently patting her arm in the car. They were so pleased that she was going with them. It had given them all hope, mostly because none of them had an idea how determined she was to resume her solitary life as soon as she got back. Had they known, it would have saddened them deeply.
“I was just thinking about the trip.”
Her father smiled, and chatted quietly to her mother about the telegrams he had sent to friends. They had a busy two months planned, in Cannes, Monaco, Paris, Rome, and, of course, London.
Her mother was still telling her about some of their oldest friends, whom Sarah didn’t know, as they walked up the gangplank, and several people turned to watch them. Sarah was a striking figure as she moved just ahead of them, the black hat concealing one eye mysteriously, the other peeking out behind a veil, and her face so serious and young. She almost looked like a Spanish princess. It made people wonder who she was as they stared at her. One woman said she was certain she was a movie star, and was sure she had seen her somewhere. It would have amused Sarah no end if she could have heard them. She paid no attention at all to the people they passed, the elegant clothes, the careful coiffures, the impressive show of jewels, the pretty women and handsome men. She was only interested in finding her cabin. And when she did, Peter and Jane were waiting for them there, with Marjorie and little James, who kept racing around the deck just outside the stateroom. At two and a half, he had become a little terror. Marjorie had taken her first step a few days before and was teetering uncertainly around the cabin. Sarah was happy to see them there, and especially Jane. Her anger at her had evaporated weeks ago, and the two were good friends again, particularly once Sarah had announced that she was going.