Edward Thompson began to shake as he grabbed Freddie by the lapels and almost lifted him off the ground with the strength of his fury. “If I ever see you again, you little piece of filth, I will kill you. Now, get out of here, and stay away from Sarah!” he roared, and the local woman quaked as she watched them.
“Yes, sir.” Freddie performed a drunken bow, offered his arm to his prostitute, and five minutes later, he and his friends and their “ladies” were gone, as was Sarah from the party. She sat in her bedroom sobbing, with her sister, Jane, insisting that it was all for the best, that it had been a nightmare from the first, that maybe it was all her fault because she had lost the baby, maybe that would have changed him. Some of it made sense, and some of it didn’t, and all of it washed up from the bottom of her soul as she clung to her older sister. Her mother came in briefly to see how she was, but she had to return to her guests, and she was satisfied that Jane was handling the situation. The evening had been a terrible fiasco.
It was a long night for all of them. But everyone ate as quickly as they could, a few brave souls danced, and they all very politely appeared to overlook what had happened, and then left early. By ten o’clock, all the guests were gone, and Sarah still lay sobbing in her bedroom.
The next morning in the Thompson home was a serious one, as the entire family gathered in the drawing room and Edward Thompson explained to Sarah what he had said to Freddie the night before, and he looked at her very firmly.
“It’s your decision, Sarah,” he said, looking unhappy, “but I would like you to divorce him.”
“Father, I can’t… it would be terrible for everyone.” She looked around at all of them, fearing the embarrassment and the shame she would bring them.
“It will be much worse for you if you go back to him. Now I understand what you’ve been going through.” As he thought of it, he was almost grateful that she had lost the baby. He looked at his daughter sadly then. “Sarah, do you love him?”
She hesitated for a long time, and then shook her head, looking down at her hands tightly folded in her lap, and speaking in a whisper. “I don’t even know why I married him.” She looked up at them again. “I thought I loved him then, but I didn’t even know him.”
“You made a terrible mistake. You were misled by him, Sarah. That can happen to anyone. Now we have to solve the problem for you. I want you to let me do that.” Edward’s resolve never wavered for a moment, as the others nodded their agreement.
“How?” She felt lost, like a child again, and she kept thinking of all the people who had seen him make a fool of her the night before. It was almost beyond thinking. It was mortifying … bringing prostitutes to her parents’ home…. She had cried all night, and she dreaded what people would say, and the terrible humiliation to her parents.
“I want you to leave everything to me.” And then he thought of something else. “Do you want the apartment in New York?”
She looked at him and shook her head. “I don’t want anything. I just want to come home to you and Mama.” Tears filled her eyes as she said the words, and her mother gently patted her shoulder.
“Well, you are,” he said in an emotional tone, as his wife dried her eyes. Peter and Jane held hands tightly. The whole thing had upset everyone, but they were all relieved now for Sarah.
“What about you and Mama?” She looked at them both mournfully.
“What about us?”
“Won’t you be ashamed if I get divorced? I feel like that terrible Simpson woman—everyone will talk about me, and about you too.” Sarah started to cry and buried her face in her hands. She was still a very young girl, and the shock of the last months still overwhelmed her.
Her mother was quick to take her in her arms and try to soothe her. “What are people going to say, Sarah? That he was a terrible husband, that you were very unlucky? What have you done wrong? Absolutely nothing. You have to accept that. You have done nothing wrong. Frederick is the one who should be ashamed, not you.” Once again, the rest of the family nodded their agreement.
“But people will be horrified. No one in the family has ever been divorced.”
“So what? I’d rather have you safe and happy, than living that nightmare with Freddie Van Deering.” Victoria felt her own guilt and pain at not having realized how bad things were for her. Only Jane had suspected how great her sister’s distress was, and no one else had really listened. They had all thought her unhappiness was due to the miscarriage.
Sarah still looked woebegone when Peter and Jane went back to New York later that afternoon, and the next morning, when her father left to meet with his lawyers. Her mother had decided to stay in Southampton with her, and Sarah was emphatic about not wanting to return to New York for the moment. She wanted to stay there and hide forever, she said, and more than anything, she didn’t want to see Freddie. She had agreed to the divorce her father had suggested to her, but she dreaded all the horror she assumed would come with it. She had read about divorces in the newspapers, and they always sounded complicated and terribly embarrassing and unpleasant. She assumed that Freddie would be furious with her, but she was stunned when he called her late Monday afternoon, after he had spoken to her father’s attorney.
“It’s okay, Sarah. I think this is all for the best. For both of us. We just weren’t ready.” We? She couldn’t believe he had actually said that. He didn’t even blame himself, he was just happy to be free of her, and the responsibilities he had never bothered to face anyway, like their baby.
“You’re not angry?” Sarah was amazed, and hurt.
“Not at all, babe.”
And then a long silence. “Are you glad?”
Another silence. “You love asking those questions, don’t you, Sarah? What difference does it make what I feel? We made a mistake, and your father is helping us out of it. He’s a nice man, and I think we’re doing the right thing. I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble…” Like a bad weekend, or a rotten afternoon. He had no idea what the last year had been like for her. No one did. He was just happy he was getting out of it, that much was obvious as she listened.
“What are you going to do now?” She hadn’t figured out that much for herself yet. It was all too new and too confusing. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go back to New York again. She didn’t want to see anyone, or have to explain anything about the demise of her marriage to Freddie Van Deering.
“I thought I’d go to Palm Springs for a few months. Or maybe Europe for the summer.” He mused, making plans as he talked.
“That sounds like fun.” It was like talking to a stranger, and that made her even sadder. They had never known each other at all, it was all a game, and she had lost. They both had. But only he didn’t seem to mind it.
“Take care of yourself,” he said, as though to an old friend or a schoolmate he wouldn’t be seeing for a while, instead of never.
“Thanks.” She sat staring woodenly at the phone as she held the receiver and listened to him.
“I’d better go now, Sarah.” She nodded in silence. “Sarah?”
“Yes … I’m sorry … thank you for calling.” Thank you for a terrible year, Mr. Van Deering…. Thank you for breaking my heart…. She wanted to ask him if he’d ever loved her, but she didn’t dare, and she thought she knew the answer anyway. It was obvious that he hadn’t. He didn’t love anyone, not even himself, and certainly not Sarah.
Her mother watched her grieve for the next month, and on into August and September. The only thing that had caught her attention in July was when Amelia Earhart disappeared, and a few days after that when the Japanese invaded China. But for the most part, all she could think about was her divorce, and the shame and guilt she felt about it. She grew even worse for a time when Jane’s baby girl was born, but she drove into New York with her mother to see Jane at the hospital, and insisted on driving back to Southampton by herself that night after she’d seen her. The baby was very sweet, and they had named her Marjorie, but Sarah was anxious to be alone again. She spent most of her time now dwelling on the past and trying to figure out what had happened to her. It was much simpler than she thought, actually. She had simply married someone she didn’t really know, and he had turned out to be a terrible husband. End of story. But she insisted somehow on blaming herself, and she became convinced that if she dropped out of sight, and stayed away, people would forget that she existed, and wouldn’t punish her parents for her sins. So for their sakes, and her own, she insisted on literally disappearing.