Chapter Fourteen #3
“There was a maid at his house called Mabel. I told him I thought it was the ugliest name I’d ever heard and they should make her change it. So he instantly started calling me Mabel. Cruel beast that he was.”
Her tone is half jokey, but there’s a strange flickering in her eyes. I can’t tell if she wants to remember all this or not.
“Did you…” I begin—then chicken out before I can finish the question. I wanted to ask, “Did you really love him?” But Sadie’s lost in her own thoughts, anyway.
“I used to creep out of the house when everyone was asleep, climb down the ivy….” She trails away, her eyes distant.
Suddenly she looks really sad. “When we were discovered, everything changed. He was sent to France, to some uncle, to ‘get it all out of his system.’ As if anyone could ever stop him painting.”
“What was his name?”
“His name was Stephen Nettleton.” Sadie breathes out heavily. “I haven’t said that name aloud for…seventy years. At least.”
Seventy years?
“So what happened? After that?”
“We were never in touch with each other, ever again,” says Sadie matter-of-factly.
“Why not?” I say in horror. “Didn’t you write to him?”
“Oh, I wrote.” She gives a brittle smile that makes me wince.
“I sent letter after letter to France. But I never heard from him. My parents said I was a na?ve little simpleton. They said he’d used me for what he could get.
I wouldn’t believe them at first, hated them for saying it.
But then…” She looks up, her chin set, as though defying me to pity her.
“I was like you. ‘He does love me, he really does!’ ” She puts on a mocking, high-pitched voice.
“ ‘He’ll write! He’ll come back for me. He loves me!
’ Do you know how it felt when I finally came to my senses? ”
There’s a taut silence.
“So…what did you do?” I hardly dare speak.
“Got married, of course.” I can see the flash of defiance. “Stephen’s father conducted the service. He was our vicar. Stephen must have known, but he didn’t even send a card.”
She lapses into silence, and I sit there, my thoughts teeming. She got married to Waistcoat Guy out of revenge. It’s obvious. It’s awful. No wonder it didn’t last.
I’m totally deflated. I wish I hadn’t pressed Sadie so hard now. I didn’t want to stir up all these painful memories. I just thought she’d have some fun, juicy anecdote and I could find out what sex was like in the 1920s.
“Didn’t you ever think about following Stephen to France?” I can’t help asking.
“I had my pride.” She gives me a pointed look, and I feel like retorting, “Well, at least I got my guy back!”
“Did you keep any of the sketches?” I’m desperately casting around for an upside.
“I hid them.” She nods. “There was a big painting too. He smuggled it to me, just before he left for France, and I hid it in the cellar. My parents had no idea. But then, of course, the house was burned and I lost it.”
“Oh God.” I sag in disappointment. “What a shame.”
“Not really. I didn’t care. Why should I care?”
I watch her for a minute pleating her skirt, over and over, obsessively, her eyes busy with memories.
“Maybe he never got your letters,” I say hopefully.
“Oh, I’m sure he did.” There’s an edge to her voice. “I know they went into the post. I had to smuggle them out of the house and into the postbox myself.”
I can’t bear this. Smuggling letters, for God’s sake.
Why didn’t they have mobile phones in the 1920s?
Think how many misunderstandings in the world could have been avoided.
Archduke Ferdinand could have texted his people—I think a weirdo’s following me—and he wouldn’t have got assassinated.
World War I wouldn’t have happened. And Sadie could have called her man; they could have talked it through… .
“Is he still alive now?” I’m gripped by irrational hope. “We could track him down! We could Google him, we could go to France, I bet we’d find him—”
“He died young.” Sadie cuts me off, her voice remote. “Twelve years after he left England. They brought home his remains and had a funeral in the village. I was living abroad by then. I wasn’t invited, anyway. And I wouldn’t have gone.”
I’m so horrified, I can’t reply. Not only did he leave her, he died. This is a rubbish story with a terrible ending, and I wish I’d never asked.
Sadie’s face is drawn as she gazes out of the window.
Her skin seems paler than ever, and there are shadows under her eyes.
In her silver-gray dress she looks like a vulnerable little wisp.
I feel tears spring to my eyes. She loved this artist. It’s obvious.
Underneath all the bravado and the back chat, she really loved him. All her life, probably.
How could he not have loved her back? Bastard. If he were alive now I’d go and find him and beat him up. Even if he was some quavery million-year-old man with twenty grandchildren.
“It’s so sad.” I rub my nose. “It’s just so sad.”
“It’s not sad,” she retorts at once, her old flippant air returning. “It’s the way things are. There are other men, there are other countries, there are other lives to live. But that’s why I know.” She suddenly rounds on me. “I know, and you have to believe me.”
“Know what?” I’m not following her at all. “Believe what?”
“You’ll never work things out with your chap. Your Josh.”
“Why?” I glare back at her defensively. Trust her to bring Josh into it.
“Because you can want and want and want.” She turns away, hugging her knees. I can see the bony line of her spine through her dress. “But if he doesn’t want you back…you might as well wish the sky were red.”