Six Scenes, Sorted by What They Did to Me

1. She climbs out of a window and acquires four accomplices

p. 125 The feeling: delighted.

Cordelia is twenty-five years old, lives with her parents, and is about to commit light trespass. She gets out of the house without difficulty and notes, with some professional pride, that “it was probably far easier to escape from a house than to break into one.” Her mother and sisters did not so much as look at her strangely when she announced she was retiring for the evening.

She has arranged for one escort: her nephew Henry, nearly twelve. Henry arrives with Thomas, Edward and Philip in tow because he got caught and had to buy their silence. Philip offers “We won’t be a bit of trouble.” Edward starts to say “It’s not like we haven’t” and gets elbowed by his older brother. Thomas closes the negotiation with “Friday belongs to all of us.”

Cordelia looks at this scruffy delegation, works out that canceling would guarantee the truth coming out, and concedes. The line that made me put the tablet down:

What I love is that she is not slumming it with the children. They are better at this than she is, and the book says so outright: “the boys were probably more skilled at this sort of thing than she was.” Four small boys running a blackmail operation on their aunt is the funniest thing in the novel and it is over in two pages.

2. The real Sarah Palmer walks in and nobody cares about Daniel

p. 199 The feeling: helpless laughter.

A blond woman comes down the stairs. Daniel thinks Sarah? in italics, which is the sound of a man’s entire scheme developing a crack. She stumbles into Viscount Creswell’s arms. The butler Hodges averts his eyes but cannot hide a smile. Daniel and a footman stare openly.

Then it becomes a farce, because Daniel keeps trying to participate and is repeatedly declined:

He says “No” quickly when asked whether he knows her. She says “Not exactly” far more slowly. He offers “You were the woman at the booksellers.” They ignore him. Creswell, meanwhile, is having an entirely different emotional crisis about whether he and Sarah had an understanding, and when she asks if he is jealous he admits “Yes, I suppose I am,” and huffs.

Two people reuniting sincerely while a third man’s carefully built deception dies quietly in the corner of the frame, unattended. Perfect.

3. Brown, sir. Green, sir. Definitely green.

p. 245 The feeling: sat up straight.

This is the best scene in the book and it is a woman standing next to a door.

The butler Gilliam steps into an office and fails to close it completely. Cordelia steps closer. She hears him answering questions she cannot fully hear: “Brown, sir. I can certainly tell blond from brown and Miss Palmer’s hair is definitely a dark brown.” Then “Green, sir. Definitely green. Quite unique, sir. I’m not sure I’ve seen the ocean before a storm.”

Someone is describing her, in detail, to Daniel. She moves away from the door. Why on earth would he need that?

And here is why she is a good heroine. Her next thought is not humiliation. It is logistics: “The question now was how long had he known? And what was she going to do about it?”

Then Gilliam ushers her in, Daniel comes toward her from behind his desk with his coat off and his shirt open at the neck, and greets her as “Sarah, what an unexpected pleasure.” And she makes the decision that turns the whole novel:

Not a confrontation. Not tears. She keeps the mask on because she now knows more than he does, and she wants to see what he does with it. Three hundred pages of two people being equally clever, and she just took the lead by saying one word she knows is false.

4. Mask to mask

p. 304 The feeling: warm, and a bit sad.

A masked ball, champagne on a balustrade, and the only conversation in the book where neither of them is really working an angle. He wants an answer about the marriage tonight. She refuses to give one in advance, and her reason is good:

He says he has never been fond of uncertainty. She tells him firmly that this will be good for his character. Then she says she could never agree to marry a man she has not danced with, and he plucks the glass out of her hand, sets both down, and offers his arm: “They are playing a Viennese waltz, Lady Cordelia, and I confess the waltz is my favorite dance.”

He uses her real name and neither of them makes anything of it. She notes the waltz “was once considered quite scandalous” and he says he can certainly see why. It is the one scene where the whole apparatus of the plot relaxes, which is exactly why it hurts forty pages later.

5. Am I?

p. 162 The feeling: quietly wrecked.

Not a romance scene. Daniel and his stepmother Daisy, who is close to his own age and refuses to be awkward about it.

She tells him things about his father he has never heard. That Harold has told her all about him. That he knows Daniel refused his help “financially and in every other way ever since you finished your studies.” That he thinks the railroad consolidation scheme is “nothing short of brilliant.” That he has compared him to Vanderbilt. That “your ambition reminds him of his own at your age and he feels you come by it naturally. Indeed, he thinks you’re exactly like he was.”

He built a fortune to win an argument. The argument was over before it started and the other side never told him. Two words, and a man’s entire organizing principle quietly stops loading.

6. Yes, yes. I will, I do. Go on.

p. 346 The feeling: furious, and enjoying it.

The wedding, and everyone is helping in the worst possible way. Amelia thinks she should have worn something more festive. Edwina calls the dress “nice enough, if a bit ordinary.” Aunt Lavinia observes money is not a bad reason to marry one’s first husband. Her mother is pleased Cordelia will be married “regardless of the circumstances.” Will blames the whole disaster on her. Her father, wisely, says nothing.

Amelia asks if she is ready. Cordelia laughs weakly and says “No.” Then takes her sister’s hand and goes anyway, because “the papers have all been signed so it’s best to get on with it.”

At the altar, in whispers, while a vicar waits:

Then the vicar clears his throat and tries “Lady Cordelia?” and she snaps “Yes, yes. I will, I do. Go on.” and he raises a brow and continues.

A woman getting married at maximum speed specifically so she does not have to keep having this conversation. It is very funny and it is not a joke, and both of those are true at once.

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