The Old Wives' Tale

The narrative steps back nearly three decades to the events of Sophia’s disappearance in 1866 and thus follows chronologically after Book 1, Chapter 7. Sophia is in a hotel room in London, awaiting the appearance of Gerald, for whose sake she has slipped away from her aunt Harriet’s house. She expects them to go immediately to be married, but when Gerald arrives, he claims that legal difficulties complicate their marrying immediately in London. He says that he plans to take her to Paris and that they can get married there. This is a ruse, of which Sophia is unaware but, to her credit, she resists:

She did not suspect that he was using the classic device of the seducer. […] Despite her extreme ignorance and innocence, Sophia held a high opinion of her own commonsense and capacity for looking after herself […]. Yet her head was full of blank astonishment at being mistaken for a simpleton! (315).

She pushes back against his plan, to the point that she simply asks him to go, and he leaves. Sophia doesn’t know what to do—but knows that she can’t go back to her family because she stole some money from Aunt Harriet to facilitate her escape and thus considers the bridges burned with her family.