Summary

In Chapter 15 as Sophia and Charles looked out into the garden, they noticed Brenda and Laurence slip out of a garden and walk toward the house. Charles wondered where Josephine was and which one of them had been responsible for the twig that had snapped earlier. Sophia mentioned that the family conclave was all her mother’s idea, to work up drama, and Charles wondered if Magda might have poisoned Aristide just for some excitement. Sophia criticized her family for being too wound up together and told Charles she thought that was what she had meant when she called the house crooked. None of them had grown up straight but were tangled up in each other, like bindweed.

Magda came into the room where Sophia and Charles were talking. She announced she was planning on sending Josephine away to school. Magda seemed to...