Chapter VI: A Second Ball and a Taste of Names
Spoiler Warning: This chapter summary contains plot details from Chapter 51 (Chapter VI) of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. If you have not read this chapter yet, proceed with caution.
Summary
At breakfast, Charlotte sits forbidden from reading while her aunt’s wards, Margaret and Edith, chirp about the previous ball. When Aunt Amelia asks Charlotte her impressions, Edith interrupts to reveal Charlotte danced only once and spent the evening with a woman on the stairs. Charlotte explains she kept company with Sabine Olivares, the young Spanish viscount’s widow. Amelia brightens, calling Sabine the picture of propriety, and gossips that Sabine lost her husband soon after marriage and will never remarry. Charlotte privately notes Sabine seemed neither sad nor lonely—only free.
Three days later, Charlotte attends her second ball in a new gown, relieved that the maid has loosened her corset. She searches the crowd for Sabine’s copper hair, and suddenly Sabine is there beside her. Charlotte blurts, “I was just thinking of you,” and Sabine echoes the words, leaving Charlotte dizzy. When Charlotte tries to address her as Viscountess, Sabine cools, saying that title belongs to another life. Sabine insists on calling her Charlotte, not Lottie, and muses that names have flavours—Mary is plain as milk, Margaret like tea without sugar, Edith burnt toast. Before Sabine can describe Charlotte’s name, Aunt Amelia intrudes. Sabine slips into a polished, distant performance, and Charlotte is pulled away. Later, alone, Charlotte silently tastes her own name.
Key Events
- Charlotte endures a breakfast where her book is deemed indecent and Edith tattles about her time with Sabine.
- Aunt Amelia unexpectedly approves of the friendship, sharing gossip that Sabine will never remarry after the death of the viscount.
- Charlotte realises Sabine’s widowhood makes her free rather than sorrowful.
- At the second ball, Sabine materialises beside Charlotte without a sound, sparking a charged exchange.
- Sabine rejects formal titles, refuses to use the nickname Lottie, and introduces the idea that names have distinct flavours.
- Aunt Amelia interrupts, Sabine adopts a coldly proper façade, and Charlotte is left wondering about the taste of her own name.
Character Development
Charlotte Hastings grows bolder in her curiosity about Sabine. At breakfast she conceals her true thoughts to avoid conflict, but her internal observations reveal a sharp awareness of the gap between propriety and truth. By the second ball, she actively seeks Sabine out and feels an almost magnetic pull, her dizziness hinting at an attraction she doesn’t fully name.
Sabine Olivares deepens her role as an enigmatic figure. She treats widowhood not as tragedy but as liberty, pointedly whispering “I’m not” sorry for her loss. Her rapid shift between the teasing, intimate self Charlotte meets and the smooth, distant persona she shows Amelia underscores her skill at social performance. Her insistence on “Charlotte” over “Lottie” suggests she values the full, unsoftened identity.
Aunt Amelia is revealed as both a guardian of decorum and a willing gossip, comfortable praising Sabine as “the picture of propriety” while also repeating rumours. Her relentless emphasis on attention and presentation frames the stifling world Charlotte must navigate.
Margaret and Edith remain foils, their petty rivalry and envy highlighting the superficiality of the marriage market. Their behaviour makes Sabine’s apparent freedom all the more striking.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
The Flavour of Names: Sabine’s metaphor that a name is like food with a distinct taste (milk, tea without sugar, burnt toast) turns identity into something sensory and intimate. It implies that a person’s essence can be tasted, and by refusing Lottie, Sabine insists on the full, unadulterated flavour of Charlotte’s true self.
Freedom in Widowhood: Society labels Sabine’s solitude a pathetic tragedy, yet Charlotte discerns that Sabine enjoys a rare liberty—freed from a husband, she is owned by no one. That contradiction fuels Charlotte’s fascination.
Propriety versus Authenticity: The chapter repeatedly contrasts surface politeness with private sincerity. Sabine’s dual performance, Aunt Amelia’s shifting mask, and even the loosened corset (a small act of mercy) all underline the tension between the person one must be and the person one is.
Unspoken Attraction: The physical sensations—Charlotte’s heightened heartbeat, dizziness, the sense of falling—combined with the intimate language of “I was just thinking of you” frame this relationship as a burgeoning romantic or at least deeply magnetic connection, even if the word is never spoken.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter solidifies the bond between Charlotte and Sabine and introduces the central motif of naming and taste that will likely run through the book. It dramatises the oppressive rules of London society and hints that Sabine offers not just companionship but a gateway to a different, freer kind of existence. The interruption by Aunt Amelia preserves tension and leaves Charlotte—and the reader—hungry for the next private encounter. The closing image of Charlotte tasting her own name symbolises the beginning of a journey toward self-discovery.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What does Sabine’s reaction to being addressed as “Viscountess” reveal about her attitude toward her past?
Sabine’s cool dismissal (“It was another life… I have had more than one”) shows she does not define herself by her deceased husband or her title. She treats the past as something to be shrugged off, valuing present freedom over past status. This aligns with her earlier whispered admission that she feels no grief.
2. How does the metaphor of names having flavours contribute to the chapter’s themes?
By comparing Mary to milk, Margaret to tea without sugar, and Edith to burnt toast, Sabine reduces social identities to simple sensory judgments. The metaphor suggests that beneath polite labels, there is an essential, unfiltered self. Her refusal to call Charlotte “Lottie” implies that the nickname would water down her flavour, while “Charlotte” is something worth tasting fully.
3. Why is Charlotte’s reflection on Sabine’s freedom so significant by the end of the chapter?
Charlotte recognises that widowhood, which society sees as a sorrowful condition, actually grants Sabine a liberty denied to marriageable young women. This realisation plants a seed of discontent and curiosity in Charlotte, who then spends the night turning her own name over on her tongue—trying to sense who she truly is beneath the roles imposed on her.