The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne
Page 6
CHAPTER VI
When Mrs. Apostleman invited several of her friends to a formal dinnergiven especially for Mrs. Burgoyne everyone realized that the newcomerwas accepted, and the event was one of several in which the women ofSanta Paloma tried with more than ordinary eagerness to outshine eachother. Mrs. Apostleman herself never entered into competition with theyounger matrons, nor did they expect it of her. She gave heavy, rich,old-fashioned dinners in her own way, in which her servants wereperfectly trained. It was a standing joke among her friends that theyalways ate too much at Mrs. Apostleman's house, there were always sevenor eight substantial courses, and she liked to have the plates comeback for more lobster salad or roast turkey. In this, as in all things,she was a law unto herself.
But for the other women, Mrs. White set the pace, and difficult to keepthey often found it. But they never questioned it. They admired thericher woman's perfect house-furnishing, and struggled blindly toaccumulate the same number and variety of napkins and fingerbowls,ramekins and glasses and candlesticks and special forks and specialknives. The first of the month with its bills, became a horror to them,and they were continually promising their husbands, in all good faith,that expenses should positively be cut down.
But what use were good resolves; when one might find, the very nextday, that there were no more cherries for the grapefruit, that one hadnot a pair of presentable white gloves for the club, or that themotor-picnic that the children were planning was to cost them fivedollars apiece? To serve grapefruit without cherries, to wear coloredgloves, or no gloves at all to the club, and to substitute someinexpensive pleasure for the ride was a course that never occurred toMrs. Carew, that never occurred to any of her friends. Mrs. Carew mighthave a very vague idea of her daughter's spiritual needs, she might bean entire stranger to the delicately adjusted and exquisitelysusceptible entity that was the real Jeanette, but she would have gonehungry rather than have Jeanette unable to wear white shoes to SundaySchool, rather than tie Jeanette's braids with ribbons that were notstiff and new. She was so entirely absorbed in pursuit of the "correctthing," so anxious to read what was "being read," to own what was"right", that she never stopped to seriously consider her own or herdaughter's place in the universe. She was glad, of course when thechildren "liked their teacher," just as she had been glad years beforewhen they "liked their nurse." The reasons for such likings ordislikings she never investigated; she had taken care of the childrenherself during the nurse's regular days "off", but she always regardedthese occasions as so much lost time. Mrs. Carew kept her children, asshe kept her house, well-groomed, and she gave about as much thought tothe spiritual needs of the one as the other. She had been brought up tobelieve that the best things in life are to be had for money, and thatearthly happiness or unhappiness falls in exact ratio with thepossession or non-possession of money. She met the growing demands ofher family as well as she could, and practised all sorts of harassingprivate economies so that, in the eyes of the world, the family mightseem to be spending a great deal more money than was actually the case.Mrs. Carew's was not an analytical mind, but sometimes she foundherself genuinely puzzled by the financial state of affairs.
"I don't know where the money GOES to!" she said, in a confidentialmoment, to Mrs. Lloyd. They had met in the market, where Mrs. Carew wasconsulting a long list of necessary groceries.
"Oh, don't speak of it!" said Mrs. Lloyd, feelingly. "That's so, yourdinner is tomorrow night, isn't it?" she added with interest. "Are yougoing to have Lizzie?"
"Oh, dear me, yes! For eight, you know. Shan't you have her?" For Mrs.Lloyd's turn to entertain Mrs. Burgoyne followed Mrs. Carew's by only afew days.
"Lizzie and her mother, too," said the other woman. "I don't knowwhat's the matter with maids in these days," she went on, "they simplycan't do things, as my mother's maids used to, for example. Now thefour of them will be working all day over Thursday's dinner, and, dearme! it's a simple enough dinner."
"Well, you have to serve so much with a dinner, nowadays," Mrs. Carewsaid, in a mildly martyred tone. "Crackers and everything else withoysters--I'm going to have cucumber sandwiches with the soup--"
"Delicious!" said Mrs. Lloyd.
"'Cucumbers, olives, salted nuts, currant jelly'", Mrs. Carew wasreading her list, "'ginger chutney, saltines, bar-le-duc, creamcheese', those are for the salad, you know, 'dinner rolls, sandwichbread, fancy cakes, Maraschino cherries, maple sugar,' that's to go hoton the ice, I'm going to serve it in melons, and 'candy'--just pink andgreen wafers, I think. All that before it comes to the actual dinner atall, and it's all so fussy!"
"Don't say one word!" said Mrs. Lloyd, sympathetically. "But it soundsdee-licious!" she added consolingly, and little Mrs. Carew wentcontentedly home to a hot and furious session in her kitchen; hours ofbaking, boiling and frying, chopping and whipping and frosting,creaming and seasoning, freezing and straining.
"I don't mind the work, if only everything goes right!" Mrs. Carewwould say gallantly to herself, and it must be said to her credit thatusually everything did "go right" at her house, although even the maidsin the kitchen, heroically attacking pyramids of sticky plates, werenot so tired as she was, when the dinner was well over.
But there was a certain stimulus in the mere thought of entertainingMrs. Burgoyne, and there was the exhilarating consciousness that one ofthese days she would entertain in turn; so the Santa Paloma housewivesexerted themselves to the utmost of their endurance, and one delightfuldinner party followed another.
But a dispassionate onlooker from another planet might have found itcurious to notice, in contrast to this uniformity, that no two womendressed alike on these occasions, and no woman who could help it worethe same gown twice. Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Carew, to be sure, wore their"little old silks" more than once, but each was secretly consoled bythe thought that a really "smart" new gown awaited Mrs. White's dinner;which was naturally the climax of all the affairs. Only the wearers andtheir dress-makers knew what hours had been spent upon these costumes,what discouraged debates attended their making, what muscular agoniestheir fitting. Only they could have estimated, and they never didestimate--the time lost over pattern books, the nervous strain ofplacing this bit of spangled net or that square inch of lace, thehurried trips downtown for samples and linings, for fringes andembroideries and braids and ribbons. The gown that she wore to her owndinner, Mrs. White had had fitted in the Maison Dernier Mot, inParis;--it was an enchanting frock of embroidered white illusion, overpink illusion, over black illusion, under a short heavy tunic of silverspangles and threads. The yoke was of wonderful old lace, and there wasa girdle of heavy pink cords, and silver clasps, to match the aigrettethat was held by pink and silver cords in Mrs. White's beautifullyarranged hair.
Mrs. Burgoyne's gowns, or rather gown, for she wore exactly the samecostume to every dinner, could hardly have been more startling thanSanta Paloma found it, had it gone to any unbecoming extreme. Yet itwas the simplest of black summer silks, soft and full in the skirt,short-sleeved, and with a touch of lace at the square-cut neck. Shearranged her hair in a becoming loose knot, and somehow managed to looknoticeably lovely and distinguished, in the gay assemblies. To brightenthe black gown she wore a rope of pearls, looped twice about her whitethroat, and hanging far below her waist; pearls, as Mrs. Adams remarkedin discouragement later, that "just made you feel what's the use! Shecould wear a kitchen apron with those pearls if she wanted to, everyonewould know she could afford cloth of gold and ermine!"
With this erratic and inexplicable simplicity of dress she combined thefinish of manner, the poise, the ready sympathies of a truly cultivatedand intelligent woman. She could talk, not only of her own personalexperiences, but of the political, and literary, and scientificmovements of the day. Certain proposed state legislation happened to beinteresting the men of Santa Paloma at this time, and she seemed tounderstand it, and spoke readily of it.
"But, George," said Mrs. Carew, walking home in the summer night, afterthe Adams dinner, "you have often
said you hated women to talk aboutthings they didn't understand."
"But she does understand, dearie. That's just the point."
"Yes; but you differed with her, George!"
"Well, but that's different, Jen. She knew what she was talking about."
"I suppose she has friends in Washington who keep her informed," saidMrs. Carew, a little discontentedly, after a silence. And there wasanother pause before she said, "Where do men get their information,George?"
"Papers, dear. And talking, I suppose. They're interested, you know."
"Yes, but--" little Mrs. Carew burst out resentfully, "I never can makehead or tail of the papers! They say 'Aldrich Resigns,' or 'Heavy Blowto Interests,' or 'Tammany Scores Triumph,' and _I_ don't know whatit's about!"
George Carew's big laugh rang out in the night, and he put his armabout her, and said, "You're great, Jen!"
Shortly after Mrs. White's dinner a certain distinguished old artistfrom New York, and his son, came to stay a night or two at Holly Hall,on their way home from the Orient, and Mrs. Burgoyne took this occasionto invite a score of her new friends to two small dinners, planned forthe two nights of the great Karl von Praag's stay in Santa Paloma.
"I don't see how she's going to handle two dinners for ten people each,with just that colored cook of hers and one waitress," said Mrs.Willard White, late one evening, when Mr. White was finishing a bookand a cigar in their handsome bedroom, and she was at herdressing-table.
"Caterers," submitted Mr. White, turning a page.
"I suppose so," his wife agreed. After a thoughtful silence she added,"Sue Adams says that she supposes that when a woman has as much moneyas that she loses all interest in spending it! Personally, I don't seehow she can entertain a great big man like Von Praag in thatold-fashioned house. She never seems to think of it at all, she neverapologizes for it, and she talks as if nobody ever bought new thingsuntil the old were worn out!"
Her eyes went about her own big bedroom as she spoke. Nothingold-fashioned here! Even eighteen years ago, when the Whites weremarried, their home had been furnished in a manner to make the HollyHall of to-day look out of date. Mrs. White shuddered now at the merememory of what she as a bride had thought so beautiful: the pale greencarpet, the green satin curtains, the white-and-gold chairs and tablesand bed, the easels, the gilded frames! Seven or eight years later shehad changed all this for a heavy brass bedstead, and dark rugs on apolished floor, and bird's-eye maple chests and chairs, and allfeminine Santa Paloma talked of the Whites' new things. Six or sevenyears after that again, two mahogany beds replaced the brass one, andheavy mahogany bureaus with glass knobs had their day, with plain netcurtains and old-fashioned woven rugs. But all these were in theguest-rooms now, and in her own bedroom Mrs. White had a complete setof Circassian walnut, heavily carved, and ornamented with cunninglyinset panels of rattan. On the beds were covers of Oriental cottons,and the window-curtains showed the same elementary designs in pinks andblues.
"She dresses very prettily, I thought," observed Mr. White, apropos ofhis wife's last remark.
"Dresses!" echoed his wife. "She dresses as your mother might!"
"Very pretty, very pretty!" said the man absently, over his book.
There was a silence. Then:
"That just shows how much men notice," Mrs. White confided to herivory-backed brush. "I believe they LIKE women to look like frumps!"