Scruples

by Judith Krantz

  Much of Mr. de Phister’s success depended on the fact that he charged the parents of boys half of what he charged the parents of girls so that every class had a guaranteed surplus of males. His first rule was that every boy must try to find a partner. No boy could sit out a dance until every little girl was dancing. There was, however, no way to prevent the boys from scrambling in a shoving group to ask certain precocious girls to dance, those who had, at nine, already discovered the power of certain looks, certain smiles, the note of a private voice telling a private joke. Nor was there any way to prevent one girl from being the last girl to be asked to dance by an obviously miserable, foot-dragging boy. (Every psychoanalyst in Boston eventually became familiar with the name of Mr. de Phister’s classes.)

  Dancing practice alternated with six periods of instruction given by Mr. de Phister and his wife before the break for refreshment in the middle of the two-hour lesson. Six times Honey was the last girl to be asked to dance. When the nightmare came to a temporary halt, she went to the laden table at the side of the room and stood by herself, gorging frantically on small, rich cakes and cookies and many cups of sweet fruit punch. She stood alone in a corner and gobbled as quickly as possible. When Mrs. de Phister signaled the beginning of the second half of the lesson, Honey stayed in her corner, forcing the last cookies into her mouth and gulping down a tenth cup of the grape punch. Mr. de Phister spotted her quickly. This had happened before.

  “Honey Winthrop,” he said loudly, “please be kind enough to join the other girls. We’re about to start.”

  Honey threw up violently in a horrible purple gush. All the cookies and all the punch disgustingly splashed across the table of refreshments and the white linen cloth, even splattering the polished dance floor. Mrs. de Phister led her quickly into the ladies’ room and left her, after a few minutes of attention, to recover there on a chair. Later, when the class was over, Honey heard some girls approaching her hiding place and ran to conceal herself in a stall.

  “Who in earth is that—yech—fat, awful, funny-looking girl in that icky blue dress—imagine woopsing like that! Do you really know her? Someone told me she’s your cousin,” a strange voice asked. Then Honey heard her first cousin Sarah answer with obvious reluctance.

  “Oh, that’s just Honey Winthrop. She’s only—some sort of a distant cousin, a very distant one, she doesn’t even live in Boston. Promise you won’t tell anyone, but she’s a poor relation.”

  “Why, Sarah May Alcott, my mother told me no lady ever uses that expression!” The strange voice was sincerely scandalized.

  “I know,” Sarah giggled, unrepentant, “but she is. I heard our Fräulein telling Diana’s Mam’selle just last week in the park. Just a poor relation, that’s exactly what she said.”

  The rest of the memory was lost, although Honey knew that she must have been returned to Hannah eventually and that the aunts must have held a family conference because from that time on one or another of them always took her shopping for her dancing-school dresses at a discreet shop on Newbury Street that specialized in clothes for the “early bloomer.”

  From time to time Honey went into Cambridge to visit her great-aunt Wilhelmina. This professorial maiden lady was her favorite relative because she never asked about school or dancing class or little friends but talked about France and books and served a sumptuous array of cakes and sandwiches at teatime in her tiny, neat apartment. Honey suspected that Aunt Wilhelmina was a poor relation too.

  From 1952, when she was ten, until 1954, Honey endured and endured and grew taller and steadily fatter. Two years of Mr. de Phister’s, two years of Ralph Waldo Emerson, where she lost the few friends she had left when the other girls began to give pajama parties and talk about boys and experiment in secret with makeup and bras. Two years of celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas and spending an odd week in Maine or Cape Cod with the aunts and the cousins, the unbearable words “poor relation” never out of her mind. She had been unhappy before but friendly. Now those two words made her awkward, sullen, and uncomfortably hangdog. She could have formed friendships with various cousins if she had felt at ease with them, for they were by no means unkind or unapproachable. After all, she was a Winthrop. But her memory of that afternoon at dancing school convinced her that behind each smiling face was scorn, that behind each remark was hidden condescension, that they would all disavow her if they could. Her remoteness provoked even the best of them to indifference, and their indifference validated her convictions.

  Honey began to hate her bossy aunts and her many cousins who all acted as if they never thought about money. She knew better. She knew it was the only thing that really mattered. She began to hate her father for not making more money, for working at a dull job so that he could save long hours for the research that must be far more important to him than she was. She began to hate Hannah who loved her but couldn’t help her. She began to hate everything but the thought of having money, lots of money. And food.

  Josiah Winthrop talked to Honey severely about her eating habits. He gave her a number of stern, informative lectures on her fat cells and her body chemistry and balanced nutrition. He told her it was merely a matter of proper diet, that no one in her family was born to be fat, and he instructed Hannah to stop baking. Then he went off to the hospital or his lab and both Hannah and Honey ignored him. She was almost twelve and weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds.

  During the summer before Honey’s twelfth birthday, Aunt Cornelia, Josiah Winthrop’s favorite of all his family, came out to Framingham to see him on a Sunday afternoon.

  “Joe, you really must do something about Honey.”

  “Cornie, I assure you that I’ve talked to her about her weight on many occasions, and she has no opportunity to eat fattening foods in this house. She must get them from her friends. Anyway, my parents were both big boned, as you probably remember, and she’ll slim down as soon as she reaches puberty. In two years—perhaps three—she’ll be right down to her proper weight. There has never been a fat Winthrop! Of course she has the Winthrop height—but there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Joe! For a brilliant man you can be unbelievably stupid. I’m not talking about Honey’s weight, although, heaven knows, something has to be done, and, what’s more, she’s small boned, not big boned, as you’d notice if you ever looked with half an eye. I’m talking about the way she’s growing up. She simply isn’t part of anything. You’re so wrapped up in your blasted work that you don’t realize just how unhappy that child is. Don’t you see that she doesn’t have friends to get fattening food from? She doesn’t even know the people she would just naturally know—she’s hardly a part of the family. And, heaven knows, Mr. de Phister’s has been a tragedy. Joe, you know perfectly well what I mean, so don’t try that bland look on me. Or if you don’t know, the more shame on you. Her own kind of people, to be blunt, our sort of people, since you force me to be crude, are going to exclude Honey if you don’t do something.”

  “Aren’t you being a little snobbish, Cornie? Honey is a Winthrop, even if we happen to live on the wrong side of the tracks.” He was on the defensive, a self-willed, arrogant, selfish man who loathed being called to account and could spin out his excuses endlessly.

  “I really don’t care what you choose to call it, Joe. I only know that Honey is growing up as an outsider in a group where we have precious little time for outsiders. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere in the world but Boston, but I know our faults. They don’t matter when you belong, but Honey is beginning not to belong, Joe, and that is both cruel and unnecessary.”

  Josiah Winthrop’s expression changed. He had always belonged, so completely, so unquestioningly, that wherever he lived, however little money he had, whatever he did, he knew he belonged with the kind of conviction that needs no reassurance. He would be a Boston Winthrop if he became a leper, a murderer, even a maniac. It was unthinkable that a child of his might not belong, unthinkable and impossible. His thoroughgoing self-centeredness had
been penetrated by Cornelia’s cannily chosen words.

  “What are you suggesting that I do, Cornie?” he asked, hastily, hoping that it would be something that wouldn’t take any of his time. He was making great progress down in his little lab, but he needed all of his time, every minute.

  “Merely that you let me take over in certain areas, Joe. I have tried before, as you may remember, but you always rebuffed me. Now it’s almost too late. George and I would consider it a pleasure if you would allow us to send Honey away to the Emery Academy. Our Liza is going there this year—I’ve always felt that twelve-year-old girls—impossible creatures—are better off at boarding school than they are at home—and there will be any number of nice Boston girls there. After all, it was your mother’s school and your grandmother’s school—I don’t have to tell you that lifelong friendships are formed in boarding school, do I? If Honey goes into junior high here in Framingham, she’ll never make those friendships. It’s really her last chance, Joe. I detest sounding dramatic, but I think you really owe it to Honey, and to poor, dear Matilda, to accept.” Cornelia never minded pulling out all the stops when it was absolutely necessary, although she knew it was a fearfully un-Boston thing to do.

  It was charity, there was nothing else you could call it, Josiah Winthrop thought, but he certainly couldn’t afford the fees that the Emery Academy asked. He had prided himself all his life on the fact that no one had ever dared to offer him charity; he had chosen not to go into private practice and was prepared to pay the price, but Cornelia had frightened him badly.

  “Well—thank you, Cornelia. I accept with gratitude. I’ve been reluctant—well, that’s not relevant—I’m sure we both know what I’m trying to say. Please tell George how I feel. I’ll tell Honey the news tonight, at dinner. I know she’ll be delighted too. What about the application forms and all that sort of thing?”

  “I’ll take care of them. There’s room for her, of course—I’ve already checked. And, Joe, tell Honey to take the noon train to Boston next Saturday. I’ll meet her at Back Bay Station and we’ll go and order her uniforms. It really couldn’t be simpler, my dear; I have to do it all for Liza anyway.”

  Cornelia was gracious in her victory. She could hardly wait for her weekly lunch with her sisters at the Chilton Club. In one sweeping triumph she had vanquished that troublesome bear Joe Winthrop, displayed considerable generosity, not that they couldn’t afford it—but nevertheless—and quieted her conscience, which had disturbed her recently whenever she saw poor Honey being left out of swimming races and pony-jumping contests on her Chestnut Hill estate.

  That fall, equipped with everything her cousin Liza had, Honey left for Emery where she was to spend the next six years—lonely, hideously lonely, outrageously lonely years, more of an outsider than she had ever been before.

  Of all the various kinds of snobbishness that make youth such hell for so many, an utterly cruel snobbishness never again equaled among adults, there is perhaps no stricter hierarchy than that which reigns at a really exclusive girls’ boarding school. It makes the permutations of privilege in the court of Louis XIV look democratic. In each class there is a ruling clique, then a second-best clique, a third-best, a fourth-best, and even a fifth-best. And then there are the freaks. Honey, of course, was a freak from the day she arrived. There is no law that says a member of a clique can’t be fat, no law that says she can’t be poor (although few poor girls are found in such schools), but there is a law that says each class must have its freaks and that a freak is distinguished on the first day of school and stays a freak until she graduates.

  There were certain compensations. Honey worked hard at her studies, since she had no offers to waste time at gossip or bridge. She discovered several teachers who appreciated her good mind, and she got excellent marks in French, which was taught strictly as a language to be read and written. Even at Emery the teachers soon gave up at attempts at French conversation. Honey made a few tentative friendships with some of the other freaks, but these relationships were always overshadowed by the knowledge that if they hadn’t been freaks they wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to each other. Her closest human contact was with Gertrude, one of the cooks at the school, a fat, young woman who nursed a deep resentment against all the slim girls she was employed to feed. Here was a girl almost as large as Gertude herself. She understood completely that Honey couldn’t subsist on the plain fare of the school. Every night Gertrude, with both malice and sympathy, left a large covered tray of leftovers hidden in the dining-room pantry, supplemented by the baked goods bought in the local village with the money the Winthrop girl gave her, money that Aunt Cornelia had given Honey for her extras.

  By senior year Honey had reached her full height of five feet ten inches and weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds. She would have weighed more, but Emery prided itself in its healthy, low-starch, high-protein diet. She had been accepted at both Wellesley and Smith. Aunt Cornelia planned to send her niece through college in the same first-cabin manner in which she had sent her through boarding school. But Honey had another plan, conceived in grief and rage. On her last visit to her great-aunt Wilhelmina, who was being taken care of by the family in a nursing home, the ancient lady had given her a certified check for ten thousand dollars.

  “It’s my savings,” she said. “Don’t let them know you’ve got it or George will take it away to manage for you and you won’t even see the interest on it. Use it while you’re young, do something foolish. I’ve never done anything foolish in my life and oh, Honey, how I regret it now! Don’t wait until it’s too late—promise me you’ll spend it on yourself.”

  A week later, Honey confronted Aunt Cornelia. Quaveringly, she announced, “I don’t want to go to college. I can’t stand the idea of another four years in a girls’ school. I have ten thousand dollars of my own and I intend to—I intend to go to Paris and live there as long as I can.”

  “How—where on earth did you get ten thousand dollars?”

  “Great-Aunt Wilhelmina gave the money to me. You don’t even know where I’ve deposited it. I’m not letting anyone, not even Uncle George, invest it for me.” The fat girl quivered with unexpected defiance now that she had finally begun to speak. “If I want to, I can run away and be in Paris before you know I’ve gone—and you won’t be able to find me.”

  “Absolutely impossible. Out of the question, my dear child. You’ll adore Wellesley. I loved every minute of my four years—” Cornelia had begun to look at Honey closely for the first time in this incredible conversation. What she saw was not reassuring. The girl obviously meant every word she was saying. In fact, if you wanted to be fanciful, you might almost say it was a question of do or die. And old Wilhelmina had certainly been most unorthodox. Giving cash to a child! Unheard of—she must be senile. Still, perhaps something could be rescued from this contretemps. Honey could hardly be made to attend college. Cornelia had long wondered what the girl would do with herself after college. Graduate school most likely and perhaps a teaching career. After all, she had been at the top of her class in French. It did seem a pity, Matilda’s daughter becoming another spinster schoolteacher.

  “Honey, come here and sit down. Now—I promise to consider your plan, but on two conditions. First, we must find a good French household for you to live in where you will be looked after properly. I can’t have you living in a hotel or one of those sinister student hostels. Second, you may stay only one year—one year is quite sufficient for Paris—and when you come home you must promise to go to Katie Gibbs and take their one-year program. If you do that you’ll be assured an excellent job as an executive secretary, since you’ll obviously have to begin thinking about earning a living.”

  Honey was silent for a few minutes, considering. Once she actually got to Paris it wouldn’t be easy to force her to come home again. And her money would go farther if she lived as a paying guest with some family. She had heard, at Emery, that French families really didn’t bother about what their paying guests
were doing just as long as they paid their pension on time. And she’d get out of Katie Gibbs somehow. Who could possibly face life as a secretary? Or go to that stuffy, strict school?

  “It’s a deal!” She gave her aunt a rare smile. The child really did have an enchanting smile, even with her fat cheeks and triple chin, Cornelia realized vaguely. But one saw it so seldom.

  That night Cornelia wrote to Lady Molly Berkeley, a Lowell by birth, and one of Boston’s chief conduits to “people one knows” in Europe.

  Dear Cousin Molly,

  I have some rather exciting news. Honey Winthrop, Joe’s girl, is planning to spend the next year in Paris perfecting her accent before going on to Katie Gibbs. She is a good child with a kind heart—although not much of a heartbreaker, I’m afraid. I wonder if, among your many French friends, you might happen to know of a really nice family in which Honey could live as a paying guest. She is not comfortably off, unfortunately, so she will have to earn her living eventually, but she does have a small sum that should be more than adequate to see her through the next few years, with proper management. I do hope to hear from you, dear Molly, before we arrive. We’ll be at Claridge’s, as usual, in June and we’re both looking forward to seeing you then.

  Love,

  Nelie

  Lady Molly Emlen Lowell Lloyd Berkeley, who was then a lively seventy-seven, loved nothing more than making such arrangements. She wrote back within three weeks.

  Nelie my dear,

  I was delighted to receive your letter and I do have promising news for you! I’ve poked about and discovered that Lilianne de Vertdulac has room for Honey. You must remember her husband, Comte Henrì—such a nice man. He was killed during the war, alas, and the family’s business was ruined. Lilianne only takes one girl a year and we are most fortunate because she is thoroughly appropriate in all ways, a rather remarkable and very charming woman. She has two daughters, younger than Honey, but they will certainly provide lots of youthful company for her.