“Then why am I here?”
“Oh. That’s because Mrs. Howland—don’t you just adore her? She needs a family member to give the shower for Anne. I don’t know if you know, but it’s traditionally a cousin, or an aunt, or a sister who gives the shower, but on such short notice Phyllis can’t come up from Washington and of course Juliet is too young, so there was only you. And Mrs. H thought I was a person who would know how these things are done, which, for my sins, I surely do. She is absolutely right about me—Why, there was nothing but engagements and marriages in my whole huge family, all through the war, and every single last one of them done right, done up proud.”
(“‘Proud’ would be the operative word for Jonquil Cartenbury,” Mumma told us. “But never for you,” I wisecracked. Mumma ignored me. Jo said, “Maybe Mrs. Cartenbury was trying to be friends. Maybe she envied you, your independence, the way you bought that building and envied your business ability. Or maybe? She probably felt just as out of place as you did.” “I never felt out of place anywhere in my life,” Mumma maintained, “no matter how hard they tried.”
“Mrs. Cartenbury is a real traditionalist,” Meg reminded us. “Remember how we hated her boys?” I asked. Mumma agreed, “She was always farming them out to some nanny or some camp or some boarding school. Those boys didn’t have a normal mother.”)
With everything now made clear about the shower, Mumma set down her Sèvres cup on a spindly side table and stood up. “I’d better be getting along. Jo’s liable to get hungry.”
“You’re not feeding her on demand, are you?” Worry clouded Jonquil Cartenbury’s violet eyes, so Mumma put her out of her misery. “I am,” she said, and then she added in the hope of shocking the woman into movement, “I’m nursing her, so it’s easy.” (“I should have known that instead of stiffening her backbone, it would just turn her legs to jelly to hear that. I should have known better. She stayed planted in that chair like some statue, or maybe like some azalea. But really she was like a creeper, a Virginia creeper, as if she needed that chair under her or she’d just flop onto the ground. It was all an act, of course. She didn’t fool me.”)
“But what,” Jonquil almost gasped it, “what does Dr. Irving say about that?”
“I didn’t ask him. He couldn’t nurse a baby if he wanted to, so why would I listen to him? You know, women have fed their children that way for centuries, so anybody who did anything famous that you’ve heard of at college—Tolstoy, or Leonardo, Napoleon, Queen Elizabeth? They were all breastfed.” Ignoring the palpitations taking place in front of her very eyes, Mumma asked, “Where are the children?”
“The children, yes. They’ll be in the day nursery, with Nanny. Shall we fetch them?”
Mumma took up her purse and gloves, while Jonquil Cartenbury rang a little silver bell to let the maid know that the tea things could be cleared and that Mrs. Spencer Howland’s coat and hat should be fetched, after which she had regained her strength and could rise to her feet. The two young matrons ascended the broad staircase side by side, their footsteps muffled by thick Oriental carpeting. From down the long second-floor hallway came the sound of Meg, crying. Howling, actually, with that ragged, persistent unhappiness small children can achieve. Despite her high heels, Mumma broke into a run.
Jonquil followed at a more stately pace, but the sound of Meg in misery gave Mumma sure direction and she flung open a door that knocked Meg—who had been clinging to the other side of it, trying to open it, trying to escape—flat on her back. Mumma scooped her child into her arms, sat down on the floor, and—
(“A day nursery?” wondered Amy. “What kind of stuff did the Cartenburys have in a day nursery?” “How would I notice and why would I want to? I had your sister to tend to, after that witch woman from England had been doing who knows what to my children.”)
Once Meg had entered hysteria, Jo had of course joined her, sibling sympathetic vibrations at work. The nanny remained unmoved, seated at a low nursery table where Jonquil’s son was quietly drawing. Jonquil arrived at the doorway and asked, “Nanny? Whatever is all the commotion up here?”
“That child refuses to settle,” the nanny reported, and turned to Meg. “Now you’ve got your way, missy, and I hope you’re satisfied.”
“Who’s a little face?” Mumma crooned, crouched in front of Meg, cupping the wet, red cheeks with her palms. Meg clutched at Mumma and sobbed, but with diminishing urgency. Jo was already at the hiccupping stage.
“And she got her sister going, too,” the nanny reported.
“Neddy’s not giving any trouble, is he?” Jonquil asked from the doorway.
“Mumma’s here now,” Mumma soothed Meg. “Everything’s all right now.”
“He’s a good boy,” the nanny said. “He’d never cry like that. Would you, my little manny.”
“Shall we go home?” Mumma asked Meg, rising and setting her on her own feet.
“Home! Home!”
Little Francis Edward Cartenbury IV colored on, his fat fingers wrapped around the thick crayon.
“And she’s not in training panties,” the nanny reported to Jonquil.
“Nanny! I’ve asked you before not to make comparisons between Neddy and his little guests,” Jonquil reprimanded her, before turning to Mumma to say, “My goodness, those girls are just miserable, aren’t they? I thought you’d like to color with my Neddy,” she said to Meg.
Meg wrapped her face in Mumma’s skirt, sniveling and drooling.
“Only her mother would satisfy this little missy,” the nanny said.
“Oh,” Jonquil said, in that tone of voice that implies all of the many thoughts that are going to go unspoken. “Well. My goodness, Nanny, you know that not every child can be as independent as Neddy. Why”—she smiled at Mumma—“I do believe I could be gone all day and he’d barely notice.”
The nanny denied it. “I hope you don’t think that, Mrs. Cartenbury.”
“Well, of course I don’t really. Neddy is devoted to his nanny, I realize that, but he does love his lessons with Mommy. Don’t you, sugarpie?” She told Mumma, “We do letters and numbers and Neddy can count to five—can’t you, sugarpie? Do you want to count to five for Mrs. Howland, Neddy?”
“No,” the child said.
“Another time,” the nanny said.
“And I’m sure Margaret already knows all of those things, anyway, with two such smart parents. Have you started her on letters, Rida?”
“No,” Mumma said. “And her name is Meg. I don’t use nicknames.”
“My goodness. Aren’t you original.”
“Not particularly.” Mumma gathered Jo up into her arms, hung her purse off her free wrist so that Meg could take her hand, and instructed, “Say thank you, Meg.”
“Thank you,” Meg mumbled, her eyes downcast and her fingers wrapped tight around Mumma’s.
“You should have called me,” Mumma said to the nanny.
The nanny stared at Mumma out of unresponsive eyes, and said nothing.
Mumma outwaited her.
“I don’t believe in spoiling children,” the nanny finally said.
“I don’t believe in nannies,” Mumma answered.
“Let me walk you downstairs,” Jonquil said. “And have you decided what you’ll wear to the shower?” Jonquil asked her. “Because I surely would enjoy a girls’ expedition over to Peck and Peck, if you’re planning on a new outfit. Oh, and there’s the wedding too, isn’t there? I know you’ll want to do Mrs. H proud at the wedding. We could make a day of it, shopping. Wouldn’t that be fun? And we could end up with a tea at the Ritz and I’d feel—oh, a hundred years younger, a girl again.”
(“As if I couldn’t read her mind. As if I didn’t know what those two were up to with me.”)
“I’m already fixed for dresses,” Mumma said. She was already at the front door, which the maid held open for her.
Jonquil called down from the top of the stairs, “Just give me a tinkle when you change your mind. And you’ll plan to
be here an hour early on the Saturday, won’t you? Because you should be, I don’t know if you knew that. Will your girls be all right with Nanny, do you think? Because we don’t want them ruining Anne’s party.”
THE BRIDAL SHOWER
On the day of Aunt Anne’s bridal shower, Mumma arrived an hour in advance, as instructed. Jonquil herself opened the front door, aproned and distracted. “Just take the babies up to Nanny and then I need you to come right back, Rida. I need your help down here.” She turned away to attend to some other crisis and never even noticed that Mumma hadn’t brought her children.
Mumma entered the hall and waited to be told: where to put her hat and coat, purse and gloves; where to be useful; what to do to be useful. The hall was festooned with urns of flowers and empty of people. She didn’t have to wait long; in a few minutes Jonquil hurried into view again. “Girls all settled upstairs?”
“No,” Mumma said. “They’re at home with Spencer.”
“With Spencer?” At last Mumma had Jonquil’s full attention. “Does he know anything about children?”
“If he doesn’t he’ll find out.”
“I guess you know best. Let me show you where we’re putting the coats.” She led Mumma to a guest room at the top of the stairs, its bathroom door invitingly open, “For anyone who needs to wash her hands, or spend a penny,” Jonquil said. “Although, I expect most will use the downstairs washroom, don’t you?” Before Mumma could construct an opinion on this question, Jonquil was leading her out of the room and back down the stairs.
Mumma wore a bright banana-yellow dress, with thin vertical black stripes edged with even thinner stripes of claret red; the skirt was full, the waist fitted, the neckline scooped, the short sleeves puffy; her high-heeled shoes were in two shades of leather, black and red. In contrast, Jonquil wore a pale blue dress with lace at the neck and wrists, the fitted bodice adorned with a double strand of pearls; her dyed-to-match pumps had heels of a tasteful two inches. “I hope you can manage the stairs in those shoes,” she remarked as they descended. “I am amazed you don’t totter more than you do. You are amazing to me, Rida, I swear you are.”
Twenty-nine guests were expected. Originally Jonquil had predicted thirty-four, guessing that of the thirty-eight invitations she sent out no more than four of the women were likely to decline on principle. This, however, appeared to be an occasion when Southern principles differed from Northern. Jonquil had either underestimated the moral intransigence of the ladies of Boston, or she had overestimated their goodwill. To be precise, she mis-estimated by five, one of those an older Spencer cousin, to whom Grandmother never again said more than “Hello, so nice to see you” and “Goodbye, we must get together more often.” So there were twenty-nine guests, at roughly three age levels—the girls, the mothers, and the Greats. Girls constituted those between their early twenties and early thirties, several of whom were in fact matrons, their children delivered up to the nanny in the day nursery. Their husbands, it seemed, either could not be bothered or could not be trusted with children. The girls wore full-skirted dresses, pastel pink and pastel green, one lavender, with matched belts cinched tight around their trim waists and low-heeled pumps dyed to match. The mothers, like Grandmother and the senior Mrs. Cartenbury, wore rose and silvery gray, while the Greats wore black and navy blue. Everybody had pearls to one degree or another, single or double strands, and Mrs. Cartenbury had a triple.
Anne also had been instructed to arrive early, which she did, accompanied by Grandmother, at which point Jonquil’s mother-in-law descended to join the party. Anne, as guest of honor, took her seat on the living room sofa, while Grandmother, as mother of the bride, remained in the entry hall with Mrs. Cartenbury, the mother-in-law of the co-hostess. Mumma was detailed by Jonquil to show the guests where to put their coats and hats and then, while new arrivals were being formally welcomed in the hallway, to add their wrapped gifts to the display mounded on the polished top of the grand piano in the living room. Jonquil, as co-hostess, remained in the hall with Grandmother and Mrs. Cartenbury, to welcome the guests. Mumma’s duties, as Jonquil assigned them to her, left her no time to welcome or to be introduced or to make introductions. Which is to say, Mumma had been demoted to helper; which is to say, she had been entirely upstaged; which, on this occasion, seemed fair enough to her, since she had done none of the work of preparation.
The party gathered in the long double living room, where windows let in the bright spring sunlight and vases of aromatic flowers sweetened the air. The guests grouped themselves, girls with girls, mothers with mothers, and the Greats, of whom there were four, seated side by side on a long sofa, their eight feet resting side by side in four pairs of sturdy laced shoes. At one end of the room, nearest to the dining room and farthest from the piano, a round table had been set for five because, as Jonquil whispered to Mumma, the dining room table could stretch to only twenty-four. The separation was unavoidable.
Pre-luncheon conversation centered on Anne. Her sisters and cousins and friends exclaimed, “Isn’t it exciting?” and asked one another teasingly, “Do you remember when you were so wildly in love with your husband that you didn’t want to wait a single week to marry him?” Anne turned prettily pink and promised them that when her fiancé came to pick her up, they’d all see right away why she wasn’t about to let him run loose any longer than she had to. “And you all know how I’ve always felt about long engagements,” she said, with little rippling laughs. “Especially now, women our age, isn’t that right, Rida? If you’ve been at all close to the war like we have, the old conventions don’t have the same importance. Isn’t that what you think, Rida? We don’t see the point of doing things the old way.” After which Anne added tactfully, “Unless it’s what a person wants. You agree, don’t you, Rida?”
Mumma said, “I don’t know what the old conventions were, so I couldn’t say.”
Into the silence that followed this unexpected response to a traditional pleasantry, Jonquil spoke. “I’ve heard it said that in California—I mean, out West, everywhere out West, we just call it California—things are very different. I often think, myself, that the way the settlers lived, the first settlers of a place, I mean, determines the character of a place. So that when you think of out West, with all those ranchers and gamblers, the Gold Rush, and silver mines too, and oil too, all those overnight fortunes, the way they had to live. They were governed by what they called the law of the gun, I’ve read that in a lot of books. You can’t expect them to have much interest in conventions. Why, they had other things to think about—Indians, I mean, and blizzards, and rustlers. It wouldn’t be reasonable to think they’d care about how things ought to be done. I just think America is the most interesting country,” Jonquil concluded.
Mumma stuck to her point. “I know of some long engagements in California.”
“And those movie people set such a bad example. Everybody thinks they can get divorced and remarried like there’s no tomorrow,” somebody offered.
“For a lot of people there wasn’t,” Mumma reminded everybody.
“I for one am a big fan of the movies,” somebody said. “Clark Gable, just to mention a really handsome man.”
This did divert Mumma. “Gregory Peck,” she seconded.
“The movies are quite the social equalizer,” one of the Greats remarked, after which no one could think of anything to say, except perhaps Mumma (“I’d never thought of that before. Have you girls ever thought of that?”), but before she could open her mouth, Jonquil whispered into her ear, asking her to go out to tell the cook that it was time to serve. Jonquil turned back to the group to say brightly, “Aren’t you lucky to be marrying a European, Anne. Tell us, he isn’t a prince, is he? Don’t they have just scads of princes over there? Especially in Italy. Did you rope us in an Italian prince?”
For the luncheon, Mumma had been seated at the table in the living room with the four Greats. In hurried whispers, Jonquil told Mumma that it was important for those older w
omen to have a hostess at their table; it showed proper respect. However, it couldn’t be her, since she had to be at the table with her mother-in-law, since after all it was Mrs. Cartenbury’s house; and Mrs. Cartenbury had to be on Anne’s right, as the honored guest; while Mrs. Howland had to be on Jonquil’s right, as the honored guest; and besides, Rida hadn’t yet paid her calls on the older ladies of Boston, had she? Or Cambridge, either, two of them actually lived in Cambridge, and they were all dying to get to know her. Jonquil knew that for a fact.
Another fact was that to seat Mumma with the Greats in a separate area was as direct an insult as to have seated her at the children’s table at a Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody knew it, even Mumma. Everybody, especially the four Greats, pretended not to know it. Everybody except Mumma, that is.
The Greats managed the introductions: Mrs. Howland (“Young Spencer’s wife, isn’t that correct? What is the boy up to these days?”), let me introduce Mrs. Allworthy, Mrs. Worthington, Mrs. Penworth, Mrs. Worth (“Or some names like that, people who’d known one another since they were babies, and their parents before them, the Worthies”), four blue-haired ladies with permanents, in black with pearls, or navy blue with pearls, three of them plump as pillows and one as thin as a rail, and at least one a former beauty, with those facial bones that last forever.
It was determined again from which part of the country Mumma derived, one about which no one had anything to say or any curiosity about, and what part of Cambridge she was living in, about which also no one could think of anything to say. The Greats asked one another about various relatives and common acquaintances, always including Mumma. “Have you ever met…? You must have run into…” These conversational gambits took them as far as halfway through the first course, which was vichyssoise, at that time exotic to Boston. Filtering in from behind them, crossing the hall from the dining room, came the sounds of a successful party. Voices spoke rapidly, two or three lively conversations conducted simultaneously, occasional bursts of laughter, every now and then a single voice remarking, “Oh, that is just so romantic,” or “Oh, this is just so flavorful.” Jonquil Cartenbury’s silken drawl moved through the sharper voices and the metallic clinking of silver on porcelain like the wind weaving through the leaves outside the open windows.
By Any Name Page 12