Boston Adventure

by Jean Stafford

  Mrs. Choate, stranded with the three young survivors of the tea-party, glanced from one to another of us and chose me to receive her first remark. “I know you must be a capable young woman. Just fancy learning stenography! Why, it’s ever so much cleverer than my little avocation!”

  She studied me brightly. Hopestill and Philip, refusing to come to my aid, began a private conversation and I was obliged to inquire what Mrs. Choate’s avocation was.

  “I have taken up cookery. You know I’m a southerner and though I’ve been here for many years, I’ve never got used to Irish servants. I simply can’t manage them! My cooks won’t cook as I tell them to. And last year, I had gone without hoe-cake as long as I could bear it, so I simply went to the kitchen one Thursday and made myself hoe-cake. Ever since then, I’ve spent every Thursday experimenting. I’m always saying to Hopestill that she ought to take it up.”

  The woman gave Hope a humorous wink which missed fire and received no response. She went on, “Of course no one north of the Mason-Dixon Line knows how to cook.”

  Hopestill’s voice was suddenly raised and I had the feeling that what she said had no part in her conversation with Philip but was merely thrown out as a bait. “It’s a nuisance finding a restaurant when one’s dining with a Negro.”

  The doctor, taking up her game, maliciously replied, “An awful nuisance. It’s simpler just to dine at home.”

  Mrs. Choate paled. But though her face, a large and youthful one, wore a hurt, quizzical look, she said determinedly to me, “Perhaps you’ll come to me some Thursday for a meal of greens and spareribs. My soups and desserts are not strictly southern, for I invent things, but the main course is always authentic.”

  “I had a splendid time at his apartment in Harlem . . .” Hope was saying.

  Rebuffed, Mrs. Choate rose. “I’m going to interrupt that conference of the experts over there. I want to tell Miss Pride my latest discovery. I have invented a divine egg, poached in thinned tomato paste.”

  Hope grimaced, composed her features, and said to the outsider, “Oh, Mrs. Choate, I hear you’ve turned cook. I’m fascinated. Do you really make corn-pone and all those amazing things?”

  But the woman was on her guard. “It is nice to see you looking so well, Hope,” she said. “Philip, how is your dear mother?”

  “Mother is very well,” he replied. “She has almost lost her British accent.”

  Mrs. Choate smiled sickly and took her leave.

  “She isn’t southern at all,” explained Hopestill to me in a whisper. “She’s just a terrible fake. You’d think she’d been born with a mint julep in her hand and a fine old southern grudge against the damned Yankees that did in her granddaddy’s plantation. My Aunt Lucy, who can’t stomach her and couldn’t from the very first, found out that she lived in New Orleans for ten years before coming here but before that lived in California! But did we sound too beastly?”

  They had, indeed, sounded beastly to me and I had suffered as much discomfiture as Mrs. Choate. I could not answer but instead inquired, “Is she the Countess’ friend, then?”

  “She’s nobody’s friend. She either just shows up at tea time and manages to walk in with someone else, or she makes everyone come to perfectly horrible parties—she uses marshmallows in her salads and starts off with hot wine and I’m sure none of that rot is southern—so that she has to be asked back.”

  Miss Pride had observed the approach of the bore and quickly guided the Countess along to meet her, then seized Mrs. Choate and marched her back to us. “Of course I think,” said Hopestill, “that the Negroes are the coming race.”

  The Countess leaned over and embraced Hopestill. “To use that word you’re so fond of, Cousin Hope, you’re too ‘advanced’ for me. So I’m going to leave before I hear why you think the Negroes are the coming race. You have frightened me enough already with your threat that Dali and Chirico will come into their own and reign forever. I couldn’t bear to have the blackamoors reigning too! I love you! Good-by! Come along, Mrs. Choate, I’ll drop you.”

  Miss Pride, to my astonishment, murmured to me, “From the top of a high building, I hope.”

  Our hostess went out with the ladies and from the vestibule, we heard her say, “Mrs. Choate, there is an article on New Orleans in a recent issue of The Atlantic that ought to interest you.”

  “Really? I never read The Atlantic. I just skim it the way I do the Bible.” The Countess chuckled, but Miss Pride said coldly, “Some other day I must ask you to explain that provocative remark.” There were brief adieux and afterwards Miss Pride went upstairs to dress.

  The emptied room seemed smaller, for it was now quite dark at the windows and the pale lamps revealed only their immediate environs. We moved toward the fire. I knew that I should leave Hopestill and the doctor, but the cocktails had made me careless and drowsy. I did not want to lose my warmth by going up to my room where the fire had probably died.

  “Sonia—that’s all right, isn’t it?—made a conquest of the Countess, Perly.”

  “That’s only Berthe’s way.”

  “You mean she loves all young girls?” said Hopestill with a laugh. “Tell me: How did you find us?”

  “Oh, Hope!” protested the doctor.

  “Don’t be absurd, Philip! She didn’t miss anything. Haven’t I the right to know the total impression she’s got?”

  “I had a pleasant afternoon,” I said. I could have added that this termination of it was as disagreeable as anything I had ever encountered.

  Hopestill extended me her small hand which, in my clasp, was as lifeless as the hand of a sawdust doll. “It’s been so nice to meet you, Sonia. The best of luck.”

  I had not expected to be dismissed so soon and, clumsy in my surprise, I knocked over an ash-tray on a small table by the hearth. I bent to pick up the cigarette stubs but Hopestill said, “Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t bother about that.”

  Reddening furiously, I started to the door. The doctor walked across the room with me. “I wanted to ask you,” he said, “if you still go every Sunday?”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “That’s right. You’re awfully good. By the way, don’t think we’re giving you the cold shoulder. The fact is I . . . we haven’t seen one another for quite sometime. We’re very old friends, you know.”

  “Yes,” I said, but my voice was unconvincing and he must have known that I was offended.

  “Believe me,” he said anxiously, “you are a good girl.”

  The door closed behind me. My goodness remained in the library with its advocate while I put my eye to the keyhole. The doctor was kissing Hopestill’s neck. She paid no attention to him but poked the fire and at last, lifting up her head to address the Copley, “Great God, it’s just like dancing school except that then you didn’t have that ramrod down your back! Perly, Sonia is just the girl for you and the battle is half won because she’s obviously mad about you.” She flung back her head so that her hair reached to the middle of her back and laughed heartily.

  “Hush!” said Dr. McAllister. “She may be in the hall.”

  I stood up quickly and went to the stairs, but I heard Hope­still pause in her laughter to say, “I meant absolutely no harm. I’m just a little giddy, and she was so incredibly solemn!” And then, as solemn as I had been, she added, “Imagine Aunt Lucy not telling her she had a cat! I swear I think the woman’s mad.”

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  IN ORDER to make my appearance at the Countess von Happel’s Kaffeeklatsch, an attention to her I felt imperative since it was my first invitation in Boston, I had been obliged to negotiate with Mrs. Hinkel so that I could be excused from the last class, Business English. (The Countess kept European hours, serving her afternoon refreshments at four instead of five, a custom Miss Pride regarded as so novel that she almost never went there to tea.) Mrs. Hinkel was furi
ous at the presumption of her “laziest would-be professional woman” and said, “I suppose you think you know all about correct usage! I have not been headmistress of this college for fifteen years without observing, Miss Marburg, that the graduates of public schools, with the exception of those from the Latin schools, know next to nothing in regard to grammar. You may think now that dangling participles and ‘due to’ and prepositional phrases are the least of your worries, but the time will come when you will ask me for a recommendation and I will have to say, ‘The candidate under consideration left much to be desired in her work in Business English.’ However, as the useless expenditure of my time and your money doesn’t bother you, run, amuse yourself, go to the movies, go to the beauty parlor! Respecting your language, don’t worry! Don’t let business interfere with pleasure!” She dispatched me to my debauchery with a military salute and returned, secretly delighted with the rhetoric of her diatribe, to the book she had been reading called Hints to Commercial School Teachers and Administrators.

  I would have liked to explain to her that the prospect of a musical afternoon afforded me no pleasure, that I could far better endure the boredom of the class in Business English (in which, as she perfectly well knew, I was the only literate pupil) than the snares I was bound to fall into at the Countess’. But I knew that I would only enrage her further, and I held my tongue. My hand was on the door knob when she burst forth again. “I may as well tell you, Miss, that I am so displeased with your work here, and feel so strongly that this expenditure of my time and your money is useless that unless I am informed of marked improvement in your attitude, I shall have to ask you to leave. My time is simply too valuable to be wasted.” The threat was purest nonsense, for she would not have dreamed of parting with my money which came in regularly each week, but she was a great believer in intimidation as an academic principle, and having very soon discovered that I received her recriminations with just the degree of terror she needed to nourish her sense of power, she never let a day pass without summoning me to her office or cornering me in the corridor to remind me, exultantly, that my ignorance and lassitude were eating up her time.

  I was on the point of tears, not so much from her scolding as from what was in store for me as I left the building and closed the outer door behind me, massive, black, embossed with a wreath. I was not only convinced that what Mrs. Hinkel had said was true, but also that the whole of my Boston enterprise was a fiasco. But just at the moment when I was wishing myself back in Chichester, I saw, mincing uncertainly down Dartmouth Street, a figure so familiar, so instantaneously reminiscent of the stuffed birds, the rocking chairs, and the chilled farina pudding at Friday luncheon, that its appearance was like an ominous symbol, and for a second or two I thought it had no substance or else belonged to a stranger and not, as I had at first thought, to Mrs. Prather. There was no turning back, for she walked quickly and was upon me before I could contrive an escape.

  “Of all things,” said Mrs. Prather, taking both my hands. “What on earth are you doing so far away from home? Do you and Mother live in Boston now? Around here?” I replied that I lived here, but by myself. Her weak eyes begot two tears and she squeezed my hands. “I’m the limit! Imagine not recalling that sad, sad story. Now, child, don’t tell me a thing, I can read it in your face: you want work.”

  She opened her handbag which contained, I saw, an apple, a Hershey bar, and a great many loose lozenges, and withdrew a calling card on which she begged me to write my address so that when she heard of something she might get in touch with me.

  “But I don’t need work,” I protested, making no move to take the proffered pencil.

  She was surprised and, for the first time taking in my new, expensive clothes, she said forgivingly, “Dearie, it doesn’t need to be all over for you. You write down the address and I won’t hold it against you. We’ll get you out of there just as quick as we can and no one will be the wiser. I would take you straight to Arlington this minute rather than have you spend another night in one of those places, but for the time being, I’m crowded for space.”

  Without mentioning Miss Pride, I made it clear to her that I was not living in a brothel. She was greatly relieved and said that in that case I might come to call on her some day and tell her “all about it.” “Whenever you get tired of your present place, I know just the house for you. A dear friend of mine has never had a good second maid and I know she would take you in a minute if I recommended you to her. You would have a room to yourself, I happen to know, and two afternoons off not counting Sunday.”

  I was anxious to be off for I had just heard the bells at Trinity chiming a quarter past four, but Mrs. Prather held me another five minutes, describing the excellent treatment I would receive at the hands of her friend who, at last it appeared, was an invalid and in spite of suffering horribly from one of the digestive disturbances for which the Hotel guests had such an affection, had the “sweetest nature in the world.” In parting, she tried to give me her Hershey bar which I refused, but not liking to seem rude, I asked if I might have one of the horehound lozenges. She then released me. “Good-by, good-by. I’m glad it’s not what I thought. Now remember me and when you need me, come to Arlington. I’m in the phone book. I expect it’s time for Cinderella to run home to her pots and pans. You know, the French people have an expression when they take leave of one another. Instead of saying ‘good-by,’ they say au revoir which means ‘till we meet again.’ So that’s what I will say to my little Chichester friend, au revoir.”

  I did not stop running until I was two blocks from the Countess’ house, and it was only then that I tasted the full flavor of the bitter, not unpleasant horehound. It was a taste that belonged exclusively to Chichester and the summertime, and it made me a little nostalgic. Although I realized that I had had a narrow escape and that I must henceforth be troubled by the knowledge that I might meet Mrs. Prather again round any corner and the next time might not be alone, this return of the past through the candy, despite my homesickness, restored my eagerness to continue the present time, and I was grateful for the old lady’s errand that had carried her down Dartmouth Street in time to save me from a craven retreat.

  The meeting had rendered me a service by taking my thoughts off the entrance I was about to make into a strange house, so that when I opened the street door, I rang the bell at once without having to wait for courage to lift my finger to the button. I was admitted by a manservant into a vast lobby lighted by three iron candelabra and a number of sconces placed at intervals like arc lights. I had heard of the Countess’ prejudice against electricity, the effect of which, she claimed, was to destroy shadows, and shadows, like echoes and like the aftertaste of Moselle wine, were sources of inspiration to her. She had succeeded in creating with her candles a theatrical effect, and through some optical illusion made by the long shadows against the walls, which a highlight here and there revealed as lustrous and would have shone under electricity, the hall seemed much larger than it actually was and the ceilings loftier. I was guided over a Persian carpet and past “occasional” groups of high-backed chairs and console tables upon which stood vases of yellow rosebuds whose outer petals were ruffling into full maturity. Then, as though entering a bay from an estuary, we turned to the right into a wide, square room, dominated on the left by a staircase, illuminated like the entry with sconces, and on the opposite side by a portrait of the Countess in a double frame. She sat at a spinet in a pale blue Empire dress with her golden hair piled high, her head held well back to set off her nose. It was impossible to tell whether she were about to play or had just finished, for her musicianly hands rested in her lap, and the expression on her face gave no clue since all the other features were tyrannized over by the nose, sufficient unto itself. Just as the candlelight, perhaps intentionally, hinted that the owner conserved imported customs, older than the old Boston house, older than her own experience, dating from times before the fall of princes and the commercialization of p
alaces, and by its metamorphosis of the hall, otherwise so like all other halls on Beacon Hill, sharply designated the mistress as a member of a different species, so the portrait, pompous with the self-importance of the ruling class, gave those who viewed it to understand that an even further distinction was to be made between the Countess and her neighbors: that in that species she was a unique specimen, for she was not only aristocratic, but she was beautiful and talented as well, and, implied the station of the picture, according to standards that were not local, the most beautiful and most talented woman in Boston.

  As we reached the foot of the stairs, the manservant spoke for the first time. “The name, please?” When I had told him, he repeated my name, putting an interrogation mark after the “Miss?” not in contradistinction to “Mrs.” but to “Princess” or “Baroness,” as if he were not in the habit of announcing the untitled bourgeoisie. I took a dislike to him partly because of his tone and partly because of his impassive, coarse, cunning face in which I seemed to read condescension as if he had divined that until recently (or perhaps even now) I had been “in the service” like himself. I said sharply, “I am expected.”

  “Certainly,” he said, a flicker of a smile adding, “Don’t be so naïve as to think I will take your word for it,” and he indicated a divan, wide as a bed and upholstered in yellow satin, where I might wait, and left me, sending his dignified shadow ahead of him between the misshapen parodies of the balustrades on the uncarpeted marble stairs.

  The yellow sofa was so placed that from it one could look nowhere but at the portrait of the Countess; and so, in my enforced contemplation of it, I was amused to see that upon the spinet there stood a vase of yellow rosebuds, the duplicates of which were set in such fresh profusion upon the tables in the entry. But a second discovery was even more amusing: I had been struck by the radiance of the canvas because the nearest sconce to it was several feet away, and now I perceived that craftily concealed under the inner frame at the top was a long, fluorescent tube sending a smooth shower of light over the whole surface! This in a Puritan house! In the hall of a great lady so sensitive she could not abide electricity! It occurred to me that other people had not seen what I had but had simply taken for granted, or had not noticed at all, the extraordinary visibility of this one object in the shadowy lobby, for Miss Pride or Hopestill, when they had told me of the candelabra, would surely have told me of this inconsistency if they had ever observed it. For, although they were both fond of her as were their friends, they found Berthe von Happel irritating and would most likely have been delighted to learn that at least in one particular she was a fraud. “I don’t mean to criticize Berthe’s taste,” Miss Pride had said, “because on one level it is superb taste, but I must say that there is something malentendu in the way she has turned poor Ralph Brooks’ house into a museum. And not to put too fine a point on it, frankly, when I go there and the last thing I have seen is the Common, if I’m coming from Pierce’s, or General Hooker, if I’m coming from Goodspeed’s, I feel very much as if I were going into Loew’s Orpheum.”