by Richard Peck
Lowell Seaforth was there. So was Alexander’s big sister, Lucille. She swayed and waddled from room to room, since the Little Stranger she was expecting was drawing nigh and no longer little.
Mrs. Armsworth swept down and led me in a grip of steel about the rooms. She proclaimed to all that I was “the wonderful little neighbor girl who all the Armsworths had been so fond of these many years.” Alexander’s paw stood by a bank of hothouse flowers gazing sadly down into a glass of ice-cream punch. Alexander kept his distance from me through most of the evening. “I will see enough of you on board ship,” he muttered in passing.
The Shambaughs came, bringing Letty. She simpered up to me. Her eyes summed up the lace tippets on my Princess dress and the wide taffeta sash that was cutting me in half.
“Well, Blossom, just look at you!” she said in her mother’s own grown-up voice. “I have always said a good dress will cover up any flaw.”
“Then you had better get one like it,” I replied.
Soon after, Miss Dabney made her entrance. People stood back and stared up at her. This formed a solid wall of humanity which she took to be a receiving line. She started down it, offering her hand. A flush of excitement put roses in her cheeks. Over her powder-blue velvet she wore a cape lined in enough fox skins to stagger a trapper.
The Hacketts and the Markhams and the Beasleys and several other worthies followed in Miss Dabney’s wake. The rooms filled up with guests working hard to avoid the hostess. Alexander lurked around the walls in a blue serge knicker suit with brass navy buttons. He looked like a high-class stowaway.
At last the Armsworths’ hired girl bore in a large cake. It was baked in the shape of the steamship Olympic and rode on waves of blue icing. Everybody said they’d seen nothing like it.
Mrs. Armsworth directed Alexander to serve me. Off a dainty plate I ate a small lifeboat and part of the smokestack. The refreshments reminded me of former times when my mama hired out to work in the kitchen for the Armsworth parties. She’d piled many a finger sandwich onto trays, though she’d never been allowed nearer society than the pantry. I was not puffed up with pride for waltzing in where Mama had never trod. That was just as well considering what happened next.
The kitchen door banged open again directly, and the hired girl burst through it. Her hair stood on end, and her eyes bugged out. I hoped she hadn’t seen a ghost, for I had enough on my mind. She made a beeline for Mrs. Armsworth, who already sensed trouble from afar. There was much frantic whispering between these two, all too late.
There in the door from the pantry stood my mama.
I barely knew her. She was dressed in her notion of what ladies wear to evening parties. The outfit was new and unfamiliar to me. It was stuck all over with green sequins and cut very low at the bosom. I hadn’t seen so much of Mama since I was weaned. Forks stopped in midair. There was instant silence throughout the house—possibly the entire town.
Mama’s well-oiled hair was braided high atop her head, entwined with orange silk poppies that fought with her dress. Her crusted elbows above long wrinkled gloves stood out from her sides. Gold-colored chains hung to her waist. Below, chiffon in four colors looped to hobble her skirts.
The circles of rouge on her cheekbones were enlarged, reaching around to her ears. Her eyelashes seemed clogged with soot. Where her mouth had been was a gash of red paint, folded into her sunken gums.
Mrs. Armsworth ceased breathing.
Mama crashing a party was not my chief worry. I searched her over to see if she brought her tarot cards or any of her fortune-telling paraphernalia. I feared she meant to turn a profit at this prosperous gathering. But she showed nothing on her person except a nearly clean lace hanky stuck in a yellow belt. Where Mama assembled this getup from, I will go to my grave wondering.
I wondered too if she meant to hold me hostage at the last moment. But when I searched her small black eyes, I saw no dollar signs in them. I saw something else that had never been there before.
It was Miss Dabney who revived first. She flowed toward Mama through a sea of human statues holding cake plates. In a powerful voice she inquired politely, “It is Madame Culp, is it not?”
“Is it?” said Alexander’s paw in wonderment.
“Oh, what have I ever done to deserve this?” his wife replied.
Miss Dabney stretched out her long hand and shook Mama’s. I doubt if anybody ever shook hands with Mama before. By then the whole party had flocked into the dining room, watchful and waiting. Miss Dabney turned to face them, and her velvet skirts made a graceful arc. She linked an arm around Mama’s, and the two stood there facing the party, as unlikely a pairing as Bluff City ever witnessed.
Miss Dabney tall as a crane. Mama beside her like a shrunken, highly colored parrot. Miss Dabney delicate as a historic painting of an ancient duchess. And Mama . . . quite opposite.
Mrs. Shambaugh announced from behind a potted palm, “This intrusion has torn the entire fabric of polite society!”
But Miss Dabney was deaf to this and led Mama forward into the enemy ranks. It was slow going. Mama shuffled unwillingly, and her claw dug into Miss Dabney’s white glove at the wrist. And I knew Mama was afraid for the first time in her life.
Her who’d gazed on severed heads down in Sikeston. Her who’d more than once picked up my paw insensible with drink and flung him off the porch. Her who’d showed courage in various situations I won’t go into.
Miss Dabney pulled her pleasantly around the dining-room table. Mama’s many colors seemed to run together as she grew smaller and smaller. Skirts whispered in the crowd as many drew back from her. Those who’d scorned her from afar grew uncertain up close. I’d feared her myself on occasion, not without cause. But this was not the woman I’d feared.
I’d entered the Armsworth mansion for the first time myself. But I’d been invited. Mama in a getup that would knock a canary off its perch was the only one in these fine rooms who’d braved them unbidden. But she didn’t shame me, and I meant to show them all that. Lady Beatrix might forsake her own flesh and blood. But I was Blossom, not Beatrix.
I stepped from the crowd, creaking in my dress. Mama appeared not to know me. Using her elbow for a handle, I tugged her up to Mrs. Armsworth, who was being held erect mainly by her corsetry.
“Mama,” I shouted, “let me make you acquainted with Alexander’s maw, who has been our good neighbor these many years!” Both ladies flinched.
Mrs. Armsworth had turned into a pillar of salt or some such inanimate object. It was Alexander’s paw who stepped around his wife and stuck out the hand of friendship. “Mrs. Culp,” he said, very civil, “it is right nice you could make it to this little gathering.”
Mama’s black eyes took him in, showing terror when he made a small bow. And then Mama spoke, in her muffled way. “My gal here—Blossom . . . I figured I might see her off . . . this bein’ a special time and all . . . she’s a willful little . . . thing . . . but she ain’t give me too much grief.”
I understood all this lengthy speech, and various other guests caught parts of it. Alexander’s paw seemed to understand completely. “We are all right proud of Blossom,” he boomed. “She’s put our town on the map. Why, your little gal—daughter has been good for Bluff City business!”
“She ain’t been bad for mine either,” Mama replied, less muffled than before.
“Let me make you acquainted with the family,” Mr. Armsworth said. “You know my wife.” He gestured toward Alexander’s maw propped against a door frame. “My son-in-law, Lowell.” He snapped his fingers, and Seaforth stepped up. “My daughter, Lucille.” She waddled forth and pumped Mama’s hand, glittering at her own maw to show her daring.
The party seemed to draw breath again as Alexander’s paw led Mama away through a crowd warming to the novelty of her. The orange poppies in Mama’s black hair quivered as the mob swallowed her up. I grew very pensive at this taste of society Mama was getting. She must have wanted it bad. It only goes to show how a par
ent can surprise you. I reckoned that from then on she’d take on the traits of other mothers. It was a sorry moment to see our old life erased in a single stroke.
Miss Dabney’s hand dropped to my shoulder for a comforting pat. Then she spoke in a voice meant for Alexander’s mama, who still slumped stricken nearby. “Mr. Armsworth is indeed a gracious host to a guest who had every right to be invited. We will not see more noble hospitality at the Royal Court!” And then she favored Alexander’s mama with a pitiless stare.
“This is the worst night of my life,” Mrs. Armsworth said, her eyes filling.
“But a welcome relief for your long-suffering guests,” Miss Dabney shot back. And she wasn’t wrong. Mama was the life of the party. In the gang of guests her voice rang out as clear as it ever gets. She was making a hearty reply to her new acquaintances. “Aw pshaw!” said she, not a bit shy. “I wouldn’t take no money to tell yore fortunes at a social occasion. Gimme yore palms, and I’ll read ’em for all you-uns!”
They were lined up with their palms out when Miss Dabney gathered me and Alexander up. As the guests of honor we’d been forgotten in favor of Mama. This was just as well, for we could make a quick departure.
Miss Dabney shooed me and Alexander out a side door. I took his arm as we departed for London, England, and he let me.
16
MOST OF THE INFORMATION about steamship travel in this account comes from Alexander. I will keep it to a minimum, as it is almost all tedious.
After our train journey we passed a night in New York City before embarking on the high seas. We saw very little of the town, which was plenty. It’s a place where everybody has their hands out for your money. What you will not give freely they take by force.
We put in a restless night at the new Astor Hotel, which has a thousand rooms and an orchestra on the roof. Miss Dabney and me occupied one room, and Alexander had the one adjacent. Between the pair of them I liked to never get a wink of sleep. Miss Dabney burned the midnight oil to practice a Royal curtsy before the mirror. Alexander sat up late reading the White Star Line literature and piped in facts about the steamship Olympic through the keyhole.
“If you stood the Olympic on end,” said the keyhole, “it’d be higher than this here hotel, being eight hundred and eighty-three feet from stem to stern.”
The idea of the Olympic being stood on end made my blood run cold.
By first dawn we were off in a motor taxi behind the wagon carrying our trunks to the dock. Alexander fidgeted and trod on our toes the whole trip. He’s getting ganglier by the minute and was worse than a sackful of squirrels. “They had to build the wharf ninety feet farther out into the Hudson River to accommodate the Olympic,” he explained. “And still her stern sticks out into the waterway, a dangerous hazard to river shipping.” I wished in my heart he’d sunk on the Titanic once to see how it feels.
At the wharf the great ship towered above the freight wagons. It reduced burly men with trunks on their backs to nothing more than ants. “She’s as high as a six-story building from water line to bridge,” Alexander informed us, with his head lolling out the taxi window.
It looked higher than that to me, and its long nose was like a giant knife ready to strike. Far below it, you couldn’t see the cobblestones for the crowds, excited and happy as if none of these big ships ever sunk with all hands.
“She’ll consume three thousand, five hundred and forty tons of coal on the crossing,” Alexander recited.
Tiring of all this information, Miss Dabney replied, “You will not be called upon to stoke the furnaces, Alexander.”
Once we were up the gangplank and in the ship, I was calmed by its immense size. It went against nature that anything this large could be flimsy enough to sink. We followed our luggage through the lounge, which shamed the Astor Hotel lobby in every way. “True elegance, English elegance,” Miss Dabney breathed as we passed oil paintings on a stairway beneath a cut-glass dome.
“There’s a separate smoking room reserved strictly for gentlemen travelers,” Alexander noted.
“You will not be doing any smoking on this voyage, Alexander,” Miss Dabney remarked in reply.
The Olympic seemed to wait until we were in our suite before she sounded her horn. An awful blast tinkled the chandelier and made the mirror ripple over our own private fireplace. The very ship shuddered at her own bass voice. Why they call boats she when they have such deep voices is beyond me. I quaked somewhat on entering the stateroom for Miss Dabney and me. It was the mate to Julian’s, with the same silk walls and the familiar White Star Line blankets folded at the feet of our brocaded beds. Alexander’s cabin was equally fine. Sparing no expense, Miss Dabney had reserved the “Regence” suite, meaning much goldwork on mahogany and ancient tapestries on the chairs.
She told me to leave my luggage be, as there were maids to deal with that. Then she directed me and Alexander to be seated in our sitting room. There she meant to advise us about conducting ourselves.
Though we were at home, so to speak, she never removed her hat. “We are in the Great World now, children. And this dictates a grand manner. I do not expect you two to return to Bluff City spoiled and uppity. However, while we are on shipboard and abroad, we must all comport ourselves to the Manner Born.”
Alexander looked ready to rebel. His spotty forehead wrinkled, and he clenched his large hands together. Miss Dabney had seated us before the fireplace, where a big basket of assorted flowers covered in cellophane stood on the hearth. He stared into them, wild to be out exploring the ship. “Alexander!” said Miss Dabney. “Are you attending me?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I supposed not. Where are your thoughts?”
“Up on deck,” he replied promptly. “It’s one-third of a mile around.”
“Then leave us at once and pace it off. I despair for that Miss Spaulding, as it must be uphill work to teach you anything.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Alexander agreed, tipping over a chair in his haste to be gone.
“Boys,” Miss Dabney pondered as Alexander vanished. “What if I had married and had some? Life is full of pitfalls. Where was I?”
“Comporting ourselves to the Manner Born,” I reminded her.
“Yes. You see those flowers, Blossom?”
They were hard to miss, as the basket stood five feet high.
“It is customary for friends to send passengers such gifts as fruit and flowers on sailing day. Since Bluff City people are ignorant of this nicety, I had the flowers sent to myself from the hotel florist. This is an example of keeping up the right appearances. Do you follow me?”
I nodded.
“Very good. Now look around you. We are in the finest quarters on the ship. There are three classes. We are in First Class. Obviously all three classes arrive in England at the same time, but persons answering a Royal command have no choice but to travel in high style.” Here she drew herself up to her greatest height. “Noblesse oblige,” she quoted in the French tongue.
“Even the ship is a mark of social standing. The White Star Line sends several over this route, but the Olympic carries a special prestige. Traveling on an American ship is naturally out of the question. We are not a seafaring nation, and it shows up in the service.”
Miss Dabney dropped her voice suddenly. “It is as well Alexander is out of the way, for I turn now to a more personal matter. Your . . . fame has not yet found you out thus far in our travels, Blossom. This is just as well. Who knows what unfortunate attention this might draw to us? Never think I am ungrateful to your . . . ah . . . supernatural powers. After all, we would hardly be en route to the English Court without them. And I have not forgotten your good works regarding Minerva.
“But people such as our fellow travelers in First Class might take you as a . . . curiosity, if they knew . . . everything. I have outfitted you as a fashionable young girl traveling as my ward in the best tradition.” Here Miss Dabney eyed me. My traveling coat from Nugent’s was too long in the sleeve. And
neither me or Miss Dabney is handy with a needle. Only my fingertips showed at the cuffs.
“Do I look to the Manner Born?” This was preying on my mind.
Miss Dabney fingered her furs thoughtfully. “Near enough, I think. If you are . . . ah . . . discreet in your demeanor.”
This meant I should keep my mouth shut or I’d disgrace us all. But coming from her, I took this kindly. Besides, at the time I didn’t think I knew anybody on the Olympic to talk to anyhow.
“As the trip progresses,” Miss Dabney went on, “I shall point out other—”
Another horn blast interrupted her lesson. The ship began to slide backwards. There were farewell cries from the deck and band music. Confetti and tickertape snowed past our portholes. A strange look came into Miss Dabney’s eyes and played all over her face. I recognized the expression. It was the same as came over Mama the night she crashed the Armsworths’ party. Miss Dabney’s dream of the Great World was coming true. But her face told a different tale. You want to be careful what you wish for in this life, in case it may come true.
* * *
Ask Alexander and he will tell you that the Olympic crosses the Atlantic in five days, sixteen hours, and forty-five minutes. I don’t know how it manages without his assistance. From our first hour out, he was all over the ship and seemed to know everything and everybody. When he wasn’t in the boiler room or the gym or some such place, he undertook to show me around.
Alexander got the hang of ship travel right off, but Miss Dabney never did. She was continually confused by the Olympic’s great size. Meaning to do much strolling on the decks in her new tweed outfits, she often made a wrong turn and ended up in the Turkish bath. She was forever asking somebody the way to the ocean.
That first evening the three of us had our dinner in the A La Carte Restaurant. The meal took three hours and five forks. Miss Dabney presided at our table in a high pearl collar. And while many of our fellow travelers stared at her, they’d speak to Alexander and call him by name when they passed our table.
