Ten North Frederick (25 page)

“I would have run inside the stores.”

“Never mind the ready answers, please. I'm very disappointed in you, very, very disappointed. Now go have your supper and get ready for bed.”

The Montgomerys of that day were on an equal footing, socially, with the Chapins and the McHenrys, although Blanche Montgomery was not a Gibbsville girl. She was a Reading girl who had come to Gibbsville as a bride. She was, in fact, a distant connection of Charlotte's, but Charlotte had not “done anything about her” when she came to Gibbsville, an oversight for which Charlotte was now glad.

“Have you anything pending with the Montgomery firm?” she asked Ben that evening.

“How do you mean, pending?”

“Well, any business negotiations?”

“No, why?”

She gave him her own version of the party incident.

“Well, if you mean are we on a friendly basis with the Montgomery firm, don't let that worry you.”

“Worry me?”

“Aren't you planning some sort of reprisal, retribution?”

“Not exactly, not exactly. But I wanted to make sure.”

“We're more likely to be in opposition to the Montgomery firm than otherwise. They handle cases that we have to refuse because of our Coal & Iron association. How are you planning to put Blanche in her place?”

“You're so
clever
,” said Charlotte. “Well, I haven't had time to consider.”

“I wouldn't like to be Blanche Montgomery,” said Ben.

“She deserves whatever she gets. She has it coming to her. Of course it may take time.”

“Whatever time it takes, Charlotte, she'll know why you're doing it,” said Ben.

“Yes, but how much—simpler—if she
doesn't know
I'm doing it, whatever it is. Bess McHenry. If she had a little more character, and yet that's in our favor. She
hasn't
much character, therefore Blanche won't look for trouble from that quarter. Let me see now, is Bess Miller related to the Montgomerys? I don't think so.”

“No, no relation,” said Ben. “Before you go any further, ask yourself if the Montgomerys know any of our weak points.”

“I wasn't aware that we had any weak points,” said Charlotte. “At least that would be worth anything to the Montgomerys.”

“In that case, damn the torpedoes, go ahead!”

“I'll need your help. You may hear of something they want to do and we can prevent their doing. I'm glad I never called her when she came to town.”

“Yes, it would look hypocritical now,” said Ben, with a completely straight face. “You hadn't thought of giving a large party and not inviting them?”

“Oh, Ben. How un-subtle men are.”

“I daresay. If Blanche were to take a lover . . .”

“Blanche? In Gibbsville? Nobody has lovers in Gibbsville,” said Charlotte. “Where would she meet him?”

“I've often wondered.”

“You have?” said Charlotte.

“Why, yes, and so have you, my dear, or you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place.”

“Dear, dear, dear me. We're so deucedly clever. I know where they could meet. In the summer house. There was a famous case and you know it better than I do.”

“Yes, and ever since then no respectable woman in Gibbsville ever goes to her summer house without her husband. Summer house became practically a synonym for house of assignation. Well, this kind of talk does me no good. You decide on your own form of revenge, my dear, but don't start the wheels going without consulting me. We may have skeletons in our own closets.”

“I don't like that simile.”

“It's a metaphor. I didn't think you'd like it, but do bear in mind that there is one thing about you and me that would make a nice morsel of gossip. The protecting mother that is no wife to her husband.”

“You may come to my room tonight, Ben. If your desires are that strong, that you'd risk my life and unquestionably, unquestionably start a baby that isn't even a—that there's no name for. You have a son, healthy and beautiful and to be proud of. But you never saw the others, and I did. However, you have rights to my body, I suppose.”

“Oh, don't talk about it Charlotte.”

“I never would, if I had my way. But I know this much, Ben. If you did come to my room, and I did have another of those—things, and that's what they are—I swear to you I'd take Paris-green, drown myself, anything.”

“You're in no danger, Charlotte.”

“I'm never sure when you talk this way,” said Charlotte. “I think I'll drop a note to Bess and ask her to have a cup of tea. Now you, Ben dear, why don't you smoke a cigar? It always rests you.”

“Yes, I believe I will, and a glass of brandy.”

“Whiskey, Ben. The brandy gives you those heart palpitations.”

Bess Miller McHenry was a large blonde Pennsylvanian whose fixed attitude was that of a woman who was attentively listening to each word of every speaker, following the conversation from speaker to speaker as though she were a speechless moderator, a powerless but conscientious judge. In so doing she always kept her mouth slightly open as if tentatively half-forming the speaker's words, but when she was included in the conversation she was invariably taken by surprise, and had nothing to contribute. She had an accompanying habit, which was to start nodding in agreement before her vis-à-vis had declared anything. She wanted to give no trouble, to receive no trouble, and her life was dedicated to the comfort of Arthur Davis McHenry, her husband; to Arthur Miller McHenry, her son; to Pansy McHenry, her daughter; to the house on South Main Street where she made her home; to Trinity Church; and to the canary birds which she talked to in terms and volume which she withheld from human beings. She belonged to the sisterhood that are commonly called
good
women.

Bess McHenry knew that the summons to tea at Number
10
Frederick Street was related to the incident at the Montgomery party. Her own inclination would have been to forget the whole matter. Her son Arthur had been punished for his participation by being deprived not only of dessert but of supper, and the reason for his punishment was that he had committed a breach of etiquette in leaving the party before it was time, a somewhat different crime from the subtler one of not behaving according to the rules of the house one was visiting. Things were simpler in the McHenry household.

Charlotte had assumed semi-invalid status among her friends and it was generally accepted that “Charlotte doesn't go out.” A visit to Charlotte consequently was always opened with some remarks about her condition. It was for the most part an age of reticence and there was no need for specific anatomical report; Charlotte had some female trouble and no matter how curious her friends might be, none of them took the initiative in finding out what the trouble was—and Charlotte most certainly never volunteered anything.

“You're looking well, Charlotte.”

“Thank you, Bess. And so are you. That's a perfect color to go with your eyes.”

“Oh, this? I bought the material in Philadelphia last October and I had Mrs. Hammer make it into a dress for me. I was going to get rid of Mrs. Hammer, but after she made this I decided to give her another chance.”

“She needs the work so.”

“She needs the work so, yes. Yes, she does need the work. What do you pay her, Charlotte?”

“Well, I haven't had her doing any sewing for me lately.”

“Oh, she hasn't done any sewing for you.”

“Not lately, but I've really had so little sewing that I haven't done myself. I like to sew.”

“Yes, you've always liked to sew, haven't you? I wish I had more time for the
nice
sewing. I do the children's mending and some of Arthur's things, but that doesn't give me much time for fancywork.”

“Yes, I do some of Ben's things too, and
all
of Joe's. The darning is the only part that I don't like.”

“The darning, I don't like that either. Isn't darning a nuisance? I have a basketful at home that every time I look at it, it just seems to say to me, ‘Bess, you're neglecting your darning.'”

“Boys' stockings,” said Charlotte.

“Boys' stockings are the limit.”

“But not really a chore, not for our boys. Arthur is such a delight. Ben and I often congratulate ourselves that Joe has such a fine boy for a friend. Best friend.”

“Oh, dear. Joe is—I can't put it into words how much we love Joe.”

“And so nice together.”

“Aren't they? They're so nice together.”

Charlotte sighed. “I wonder why a woman like Blanche Montgomery—now how can she call herself a lady?”

“Exactly.”

“Our boys must have been to dozens of parties, dozens—”

“At least,” said Bess, and then, as though she had counted: “Dozens.”

“And behaved like little gentlemen, always. You know, Bess, we'll never get to the truth of what really happened at Blanche Montgomery's house. I most assuredly didn't believe the cock-and-bull story Blanche told me. You know she came to see me that very day.”

“Did she?”

“Before Joe got home, spattered with mud from the street, and the start of a heavy cold. Oh, yes. Blanche was here making accusations against a ten-year-old boy, two ten-year-old boys. Arthur as well as Joe. Did Arthur catch a cold too?”

“A slight one, yes.”

“That's what I thought. Something happened that made those children want to leave that house without waiting to put on their hats and coats. It may have
started
over the game of Hide the Thimble, Bess, but there must have been more to it than that. There must have been.”

“Oh, I think so too, Charlotte.”

Charlotte smoothed her skirt and folded her hands. “What can we do about Blanche Montgomery?”

“I don't know. Had you thought of anything?”

“We don't want people to think we're two mothers resenting the shabby treatment of their children. Humiliating them before all their little friends, and making it impossible for them to stay another minute. Of course we can see to it that our children never set foot in that house again. That we can take for granted, naturally. But that isn't enough. Blanche herself is responsible, and she's the one that ought to be taught a lesson.”

“She might be kept out of the Assembly.”

“Something like that, but not that exactly. The Montgomerys have belonged to the Assembly since it started.”

“Yes, they have, that's true.”

“She's
in
your sewing club, isn't she?”

“Yes. Last year. Too bad it isn't this year.”

“And the Altar Guild.”

“Oh, yes. Busy as a bee in that.”

“I'm afraid it isn't a question then of keeping her out of things she'd like to push her way into. It would be more of a reflection on the Montgomerys than on her. Except there is one thing.”

“What's that, Charlotte?”

“Well, the organized things, like the sewing club and the Altar Guild, we can't do anything about them. But there are other things that aren't organizations. There's that group you're getting together for next year, the little dinner club.”

“Arthur's chairman.”

“So Ben told me. Naturally in my condition we had to decline, but so far you haven't even got a name for it, have you?”

“No, we haven't even got a name for it so far. It's just an informal little dinner club. Once a month, November, December, January, February, and March.”

“Just the kind of thing Blanche Montgomery's dying to get in. An upstart from Reading, and some nice people that have lived here all their lives won't even know about the club. After the way she treated our children I know I wouldn't enjoy sitting down to dinner with her. Well, I think that would do for a start.”

“Oh, I can see to it that they don't get an invitation.”

“You have so much influence, Bess. If she's quietly left out, without making any fuss, and if people don't accept
her
invitations, then she may come to realize that you simply can't humiliate small children and get off scot-free. She sat in this very room and I've never seen a woman with such a guilty conscience. And when I saw my little boy, spattered with mud, and chilled by the cold—well, Arthur must have been the same, and you must have felt the same as I did.”

“Yes,” said Bess.

“I won't say anything about the dinner club, not even to Ben. You take care of it in your own way, and perhaps Mistress Montgomery will learn that she can't ride roughshod over the feelings of some mothers. And if you think of anything where I can be of help, you tell me, Bess. It was our boys that were treated so shabbily, and that makes you and I even closer than ever.”

“I promise you that, Charlotte.”

“Ah, dear Bess, old friends are the best, aren't they?”

“Yes. Yes they are.”

The exclusion of the Montgomerys from the informal little dinner club was not noticed until the unannounced twenty-couple limit had been reached and nominations closed. It was an informal club in that there was no clubhouse, it had no rooms, no place for a bulletin board, no stationery. Its name was The Second Thursdays, without the word club. When it was seen that the Montgomerys were not included (and when it became known they had not been asked), their social indispensability was at an end. Charlotte's strategy had included extra, direct snubs for Blanche Montgomery, but she need not have planned so carefully. The absence of the Montgomerys from The Second Thursdays lowered their standing in the eyes of nonmembers and members—and no one, or almost no one, ever knew what had happened. One day they were a First Family; then in a short while they were just another old family with money. And even Blanche Montgomery did not suspect Charlotte, who was not a member of The Second Thursdays; nor did she suspect Bess, a woman incapable of intrigue. In her tears and anger she blamed herself, but she never discovered the real reason for the snub. Perhaps she spent too much money on clothes? Perhaps she had flirted with someone's husband? Possibly they did not like the color she had chosen for the repainting of the old Montgomery mansion? She was fully aware of the enormity of her failure: not even being married to a Montgomery was enough to carry her,
but
being married to her was enough to hurt a Montgomery. In
1930
, when her son was a lawyer for the big bootleggers and organized prostitution, dressed like a bootlegger and one of the prostitutes' best patrons—she still blamed herself, and wished that her boy could have turned out like Joe Chapin.