Read Online Around the World With Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis - Free Book Online

to a Royal Garden Party. And lastly, a full presentation at St. James’s.”
    â€œHow long do you think it will be?” Auntie Mame asked.
    â€œAnd how
much
?” Vera said.
    AUNTIE MAME’S SEASON BEGAN AT LUNCH THE NEXT day when a gaggle of dowdy gentry showed up at twelve sharp, descended on the table like a flock of cormorants, and departed sharply at three. An hour and a half later, six more showed up to devour three large cakes, five platters of sandwiches, and I don’t know how much tea. At eight o’clock a dozen more appeared in slightly soiled dinner clothes and tucked into an enormous dinner as though they hadn’t seen food since the Diamond Jubilee. The rest of the week followed just about the same pattern, except that twice Auntie Mame was permitted to take Hermione’s friends out to the theater, with dancing afterward at a supper club in which, I later discovered, Hermione had a slight financial interest.
    I must say that none of Auntie Mame’s myriad guests struck me as very attractive. They were mostly provincial English or superannuated White Russians with, as I now know, either minor or dubious titles. None of them was a minute under sixty and they were all related to Lady Gravell-Pitt. The women were given to whiskers and the men to rheumatism. They all dressed like something out of a rummage sale, and if
they
were the cream of Court circles, I felt awfully sorry for King George and Queen Elizabeth—“Bertie and Bessie,” as Lady Gravell-Pitt called them in Auntie Mame’s presence.
    Nor did it seem to me that any of them was in much of a hurry to repay Auntie Mame’s lavish hospitality with so much as a cup of tea. Vera noticed it, too. But Auntie Mame was so busy being the gracious hostess, while Hermione hovered around her, teeth clattering like castanets, that I guess she didn’t have time to think about it. During the mornings, Hermione kept Auntie Mame occupied with learning the Court curtsy, which she demonstrated with a fearful wobbling and a crackling of joints that reminded me of someone eating peanut brittle. After the first lesson Auntie Mame could curtsy like a prima ballerina, so there wasn’t much else for Lady Gravell-Pitt to do but invite her relatives to feed on out-of-season delicacies at Auntie Mame’s table and to try to sell things to Auntie Mame. These included an elderly Daimler; a rather dented Queen Anne tea service; almost new liveries for the footmen; a crisp old ermine cloak, which she said—and there was no reason to doubt her—once belonged to Queen Charlotte; a dinner service for thirty-six in chipped Limoges; an emerald stomacher, size forty-two; a sorrel riding horse; a ruined abbey in Wales; and a Saint Bernard puppy.
    After a week of living under the same roof with Lady Gravell-Pitt Vera began to crack, almost visibly. “Come in here,” she said in pure Pittsburghese and with none of the unintelligible Mayfair accent she used on the stage.
    I went into her bedroom and she closed the door.
    It hadn’t taken any crystal ball to see that Lady Gravell-Pitt rather looked down on Vera, although Vera was a Great Star and, even in London, more or less in a league with Gertrude Lawrence. “Theatah people, of cawss,” Hermione always said, dismissing Vera with a brisk click of her uppers, as though Vera had been sentenced for importuning in Park Lane. And she displayed her scorn in such little ways as excluding Vera entirely from conversation, neglecting to introduce her to the cream of Court circles, seating her far below the salt, and placing her in the smallest, dingiest bedroom in the house while far nicer ones remained unoccupied.
    â€œWell?” Vera asked pregnantly, helping herself to one of my cigarettes.
    â€œWell, what, Vera?” I said.
    â€œYou know what, Patrick. This auction gallery she’s living in. The toothless wonder. All those tatty old frauds who show up