Read Online White People by Allan Gurganus - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Allan Gurganus
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course, you feel too shaky.”
Hobbyists often leap at compliments with an eagerness unknown to pros. And Helen Larkin Grafton was the classic amateur, product of a Richmond that deftly and early on espaliers, topiaries, and bonsais its young ladies, pruning this and that, preparing them for decorative root-bound existences either in or very near the home. Helen, unmistakably a white girl, a postdeb, was most accustomed to kind comments concerning clothes or looks or her special ability to foxtrot. And any talk about the mind itself, even mention of her well-known flair for cards, delighted her. So, dodging natural duty, bored with being treated as if pregnancy were some debilitating terminal disease, she said, “I’d adore to come. See you shortly, Chloe. And God love you for thinking of me. I’ve been sitting here feeling like … well, like one great big mudpie.”
The other women applauded when she strolled in wearing a loose-cut frock of unbleached linen, hands thrust into front patch pockets piped with chocolate brown. (All this I have on hearsay from my godmother, Irma Stythe, a fashion-conscious former war nurse and sometime movie critic for the local paper.)
With much hoopla, two velvet pillows were placed on a folding chair, the new guest settled. They dealt her in. Young Helen Larkin Grafton. Phrases floated into the smoky air: Darling girl. Somewhat birdlike. Miscarried her first two, you know? Oh yes. Wonderful organizer—good with a garden. School up north but it didn’t spoil her outlook or even her accent: pure Richmond. Good bones. Fine little game player. Looking fresh as a bride.
These women liked each other, mostly. At least they
knew
each other, which maybe matters more. Their children carried family secrets, cross-pollinating, house to house. Their husbands owned shares of the same things and golfed in groups. If the women knew about each other first,
then
either liked one another or not, husbands liked each other (till proven wrong) but didn’t always
know
each otherdeeply. Anyway, it was a community. Shelter, shared maids, assured Christmas cards, to be greeted on the street by your full name.
One yard above the Persian and Caucasian rugs, temporary tabletops paved a whole new level. Surfaces glided along halls and on the second-story landing. Women huddled from four edges toward each other. That season’s mandatory pastels, shoulder padding. Handbags propped on every level ledge. Mantels, banisters. Cloisonné ashtrays glutted with half-smoked cigarettes. Refreshments—aspics, watercress, cucumber—waiting in the kitchen. The serving lady late, Chloe, our hostess, a plumpish blond woman, discreetly glancing at her watch. Such nice chatting. Exclamations over bad hands and good. Forty belles and semi-belles. Junior guilded. All rooms musical with voices, the great gift of Southern women, knowing how to coax out sounds, all ringing like this. Queen Anne furniture, ancestral portraits, actual Audubon prints thanks to forebears who underwrote the project actually, Moroccan-bound books, maroon and gilt. Williamsburgy knickknacks, beiges, muted olive greens. A charming house chock full of lovely noise, and smokers not inhaling but hooked anyway.
Chloe’s prize Pekingese, Mikado, snorted under card tables as through a tunnel ridged with nyloned columns. He edged, grimly interested, toward this new arrival’s scent. An ancient wheezy male animal, Mikado took the liberty en route of sniffing up as high on women’s limbs as he could reach, of rubbing languidly against the swishy silk and hazy shins of every woman there. Chloe had tied a yellow bow around his topknot; he tolerated this on bridge days, a fair trade for the cozy sense of being underneath a long playhouse of gaming tables, cards fatly snapping overhead. His path lay strewn with kicked-off shoes. Dainty aromatic feet to nudge. Mikado, the Blankenships’ cranky one time ribbon winner, is only mentioned here because he
Hobbyists often leap at compliments with an eagerness unknown to pros. And Helen Larkin Grafton was the classic amateur, product of a Richmond that deftly and early on espaliers, topiaries, and bonsais its young ladies, pruning this and that, preparing them for decorative root-bound existences either in or very near the home. Helen, unmistakably a white girl, a postdeb, was most accustomed to kind comments concerning clothes or looks or her special ability to foxtrot. And any talk about the mind itself, even mention of her well-known flair for cards, delighted her. So, dodging natural duty, bored with being treated as if pregnancy were some debilitating terminal disease, she said, “I’d adore to come. See you shortly, Chloe. And God love you for thinking of me. I’ve been sitting here feeling like … well, like one great big mudpie.”
The other women applauded when she strolled in wearing a loose-cut frock of unbleached linen, hands thrust into front patch pockets piped with chocolate brown. (All this I have on hearsay from my godmother, Irma Stythe, a fashion-conscious former war nurse and sometime movie critic for the local paper.)
With much hoopla, two velvet pillows were placed on a folding chair, the new guest settled. They dealt her in. Young Helen Larkin Grafton. Phrases floated into the smoky air: Darling girl. Somewhat birdlike. Miscarried her first two, you know? Oh yes. Wonderful organizer—good with a garden. School up north but it didn’t spoil her outlook or even her accent: pure Richmond. Good bones. Fine little game player. Looking fresh as a bride.
These women liked each other, mostly. At least they
knew
each other, which maybe matters more. Their children carried family secrets, cross-pollinating, house to house. Their husbands owned shares of the same things and golfed in groups. If the women knew about each other first,
then
either liked one another or not, husbands liked each other (till proven wrong) but didn’t always
know
each otherdeeply. Anyway, it was a community. Shelter, shared maids, assured Christmas cards, to be greeted on the street by your full name.
One yard above the Persian and Caucasian rugs, temporary tabletops paved a whole new level. Surfaces glided along halls and on the second-story landing. Women huddled from four edges toward each other. That season’s mandatory pastels, shoulder padding. Handbags propped on every level ledge. Mantels, banisters. Cloisonné ashtrays glutted with half-smoked cigarettes. Refreshments—aspics, watercress, cucumber—waiting in the kitchen. The serving lady late, Chloe, our hostess, a plumpish blond woman, discreetly glancing at her watch. Such nice chatting. Exclamations over bad hands and good. Forty belles and semi-belles. Junior guilded. All rooms musical with voices, the great gift of Southern women, knowing how to coax out sounds, all ringing like this. Queen Anne furniture, ancestral portraits, actual Audubon prints thanks to forebears who underwrote the project actually, Moroccan-bound books, maroon and gilt. Williamsburgy knickknacks, beiges, muted olive greens. A charming house chock full of lovely noise, and smokers not inhaling but hooked anyway.
Chloe’s prize Pekingese, Mikado, snorted under card tables as through a tunnel ridged with nyloned columns. He edged, grimly interested, toward this new arrival’s scent. An ancient wheezy male animal, Mikado took the liberty en route of sniffing up as high on women’s limbs as he could reach, of rubbing languidly against the swishy silk and hazy shins of every woman there. Chloe had tied a yellow bow around his topknot; he tolerated this on bridge days, a fair trade for the cozy sense of being underneath a long playhouse of gaming tables, cards fatly snapping overhead. His path lay strewn with kicked-off shoes. Dainty aromatic feet to nudge. Mikado, the Blankenships’ cranky one time ribbon winner, is only mentioned here because he
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