Leeway Cottage (4 page)

Candace had had James's grave dug at the left side of the plot, beside his long-dead father, leaving a blank space on the right between old Annabelle and the marooned remains of Berthe Hanenberger Brant.

“But now there's no room for your mother beside your father,” Gladdy said.

“She doesn't plan to die,” said Annabee.

 

She was Anna after that, to everyone except her oldest friends. She and her mother both went into mourning, but for six months only. They didn't go to Dundee at all that summer; instead, they went abroad.

“A complete change; we both need it,” Candace announced. “You haven't been anywhere except Cleveland and Dundee.” Candace and her Jimmy had done a great deal of traveling early in their marriage. In Annabee's bedroom at The Elms she had a shelf full of nasty little dolls they had brought her, which you could only look at, not play with, in native costumes of Wales, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece. “Where would you like to go most?” Candace asked now.

“Paris,” said Anna.

“You'll be going to Paris your whole life,” said her mother. They went to Egypt. They sailed the middle of June on the
Rex,
of the Italian Line, and played bridge all the way across. The surprise to Candace was that Annabee played well from the beginning and got better and better. By the time they toured the Alameda Gardens in Gibraltar, they were arm in arm, laughing together more than they had in their lives.

From Gibraltar they sailed for Tangiers and went on to Rabat and to Fez, where they bought rugs. After Morocco, they sailed for Port Said and from there went by train to Cairo. Tommy, Gladdy, Elise, and the others got postcards and letters all summer, with pictures of pyramids, of their hotels, of the S.S.
Egypt
on which they went up the Nile, of their private car and dragoman, of themselves attending a camel race, of Candace riding a camel. Annabee was homesick. Candace bought her a beautiful gray star sapphire and, when they got home, had it set in a dinner ring for her to commemorate the trip.

“Better than a doll in a burnoose,” Annabee wrote to Elise.

Mother and daughter put off their mourning right after Thanksgiving; in spite of black clothes and the veil she wore in public, Candace's social life was already back at full throttle. She played bridge several times a week, in the afternoons with her lady friends, sitting at card tables in someone's living room, with crystal ashtrays and monogrammed lighters on little glass-topped tables at their elbows. At evening parties she played with Bernard Christie, the Brant family lawyer, a confirmed bachelor with soft hands and very pink cheeks. Mr. Christie became her escort for dinners and theater as well. He tried to interest her in opera, although she warned him she was allergic to singing. After two acts of
Tosca
she had to be taken home.

“It's so
affected,”
she said in the car.

“All right, you tried it. If you don't like it, you don't.”

“I get enough of that at the house, with Anna carrying on like Galli-Curci…”

“She has a voice, you know,
ma belle.”

“I
know
she has a voice, believe me. When she sings on the third floor, you can hear her in the kitchen.”

“I think you should let her take lessons.”

Candace rolled her eyes.

 

The week Candace and Annabee put off their mourning clothes, as the first Christmas cards of the season began to appear in the mail, they both received thick cream-colored envelopes bearing the following invitation.

Et cetera, et cetera. Alice Talbot was a grade ahead of Annabee at school, but her twin brother, Toby, was a sort of friend of Annabee's. They had danced together at dancing school and once won a silver dollar which he had let her keep.

“Wasn't that kind of Polly to include you,” said Candace.

“But I'm not out yet.”

“No, you're not, but
almost…”

“You mean, I can go?”

“Oh, why not?” Candace looked up and smiled. “You won't wear a long dress, of course. Polly was devoted to your father, you know.”

Annabee did know, and it mattered to her. There were not so many who had remained devoted to him.

 

Of course she had nothing to wear to Alice's party. They went shopping. First to Halle Brothers, where Candace had a favorite saleswoman. Annabee stood in her best silk underwear in the dressing room, surrounded by mirrors, while Candace sat in a plush chair and smoked Old Golds. Mrs. McCall ran in and out with dresses gathered from every department. Everything Mrs. McCall could find was either too poufy, or too décolleté, or not suitable for dancing. At the end of the day, they put two dresses on hold, and went downstairs to salvage the expedition by buying Annabee's first long white kid gloves.

“Oh, dear,” said Annabee as they settled into the backseat of the car. Osgood had finally been retired and Candace was driven now by a patient colored man from New Orleans named Ralph. It was beginning to snow, and the streetlights were already on.

“Don't worry. Tomorrow we'll go to the Band Box. Yvonne will have something, she always does.” The Band Box! Yvonne was from Paris and so were the clothes, and if she couldn't suit you, she'd have something made up. Annabee might wear a dress from Paris, like Berthe, the lost love of her father's life.

At the Band Box, Annabee stood in the middle of the room, while Yvonne walked around her as if examining a horse. She used her hands to pull Annabee's shoulders back, then with one finger caused her to lift her chin, as if she'd forgotten Annabee was alive and a speaker of English. She gazed thoughtfully, then cried, “Ah!,” and left the room in a rush.

Candace sat as if at a performance. Yvonne reappeared at the door to her atelier and said, “I have it, mam'zelle, come with me,” and Annabee did.

When she reappeared, Annabee was wearing a swirl of royal blue taffeta, with draped shoulders, a V-neckline, and a very small waist.

Candace stubbed out her cigarette and sat up straight. “Yvonne!”

Yvonne used her hands to cause Annabee to rotate slowly. “Ooh la la, non?” she said to Candace, complacently.

“Anna, you look simply marvelous.”

Annabee blushed. While she had been tucking and pinning her in, Yvonne had rattled off names like Schiaparelli and Lanvin; Annabee wasn't sure that one of them had actually made this dress, but she knew it was
très chic,
and it certainly might have been made for
her.

“We just have to take it in here, and here.” Yvonne touched the waist in the back and the shoulders. “And of course she needs a little…” She touched Annabee's tummy.

Candace chuckled. “Yes, I see she does.”

“What?” asked Annabee. She couldn't see that she needed anything else if she had this dress.

“A little corseting, lovey. Should we take care of that before you do the fitting, Yvonne?”

“No,
pas du tout.
We can fit her now.”

“I suppose I don't dare ask what this will cost?”

Yvonne laughed merrily. “No, I wouldn't, madame. You can see the dress is perfect for her,
par-faite,
so what can you do?”

“Not a thing,” said Candace, exhaling a stream of smoke, and Yvonne called toward the atelier for a seamstress.

 

When the dress arrived at the house, in a huge box as full of cushioning tissue paper as if the dress were made of glass, Candace and Annabee retired at once to Candace's dressing room for a viewing. Annabee had on her girdle, her first, and satin slippers dyed to match the blue taffeta. With the dress on, she turned this way and that before the full-length mirror as her mother stood in the doorway.

“You know,” Candace said, “it's too bad you can't put your hair up.”

Annabee took her hair in her hand and twisted it up onto her head. Suddenly she looked years older, and terribly sophisticated.

“Can I not?”

“Not until you're out, but it's too bad. What jewelry do you think of wearing?”

Annabee hadn't thought of any jewelry; she was thinking that if Tyrone Power happened to be at the party, even
he
would fall in love with her.

She mostly had costume jewelry, except for a ring with her birth- stone her father had given her, and the locket that said “Annabelle.”

“We might try my coral beads, but the color is risky …you know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see you try your grandmother's pearls.”

The pearls! Annabee turned from the mirror to look at her mother, eyes shining. “Could I?” She had thought she'd have to be ancient as Granabelle before she could wear those pearls.

“Of course you can. Just call Mr. Christie and he'll get them out of the vault for you.”

Oh! Imagine this dress, and those pearls! She'd be stunning, she'd be like her grandmother, she'd walk into the room and all heads would turn!

“They may not suit, you can't tell till you try,” said Candace. “Would you like me to call him for you?”

 

The afternoon of the party it snowed without ceasing, but the snow stopped toward evening. Annabee put on her dress at last and went to join her mother. Candace was wearing a long strapless gown of bottle green velvet. Annabee helped with her last hooks and eyes. Together they chose evening bags and perfume; together they sprayed the air before them and then stepped into the cloud of fragrance. When Mr. Christie finally arrived, on the dot of eight, they were ready and waiting.

“Ask him to come up, Maudie,” Candace called down the stairs, when she heard the male voice in the hall. Mr. Christie duly appeared, his cheeks pinker than ever. “Good evening, ladies. Oh, my, I'll be the envy of the town.”

Annabee had stood, to honor her elder, but also to show her dress to full advantage. “You are a vision,” he said to her, bowing. “Your pearls, madam.” He took a long narrow case of green kid from an inside pocket of his coat and handed it to her.

Annabee opened the case. The pearls were larger than she remembered, and the color even warmer.

“Well,” said Candace. “Let's have the full effect…”

Watching herself in the mirror, Annabee lifted the pearls and fastened them around her neck.

She looked at herself. She stood, she turned. Mr. Christie took a step back and cocked his head. No one spoke. Annabee walked into the dressing room and looked in the full-length mirror. She came back out.

“The length is just wrong, isn't it.”

It was. All three knew it; the bottom of the rope hit the neckline in a way that hid rather than enhanced the effect. She took off the pearls, before anyone told her to, feeling very mature. There would be other evenings, and other dresses.

Candace went to her jewel box, took out the string of coral beads, and tried them around Annabee's neck. They hung perfectly, framed by the V of the neckline.

“The color is wonderful…” said Mr. Christie, doubtfully.

“Wait,” said Candace. She took back the coral beads and produced instead a pair of diamond clips. She clipped them to the sides of Annabee's neckline. “There! Now that's better—now the jewel you see is the girl herself!”

“Candace, you're a witch,” said Bernard. “It's quite, quite perfect.” And Annabee could see that it was. She began to smile. Diamonds! And before she was out!

“All right, ladies? Shall we be off?”

“Yes, just a minute, what am
I
going to wear?” said Candace. “I'm going to be completely upstaged by my daughter.” She sounded pleased about it.

“Mother,
you
wear the pearls.”

Candace turned from her jewel case to look at Annabee.

“You wear them. They'll be perfect. It's a shame to have them out of the vault and not use them.”

Candace looked as if she had never been more pleased with her child than she was at that moment.

“Well, thank you, lovey.” She had the pearls on in an instant and didn't need a mirror to tell her how they looked. Mother and daughter beheld each other, smiling.

“Well!” said Bernard. “Ladies—your chariot awaits.”

They had dinner downtown at a new French restaurant. It began to snow again as Mr. Christie drove them toward the Mayfield Club, but nothing happened to prevent their arrival, and finally, there they were in the receiving line, moving toward Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, who stood with Alice between them, all smiling and shaking hands.

 

The ballroom was hung with dark green swags and fairy lights. The room was filled with girls in long gowns, boys in white tie, talking, flirting, drinking champagne. Annabee sat with her mother and Mr. Christie at a table where they would have a view of the dancing. At midnight, Alice came in with her father, and the orchestra began “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” as they waltzed alone on the floor. Annabee suddenly was near tears. All the years ahead of her, of missing
her
father. He couldn't see her in her dress from Paris, at her first ball. He would never dance the first waltz with her at her own debut, or walk her down any aisle.

Mr. Christie was standing before her. “May
I
dance with the most beautiful girl in the world?” She looked at her mother, who was lighting a cigarette and nodding.