Authors: Ellen Pall
Slightly Abridged (2 page)
In vain did Juliet suggest her elderly friend make a photocopy and mail it. In vain did she point out that 1825 was a bit late for her (the English Regency ended in 1820, with the death of mad King George III and the coronation of the former Prince Regent) and that, in any case, she wasn't an expert on manuscripts. Mrs. Caffrey had never been to New York, and it was high time. Juliet saw she would not be put off. She suggested Ada wait till the weather warmed up, then come with a companion who could help her negotiate the city. Since she had asked, Juliet could, in fact, recommend a very modestly priced bed-and-breakfast run by her friend Suzy Eisenman in a charming building just across the street from her.
Ada replied that she would be there next week, alone, would stay at Ms. Eisenman's bed-and-breakfast, but would come straight from the bus to Juliet, if she might. Bowing to the inevitable, Juliet had FedExed a note inviting her to tea. And now it was next week, and here was Mrs. Caffrey before her.
The face she lifted to Juliet's was the face of an ancient flapper: small, heart-shaped, and crisscrossed with a hundred wrinkles. Still, she looked younger than her real ageâJuliet would have guessed she was closer to seventy-four than eighty-fourâand her petite figure was, however improbably, still curvy. Cute, in fact. Her wide-set green eyes, bright with cold, were shadowed in teal blue and ringed
with kohl. Red lipstick covered her lips, as well as a shaky margin of skin beyond them, forming a largish, bee-stung mouth. Her nose and chin were heavily powdered, her cheeks lavishly rouged. The sealskin coat had come away to reveal a venerable turquoise dress cut well above the knees and garnished with looping strings of beads in jet, turquoise, and white. A matching turquoise toque, which she declined to surrender, sheathed a diminutive head ringed with short hair colored shoe-polish black. As she came forward, Juliet noticed rhinestone buckles clipped to the laces of her orthopedic shoes.
with kohl. Red lipstick covered her lips, as well as a shaky margin of skin beyond them, forming a largish, bee-stung mouth. Her nose and chin were heavily powdered, her cheeks lavishly rouged. The sealskin coat had come away to reveal a venerable turquoise dress cut well above the knees and garnished with looping strings of beads in jet, turquoise, and white. A matching turquoise toque, which she declined to surrender, sheathed a diminutive head ringed with short hair colored shoe-polish black. As she came forward, Juliet noticed rhinestone buckles clipped to the laces of her orthopedic shoes.
“God grant me moxie when I am old,” Juliet prayed silently, while Mrs. Caffrey reached out to her, saying in vibrant tones, “My dear, you are so perfectly sweet to invite me to tea.” She took both of Juliet's hands in hers.
Improbably for such a diminutive person, her voice was deep, with a crush of pebbles at the bottom. Her pitch swooped and dipped dramatically through her words. Though Juliet was only five foot four, she towered over her guest. Mrs. Caffrey's hands were encased in elderly but rather nice pink leather gloves, with pearl buttons at the wrists. She wrung her hostess's hand with a vigor that was entirely unexpected, then stepped back a little, tilting her head and smiling as if Juliet had just said something particularly amusing. Juliet felt as if the ghost of Myrna Loy had come into her house.
“It's a pleasure.”
From the name Ada and from, perhaps, her spiky handwriting, Juliet had unconsciously formed a mental image of Mrs. Caffrey as tall, gray, depressed, dowdy, like a character in a George Price cartoon. Now, as so often happens when we make someone's acquaintance from a distance, the elderly little flapper before her appeared to be wrong, perhaps even an impostor. She struggled to reconcile the two impressions.
“Is it a pleasure, my dear?” Ada said, removing her gloves at last to reveal nails that were grooved by time and thickly lacquered by Maybelline. “I know you're only being polite. But it is a pleasure
for me. And I do believe you will find what I've brought to show you quite interesting.”
for me. And I do believe you will find what I've brought to show you quite interesting.”
She handed her gloves to Ames without even looking at her, as if laying them on a table.
“May I use your powder room?”
Watching as Ames ushered her in the right direction, Juliet saw with astonishment a distinct wiggle in the old lady's slow, careful walk. A very large purse (or small piece of luggage) of a kind Juliet believed was called a carpetbag hung from her arm by two stiffly arched leather straps.
Ames returned. Anyone else would have offered at least a raised eyebrow in acknowledgment of the old lady's singular appearance. But this was not Ames's way. “Tea is in the library,” was all she said. “Is there anything else you need today? Noâ?”
She paused suggestively, leaving the noun unspoken.
“No,” Juliet answered.
It was not necessary between them to say more. Juliet had written nothing, therefore her assistant had nothing to type into the computer. (Juliet always wrote by hand.) Calmlyâand yet, was there a hint of blame in her manner? Or even, for whatever Amesian reason, guilt?âAmes fetched her coat from the closet, said good night, and left.
A few moments later, Mrs. Caffrey emerged from the guest bathroom, mouth redrawn, cheeks redder than ever, a fresh cloud of gardenia invisible around her. She tapped the carpetbag meaningfully as she followed Juliet out of the front hall. “It's in here,” she said. “You'll soon seeâOh, my dear!”
Interrupting herself, Mrs. Caffrey had stopped at the entrance to Juliet's library. She clapped her hands.
“Oh, it's just like the set of a Noel Coward play! You are a lucky girl. What fun you must have here! Or I hope you do, anyhow,” she amended, catching the uncertain look on her hostess's face. She added, almost sternly, “You ought.”
Juliet's library was a snug room lined with books. Heavy red curtains hung beside the windows, a deep redâandâdark blue Persian carpet covered the floor, and a couple of wide leather armchairs sat on either side of a bricked-in fireplace. On a leather-covered coffee table made to look like a pile of gigantic books, Ames had left a little feast drawn from Juliet's teenage imaginings of what “tea” should be: heaps of crustless sandwiches cut into triangles, plates of tiny fruit tarts and petits fours, pots of jam, pats of butter in the shape of stars, a basket of hot scones, and, of course, in a fat pot on its own little brazier, tea.
“Please sit down,” she said, wondering at the same time why it was that she did not, in fact, have marvelous fun here day after day. No doubt Mrs. Caffrey was right; she ought. But somehow, life wasn't like that. Not her life, anyway. “Or shall Iâ?”
Guessing Ada would prefer a seat that was hard (and easy to rise from) to one that was soft and deep, she fetched from a corner a straight-backed wooden chair, its modestly cushioned seat upholstered in velveteen, and placed it by the table. Mrs. Caffrey took it gratefully as Juliet sat herself down in an armchair.
For a few minutes, the air was full of the clink of china and offers of milk and sugar. Mrs. Caffrey told Juliet how much pleasure Angelica Kestrel-Haven's books had brought her. This, in turn, pleased Juliet, who liked to think of her books as helping to pass the too-heavy time of just such people as she conceived Ada Caffrey to be: elderly shut-ins, invalids, night nurses, patients awaiting surgery, acrophobes boarding flights, all those whose sufferings could be palliated with literary anesthesia.
However, when Mrs. Caffrey asked what she was working on now, Juliet dodged the question and turned the subject to her guest's bus journey down. How had she managed, alone with that heavy bag?
Ada (Mrs. Caffrey implored Juliet to call her Ada) smiled. The journey had been a snap; she only wished she'd done it sooner. The
bag was nothing. Tom Giddyâthe Giddys were her nearest neighborsâhad kindly driven her to the bus depot in Gloversville. In Albany, the driver had helped her transfer it to the New York bus. And here, at the Port Authority, a “foreign gentleman” across the aisle from her was good enough to put her and her bag into a cab on Eighth Avenue.
bag was nothing. Tom Giddyâthe Giddys were her nearest neighborsâhad kindly driven her to the bus depot in Gloversville. In Albany, the driver had helped her transfer it to the New York bus. And here, at the Port Authority, a “foreign gentleman” across the aisle from her was good enough to put her and her bag into a cab on Eighth Avenue.
“And your handsome doorman did the rest, of course,” she explained.
Juliet smiled a little distractedly. Could there be a couple named Giddy in “A Christian Gentleman,” she wondered? It was a very suggestive name. Neighbors of the Walkingshaws, perhaps. Friendly, solid, middle-aged ⦠She frowned slightly. Maddening that these characters should stir to life just now, now, when she couldn't do anything about them.
“So tall and slim,” Mrs. Caffrey was going on dreamily. “I like a slim, elegant man, don't you? Tom is handsome; but those husky wrestler types don't wear well, do they? They go to seed so early,” she went on a moment later, after a pause for a sip of Formosa Oolong. “I'm afraid Cindy Giddy has come to see that. No, tall, slim men are more distinguished, and they last so much longer. Even if they lose their hair,” she added meditatively.
Mrs. Caffrey leaned forward, her eyes kindled by some inner spark. Juliet took a couple of inches off her fictional Tom Giddy, thickened his shoulders, expanded his paunch, moved his hairline back, and made Mrs. Giddy a cook. At the same time, she noticed that her guest's lipstick had left a crimson, somehow alarming, stain on her Spode teacup.
“And that reminds me to raise again that business of sex in your books,” Mrs. Caffrey continued. “They are so charming, really so delightful, but my dearâpeople want a bit of meat on their plates! You say your publisher wouldn't like it, but I wonder if you've ever tried. If you lack for material, by the way, I'd be happy to”âshe hesitated slyly while, to her extreme irritation, Juliet felt her own
cheeks start to flushâ“to share some thoughts with you.”
cheeks start to flushâ“to share some thoughts with you.”
“Tell me about Espyville,” said Juliet abruptly, unable to think of any better rejoinder. She didn't “lack for material,” as it happened. What with one thing and another, she had accumulated a fair amount of material of her own. Moreover, she was finding this earthy, juicy, voluptuous octogenarian disconcerting. Part of her wanted to laugh, part of her reproached herself for being ageist, and yet another part was genuinely shocked. Yet why shouldn't Ada still relish sexâthe idea of it, if not the act? Why shouldn't a person of either gender retain a healthy appreciation of sex as long as he or she lived?
Her ideas in confusion, it was a moment before she realized she had inadvertently asked a good question. Mrs. Caffrey was telling her quite interesting things about her home. The hamlet of Espyville, where her family's orchard lay, was adjacent to and largely dependent on the town of Gloversville. Before and after the turn of the twentieth century, that town had enjoyed a long golden age during which it was the national center of glove making. Thanks to the wealth the industry created, and to the skilled European workers drawn there by its specialized needs, by the time Ada was born, the town had its own daily newspaper, an opera house, a legitimate theater, a vaudeville theater, and a Carnegie library, among other cultural amenities. Ada's mother had been Boston-bred, but she had thrived in Gloversville, and had brought her girls up to enjoy all the lively arts.
“Not that the others did,” Ada explained between appreciative nibbles at a buttered scone. “My oldest sister, Eugenia, insisted on becoming a missionary in India. She died of typhus, naturally, in Allahabad, within a year of her arrival.”
Juliet could not help but feel Ada took a certain satisfaction in this long-gone sister's premature, unhappy end.
“Then there was Florence, the middle child,” she was going on. “Not an ounce of drama in her, unless you count self-righteousness.
But Mother was a pistol. In a way, it was a blessing she passed away before we lost the glove industry to cheap labor overseas. She didn't live to see her dear home become one of the most impoverished towns in New York State.”
But Mother was a pistol. In a way, it was a blessing she passed away before we lost the glove industry to cheap labor overseas. She didn't live to see her dear home become one of the most impoverished towns in New York State.”
Mrs. Caffrey's voice had gone harsh; her face had shrunk to a scowl. Juliet suddenly felt it would not be pleasant to tangle with Ada Caffrey.
“The tannery owners simply dropped everything, took their little bundles of money and ran, leaving Gloversville lethally polluted, riddled with toxic sinkholes, plagued by acid rain. And with too much time on their hands and not enough work, our teenagers are simply shocking. And now this nonsense about Wildernessland. Wilderness indeed,” she muttered, indignantly if incomprehensibly.
“Still,” she went on a moment later, brightening, “fun is where you make it. I've had some fine times, believe me. I've always performed with the AdirondActors. And you know, men who act, providing they're not pansies, are so ⦔
She produced the pejorative blandly and left the sentence suggestively unfinished as she helped herself to a kiwi tart.
“Apart from which, Father's land is quite, quite beautiful,” she resumed. “All the years I've lived there haven't blinded me to that. When I was very young, I thought I would move awayâoh, to Boston perhaps, or maybe even here. But I was always Father's favorite, and once he'd left the orchard to me, I simply couldn't sell it. I don't mean that no one would have purchased it. On the contrary, there were several offers. But I wouldn't let it go. Not then, not now,” she added, with some fierceness. “Not that I ever worked the orchard myself. No, I went to Saratoga, went to college. Came back, taught, married, was widowed, remarriedâIn short, life swept me up.”
She smiled rather sadly and Juliet suddenly saw her curious clothes for what they were: the hoarded remnants of a happier, more prosperous, more hopeful time.
“Life has a way of doing that, you know. Sweeps one up”âAda's smile turned grimâ“and straps one down. I see it happening to Cindy now. A bit depressing, really â¦
“But you are young, and single, and perhaps you don't know. At any rate, I still have the theaterâI'll be the second witch in the AdirondActors's
Macbeth
this springâand my poetry writing. Lately I've begun attending slams in Albany. Do you like poetry slams?”
Macbeth
this springâand my poetry writing. Lately I've begun attending slams in Albany. Do you like poetry slams?”
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