me Edythe,” she said with what I’m sure she intended as a girlish pout. “Why, your mother and I have been friends for ages and you and I needn’t stand on ceremony.”
Still clutching my hands, she backed off a step to examine me.
“You are a handsome lad,” she said with a throaty laugh. “I imagine you’ve broken many a girl’s heart.”
“Not me,” I protested. “I follow the Comedians’ Law: Always leave them laughing when you say good-bye.”
She granted me a hearty guffaw and exclaimed, “You devil!” She released my paws and I suspect if we had been closer she might have dug an elbow into my ribs.
She was a weighty woman and her voice was even weightier. Stentorian is the word. I imagined if she shouted “Hello!” to a neighbor in Palm Beach, pedestrians in Boca Raton would whirl around to see who was calling. I could understand why Al Canfield hoped to leave her employ as soon as possible. Who could live an easy life with that voice? It would be like attempting to meditate in the midst of a brass band oompahing at the max.
“Archy,” she said, “there’s been a slight change of plans. Some kind of a money crisis is brewing at the little theater I help support and they want me to chair a board of directors’ meeting at two o’clock. So I thought you and I might eat first and then my daughter will show you around after I leave. Satisfactory?”
“Of course,” I said. “I hope I’m not discommoding you, Edythe.”
Her laugh was a roar. “I don’t let anyone do that,” she assured me. “Now come along.”
She took my arm firmly and tugged me down the hall to the dining room. I felt like a villain being muscled along by a gendarme. I also wondered why Natalie wasn’t joining us for lunch. Perhaps the “slight change of plans” was Mrs. Westmore’s ploy to arrange a tete-a-tete between her daughter and yrs. truly. Bachelors do have dark suspicions like that, you know.
A few moments later we were seated at one corner of a table large enough to accommodate ten. The hostess vigorously shook a small crystal bell and after a moment the melancholy houseman shuffled in with our first course: a shrimp and crabmeat cocktail with a nothing sauce. This was followed by a chef’s salad (again with a dressing that lacked zing), and concluded with a raspberry sorbet.
It was a decent enough meal but hardly memorable. It would have required little to improve it: freshly ground black pepper in the appetizer sauce, a touch of garlic in the salad dressing, and a drier (and colder) white wine than the chardonnay served. I don’t wish to be hypercritical but I am saddened when good food is prepared in a lackluster manner. A bit of culinary artistry can convert grub to a feast.
But if the lunch was uninspiring I found much of interest in Edythe’s monologue, interrupted occasionally by my questions and comments.
She had been introduced to Frederick Clemens by a mutual friend during the intermission of a “really creative” performance of Three Men on a Horse produced at the little theater to which she gave an annual contribution.
“I do love drama, don’t you, Archy? My favorite is Hello, Dolly!”
Clemens had invited her to have a drink after the show at which they met. She had been fascinated to learn he was an investment adviser, since it offered a solution to a problem troubling her. Most of the money her late husband had bequeathed was in Treasury bonds: safe enough, she knew, but with a puny yield that didn’t allow her to live in the style she wished and make donations to local charities and cultural activities.
“I simply need more income,” she told me. “I know one should live off the interest and never touch the principal. But I find that extremely difficult what with inflation and all.”
She had finally persuaded Fred to recommend a modest investment and he had suggested she sell some of her T-bonds and buy the common stock of one of the thirty Dow Jones industrials.
Still clutching my hands, she backed off a step to examine me.
“You are a handsome lad,” she said with a throaty laugh. “I imagine you’ve broken many a girl’s heart.”
“Not me,” I protested. “I follow the Comedians’ Law: Always leave them laughing when you say good-bye.”
She granted me a hearty guffaw and exclaimed, “You devil!” She released my paws and I suspect if we had been closer she might have dug an elbow into my ribs.
She was a weighty woman and her voice was even weightier. Stentorian is the word. I imagined if she shouted “Hello!” to a neighbor in Palm Beach, pedestrians in Boca Raton would whirl around to see who was calling. I could understand why Al Canfield hoped to leave her employ as soon as possible. Who could live an easy life with that voice? It would be like attempting to meditate in the midst of a brass band oompahing at the max.
“Archy,” she said, “there’s been a slight change of plans. Some kind of a money crisis is brewing at the little theater I help support and they want me to chair a board of directors’ meeting at two o’clock. So I thought you and I might eat first and then my daughter will show you around after I leave. Satisfactory?”
“Of course,” I said. “I hope I’m not discommoding you, Edythe.”
Her laugh was a roar. “I don’t let anyone do that,” she assured me. “Now come along.”
She took my arm firmly and tugged me down the hall to the dining room. I felt like a villain being muscled along by a gendarme. I also wondered why Natalie wasn’t joining us for lunch. Perhaps the “slight change of plans” was Mrs. Westmore’s ploy to arrange a tete-a-tete between her daughter and yrs. truly. Bachelors do have dark suspicions like that, you know.
A few moments later we were seated at one corner of a table large enough to accommodate ten. The hostess vigorously shook a small crystal bell and after a moment the melancholy houseman shuffled in with our first course: a shrimp and crabmeat cocktail with a nothing sauce. This was followed by a chef’s salad (again with a dressing that lacked zing), and concluded with a raspberry sorbet.
It was a decent enough meal but hardly memorable. It would have required little to improve it: freshly ground black pepper in the appetizer sauce, a touch of garlic in the salad dressing, and a drier (and colder) white wine than the chardonnay served. I don’t wish to be hypercritical but I am saddened when good food is prepared in a lackluster manner. A bit of culinary artistry can convert grub to a feast.
But if the lunch was uninspiring I found much of interest in Edythe’s monologue, interrupted occasionally by my questions and comments.
She had been introduced to Frederick Clemens by a mutual friend during the intermission of a “really creative” performance of Three Men on a Horse produced at the little theater to which she gave an annual contribution.
“I do love drama, don’t you, Archy? My favorite is Hello, Dolly!”
Clemens had invited her to have a drink after the show at which they met. She had been fascinated to learn he was an investment adviser, since it offered a solution to a problem troubling her. Most of the money her late husband had bequeathed was in Treasury bonds: safe enough, she knew, but with a puny yield that didn’t allow her to live in the style she wished and make donations to local charities and cultural activities.
“I simply need more income,” she told me. “I know one should live off the interest and never touch the principal. But I find that extremely difficult what with inflation and all.”
She had finally persuaded Fred to recommend a modest investment and he had suggested she sell some of her T-bonds and buy the common stock of one of the thirty Dow Jones industrials.
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