My Mrs. Brown (5 page)

She continued: “It's just that in this difficult economy we have to really, really work to market the auction to as many high-end consumers as possible, and when it comes to the top one percent, the new money made in tech and digital—I daresay most of the new, big Wall Street money as well—my colleagues and I don't think they will give a good goddamn about the Queen or any royalty. The only royalty they are interested in is rock-and-roll royalty, you know?”

Rachel looked puzzled.

Delphine shrugged. “We must avoid giving the appearance that Mrs. Groton's antiques are old, if you see what I mean.”

No one did.

Delphine continued. “If we put a photo of Millicent, say, with Bill and Melinda Gates on the cover of the catalogue, and there is one we can get permission to use, taken at Warren Buffett's birthday a few years ago, we can better make the point that anything you buy at Lambton's, even when in the millions and millions of dollars, isn't shopping for antiques, it is environmental, recycling at the highest level. And therefore all about doing something really, really important for the environment; they love this kind of crap thinking in Silicon Valley.
C'est très
Yahoo.”

Delphine poured herself another cup of hot coffee. Apparently no longer averse to gluten, she pinched a bit of buttery crust off a cheese Danish and dropped it in her open mouth.

As it happened, Mrs. Wood was devoted to the Queen of England. She was a veritable repository of historical information and popular trivia about Her Majesty.

One of her favorite tidbits? The first time Princess Elizabeth fully realized she had ascended to the role of Queen was when milk bottles arrived from the royal dairy with the crest “EIIR” on them.

Delphine's dismissal of the Queen infuriated Mrs. Wood.

Rachel had many thoughts and responses to what Delphine was saying. Sensing the anger brewing in Margaret Wood, she felt it important to proceed diplomatically.

“The cover of the catalogue is very important, isn't it?” Rachel asked.

She knew it was but wanted to soothe Delphine. Poor thing hadn't slept well.

“Oh, yes, it's huge,” Delphine said. “
Huge!
The cover of the catalogue is also the image used in all the advertising and the press materials—branding. And I don't think the Queen is relevant.”

“Perhaps we should consult with the executors of the estate,” Rachel said. “They are charged with the responsibility of making sure they attain as much profit as possible for all the charities that will benefit from the auction of Mrs. Groton's things.”

“Well, I for one think the Queen is passé. Queen out; Gateses in. Or Jay Z and Beyoncé! They're really the new Mr. and Mrs. Astor in New York. Do you think any such photo exists?”

Rachel saw the pained expressions on Mrs. Wood's and Mrs. Brown's faces.

“I don't know, Delphine,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “You know, when the sad day comes and the Queen dies? I wonder if the world is prepared. Do we have any idea, any clue at all, of what will go with her?”

“A few corgis, and a case of gin?”

Mrs. Wood wasn't amused. “I think the Queen is better than Mother Teresa even!” Mrs. Wood said.

Delphine Staunton shrugged.

Rachel continued. “No, really, Delphine, think about everything she represents: decorum, civility, constraint, consistency, endurance, duty, service, faith, hope . . . and deriving satisfaction from living for these principles. Rather than a life trying to satisfy personal wants and entitlements, as the majority of us do, and are encouraged to do, all in the name of success.”

Rachel was on a roll. “We do not have any enduring figures, any archetypes, who represent kindness and courtesy, the way England has the Queen. Whom do we have? Our presidents and other elected officials aren't principled because they are political, always dancing around for votes. The only constants we have are tycoons and movie stars, and their positions are hardly fixed. Every culture needs its constants. We've had to borrow the Queen. Americans probably need the Queen more than her own people do.”

Delphine shrugged again, made a little pucker with her lips, indicating she dismissed the conversation. This only fueled Rachel to continue.

“I can think of very few in public life today, except maybe Caroline Kennedy, who have survived disappointments and sadness—not to mention endless scrutiny—with so much grace. Here's a woman who has lost a king and a queen, who also happened to be her parents; her sister; her uncle, who was blown up in a terrorist attack . . .” She paused.

“I could go on, but I'll stop.” Rachel sighed. “All I am trying to say is, about Queen Elizabeth, we live in a world where we only know what we've got when it's gone. And that's a damn shame.”

“Sorry, Rachel, who knew you felt this way? Been dating an Englishman lately? Thanks to globalization, I hear they aren't as bad in bed as they supposedly used to be.” Delphine laughed.

Rachel was ice cold, a temperature swans excel in.

“I think I'd better get to work here before you ladies deliver me to the Tower of London for my beheading,” Delphine said, and left the kitchen.

M
RS. BROWN WAS DISPATCHED
to Mrs. Groton's bedroom and dressing room upstairs.

Here was yet another revelation to behold in this magical residence: a blue and white canopied king-size bed, a sitting room–office, and a large dressing room that was wall to wall, floor to ceiling, closets and shelves. In the center was a sitting area with two matching rose-pattern-chintz-covered chairs and a sofa.

Mrs. Wood was downstairs taking inventory of the things Delphine deemed unworthy for high auction.

“Ashville, Ashville, Ashville,” the auctioneer kept repeating as if she was counting odorous fish.

Mrs. Brown's task, meanwhile, was to go through the various drawers and closets and count the trousers, tops, shoes, scarves, handkerchiefs, sunglasses, and more items that would be sent to the Ashville Thrift Shop.

The quantity, as well as the quality, of, say, the twenty-seven cotton-knit short-sleeved golfing shirts in various colors bemused her, as did a row of seven pairs of identical white cotton summer trousers. Fortunately, envy was not in Mrs. Brown's nature. Even when she came upon a red cardigan sweater with a lush chinchilla collar, she felt only pure delight.

Mrs. Brown opened drawers—many filled with rose-scented or evergreen-scented sachets—counted items, and scribbled the tally on sheet after sheet of yellow legal paper. When she finished with the sweaters and lingerie in all the drawers, Mrs. Brown moved on to the closets.

The first closet she opened was empty, except for about a dozen fine wood clothing hangers. Rachel had said earlier that Mrs. Groton kept only a few dressy things in Ashville. These Mrs. Brown found in the next closet.

Two dresses: one was an orange-yellow floral silk caftan-style evening dress with bell-shaped long sleeves and a V-neck. But as beautiful as it was, the confection did not capture Mrs. Brown's attention as much as the other dress did. This was a sleeveless black dress and a single-button jacket made of the finest quality wool crepe.

Its correctness was its allure. Suggesting endless possibilities and the certainty of positive outcomes if one wore this dress. The richness of the affect of this suit, its elegance and poise, was the work of a master.

It was the strangest thing, but even in her youth, never had a dress, or any other item of clothing, spoken to Mrs. Brown this way, a garment so regal—so “grown-up” she'd later explain in one of her letters to Mrs. Fox—so exquisitely tailored and, somehow, thoroughly reassuring.

Why wasn't all of life designed so perfectly?

Lest there be any confusion, this was no “little black dress.” It was not a sibling in the family of frocks you see trotted out on fashion pages at least once a year, a cotillion of easy-breezy, channel-your-inner–Audrey Hepburn black shift dresses to wear from desk to dinner.

It was the queen of all little black dresses, the jewel in the crown. Mrs. Brown fell under its spell.

Reaching out to touch the dress, she stopped. Seeing how roughened and red her hands were from cleaning and housework, and aghast at the sight, she pulled them back.

Rachel, carrying a small pile of books, saw this.

“Isn't that a wonderful dress? You'd never know, would you, that it is more than twenty years old; there's not a thread out of place,” she said as she entered the dressing room from the hall.

“The style is one of Oscar de la Renta's most popular. He always has it, or something very much like it, every season. In fact, it's a style almost every First Lady in the past thirty years has owned.”

Mrs. Brown recalled seeing photographs in the magazines at the beauty parlor of Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, a Democrat and a Republican, in what she now realized was this dress, or a close version of it. In Mrs. Brown's opinion, First Ladies, even Jackie Kennedy, were their most attractive not looking like butterfly duchesses in their evening dresses but in these elegant day dresses and skirt suits that said they meant business and that they got things done.

Mrs. Brown's ideal dress—this dress—was the complete opposite of Cinderella's. Cinderella wanted to go to the grand dance in a ball gown; Mrs. Brown's dream was this dress: suitability in every sense.

It's a great fault of the current fashion system that rather than innovating on the functionality of what we wear, the industry mostly only addresses the fear of not looking young, trendy, or rich. And when it comes to new clothes that women with less than upper-middle-class incomes—women like Mrs. Brown and her peers—can afford, fashion fails and discriminates most. Unless mature women want to wear the same things that twenty-six-year-olds covet, there's very little that's happily intended for them to wear. And the exquisite enhancements of luxury tailoring? Out of reach.

Not every woman wants to look like her teenage daughter or granddaughter. Not every woman wants to look better suited for partying in Las Vegas than for holding steadfast at home and at work. Not every woman's fantasy is to walk a red carpet. Not every woman feels obliged to wear the latest trend just for trends' sake.

Rachel could not read the actual thoughts telegraphing in her mind but, with her feminine intuition, understood that something quite major was occurring today in the heart of the Ashville lady.

From her female relations, or reading the memoirs of dynamic women throughout history, Rachel was attuned to the fact that at any given stage over the course of a lifetime, a woman thinks, and feels, differently about what she wears.

In the beginning, when she is young, fashion is fast currency, a way of communicating, signaling; an aphrodisiac, whether it is motorcycle leather pants or dotted swiss lacy blouses, something, like feathers, to attract the mate who will parent your children, fill your nest, perpetuate a glittering species. Got to have it!

In the middle years, it is not so much feathers as it is futures that you reflect in clothing, your prosperity and abundance. Later, the hope of clothing is self-preservation, protection from the eliminations of time fraying life, gravity undoing your hem.

It is style over sorrow.

What you wear is your container. It circumvents the chaos and the disappointments; structure holds you, it coddles, it corsets. Fashion becomes an intervention now. The application of lipstick when one is ill to make one feel better. And by doing something so seemingly superficial you console and inspire the people around you, who care and are so worried. You powder your face. You wear your best shoes. You button your jacket. You smooth the folds in your skirt.

Wanting to relieve Mrs. Brown of any embarrassment from having just been observed, with her hand quite literally in Mrs. Groton's closet, Rachel sped her conversation into a jolly kind of privileged singsong, something she'd learned from watching Mrs. Groton: in any potentially awkward situation, employ levity and self-deprecating humor to make people feel their best.

“How embarrassing! Look at me with all these old books. They look pretty interesting, so I thought I'd bring them with me to the city. I always read before I go to sleep,” Rachel said, resting half a dozen books on a dressing table. “I promise, I'll send them right back to you at the thrift shop to sell.”

The pile included paperback mystery novels and biographies. But it was a teaberry-colored hardback that intrigued Mrs. Brown.

“Looks like fun, doesn't it?” Rachel said, handing the book to Mrs. Brown. “Do you like to read, Mrs. Brown?”

The cover was an illustration of a sweet-looking lady in a tan twill coat and a green straw hat with a large pink rose pinned to it.

“I do like to read,” Mrs. Brown said. “What's this one about?”

Rachel read the title aloud. “
Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris
, by Paul Gallico. Hmm, I don't know, looks like a kids' book for grown-ups, but the fact that the lady on the cover is carrying a Dior dress box certainly is a recommendation—to me at least. Why don't you take it?”