Scruples (7 page)

“Aren’t you being a little snobbish, Cornie? Honey
is
a Winthrop, even if we happen to live on the wrong side of the tracks.” He was on the defensive, a self-willed, arrogant, selfish man who loathed being called to account and could spin out his excuses endlessly.

“I really don’t care what you choose to call it, Joe. I only know that Honey is growing up as an outsider in a group where we have precious little time for outsiders. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere in the world but Boston, but I know our faults. They don’t matter when you belong, but Honey is beginning
not to belong
, Joe, and that is both cruel and unnecessary.”

Josiah Winthrop’s expression changed. He had always belonged, so completely, so unquestioningly, that wherever he lived, however little money he had, whatever he did, he knew he belonged with the kind of conviction that needs no reassurance. He would be a Boston Winthrop if he became a leper, a murderer, even a maniac. It was unthinkable that a child of his might not belong, unthinkable and impossible. His thoroughgoing self-centeredness had been penetrated by Cornelia’s cannily chosen words.

“What are you suggesting that I do, Cornie?” he asked, hastily, hoping that it would be something that wouldn’t take any of his time. He was making great progress down in his little lab, but he needed all of his time, every minute.

“Merely that you let me take over in certain areas, Joe. I have tried before, as you may remember, but you always rebuffed me. Now it’s almost too late. George and I would consider it a pleasure if you would allow us to send Honey away to the Emery Academy. Our Liza is going there this year—I’ve always felt that twelve-year-old girls—impossible creatures—are better off at boarding school than they are at home—and there will be any number of nice Boston girls there. After all, it was your mother’s school and your grandmother’s school—I don’t have to tell you that lifelong friendships are formed in boarding school, do I? If Honey goes into junior high here in Framingham, she’ll never make those friendships. It’s really her last chance, Joe. I detest sounding dramatic, but I think you really owe it to Honey, and to poor, dear Matilda, to accept.” Cornelia never minded pulling out all the stops when it was absolutely necessary, although she knew it was a fearfully un-Boston thing to do.

It was charity, there was nothing else you could call it, Josiah Winthrop thought, but he certainly couldn’t afford the fees that the Emery Academy asked. He had prided himself all his life on the fact that no one had ever dared to offer him charity; he had chosen not to go into private practice and was prepared to pay the price, but Cornelia had frightened him badly.

“Well—thank you, Cornelia. I accept with gratitude. I’ve been reluctant—well, that’s not relevant—I’m sure we both know what I’m trying to say. Please tell George how I feel. I’ll tell Honey the news tonight, at dinner. I know she’ll be delighted too. What about the application forms and all that sort of thing?”

“I’ll take care of them. There’s room for her, of course—I’ve already checked. And, Joe, tell Honey to take the noon train to Boston next Saturday. I’ll meet her at Back Bay Station and we’ll go and order her uniforms. It really couldn’t be simpler, my dear; I have to do it all for Liza anyway.”

Cornelia was gracious in her victory. She could hardly wait for her weekly lunch with her sisters at the Chilton Club. In one sweeping triumph she had vanquished that troublesome bear Joe Winthrop, displayed considerable generosity, not that they couldn’t afford it—but nevertheless—and quieted her conscience, which had disturbed her recently whenever she saw poor Honey being left out of swimming races and pony-jumping contests on her Chestnut Hill estate.

That fall, equipped with everything her cousin Liza had, Honey left for Emery where she was to spend the next six years—lonely, hideously lonely, outrageously lonely years, more of an outsider than she had ever been before.

Of all the various kinds of snobbishness that make youth such hell for so many, an utterly cruel snobbishness never again equaled among adults, there is perhaps no stricter hierarchy than that which reigns at a really exclusive girls’ boarding school. It makes the permutations of privilege in the court of Louis XIV look democratic. In each class there is a ruling clique, then a second-best clique, a third-best, a fourth-best, and even a fifth-best. And then there are the freaks. Honey, of course, was a freak from the day she arrived. There is no law that says a member of a clique can’t be fat, no law that says she can’t be poor (although few poor girls are found in such schools), but there is a law that says each class must have its freaks and that a freak is distinguished on the first day of school and stays a freak until she graduates.

There were certain compensations. Honey worked hard at her studies, since she had no offers to waste time at gossip or bridge. She discovered several teachers who appreciated her good mind, and she got excellent marks in French, which was taught strictly as a language to be read and written. Even at Emery the teachers soon gave up at attempts at French conversation. Honey made a few tentative friendships with some of the other freaks, but these relationships were always overshadowed by the knowledge that if they hadn’t been freaks they wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to each other. Her closest human contact was with Gertrude, one of the cooks at the school, a fat, young woman who nursed a deep resentment against all the slim girls she was employed to feed. Here was a girl almost as large as Gertude herself. She understood completely that Honey couldn’t subsist on the plain fare of the school. Every night Gertrude, with both malice and sympathy, left a large covered tray of leftovers hidden in the dining-room pantry, supplemented by the baked goods bought in the local village with the money the Winthrop girl gave her, money that Aunt Cornelia had given Honey for her extras.

By senior year Honey had reached her full height of five feet ten inches and weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds. She would have weighed more, but Emery prided itself in its healthy, low-starch, high-protein diet. She had been accepted at both Wellesley and Smith. Aunt Cornelia planned to send her niece through college in the same first-cabin manner in which she had sent her through boarding school. But Honey had another plan, conceived in grief and rage. On her last visit to her great-aunt Wilhelmina, who was being taken care of by the family in a nursing home, the ancient lady had given her a certified check for ten thousand dollars.

“It’s my savings,” she said. “Don’t let them know you’ve got it or George will take it away to manage for you and you won’t even see the interest on it. Use it while you’re young, do something foolish. I’ve never done anything foolish in my life and oh, Honey, how I regret it now! Don’t wait until it’s too late—promise me you’ll spend it on yourself.”

A week later, Honey confronted Aunt Cornelia. Quaveringly, she announced, “I don’t want to go to college. I can’t stand the idea of another four years in a girls’ school. I have ten thousand dollars of my own and I intend to—I intend to go to Paris and live there as long as I can.”

“How—where on earth did you get ten thousand dollars?”

“Great-Aunt Wilhelmina gave the money to me. You don’t even know where I’ve deposited it. I’m not letting anyone, not even Uncle George, invest it for me.” The fat girl quivered with unexpected defiance now that she had finally begun to speak. “If I want to, I can run away and be in Paris before you know I’ve gone—and you won’t be able to find me.”

“Absolutely impossible. Out of the question, my dear child. You’ll adore Wellesley. I loved every minute of my four years—” Cornelia had begun to look at Honey closely for the first time in this incredible conversation. What she saw was not reassuring. The girl obviously meant every word she was saying. In fact, if you wanted to be fanciful, you might almost say it was a question of do or die. And old Wilhelmina had certainly been most unorthodox. Giving cash to a child! Unheard of—she must be senile. Still, perhaps something could be rescued from this contretemps. Honey could hardly be
made
to attend college. Cornelia had long wondered what the girl would do with herself after college. Graduate school most likely and perhaps a teaching career. After all, she had been at the top of her class in French. It did seem a pity, Matilda’s daughter becoming another spinster schoolteacher.

“Honey, come here and sit down. Now—I promise to consider your plan, but on two conditions. First, we must find a good French household for you to live in where you will be looked after properly. I can’t have you living in a hotel or one of those sinister student hostels. Second, you may stay only one year—one year is quite sufficient for Paris—and when you come home you must promise to go to Katie Gibbs and take their one-year program. If you do that you’ll be assured an excellent job as an executive secretary, since you’ll obviously have to begin thinking about earning a living.”

Honey was silent for a few minutes, considering. Once she actually got to Paris it wouldn’t be easy to force her to come home again. And her money would go farther if she lived as a paying guest with some family. She had heard, at Emery, that French families really didn’t bother about what their paying guests were doing just as long as they paid their pension on time. And she’d get out of Katie Gibbs somehow. Who could possibly face life as a secretary? Or go to that stuffy, strict school?

“It’s a deal!” She gave her aunt a rare smile. The child really did have an enchanting smile, even with her fat cheeks and triple chin, Cornelia realized vaguely. But one saw it so seldom.

That night Cornelia wrote to Lady Molly Berkeley, a Lowell by birth, and one of Boston’s chief conduits to “people one knows” in Europe.

Dear Cousin Molly
,

I have some rather exciting news. Honey Winthrop, Joe’s girl, is planning to spend the next year in Paris perfecting her accent before going on to Katie Gibbs. She is a good child with a kind heart—although not much of a heartbreaker, I’m afraid. I wonder if, among your many French friends, you might happen to know of a really nice family in which Honey could live as a paying guest. She is not comfortably off, unfortunately, so she will have to earn her living eventually, but she does have a small sum that should be more than adequate to see her through the next few years, with proper management. I do hope to hear from you, dear Molly, before we arrive. We’ll be at Claridge’s, as usual, in June and we’re both looking forward to seeing you then
.

Love
,
   
Nelie

Lady Molly Emlen Lowell Lloyd Berkeley, who was then a lively seventy-seven, loved nothing more than making such arrangements. She wrote back within three weeks.

Nelie my dear
,

I was delighted to receive your letter and I do have promising news for you! I’ve poked about and discovered that Lilianne de Vertdulac has room for Honey. You must remember her husband, Comte Henrì—such a nice man. He was killed during the war, alas, and the family’s business was ruined. Lilianne only takes one girl a year and we are most fortunate because she is thoroughly appropriate in all ways, a rather remarkable and very charming woman. She has two daughters, younger than Honey, but they will certainly provide lots of youthful company for her
.

The pension, with all meals of course, will be seventy-five American dollars a week, which I do think is a jolly fair price considering what food is these days on the Continent. I’ll confirm the arrangements as soon as I hear from you. My love to George—

Fondly,
   Molly

The true French aristocracy, not those with new titles conferred by Napoleon but the ancient royalist aristocracy, which traces its ancestors back to the Crusades and beyond, is twice as interested in money as the average Frenchman. This is to say that the old French aristocracy is perhaps four times as interested in money as the average human being. To them, all money is new money unless it is their own family money or becomes their money. If one of their sons marries the daughter of a wealthy wine merchant whose great-grandparents were peasants, instant transubstantiation takes place and her dowry immediately glows with all the grace of an inheritance from Madame de Sévigné herself.

The French aristocracy has taken a lively interest in the good people of Boston ever since the days of the French Revolution when a Bostonian, Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins—whose daughter had married a Cabot—personally rescued the son of the Marquis de Lafayette and brought the boy to safety in the New World. Of course, it had to be recognized that the Bostonians were all merchants or sailors to begin with, generally of untitled English stock if you insisted on tracing the line back before Plymouth Rock—and many did so insist—yet one had to admire their ability to establish and enlarge their fortunes, while with each generation, they became more and more distinguished. Indeed, a good number of their daughters had become so distinguished over the course of history that they now wore some of the most glorious titles in France. And these Bostonians, although they rarely possessed those venerable family acres adorned by a château, which alone could really satisfy the French deification of real estate, nevertheless did own a gratifying number of mills and plants and banks and brokerage firms. Also they had
ton
. They were never vulgar. They lived with their fortunes in a quiet way, which was compatible to the many great French families who had had, perforce, to renounce the outrageous, indeed fatal, ostentation and grandeur of their ancestors after the Revolution.