A big do, and every girl up and down Central Park West invited, at least all the ones that count.
A new frock that looks like the Vionnet frock Mother brought back from Paris that time.
Well, not the same, Mme. Vionnet not designing much anymore and all of it for older ladies, not young ones. Newer designers and satin to look like someone in Hollywood but the same wine red color with nail lacquer to match.
The Saint Moritz tonight and more packing tomorrow. Beach house near Havana for half the winter and Key West for the rest. Maybe somewhere else after or maybe not.
Hard. A bit old for debutante things and the escorts that they have. Another few years and too much time on the shelf. College men at the dances at Cornell but none of them having stuck. But tonight. Maybe. Someone’s older cousin down from Harvard Law.
Men to spin around a ballroom with. . .men to partner for a party breakfast so late it could turn into a ride down a bridle path in Central Park . . .hopefully one for good soon.
This series running through the end of January and then there will be another one just as lovely.
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Everyone gone to Saint Louis for the weekend and the house to oneself. Mid-May, no one around and the house sort of ready for the season.
Food from the little grocer and lunch on the porch. Funny. No family and whatever one wants, not just what they say to eat. Muffins and eggs for breakfast with a plate covered with bacon. Two bowls of fruit for lunch and nothing for supper but a big bowl of shrimp and a jar of cocktail sauce with a flute of champagne. Healthy on Tuesday but not today.
The porches swept, beds made and the old towel rack in the maid’s bathroom covered with face cloths. Bag after bag of little shampoos and toothpaste to be put around. A pain, six bathrooms and each one needing three.
All right back then. Great-grandmother’s wedding present house. Wintering in Detroit and up on the island from June to September with a nurse for every child. The Detroit house gone after they lost all the money and winters in Florida in a tourist camp with the train up nearly as soon as the ice thawed. Their real home it was.
Games of sardines and freeze tag on the lawn. So many rooms that the cousins from down the road got lost playing hide and seek.
But fun now too. Only two weeks or maybe three and tenant hunting all winter. But worth it. Family homeplace with a boat house and a bunch of canoes. Long table on the porch for suppers with corn on the cob and three pitchers of iced tea as the platters of steak and bowls of salad make their way around.
But all that later. The last spot. Grandmother’s vanity with the drawer stuck. Funny. All the pictures taken out but one stuck inside with the names of the back. Great-grandmother and her little sister the year they lived in Paris.
A memory in flood and rushing back. . . In the gardens of the Tuileries, it must be and looking like little girls done up like the puffballs in the flower bed. . . A dolly apiece and a bonnet . . .happy they were there but only the one time. . .never got to go back, to Canada instead. . . but a happy bubble in time and that no one can take.
The daughters of grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, uncle of the last tsar. Photograph ca. 1906. via Facebook.
Afternoon to while away into evening up at the top of Auntie Agnes’s house in Knoxville. Cupola way up at the top with views to die for. Four flights of stairs to die for too but then no one able to follow up either. Their legs too short or too tired. Like being in a space capsule blasted sideways across the trees staring straight through the tree tops and watch the birds dance.
Mother having talked about spending entire afternoons up at the top of the house with a book and glass of water. Just as hot as anyone had ever said and the window sills just as covered with dead flies. But the windows forced open over who knows how many coats of paint and the flies swept out with an old newspaper into the world. Ice in the water bottle and the magazine from the Sunday paper to look through till dusk.
The magazine finished, and a run down to the box room and back up again. A calico covered box, completely stuffed. Auntie not wanting it looked at but all the way down on the front porch with that penetrating stare of hers but no way to see through tree branches, wood, and brick.
One old postcard and then more. Enough for three tables worth of people playing bridge if they were cards. Most of the synagogue where auntie’s parents got married but some others from when they held the Appalachian Exposition that time.
An American Indian girl posed against a studio mountain and a fountain. People weaving coverlets and others showing quilts.
But another at the very bottom. One of those places like they had in Asheville that time where you could rent a boat and paddle around. Fun it must have been and a relief from the heat.
Much coming but not there yet. Great uncle marrying auntie and that not having turned out too well except for the house. But to be courted in a boat . . . .heavenly. . . a boat, beau and a bunch of flowers. . . .all one needs and never needing more.
A fortnight’s holiday turning into a month. Father busy in the city and Mother happy with her easel. Makes sense, an entire back bedroom for a studio instead of that tiny closet with a window in Prague.
Time to run through the fields and look for elves and fairies in the woods. Fairy circles, too. Both brothers saying fairies only live on clouds but no. Everyone with wings in fairy tale books living in a wreath of flowers in the grass. How it must be no matter what older people think.
Beds so tall they have stairs to get in at least in the old nursery. Very small the children must have been though not as small as fairies. The beds not wide enough for spread out wings so that they cannot have been, but almost.
Smaller than everyone last year at school. But fun being able to get into little places to explore. Cupboards with old paints and closets with ancient coats for dress up. Doll tea sets with cups and saucers small enough for the littlest baby doll in the world along with two teapots.
The back cupboard opened up and something poking one’s back. Getting out inch by inch and shaking what looked to be a century’s worth of dust off. An old picture. A little girl with a pink hair bow and ties on her shoulders.
No way to know. Everyone lost in one war or another and in who knows how many ways. Now, then and forever as far as anyone can see. But happy she looks with her own Mama and fairy circles to find . . . nothing more but all one needs. . .
