Auntie Mame Read online

  But Auntie Mame, who was a rabid Franco-Anglophile, performed with admirable restraint. She used her Gracious Lady voice all evening and unbent a little—but not too much—with her third highball. She held her tongue remarkably, relaxed enough to tell a few witty and carefully edited anecdotes, and pressed a warm invitation on the Upsons to dine with her in Washington Square at the end of the week.

  “Oh, but we’ll be in the midst of packing for the country then,” Mrs. Upson whimpered, torn between her duty and visiting what was really one of the most famous houses in New York.

  “All the more reason, then, for you to come to me. Think how much simpler it will be for your stoff”—with a gesture that indicated dozens of unseen servants—“if they won’t have to go through the trouble of a meal for the three of you. Do come, please,” she said with cocked head and a captivating smile. “It won’t be anything grand, I promise you. Just a little black-tie family meal. Thursday, then?” She rose and walked daintily toward the door.

  “Patrick, dear boy, you needn’t worry about seeing me home if you two young things want to bill and coo. I should have had sense enough to bring the Royce, but a taxi will do.”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Upson giggled, ecstatic to be as one with the Greenwich Village Lady Vere de Vere, “I’m going to firmly order your nephew out. Gloria’s got to get her picture taken tomorrow—for the papers, you know—and I don’t want her looking as though she’d been up all night.”

  “I think your aunt’s just dreamy,” Gloria whispered as we walked to the door. “Of course, I’ve read about her, but to actually meet her and talk to her! And that emerald!”

  The Mutal Admiration Society held a warm farewell.

  “Well?” I said, as Auntie Mame removed her hat and loosened her girdle in the car.

  “Christ, but it’s a scorcher! Well,” she said, “they’re a lit-tle B. Altman’s—the more expensive floors, mind you—but nice, darling. Really quite nice. And Gloria is beautiful.” She was unusually silent on the way home.

  On the day of Auntie Mame’s Little Dinner, Gloria and I lunched and went to Cartier’s. In less than fifteen minutes, I learned a lot about diamonds. With eyes blinded and ears deafened by love, I watched Gloria reject three velvet trays of solitaires and smile rapturously at her outstretched hand and the big round diamond blazing on her fourth finger. “Yes,” she said definitely, “this is the one.”

  I was barely conscious as I wrote a check for most of my next year’s income. Gloria kissed me good-by and walked out onto Fifth Avenue, the diamond twinkling brightly.

  Back in the house on Washington Square, there was an extraordinary bustle. The place was a bower of white orchids, and Ito was placing the last of the white candles in the drawing-room chandelier. The long, Venetian table in the dining room was set for eight, and there were two strange men striding uneasily about in blue livery.

  I raced upstairs to Auntie Mame’s bedroom, where she lay reading her way through a stack of old Edith Wharton novels.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” I said.

  “What do you mean, my little love?” she smiled.

  “Just what I said. Who’s coming to this meal, and who are those characters dressed as footmen?”

  “Why, darling, this is the night the Upsons are coming. Surely you couldn’t have forgotten!”

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten, but why all the extra places, the funeral wreaths, and those two ramrods in the tailcoats?”

  “But, Patrick, dear, I simply wanted to have a nice evening planned for you. After all, if these Upsons are so important, your poor old Auntie Mame has to keep up her end, doesn’t she?”

  “Now, don’t play airy-fairy with me. Who’s coming?”

  “Rudeness will get you nowhere, young man. I can be twice as unpleasant as you, and you know it.”

  “What I meant to say, Victoria Regina, is whom have you invited to break bread with us this evening?”

  “Thank you for your courtesy, albeit belated,” she said maddeningly. “I have invited my dearest friend, Vera Charles, and the Honorable Basil Fitz-Hugh. I couldn’t get the Guggenheims.”

  “The Guggenheims?”

  “Yes. Quite a prominent family. I feel certain that you may hear the name sometime before you die. And, for myself—if you have no objections to a poor widow having a dinner partner, I’ve asked Prince Henri-René de la Tour. That is, if you don’t mind.”

  “And the footmen?”

  “They happen to be two talented young actors who were in the play Vera just closed. She thought it might be something of a camp to have them.”

  “Now see here, what may be a camp to you and Vera is dead serious to me. If you two are planning to mess up my en …”

  “But, Patrick, dear boy,” Auntie Mame said with a dazzling smile, “I only want to have things Right. And, of course, I’m doing my bit for those young men. It’s awfully hard for actors to find work in the summer and I’m giving them much better than Equity minimum for a one-night stand. I even paid to have their costumes cleaned and pressed.”

  “If you do one bitchy thing …” I muttered.

  “Have you taken leave of your senses, darling? Why should I want to ruin your happiness? I only want to enhance it. The Upsons are obviously very conscious of wealth, and I sim-ply want to show them that we have a little something laid by, too.”

  Apprehensive and defeated, I retired to my bath.

  It was quite an evening. Everybody but the Upsons arrived a trifle early, almost as though by arrangement. Auntie Mame was ravishing in pale blue with most of her diamonds, and Vera looked stately in white and said everything unpleasant about Ina Claire, Gertrude Lawrence, and the Schuberts before the Upsons appeared. The Honorable Basil wore his Coldstream Guards dress uniform, and Prince de la Tour was very Gallic in summer dinner clothes. Only later did I remember that Mr. Upson hated both French and British. The two Equity footmen were equally impressive and unobtrusive, and Mrs. Upson was in seventh heaven to discover that her favorite actress, Vera—“I’ve seen every one of your plays, twice, Miss Charles!”—was an intimate of Auntie Mame’s.

  “Quite a place you have here,” Mr. Upson kept saying.

  Auntie Mame served only champagne and blushed prettily when she was complimented on the truffled squab. “Don’t be silly, my dear, it’s just a sort of picnic supper, really. Half the servants are off today.”

  I was hot with embarrassment, but I was the only one.

  Once or twice I caught Mrs. Upson surveying the house with glistening eyes and I was on the verge of offering to show her through it when the party broke up. Gloria, the diamond shining on her finger, kissed me good night with even more than her usual warmth, and at the door, while the Equity footmen stood at rigid attention, Mrs. Upson gushed something into Auntie Mame’s ear about Connecticut.

  “Well,” Auntie Mame sighed when we were alone, “how did the old war horse do?”

  “You did fine, Auntie Mame,” I said with starry-eyed sincerity, “you did just fine.” Now the tribal customs had been observed and everything was on a friendly basis.

  We set off for our week end with the Upsons a few days later. Auntie Mame, who usually went at a short motor trip as though it were a world cruise, showed a remarkable lethargy when it came to packing for the week end in Connecticut. “I thought a hatbox with a few of those cunning gingham summer things, and maybe a long peasant skirt for evenings would be appropriate, my little love,” she said, looking up innocently from her Rand-McNally War Map of the Western Desert. “I tell you, darling, bastard that he is, you’ve got to hand it to that Rommel.”

  I snatched the war map away from her. “Now see here, Molly Pitcher,” I roared, “I don’t know quite what you’ve got in the back of your mind, but I can tell you that you’re not going out to the Upsons’ with a paper sack full of milkmaid costumes.”

  “All right, darling, if you
think she wants to lionize me, we’ll shoot the works and I’ll take the Rolls-Royce, Ito, my maid, and a whole trunk full of pretties.”

  “I didn’t say the Upsons were going to make a public spectacle of you. They’re not that kind.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  “Listen,” I hissed, “if you’re up to one of your cute tricks, we’ll just cancel the whole thing right now.”

  “But, Patrick, darling,” she said guilelessly, “you know that your happiness is of paramount importance to me. I live for nothing else. Why, if it weren’t for this week end with the Upsons—which I’m doing just for you—I could be out at Fire Island with some of the most amusing boys in …”

  “And I wouldn’t mention Fire Island, either, if I were you.”

  “But would you have me falsify myself, darling?”

  “In a word, yes!”

  “Very well, pack up my plumes, order the Royce, get out my jewel box, it’s a shame the sable coat’s in storage …”

  “Goddamn it, can’t you ever act like other people?”

  “But would you love me if I did?”

  “Must you always appear in a character role? Do you have to go out there either dressed as a Farm Hand in a lot of sunbonnets or else as the Queen of Sheba with an armored truck full of diamonds? Can’t you see that I just want to make a good impression on Gloria’s family?”

  “I don’t suppose you ever considered that Gloria’s family might find it politic to make a good impression on me?”

  “Certainly they want you to think that they’re nice people.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  “Now, get this straight,” I said. “This is important to me. I want to marry Gloria and I intend to do it …”

  “Even if she’s wrong for you?” Auntie Mame asked evenly.

  “That’s for me to decide. I just want you to go out there and act like a normal human being. Gloria and her family already like you a lot from the two times they’ve seen you …”

  “Well, that really makes my summer!”

  “… and if you can just act the way you did then, everything’ll be just fine. But they don’t have to know that you used to be in the chorus of Chu Chin Chow and they don’t have to know about all your queer friends on Fire Island …”

  “I cannot be held responsible for the sexual preferences of my associates.”

  “… and they don’t have to know about a lot of things that ordinary mortals just don’t have to know about!”

  “Should they know that I think you’ve turned into one of the most beastly, bourgeois, babbitty little snobs on the Eastern Seaboard, or will you be able to make that quite clear without any help from me?” She picked up her war map and slammed out.

  We motored out to Connecticut in comparative silence. Auntie Mame looked quite smart in a linen suit and I told her so.

  “Thank you, my dear,” she said acidly. “I had meant to buy a little navy blue outfit with touches of white and a bunch of cherries on the bosom, but Best and Company is so crowded!”

  “Auntie Mame,” I said quietly, “is it simply that you don’t want me to get married to Gloria?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking straight ahead. “I just don’t know. Now, be still and let me see what General Montgomery is up to.” She rattled her copy of Time ostentatiously. That was all we said until we got to Mountebank, Connecticut.

  After about half an hour of false turns into highways and byways with quaint names, we finally found Larkspur Lane.

  “Nice out here, isn’t it?” I said conversationally.

  “Adorable,” she said, and closed Time.

  We drove on and came to a gate made of white wagon wheels with a colonial lantern on a post and a sign that read

  UPSON DOWNS

  “Isn’t that darling!” Auntie Mame said.

  “Now, look here, if you …”

  “Well, don’t fly down my throat, Patrick,” she said with a wide-eyed look of injured innocence. “I simply meant that I think it’s just terribly amusing. Really I did. I wonder which one of them ever thought of anything so clever.”

  I gave her a searching look, but I could discover nothing in her face. We drove up the gravel drive.

  The house was a low rambling field-stone affair with a hitching post in front, a string of sleigh bells hanging on the front door, and a pair of carriage lamps flanking it.

  “Isn’t it sweet,” Auntie Mame cooed. “Almost like Better Homes and Gardens.” Again her face was completely expressionless.

  “Woo hoo!” Mrs. Upson called, and burst through the front door like a track star breaking the tape.

  “Hel-lo, my dear!” Auntie Mame cried. “I’m absolutely in love with your house. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

  “Yes, we just love it out here,” Mrs. Upson smirked. “The main part of the house is pre-Revolutionary. Of course, it wasn’t nearly big enough, so we had the two wings added to take care of the children, but now that Boyd’s married and Gloria’s as good as gone, there’ll just be the two of us rattling around in it.”

  “Well, whatever you say, my dear, it’s cunning,” Auntie Mame said with a big, insincere smile.

  “And of course Mountebank is restricted.”

  “By what?”

  “You know,” Mrs. Upson said coyly.

  The colored houseman carried our bags in and we followed Mrs. Upson into the hall. It was painted Williamsburg green and was decorated with a banjo clock, a lot of Currier and Ives prints, and had a hooked rug on the plank floor.

  “Ooooh!” Auntie Mame squealed as the rug slid out from under her. She caught herself on the newel post.

  “Careful now!” Mrs. Upson sang. “Luckily, Claude has personal liability insurance, but we don’t want you breaking your leg.”

  “You are thoughful,” Auntie Mame grimaced, wagging her finger like an operetta soubrette.

  “I’m just going to hide the two of you away in the Guest Wing,” Mrs. Upson said as she puffed up the narrow staircase.

  “How divine!” Auntie Mame said. “Oooh!” she cried as I gave her a vicious prod in the backside.

  “Something the matter, dear?” Mrs. Upson asked.

  “Oh, no, my dear, I was simply thinking of all the boots of those brave colonial generals that must have marched up and down these hallowed steps.”

  “Now, this is to be your room,” Mrs. Upson said, “and I’m just going to put you in here, Patrick. And there’s this little sitting room in between—just in case you both get lonely.” She giggled.

  “Gracious,” Auntie Mame squealed, “mine is so feminine and Patrick’s is so masculine. I’ll bet you planned it that way!”

  “Well, yes. I said to the decorator from Altman’s …”

  “Altman’s? I would have said Sloane. Solid Sloane.”

  “Oh, what a clever thing you are, Mame! May I call you Mame? And you must call me Doris. Downstairs is Sloane’s and upstairs is Altman’s.”

  “You just call me anything you like, Doris, as long as you don’t call me late for meals. Hahahaha!”

  The two ladies fairly collapsed into each other’s arms with girlish mirth. I was appalled.

  “Now, you two hurry and wash. Claude and I will be down on the terrace with a good daiguiri just as soon as you’re ready. Gloria’s off at the club with some young people—girls, of course—but she’ll be home any minute. So you just hurry down. We won’t bother to dress tonight—just simple country life.” She tripped away.

  “Oh, darling,” Auntie Mame said, “isn’t this a duck of a place. Just see my room—French Provincial, every stick of it. And they’ve even put out reading material for me: the Reader’s Digest, Song of Bernadette—I’ve always wanted to read that—and the March issue of Vogue.”

  “If you so much as …”

  “Darling, whatever is the matter w
ith you? I’m just loving it, and I think Doris is a regular old brick. You saw that she liked me, asking me to call her by her first name and all that. And I’m just going to be such a perfect week-end guest that I’ll bet you anything Claude asks me to call him by name. I do so love the tu relationship in families, don’t you?”

  I was speechless with rage, but on the other hand, I could see that Auntie Mame was making a hit. She was behaving herself, doing what I’d asked her to do—almost too well.

  I was busy shaving when Auntie Mame scratched at the door and sauntered in. “Mercy,” she whispered, “what a virile bathroom you have, my little love. Not at all like mine. All those rough, manly brown towels—what a shame they don’t say His on them—and those etchings of ducks on the wing. Now, my bathroom is pink with a Tony Icart borzoi print and …”

  “Ouch!” I roared.

  “Oh, darling, have I made you cut yourself?”

  “What the hell do you think you’re got up as?” I raged at her. “Take that ribbon out of your hair this instant!”

  “But, Patrick,” she whined, “it came off my sun lotion bottle and Doris is wearing one. I thought it looked cute with this sprigged muslin.” She was wearing a fluffy rose dress with a lot of moonstone jewelry that somehow didn’t look as if she really meant it, but yet wasn’t wrong enough to be worthy of comment.

  “I do look right for Mountebank, don’t I, darling?”

  “You look okay,” I said, dabbing at my jaw.

  “Sweetheart,” she said, kissing the back of my neck, “Now you just hurry with your shaving. You’ll find me out in the sitting room reading Oliver Wiswell in one of those comfy Governor Winthrop chairs. It’s just as though I were history in this little jewel of a house.”

  The downstairs, or Sloane Section of Upson Downs, was pretty much like the upstairs; very Quaint, very Country, very Colonial. There were carriage lamps, ratchet lamps, tole lamps, and lamps made out of butter churns, coffee mills, and apothecary jars. Bed warmers, old bellows, brass trivets, and gay samplers hung on the walls with Spy cartoons, hunting prints, yellowed maps, and prim daguerreotypes. Mrs. Upson sat nervously on a wrought-iron chair out on the terrace, and above Auntie Mame’s cooing, “How sweet … how quaint … how cunning …” I could hear Mr. Upson shaking up drinks and making hostly noises.