The Good China

Being a product of terribly proper old Boston stock, my Aunt Helen was fairly appalled with her new husband's side of the family. Is it true, she asked my grandmother as she adjusted her dress to cover her knees, that you have cousins in......well, Worcester? And that Jan's husband comes from an exceptionally ...........well, shall we say, a rather distressingly prolific family?

My grandmother looked at her Beacon Hill born and bred sister in law and paused in her knitting. It is, she said calmly, but let me reassure you, Helen, it's hardly contaigious.

Helen gave a delicate shiver and pulled her sweater over her narrow shoulders. Good heavens, Alice, she said with a touch of starch in her tone, Worcester! They're foreigners! And ten children veritably shrieks of a lack of self control, not to mention other interests!

Nana sighed and tapped her knitting needles together sharply. Helen, she said, adding her own starch, Have you considered the possibility that your sensitive and proper breeding might have neglected the area of, dare I say, good manners?

Come now, Alice, Helen huffed, I certainly meant no offense.

You always mean to offend, old girl, my Uncle Eddie chimed in cheerfully from the archway, She can't help it, Alice,
that silver spoon has stuck in her craw since day one. Just ignore her.

Aunt Helen winced and turned her back, her dignity too assaulted to respond and her senses overcome by her husband's crude language. To make it worse, my grandmother winked at me and Uncle Eddie laughed outloud, sister and brother in league against the proper head mistress and her snooty, intolerable good breeding. We might have been kinder had she ever relented or shown any sign of imperfection, but all she had was her snobbery and she distanced herself from those below her at every opportunity. At the suggestion that we all help clear the dinner table, she raised her eyebrows in surprise and rallied. Have you no help for that sort of thing? she asked with a hint of distaste as we gathered dirty dishes and trekked to the kitchen. Nana paused at the swinging door, the not quite empty, silver gravy boat balanced in one hand as she judged the height of the candles and the distance to Helen's still occupied chair just beyond them. Uncle Eddie smoothly intervened and with one practiced move swept the gravy boat away and steered his sister through the door. I think it's cook's night off, dear, he told Aunt Helen with a tolerant smile, just before dodging a suddenly airborn coffee cup Nana had flung at him from the kitchen, Why don't you retire to the drawing room? Helen's face paled as a juice glass whizzed past his ear, followed by a barrage of black olives and celery and then an unexpected mix of cursing and laughter. She fled to the living room with Uncle Eddie loudly protesting, Not the good china, Alice!