Too Clever by Half

Of my great grandmother, I can only say that unlike the rest of us, she was tall and on the slender side.  Her hair was entirely grey and when unplaited and uncoiled, it hung past her waist.  She wore silver spectacles and like all the women in our family, sensible shoes.

She was a Morrell, pronounced MORR -ill, accent on the first sylable, a plain and well established Nova Scotian name.  Morrells went back centuries in history and it was a perfectly adequate and honorable name until my Aunt Helen married my Uncle Edgecomb and without so much as a by-your-leave, altered the pronunciation to 
Morr -ELL, accent on the second sylable.  The women in the family went wild, incensed at the idea that their name wasn't good enough for the prissy and prim Beacon Hill headmistress.  For all her tea party manners and lacquered pink pearl nails, she was, they collectively agreed, an uppity, fortune hunting old maid with illusions of grandeur.  She'd clearly bewitched my uncle, tricked him into marriage with feminine wiles.

Too clever by half, my girl, my great grandmother said accusingly at their initial meeting.  Helen stretched out one pale, delicate, perfectly manicured hand.

How terribly kind of you to have me, she said brightly.

My great grandmother glared at her and quite deliberately shifted a wad of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other then spat contemptuously.  Before Helen's appalled eyes, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and the poor headmistress flinched and paled noticeably.

Ain't done much work with those hands, have you, my girl, Nanny said flatly.

I beg your pardon! Helen exclaimed but her eyes seemed a bit dazed and she withdrew her hand as if struck.

No need, my great grandmother snapped back uncharitably and gave me an exasperated roll of her eyes, Too clever by half, she repeated with a raspy cackle.

Poor Helen - she was almost always referred to as such after that fateful day - stood wide eyed and silent, her pride injured and her insufferable superiority badly dented.  Nothing had prepared her for this lower class assault on her dignity and status and words, usually her most reliable weapon, had dramatically failed her. She gave my Uncle Eddie - who, it appeared was doing his utmost not to smile - a desperate, pleading look but he simply took her elbow and steered her firmly toward the sun porch.

Come along, old girl, I heard him say cheerfully, It's not as bad as all that.

Cream or lemon, Helen, dear?  My grandmother inquired sweetly as he deposited her into a chair.  Lemon, I think, she added when there was no answer, Definitely lemon.

From upstairs there came an undeniably satisfied cackle of laughter and Poor Helen - for the first time in her life she assured us later - promptly fainted dead away.