Really, Alice, she began stiffly, I hardly think.....
Exactly! Nana interrupted briskly, Precisely why no one's asked for your opinion, Helen, dear. More tea?
Thank you, no, Aunt Helen sighed, I certainly don't wish to intrude but....
Then don't! Uncle Eddie announced from the doorway, Have some tea and shut up for once, old girl.
Poor Helen flinched all the way to her meticulously plucked and arched eyebrows, assuming an injured expression and dabbing helplessly at her eyes. Predictably, this familiar and wearying routine tried my grandmother's patience and she glared at her sister-in-law without the first glimmer of sympathy, unwilling to spread the slightest bit of oil on the troubled waters. The sad truth was that no one could abide Aunt Helen with her headmistress manners and inflated sense of self and that we tolerated her only in deference to Uncle Eddie. My grandmother's brother, a chubby and good natured little man with a hearty laugh, was often the first to mock his self-elevated wife for her high toned speech and tea party mannerisms - he saw something in her the rest of us missed and rarely took offense at her patronizing ways - he seemed to be, in his humble and down to earth way, grateful that she'd agreed to marry him despite his background which she liked to remind him, bordered on the unfortunate. At best, the family agreed, it was an odd pairing - Uncle Eddie so content and light hearted, Aunt Helen so upwardly mobile and socially motivated.
The current squabble was over me and it didn't seem to be going well - I'd refused to wear the pink hair ribbons Helen had produced for the morning's trip to the mainland and seriously offended her by calling the matching dress something only a sissy would wear. Undeterred, she'd produced white ankle socks with pink flowers and a pair of glossy black Maryjanes and told me if I wouldn't wear them, then I couldn't go. I hadn't intended to throw the shoes at her, I assured Nana, it'd just happened. My grandmother sighed mightily, told me I was a great trial to her, then dug out my usual overalls and sneakers and told me to get dressed while she went to assuage her sister-in-law's hurt feelings. Aunt Helen, however, was in no mood to be placated - it was hard to tell whether the flying Maryjanes or my stubbornness had wounded her pride more and Nana's patience, always thin when dealing with what she considered Helen's snooty interference, had run out.
Not to be indelicate, Alice, dear, I heard Helen say, But I simply will not be seen in the company of a child who resembles and behaves like a street urchin.
As a street urchin, my grandmother corrected her icily, and if that's the case, then you will stay here.
Alice, I simply meant.....Helen began but Nana would have none of it.
Helen Morrell, you are an insufferable, self righteous, condescending and tight assed witch and I'll thank you to remember that you're a guest in this house and stop this damnable interfering! Otherwise you can leave this very minute!
ALICE! poor Aunt Helen had paled and one anxious hand had flown to clutch at her perfect pearls.
And that's the end of it, Helen, Nana finished, One more word and as God is my witness, I'll slap your dried up, Beacon Hill affected, hifalutin' carcass all the way out the door!
And then, except for Aunt Helen's sobs and my grandmother's fading footsteps, there was a deadly silence. I sat frozen, too scared and confused to move, sure that somehow it was my fault and that there would be a high price to pay. I started to cry and my Uncle Eddie noticed me - he glanced at his loudly weeping wife, back at me, back at her. And then he took my hand and led me out the back door and around to the old whitewashed side porch, sat me down, and produced a large, white, monogrammed handkerchief. It smelled like pipe tobacco and Old Spice. I expected a "You'll understand when you're older" lecture and to be sent to my room - instead, he wiped my tears, put one arm around my shoulders, and began to talk to me - it was a long, rambling speech about two women under one roof and jealousy and grownups behaving badly and something he called control. I didn't understand most of it but I knew he was being kind, just as I suspected he was being disloyal to Aunt Helen and probably not winning any points with my grandmother. But he didn't seem to mind.
It's all just noise, he told me gently, and it can't hurt you.
We made the trip to the mainland - without Helen, her name was never even mentioned - had a grand, grown up lunch at The Pines, returned just in time to make the last ferry. And as sometimes happens in families who don't know how to love each other, the ugly scene on the sunporch passed into the realm of forgive and forget.
At least so we all pretended. Because memories are all too often buried in shallow graves.
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