Good morning! Merry Christmas! Here's a package just for
Mother gave my father yet another batch of ties and Sea Island cotton handkerchiefs. They looked very much like every year's. But then so did the dressing gown my father gave my mother.
I got half a dozen of whatever ties the Brooks man said were right for youth.
Marcie got the latest Daphne Du Maurier from Mother.
I had spent my annual five minutes at Christmas shopping and my gifts reflected it. My mother got some handkerchiefs, my father yet more ties, and Marcie got a book:
The tension (relatively speaking) centered on what our guest had brought.
To start with, Marcie's offerings had not, like ours, been wrapped at home. They had been swathed professionally (at you-know-where) in California.
Mother got a light-blue cashmere scarf ('You shouldn't have').
Father got that oblong box, which turned out to be Chateau Haut-Brion '59.
'What splendid wine,' he said. In truth he was no connoisseur. Our 'cellar' had some Scotch for Father's guests, some sherry for my mother's, and a case or two of fairly good champagne for grand occasions.
I received a pair of gloves. Though they were elegant, I still resented wearing Marcie's present at arms' length. It was too damn impersonal.
('Would you have preferred a mink-lined jock?' she later asked.
'Yes — that's where I was coldest!')
To top it off, or rather bottom it, I got what I had always got from Father. I received a check.
To this processional, zestfully performed by Mr Weeks, the organist, we entered church and headed for our pew. The house was full of all our 'peers', who were in fact discreetly peering at our female guest. ('She isn't one of us,' I'm sure they said.) No one turned to gaze overtly save for Mrs Rhodes, whose ninety-odd — extremely odd — long years could license such behavior.
But the congregation did watch Mrs Rhodes. And couldn't help but notice that she smiled after a thorough look at Marcie. Ah, the hag approves.
We sang politely (not as loudly as last evening) and we heard the Reverend Mr Lindley drone the service. Father read the lesson and, give credit, did it well. He took his breaths at commas, not, like Lindley, everywhere.
The sermon, Lord have mercy, showed the reverend was in sync with world affairs. He made mention of the conflict out in Southeast Asia, bade us think — at Christmastide — how much the Prince of Peace was needed in a World at War.
Thank Heaven Lindley is asthmatic so his sermons are gasped mercifully brief.
All benedicted, we retired to the steps of the church. To have a replay of the after Harvard-Yale game meetings. Save this morning everyone is sober.
'Jackson!' 'Mason!' 'Harris!' 'Barrett!' 'Cabot!' 'Lowell!'
God!
Things of minor consequence were mumbled in between articulations of the cronies' names.
Mother also had some friends to greet. But in a quiet manner, natch.
Then all at once a voice distinctly bellowed:
'Maah-cie dear!'
I whirled and saw my date embracing someone.
It was someone antiquated or — despite the church — he would have swallowed teeth.
Instantly my parents were at hand to see who had saluted Marcie with such fervor.
Good old Standish Farnham still had Marcie in his arms.
'Oh, Uncle Standish, what a nice surprise!'
Mother seemed enthused. Was Marcie niece to this distinguished 'one of us'?
'Maah-cie, what would bring a city gal like you out to these bahrbr'ous pahts?' asked Standish,
'She's staying with us,' Mother interposed.
'Oh, Alison, how fine,' said Standish, and then winked at me. 'Do gahd her from that rakish lad of yours.'
'We keep her under glass,' I answered wryly. And old Standish larfed.
'Are you two related?' I inquired, wishing Standish would remove his hand from Marcie's waist.
'Only by affection. Mr Farnham and my father were in partnership,' she said.
'Not pahtners,' he insisted, 'brothers.'
'Oh,' said Mother, clearly hoping for a juicy new detail.
'We had some hosses,' Standish said. 'I sold 'em when her father died. The fun went out.'
'Indeed,' my mother said, beneath her Christmas bonnet a Vesuvius of curiosity. (For Standish just
'If you have time, come over in the afternoon,' old Farnham said in parting.
'I have to be in New York City, Uncle Standish.'
'Ah — the busy little gal,' he crowed. 'Well, shame on you for sneaking into Boston like a criminal.' He blew a kiss to her and turned to us.
'Be sure she eats. If I recall my little Maah-cie, she was always on a diet. Merry Christmas.'
Then as an afterthought he called, 'Keep up the good work, Maah-cie. We're all proud of you!'
Father drove us back in Mother's station wagon. And in pregnant silence.
Pre-Christmas dinner, Father cracked a bottle of champagne.
'To Marcie,' said my mother.
We all raised our glasses. Marcie merely wet her lips. Quite out of character, I then proposed a toast to Jesus.
There were six of us. The four who rose this morning supplemented now by Geoff, my mother's nephew from Virginia, and Aunt Helen, spinster sister of rny father's father, who, I think, recalls Methuselah when both of them were studying at Harvard. Helen's deaf and Geoffrey eats as if he had a tapeworm. So the conversation wasn't noticeably changed.
We praised the mighty bird.
'Tell Florence, don't tell me,' my mother humbly said. 'She was up at dawn to start it off.'
'The stuffing's simply marvelous,' my New York roommate effervesced.
'Ipswich oysters, after all,' said Mother, pi eased as punch.
We feasted, everything aplenty. Geoff and I competed to be glutton of the day.
And strangely now, a second bottle of champagne was opened. Though I vaguely was aware that only I and Father were imbibing. Actually, I was so vague because I had imbibed the most.
Florence's perennial mince pie, then coffee in the parlor made it 3 p.m.
I'd have to wait a bit before we started to New York. To let my stomach settle and my brain grow clear.
'Marcie, would you like to take a walk?' my mother asked.
'I'd love to, Mrs Barrett.'
And they did.
Meanwhile Auntie Helen snoozed, and Geoff went up to plug into the football on the tube.
That left my father and myself.
'I'd really like some cool air too,' I said.
'I wouldn't mind a walk,' my father answered.
As we put our coats on, and went out into the winter frost, I was aware that,' had asked him for this promenade. I could have copped out with the football game like Geoff. But no, I wanted conversation. With my father.
'She's a lovely girl,' he said. Unasked.
