“How revolting!” said Mrs. Peranger.
“But I love him, Mother. I love him, and I’m going to marry him.”
“Go to hell!” said Mrs. Peranger.
That night, Mrs. Peranger called the Mayor and asked to speak with his wife. “This is Louisa Peranger,” she said. “I am going to put someone up for the Tilton Club this fall, and I was thinking of you.” There was a sigh of excitement from the wife of the Mayor. Her head would be swimming. But why? But why? The clubrooms were threadbare, the maids were surly, and the food was bad. Why was there a ferocious waiting list of thousands? “I drive a hard bargain,” said Mrs. Peranger, “as everyone knows. There is a dog-and-cat hospital on Route 14 that I would like to have shut down. I’m sure your husband can discover that some sort of zoning violation is involved. It must be some sort of nuisance. If you will speak to your husband about the dog-and-cat hospital, I will get the membership list to you so that you can decide on your other sponsors. I will arrange a luncheon party for the middle of September. Goodbye.”
Nerissa pined away, died, and was buried in the little Episcopal church whose windows had been given in memory of her grandfather. Mrs. Peranger looked imperious and patrician in her mourning, and as she left the church she was heard to sob loudly, “She was so attractive?she was so frightfully attractive.”
Mrs. Peranger rallied from her loss, and kept up with her work, which, at that time of year, consisted of screening candidates for a debutante cotillion. Three weeks after Nerissa’s funeral, a Mrs. Pentason and her daughter were shown into the drawing room.
Mrs. Peranger knew how hard Mrs. Pentason had worked for this interview. She had done hospital work; she had organized theatre parties, strawberry festivals, and antique fairs. But Mrs. Peranger looked at her callers harshly. They would have learned their manners from a book. They would have studied the chapter on how to drink tea. They were the sort who dreamed in terms of invitations that would never be received. Mr. and Mrs. William Paley request the honor… Their mail, instead, would consist of notices of private sales, trial offers from the Book-of-the-Month Club, and embarrassing letters from Aunt Minnie, who lived in Waco, Texas, and used a spittoon. Nora passed the tea and Mrs. Peranger kept a sharp eye on the girl. The noise of water from the swimming pool sounded very loud, and Mrs. Peranger asked Nora to close the window.
“We have so many applicants for the cotillion these days that we expect a little more than we used to,” Mrs. Peranger said. “We not only want attractive and well-bred young women, we want interesting young women.” Even with the windows shut, she could hear the sound of water. It seemed to put her at a disadvantage. “Do you sing?” she asked.
“No,” the girl said.
“Do you play any musical instruments?”
“I play the piano a little.”
“How little?”
“I play some of the Chopin. I mean, I used to. And ‘Fur Elise.’ But mostly I play popular music.”
“Where do you summer?
“Dennis Port,” the girl said.
“Ah yes,” said Mrs. Peranger. “Dennis Port, poor Dennis Port. There really isn’t any place left to go, is there? The Adriatic Coast is crowded. Capri, Ischia, and Amalfi are all ruined. The Princess of Holland has spoiled the Argentario. The Riviera is jammed. Brittany is so cold and rainy. I love Skye, but the food is dreadful. Bar Harbor, the Cape, the Islands?they’ve all gotten to seem so shabby.” She heard again the noise of running water from the pool, as if a breeze carried the sound straight up to the shut windows. “Tell me, are you interested in the theatre?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. Very much.”
“What plays did you see last season?”
“None.”
“You, ride, play tennis, and so forth?”
“What in New York is your favorite museum?”
“I don’t know.”
‘What books have you read recently?”
“I read The Seersucker Plague. It was on the best-seller list. They bought it for the movies. And Seven Roads to Heaven. That was on the best-seller list, too.”
