The Windsor Knot

Elizabeth, busy with her plans, sped past the mountain vistas of 1-77 and down into the pine forests of middle Carolina with hardly a glance at the scenery.

Geoffrey drew aside the curtain and gazed out at the winding gravel driveway. “I thought she’d be here by now, didn’t you?” he remarked to his brother Charles. “Of course, the trip probably takes longer with mice and pumpkin.”

“Pumpkin?” said Charles, whose inattention was evident. “What are you talking about?”

“It was a literary reference. Remember Cinderella? I was alluding to Cousin Elizabeth’s fondness for building castles in the air and then moving into them.”

Charles did not bother to reply, as this might be interpreted by Geoffrey as an inducement to stay. Charles had retreated to the musty depths of the Chandler library to commune with his thoughts, and he had enjoyed a quiet hour of brandy and contemplation in the leather chair next to the fireplace. The interruption by Geoffrey, who insisted upon pulling back the velvet curtains and peering out the window while making inane remarks, was most unwelcome. Charles had just completed some soul-searching and found to his chagrin that he had remarkably little area to cover. The depression resulting from this discovery had made the prospect of a visit with his adder-tongued brother even more painful than usual.

Geoffrey, blissfully unaware of the dread he inflicted, prattled on about the family’s current obsession. “I should be learning my lines for the play, of course, but I doubt that I shall get much chance with all the distractions to come. Still, I expect that I shall find Elizabeth’s royalty fantasies highly entertaining. Although, Lord knows, Southern brides are prone to it with less provocation than she has. Did you ever notice that?”

“What?” murmured Charles. He was holding his brandy snifter in both hands, as if he expected the spirits therein to offer the sort of career advice Macbeth had received.

“About Southern brides’ royalty fantasies,” said Geoffrey, warming to his topic. “A couple of weeks before the wedding, they all come down with a strange personality disorder. It’s characterized by delusions of grandeur, obsession with ritual, and a tendency toward ruthless tyranny.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I expect you will, Charles. I predict that within hours of her arrival, Elizabeth will turn this place into the court of Catherine the Great. The brides can’t help it, I suppose. Southern women are raised on rosy images of Scarlett O’Hara and all the beautiful belles of Southern mythology. You know, the fiery little minx who breaks men’s hearts.” He shuddered. “We tend to encourage that image of femininity, wouldn’t you say?”

Charles shrugged. “I don’t pretend to be an expert on femininity.”

Geoffrey reddened. “Nor do I, but we in the theatre make it a point to study all of humankind. You should hear my analysis of you. But as I was saying, here are all these Southern girls, fancying that the best thing to be is a belle-only they are never given the opportunity. In today’s world, there’s college, dressing for success in your sensible job, and a social scene based on the pretense of equality, at least. Which is, of course, exactly what they desire-or ought to desire-but they have this peculiar idea drilled into their head by elderly female relatives that to be feminine is to be a silly, pouting coquette.”

“Ugh,” said Charles, whose idea of foreplay was the Mensa exam.

“I quite agree,” purred Geoffrey. “And I do think that modern Southern women ignore this conditioning admirably well. The only time they really succumb to the belle fantasy is when they are about to become brides. That’s when tradition takes over-”

“Something old, something new…” murmured Charles, sipping his drink.

“Something Scarlett,” said Geoffrey. “The wedding belle. A formal wedding is every woman’s chance to star in Gone With the Wind. For a few short weeks she is the bride, able to throw scenes, to make people wait on her, and to be the absolute center of attention. This is how she thinks she ought to behave. It has very little to do with the institution of matrimony, as far as I can tell. It’s an ancient and terrible ritual. We’re in for it, I tell you.”

“So if Cousin Elizabeth starts throwing tantrums, we tell her to put a sock in it.”

Geoffrey shook his head. “It’s not going to be that easy.”

Clearly intending that to be his exit line, Geoffrey strolled toward the door, but their conversation had reminded Charles of something. He motioned for his brother to stay. “Listen, before you go, there’s something I wanted to ask you,” he began awkwardly.

“Yes, Charles, what is it? Do say that you are asking me to recommend a good hairdresser, because I have been so hoping-”

Charles scowled and swept a dark forelock away from his eyes. “I don’t need a haircut!”

Geoffrey closed his eyes dramatically. “Perhaps a defoliant…”

“What I wanted to ask you was-” He was blushing furiously. “Oh, this is ridiculous. Never mind!”

“Now you have gained my attention,” Geoffrey announced. “Out with it, Charles. What advice can I offer? A tailor’s reference? Singing lessons, perhaps? Have you been mispronouncing wines?”

“No.” Charles was sullen, as people usually were after more than ten minutes of Geoffrey Chandler. “I’d like to know how you meet girls around here.”

His brother favored him with an acid smile. “In your case, Charles, I should recommend setting snares.” This was Geoffrey’s second attempt at an exit, but this time his curiosity got the better of him. “Just what is going on?” he demanded. “And why come to me? Surely you know that Mother would be delighted to throw you to the social wolves if you so much as indicated your willingness to go.”

Charles paled. “No. I don’t want to attend dances or anything like that. I’d just like to meet someone nice. It’s time I thought about settling down with someone who’s my type. You know, involved in the sciences.”

“What a pity for you that Typhoid Mary is no longer with us.” Geoffrey deemed that exit line too good to pass up, and so he left.

Jenny Ramsay was touched and pleased to hear from her old friend Elizabeth after so many years, but she did not share her friend’s elation about a marriage day that coincided with the birthday of Princess Diana. In a way, Jenny had been Princess Diana for several years now and quite often she found it a royal pain.

This was one of those times.

As usual, she was impeccably dressed: pink linen suit, ruffled blouse with a satin ribbon at the neck, and her trademark double strand of cultured pearls. Her hair was a smooth, blonde bob, perfectly disciplined to stay in place, just short of her tiny gold earrings, and her heart-shaped face was carefully made up to look not made up at all. She wore her usual expression of sincere and urgent interest, suggesting that the present discussion of gardening strategies and shrubbery upkeep was the high point of her week.

In fact she was bored shitless. (Not an expression that anyone had ever heard Jenny Ramsay use, but she thought it a lot.) In her capacity as honorary chairperson and goodwill ambassador to the rest of Georgia, she was attending a board meeting of the local County Beautification Committee, and her fellow committee members had been holding forth for a good hour and a half, which is a long time to have to smile and look fascinated by utter drivel. Jenny was trying to think of a plausible yet foolproof way of escape.

Jenny Ramsay had graduated from college with a sorority pin, a C average, and a degree in communications, which she hoped to parlay into a career in show business. In the spring of her senior year, she had entered the local pageant of the Miss Georgia contest, in hopes of gaining some media attention, useful to job seekers who are short on marketable skills. Thanks to several years of aerobics classes with her sorority sisters, she looked all right for the swimsuit competition (though it felt rather strange to be parading around a crowded auditorium with hardly anything on). “Take out your contact lenses,” a pageant official advised her. “It’s a lot easier if the audience is just one big blur.”

The evening-gown event was delightful. She had worn a turquoise ball gown that needed only a wand to make her look like a fairy princess, and she was sure that the judges gave her higher marks than anybody in that category.

Jenny’s real problem with the pageant was the talent portion of the program. Jenny couldn’t sing-and her notions of dancing involved a drunken DKE for a partner and a very loud dose of beach music. It was then that she discovered she had entered the pageant fifteen years too late. The true contenders had been competing since the age of four, when ambitious and farsighted mothers enrolled them in piano, ballet, and modern-dance classes. On