The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [112]
It was she who arranged things for Richard, she told me – social events, cocktail parties and dinners and so forth – because he was a bachelor, and, as she said (and would continue to say, year after year), “Us gals run that end of things.” Then she said that she was just delighted that Richard had finally decided to settle down, and with a nice young girl like me. There’d been a couple of close things – some previous entanglements. (This was how Winifred always spoke of women in relation to Richard – entanglements, like nets, or webs, or snares, or merely like pieces of gummy string left lying around on the ground, that you might get caught on your shoe by mistake.)
Luckily Richard had escaped from these entanglements, not that women did not chase after him. They chased after him in droves, said Winifred, lowering her whisky voice, and I had an image of Richard, his clothing torn, his carefully arranged hair dishevelled, fleeing in panic while a pack of baying females coursed after him. But I could not believe in such an image. I couldn’t imagine Richard running, or hurrying, or even being afraid. I couldn’t imagine him in peril.
I nodded and smiled, unsure of where I myself was assumed to stand. Was I one of the sticky entanglers? Perhaps. On the surface of things however I was being led to understand that Richard had a high intrinsic value, and that I’d better mind my p’s and q’s if I was to live up to it. “But I’m sure you’ll manage,” said Winifred, smiling a little. “You’re so young.” If anything, this youthfulness of mine should have made managing less likely, which was what Winifred was counting on. She had no intention of giving up any managing, herself.
Our Waldorf salads came. Winifred watched me pick up my knife and fork – at least I didn’t eat with my hands, her expression said – and gave a little sigh. I was hard slogging for her, I now realize. No doubt she thought I was sullen, or unforthcoming: I had no small talk, I was so ignorant, so rural. Or perhaps her sigh was a sigh of anticipation – of anticipated work, because I was a lump of unmoulded clay, and now she would have to roll up her sleeves and get down to moulding me.
No time like the present. She dug right in. Her method was one of hint, of suggestion. (She had another method – the bludgeon – but I didn’t encounter it at this lunch.) She said she’d known my grandmother, or at least she’d known of her. The Montfort women of Montreal had been celebrated for their style, she said, but of course Adelia Montfort had died before I was born. This was her way of saying that despite my pedigree we were in effect starting from scratch.
My clothes were the least of it, she implied. Clothes could always be purchased, naturally, but I would have to learn to wear them to effect. “As if they’re your skin, dear,” she said. My hair was out of the question – long, unwaved, combed straight back, held with a clip. It was a clear case for a pair of scissors and a cold wave. Then there was the question of my fingernails. Nothing too brash, mind you; I was too young for brashness. “You could be charming,” said Winifred. “Absolutely. With a little effort.”
I listened humbly, resentfully. I knew I did not have charm. Neither Laura nor I had it. We were too secretive for charm, or else too blunt. We’d never learned it, because Reenie had spoiled us. She felt that who we were ought to be enough for anybody. We shouldn’t have to lay ourselves out for people, court them with coaxings and wheedlings and eye-batting displays. I expect Father could see a point to charm in some quarters, but he hadn’t instilled any of it in us. He’d wanted us to be more like boys, and now we were. You don’t teach boys to be charming. It makes people think they are devious.
Winifred watched me eat, a quizzical smile on her lips. Already I was becoming a string of adjectives in her head – a string of funny anecdotes she would retail