White haired missis Wells tells Graice, doctor Savage is being too modest. The Savage House, as it's called, is famous in this area.
It's listed with the National Register of Historic Places. And it is beautiful, isn't it?
Says Graice faintly, Oh, yes.
In the waning November light the Savage House with its highly detailed, ornamental lacade looks as if it were made of papiermache. It's a dream castle, a movie castle, yet so massive.
so weighty in the eye. Graice Courtney wonders if, living in it, people come to re semble it.
Please call me Gwendolyn.
missis Savage takes Graice Courtney's hand in hers, not to shake it briskly but simply, for a moment, to hold it, her fingers warm and dry and assured. So pleased to meet you, dear, and so delighted you can join us. Byron has said such good things about you. about your work on the Journal and as a student of hisyou're doing a thesis with him, are you. and, ah, what else? your good solid common sense in the office.
To these words, murmured in a rich melodic North Carolinian accent, Graice Courtney has no re ply, just smiles sweetly.
Graice isn't doing a thesis with doctor Savage, she's only an under graduate. But the point is too minor to correct and, in any case, doctor Savage hasn't overheard. Aswim in missis Savage's cobalt blue eyes Graice just smiles.
Gwendolyn Savage is an attractive, intensely feminine woman in her late fifties, with a soft moon shaped powdered face, silvery white hair, those striking blue eyes. She's short, inches shorter than Graice Courtney, but holds herself tall; there's something stately, even regal, about her posture, her voice, the assertion of her smile. She is wearing a black jersey dress with a draped satin apron front; her shoes are black suede; on her left breast there is a star cluster diamond brooch, an antique looking piece of jewelry, beautiful
Beautiful too her diamond earrings and her rings. One of the rings glitters icy blue. a star sapphire?
Persia's favorite precious stone, as she called it.
Not that Persia Courtney had ever seen a star sapphire up close. Nor has Graice Courtney until this moment.
Later, noticing Graice standing in a corner of the reception room shy and stiffly smiling, staring at a little mud colored Corot on the wall, missis Savage re claims her, introduces her to other guests.
too many guests. their names fly past even as Graice shakes hands and re peats their names. An old politician's trick, Duke Courtney said, repeating names: nothing is so sweet as the sound of one's name.
But Graice Courtney is too dazed to re member much: a professor of history and his wife, a tall bald gentleman in a cleric's costume who resembles Adlai Stevenson, a young Renaissance scholar known in the department as doctor Savage's favored protege She's even introduced again to missis Wells and is about to shake missis Wells's hand when the older woman says smilingly, Ah, but we've already met!
Graice, isn't it or, no, Irene?
Next, doctor Savage himself advances upon Graice, intent on introducing her to. visiting professor, University of Rochester, specialist in the English neoclassic artist John Flaxman. this name too Graice doesn't catch.
Too many guests. The din of voices is alarming.
But a lovely room: a fifteen foot beamed ceiling, white mahogany woodwork, stenciled wallpaper, Chinese import furnishings, a fire gaily blazing in the fireplace which doctor Savage, abloom in the midst of his guests, frequently stokes. Above the mantel there's a mirror of old glass and absentmindedly Graice Courtney seeks her re flection in it. passes her own face by several times before recognizing it.
In the amiable crowd there's a sudden black face. A strong boned walnut stained face. Graice is alert, curious. but the black woman is wearing a maid's costume, passing glasses of sherry and tiny shrimp canapes on a silver tray. How she smiles, how happy she appears! A fattish woman, fattish smiling bunched up cheeks.
Smiling as she makes her way clockwise about the reception room resenting the tray to the Savages' guests, smiling as people take what's offered and murmur thanks without looking at her or, caught up in the intensity of their conversations, fail to murmur thanks.
Not meaning to be rude of course and in this context not rude, surely?
Graice Courtney too, taking a glass of sherry, mumbles thanks without looking up. She's stricken with embarrassment, an almost physical shame. The senseless words run singsong through her mind All the white cunts hot for Belafonte. all the white cunts hot for.
As the time for dinner approaches it happens that some of the Savages' guests are leaving the house; evidently they were invited only for drinks. Graice's spirits rise tentatively.
The sherry, to which she's unaccustomed, has warmed her throat.
There's even a curl of something in the pit of her belly, a tickle of sexual desire. this, too, senseless.
missis Savage and an admiring little circle of women are standing around what appears to be a bishop's throne, out in the grand hallway.
It's French Gothic, missis Savage explains, stroking the beautifully carved oak with her beringed fingers, thirteenth century, isn't it exquisite! Graice Courtney joins the women with an air of schoolgirl interest. missis Savage is saying that her husband's grand father Ezra Savage became, in his old age, an avid, insatiable collector of good, old, solid things, things with the weight of time behind them: The imprimatur of history,' Byron used to quote him. He died at the age of ninety four, and they say he never had a day of illness.
missis Savage is asked about Ezra Savage's background, and in an animated voice, as if the story were altogether new to her, missis Savage tells the group how her husband's grandfather began his career in Syracuse as a woodw re dealer at the age of fifteen.
Fifteen! Imagine!
So young!
Ezra Savage had in fact run away from his home in Liverpool, England, at the age of fourteen, in 1860. He emigrated alone to the United States, knowing no one, was hired by the pioneer dealer in woodw re Matthias Goodwin in Albany, loaded a flatboat with woodw re broom handles, bowls, butter churns, ax handles and started down the Hudson River, making stops at various settlements by the time he reached Poughkeepsie he was completely sold out. So this enterprising young man re turned to Albany, got more supplies, and went into business for himself in Syracuse in 1862 his first store was downtown on State Street in the same block that Sibley's is now.
Says one of the admiring women, with a gesture meant to indicate the entire Savage House, And the re st is history!
Says missis Savage, It is.
Seeing that missis Savage is smiling so warmly at her, with an air almost of expectation, Graice Courtney summons up her ingenuity to say thoughtfully, History can be interpreted, some theorists think, as the story of just a few individuals' destinies. a few very special men, geniuses. It's an innocent paraphrase of a re mark doctor Savage is given to make frequently in his lectures; a re mark Graice will one day discover is, in fact, a paraphrase of an aphorism of Nietzsche's. But in her ingenuous crystal clear voice it sounds wholly spontaneous.
At any rate, Gwendolyn Savage doesn't recognize it. Her smile deepens, her lightly rouged cheeks dimple with pleasure. As if her own study of history has led her to this conclusion she says, Oh, it is.
Hypocrite.
Aren't you the one, though!
To accept doctor Savage's invitation for Thanksgiving, Graice Court they was obliged to break a previous engagement. Sorry, she'd said guiltily, but something has come up: I have to go home after all to Hammond.
She'd agreed to go to Cleveland with a friend, to meet his family; the young man is a doctoral candidate in chemistry at the university who imagines he's in love with Graice, and though Graice is not in love with him she'd said yes, thinking at the time yes; but when doctor Savage tempted her with his invitation how could she resist?
Not that Graice Courtney is in love with Byron Savage as, it might seem, some of the art history majors are in love with him, female and male; but she admires him very much. Simply to hear the man lecture, to re ad even cursorily one of his monographs or books, is to admire him.
And while Graice is fond of her friend Tom, who imagines he's in love with her and would like to buy her an engagement ring, she finds his high re gard for her disconcerting since she knows it's based upon a misreading of her, a romantic illusion, or delusion, of a kind.
Each time he says I love you, Graice must suppress the urge to say, But you don't know me! She foresees a time, and very soon, when she won't be able to bear the young man's groping impassioned kisses and his hesitant hands on her. And those words, those words, those empty words: I love you, Graice.
It isn't by design that Graice Courtney seems to have fallen into the practice of cultivating people, or allowing herself to be cultivated by people, for temporary and expedient purposes. then to move on, or break away, or, simply, forget. She means nothing deliberate by her behavior with friends, acquaintances, would be lovers. she's never cruel. and always re acts with surprise when others respond with anger. What did I promise you? What did you imagine I meant?
Graice knows that only two people in her lifetime have ever known her intimately enough to love her, or not love her, and these are her mother Persia and Jinx Fairchild; and Persia is dead.
Before accepting Tom's invitation to go with him to Cleveland Graice had been planning vaguely to go to Hammond, to have Thanks giving there with her uncle Leslie. That good hearted, lonely man, whom in fact Graice does love who writes to her often at college, calls her on the phone thinks of her as his only link Leslie doesn't say this, but Graice knows with Persia. But Graice has grown impatient with her bachelor uncle's bachelor ways, and his eccentricities seem less charming to her nowindeed, the profession, or trade, of photography seems less attractive to her nowsince her exposure to the high ground of art history and the great tradition. Byron Savage doesn't so much as mention photography in his survey course.
But the plans to visit Hammond had been vague. And when the invitation came from Tom, who imagines he's in love with Graice Courtney, Graice had said yes, yes why not, and canceled her plans with her uncle.
Sorry sorry sorry, she'd said, quite sincerely, but some thing has come up.
Now Graice is thinking of these things, seated at the Savages' lavishly set dining table, listening eagerly to what is being said, staring with such intensity she feels the strain at the tender roots of her eyes.
Graice's cheeks will be permanently dimpled from so much smiling.
How warm, how gracious the company. these dozen or so men and women who, seeing Graice Courtney, see a guest of the Savages and accept her, at least for the evening, as someone like themselves.
And how lovely the dining room, which missis Savage declares to the company is her favorite room in the entire house: the French crystal chandelier overhead glittering like ice; the French Empire table and chairs the table has been opened out to accommodate twelve guests comfortably ; the built in English oak sideboard, elaborate as an altar, in Jacobean style; the Chinese carpet, all crimsons and greens, larger than any carpet Graice Courtney has ever seen in a private residence. From the re marks of others Graice knows that she's eating from Wedgwood china the Parthenon frieze design by John Flaxman, in fact , drinking from Waterford crystal; her silverware is Parisian, early nineteenth century; the white lace tablecloth is Portuguese, made by hand of course. And the gold plated many branched candelabrum with its tall slender candles and the apple green French moire wall covering So many courses! So much food!
Graice has difficulty with the first course, a heavily creamed lobster bisque, though it's delicious, she knows it's delicious, but she can swallow only a few mouthfuls and sets her spoon down unobtrusively by her bowl, seeing that missis Savage sees. nothing at this table eludes missis Savage's eye.
Then there's the giant turkey: doctor Savage radiant with pleasure as he carves the turkey, expertly, yet with a good deal of hilarious banter on all sides.
And two kinds of stuffing mushroom, oyster , and two kinds of cranberry sauce sweet, tart , and whipped potatoes, and candied yams, and diced carrots, and several kinds of hot breads including cornbread. Never has Graice Courtney had so much food set before her in her lifetime, never has she felt so transfixed, so dazed, so.
unreal. Impossible for me to dissociate, since P, the spectacle ofeatingfrom the spectacle of vomiting.
Still, Graice tries. With missis Savage watching her and smiling, Graice tries.
From time to time during the course of the elaborate meal the black woman appears, to help missis Savage serve her guests and to bear away dirtied plates and emptied bowls. missis Savage introduces her to the company as Mercedes: Mercedes and no last name.
In her rich melodic North Carolinian accent missis Savage declares she wouldn't know what to do without Mercedes.
