LADY CLAUDIA: And Less Than Kind (I)

And Less Than Kind

April 1933

Camel Creek, New York
Onatonga, New York

Cast of Characters

Lady Claudia
Floyd
Anne
Lois Hathaway
Cathy Bennett
Patricia Franklin
Aunt Lillian
Uncle Mitch
Dr Hector Sutch
Philip Brightwell
Harry Seebolt
Susan
Huldah
Wilma
Timmy
John
Mr Sprayberry
Ida
Martha Bisbee
Celeste
Oscar Pfaff
Hilda Pfaff
Peter Mason
Hal Kenyon

*

"HERE, try this," Huldah says to Lady Claudia.

They are in the kitchen of the Bisbee House. They are standing by the stove. They are wearing aprons. Huldah's is plain. Lady Claudia's is frilly and flowery. Huldah is holding out a spoon. Lady Claudia hesitates. Then she looks at Huldah and smiles. She takes and swallows what is in the proffered spoon as though she were a child taking medicine from his mother.

"Not bad?" Huldah asks.

"Not bad," Lady Claudia says. "Absolutely delicious, as a matter of fact. Oh, Huldah. You've done it again."

"Yankee pot roast. Not the toughest challenge in my cookbook. Truth is, I was surprised that you decided on that for the company you're having tonight."

Lady Claudia sits down in one of the chairs by the table. The pot had been on top of the stove. Huldah puts it back into the oven.

"Anne has said that it's Harry's favorite," Lady Claudia says. "And I don't think that Philip and Susan will raise any eyebrows. Not with a gravy that tastes like that. And not with that fine Viennese pastry you made for dessert."

"Well, this needs to stew another hour. The trick is not to put in the carrots and potatoes too soon. Not when they're straight from the jar instead of the garden."

Huldah walks over to the sink. She starts washing one of the bowls and pots in the sink. Lady Claudia walks over. She reaches up and takes a dish towel off the rack. She starts drying the bowls that Huldah hands her.

"It's so nice to have Floyd's brother and sister here tonight," Lady Claudia says. "And Harry and Susan. We've never done this before."

"Three young couples," Huldah says. "Brothers and sister. It seems so natural."

Lady Claudia glances at her. Why seems? She looks mildly pained. Then resigned.

"Was it your mother who taught you how to cook, Huldah?"

"She taught me a lot. But I experimented a lot on my own too."

"I really don't know why I just can't cook," Lady Claudia says. "Just as I just can't drive... Or sew. Or play the piano. I've tried..."

"If you want my advice, you should try again on the driving first thing."

"But that's where my failures have actually been dangerous to my neighbor."

"That was three years ago. And that was Floyd's fault. First of all, husbands should never try to teach their wives how to drive. Not even husbands who are as even-tempered as Floyd. And he should have known that you weren't ready for the Turnpike."

"That poor little concrete bridge wasn't ready for being backed into at twenty miles per hour. Oh Huldah, it was so embarrassing. Getting a ticket and having to appear in court..."

"Getting written up on the front page of The Bisbee Bugle..."

"And in the society columns of the New York papers. Oh, dear. Of course, speaking of dangers to my neighbor, some of the scrambled eggs I've made..."

Huldah grins frowningly and shakes her head.

Lady Claudia replaces the dish towel and takes off her apron. She is wearing a dark blue party dress. She is wearing a pearl necklace. She walks into the dining room. It is set for six. There is a white tablecloth over the table. She looks at the tall, narrow, elegantly designed black wrought iron stove between the windows.

"I love these old stoves," she says. "But they can be inconvenient. Lighting this one would make the room too hot on an April evening. The heat from the kitchen stove will be enough. But I don't like leaving the door to the kitchen open."

She seems to be trying to remember something.

"Oh, dear," she says.

She walks back into the kitchen. Huldah is putting her last pot in the dish rack.

"What is it?" she asks.

Lady Claudia stoops down and reaches behind the stove. She pulls out a mousetrap. She holds it aloft.

"That wouldn't be the most appetizing sound," Huldah says.

"Or thought. Oh, Huldah. I am so nervous about this dinner..."

*

Floyd enters the Yellow Room.

The light is out. Light comes in from the Bee Room.

A boy of five is lying under a blanket in the bed. A boy of seven is lying under a blanket on a cot that has been placed partly in the alcove.

"Hey, you guys," Floyd says. "You've got to settle down. Your Mamma was getting ready to come up here with a paddle."

"I don't believe you," the seven year old chortles. "A paddle! There's no paddle down there, Uncle Floyd."

"It's just an expression. Maybe she would have whacked you with a spatula. You know what a spatula is?"

"Sure I know what a spatula is," the seven years old says. "Aunt Claudia used a spatula to make our hamburgers."

"That's right," Floyd says. "And wasn't that nice of Aunt Claudia to make you hamburgers? Weren't they delicious?"

The boys look at one another. The five year old starts to giggle. He pulls his blanket over his head. Floyd sits down on the edge of the bed. He grabs at the form under the blanket.

"You little rascal!" he says.

The boy squeals with merriment.

"It's not fair that we have to go to bed," the older boy says. "It wasn't even night out when we came up here."

"It was twilight," Floyd says. "Isn't this your bedtime at home?"

"Not on Saturdays!"

The younger boy emerges from the blanket.

"One more ghost story and we'll be good!" he chirps.

"One more, eh?" Floyd says. "Seems to me I've heard that line before."

"But this time we promise!" the older boy pleads.

"All right, then. But this is more of a monster story. Like Frankenstein. It's about a monster who lives on Long Island."

"That's where we live!" the little boys exclaims.

"Yes. I know. And about this monster. He has great big eyes. And a great big nose. And great big claws. And his name is Moses. Robert Moses. And at night he climbs the walls of houses and he looks in the window to see if there are any little boys who are being naughty and not going to sleep when they ought to. And if there are any naughty boys in there he... he.... he..."

"What?" the older boy demands.

"He knocks down their house and builds a parkway!"

Floyd grabs the younger boy. He dives under his blanket again, squealing.

"That's not fair, Uncle Floyd!" the older boy protests hotly. "That's not a real monster story!"

"It will have to do for tonight," Floyd says as he stands up. "I'm late for dinner."

"Well, that means we get an extra one the next time," the seven year old says.

"Only if you're good tonight."

"Oh, all right then..."

"See you later then," Floyd says.

He backs out of the doorway. He closes the door.

*

"I have to say that I don't get it, Floyd. It seems like a big waste of your time. It seems like beating yourself over the head twice a day with a little stick as your normal daily routine. I don't get having two cows you have to get up at the crack of dawn to milk when you really don't need the milk and the people you give it to could easily buy milk elsewhere."

The speaker is sitting at the dining room table. He is sitting in the chair nearest the kitchen that faces the front of the house. He is in his late thirties. He is burly. He looks as though he might once have been better looking than he is now. He is burly. But he is not bluff. His manner is not that of a good-natured know-it-all. He speaks slowly and pointedly and dryly.

He seems to be generously keeping under control his complete contempt.

The woman sitting to his right draws in a breath and rolls her eyes. She looks to be in her middle or late thirties. She has dark honey blonde hair. There is something horsey about her face. But she is also somehow attractive.

Lady Claudia is sitting to her right at the end of the table facing the kitchen. She purses her lips and lowers her eyes. She picks up her spoon and starts to beat the table with it. Softly. But with a certain ominous steadiness.

Floyd is sitting at the end of the table across from her. He looks at her hand and the spoon. He then looks at her. He smiles. He looks delighted. He turns to the burly man who is sitting to his right.

"But we use the milk, Harry," he says. "And we like to be able to give milk away to Castle and Huldah and various little old ladies in these parts who are feeling the pinch in their purse. And we love our pretty little Guernseys. Greta and Mabel. There are other areas of our operation where we do turn a profit. A bit of a profit."

"Where? The honey? The goat cheese? The cauliflower? The maple syrup?"

"All of the above," Floyd says. "Proudly sold all over the Township under the Bisbee Homestead label. But you forgot the corn. The cow corn. The four acres of cow corn. Which we sell to dairy farmers. All over the Township."

"I still don't get it. This is no time to be going out of your way to waste time and to lose money doing it."

Lady Claudia's nostrils are now starting to flare. Her spoon rapping is getting more violent. Sitting to her right is a man in his early thirties. He has dark hair. He is handsome, but in an unremarkable, plain way. His eyes are getting wider and wider. He is staring at the spoon in Lady Claudia's hand. She notices his stare. She gingerly puts the spoon back down next to her knife. She glances at the woman to her left. The woman is staring at her hand. Then she looks at Lady Claudia.

"Are you planning a break-out tonight, dear?" the woman asks. "Or are you just trying to foment a riot among the other inmates? Letting the screws know your low opinion of the grub?"

Lady Claudia smiles. She seems to find these questions amusing.

"No, Anne. I just don't know what came over me. My fingers got restless."

"Restless fingers," Anne says. "My word. You are a caution, Claw. You are a caution. In any case, this grub is first-rate. If I offer to help with the dishes it will be only so I can lick the plates when you're not looking. And I don't mean just mine and Harry's."

"It might be nicer, Anne dear, if you asked Claudia if there is any more roast in the pot," the handsome dark-haired man says. "I'm sure that she would be willing to part with it."

"Oh, I'd wolf that down also," Anne says. "It was great, Claw. Don't you agree, Susan?"

She is addressing the pretty, tired-looking blonde woman to Floyd's left.

"It was very good," she says.

She looks at Lady Claudia.

"Very good, Claudia."

"Why, thank you, Susan. I'm so glad that you enjoyed it."

"Very nicely done," the dark-haired man says softly and hurriedly.

"Thank you, Philip."

Anne looks around.

"You've really done wonders with this place," she says. "I'm surprised that you kept as many reminders of the Auntie Parmelia regime as you did, though. This wallpaper. Granny Freelove's far from lovely mug over there."

"I rather like these colors," Lady Claudia says. "Cinammon, clay pot red, rusty rose, what have you."

"Yes. You wear those colors often enough. You look quite lovely in that blue, by the way. It's a nice change."

"Thank you. I also find Granny Freelove to be quite charming in her little widow's cap."

Philip shifts in his seat and discreetly scowls.

"Do you have a little gas, dear?" Anne asks.

Philip stares at her blankly. He looks into the empty space to his right and shakes his head as though to clear it."

"Claudia's favorite color is red," Floyd says. "Her favorite clothes color, that is. And she wears many different shades of her favorite color. And she looks great in every one of them. It's nice if she wears blue and it's just as nice if she wears red. Say Annie, I was trying to recall the other day. How often did you come down to the ancestral home when we were kids?"

Anne hesitates. Not in a way that indicates that she has taken umbrage. Rather, in a way that indicates that both the rebuke and the courtesy of his amiably changing the subject have registered.

"Not that often," she says. "I mean, it got to be that you spent more time down here than in Onatonga. I? Well, there were the few Thanksgivings that Aunt Parmelia hosted. And a few times I came along when Pop picked you up. That was about it. Aunt Parmelia and I were not big fans of one another. And, of course, when we were really little, I was terrified of Granny Freelove. Claw, Susan, you couldn't imagine. She looked like a witch and she sounded like a witch. This was their kitchen. When you walked in you half expected to see a little German boy and a little German girl in cages near the stove. Good Lord. That screeching cackle... Do you remember, Phil?"

"I don't remember her at all," he says.

"Is that a fact?" Anne asks with a leering smile that indicates disgust with his party pooping reticence.

She turns to Floyd.

"Have you ever thought of just bulldozing this entire back part of the house?" she asks. "The front is an historic showplace. Solid oak and classically proportioned. Back here... Well, you've heard of the house that Jack built."

"You seem to have nursery rhymes and fairy tales much on your mind tonight," Lady Claudia says.

Anne looks around.

"I won't say it," she says. "It would be like shooting trout in a bucket."

She starts slightly. As though her better angel had given her a good healthy jab.

"Well, be that as it may," she says, "all in all it's a lovely house. Five years ago it was the last word in Victorian Rococo hideousness. Now it's really quite spendid. In spots."

She raises a glass of water towards Floyd. As she turns and points it towards Lady Claudia the sound of metal snapping sharply against wood comes from the kitchen.

Anne's eyes widen. She cocks her head and starts chuckling as she puts down her glass.

"Oh," she says. "Ohhh...."

Lady Claudia ignores her.

"How are the girls doing, Susan?" she asks. "How do they like school?"

"Oh, they're fine," Susan says. "They like school very much. Cynthia is in Miss Portman's, of course. Priscilla just goes for a few hours three times a week to a little class at our church."

"Ah, yes," Anne says. "Your Unitarian church..."

"Is it what you'd call kindergarten?" Lady Claudia asks.

"I think that nursery school would be the correct term," Susan says.

There is a clattering sound. Something wooden is being dragged across the other side of the ceiling from the kitchen to the far end of the dining room.

There is a moment of silence. Lady Claudia looks at Floyd. He looks back at her. He leans his elbows on the table and folds his hands in front of his mouth.

"I was so glad that you brought the boys here tonight," Lady Claudia says to Anne. "We see so little of them."

"Well, it would have been a bit much to leave the boys and the girls with Mother and Pop," Anne says.

"With Pop, you mean," Harry interjects.

Floyd gives him a baleful look.

"I just hope that they're getting some shut-eye up there," Anne says.

She smiles wickedly.

"I thought I heard them scampering about before."

Lady Claudia turns to Philip.

"We were reading about one of your cases in The Onatonga Star ," she says. "The policeman who shot the picketer..."

"Yes," he says. "A certain notoriety accrued to the case and as a consequence it was covered in various regional newspapers."

"Yes," Lady Claudia says forlornly.

"That's all you'll get out of him, Claw," Anne says. "He's achieved his goal of using at least one word per sentence which was never before used under the roof under which he finds himself."

"Aunt Parmelia was very well-read, Annie," Floyd says.

"True. And garrulous. That was the whole-"

The wooden object clatters across the top of the ceiling from the far side of the room to the middle. There is silence for a moment. Then there is a sound of clacking and flipping and flopping. Then there is the sound of squeaking. Of squealing.

Susan jumps up. She puts her hand over her mouth. She turns and runs into the kitchen.

Lady Claudia jumps up. She runs towards the kitchen.

"Oh, dear..." she murmurs.