As debutantes go, the Antwerp sisters were moving a wee pinch in the wrong direction. Though their governess, a cloth doll named Miss Biddy, constantly admonished them to lower their voices and sit with legs crossed at the ankles, during yesterday's luncheon Meg guzzled her tea so loudly that Millicent laughed and sprayed crumbs everywhere. It was enough to make you revoke your subscription to Town and Country altogether!
Miss Biddy was simply incensed on the carriage ride home. "Propriety, girls! Modesty! Decorum!," she blustered, "The hopes of a dynasty are pinned on your behavior!"
"Oh Biddy, darling," drawled Meg, "You'll sing me to sleep with that old refrain! Be a dear and see if Papa has any spirits hidden beneath those cushions."
Miss Biddy swelled with such indignation that her button eye threatened to pop off. "Margaret Eloise Antwerp! I'll come apart at the seams before I see any charge of mine dip into the sauce, especially before the dinner hour!"
"Boring old Biddy," groused Millicent, who followed her older sister's every move.
It was about this time that the carriage pulled up to the Antwerp house, a palatial spread that no one but Mrs. Antwerp called "Lilac Heights" (though she was relentless in her campaign to make the name stick). The Antwerps were nouveau riche, darling, which tells you just about everything you need to know.
Mrs. Antwerp was out on the tennis courts, taking lessons from an instructor named Gustavo. Which was a funny thing, because only last week Gustavo had been just another gardener tending the maze of lilac bushes that ran rampant over the grounds. Well, but this was Pittsburgh, darling--no one could deny it was the land of opportunity!
"Oh, girls!" she called, smiling in a way that took years off her actual age, "Tell me about your luncheon! Who did you see? What were they wearing?"
Miss Biddy trudged up the pebbled pathway ahead of the sisters. She stepped onto the court, hands on her hips, and glared at the new tennis instructor.
"Now Biddy," said Mrs. Antwerp hastily, "Do be a dear and fetch us some lemonade from Lilac Heights." She turned to Gustavo and could not suppress a giggle. "And make it fizzy, will you?" she called back over her shoulder.
It was no use, thought Miss Biddy, as she spun on her heel and marched down the path. She could no more gentrify the Antwerp sisters than sew a silk purse from a sow's ear, and make no mistake about it!