Marrying Up - Part IV

“Marrying Up” is a fictional story set in 1950s Manhattan revolving around Frances Riley, a difficult and ruthlessly ambitious young woman who moved from one social class to another—Irish immigrant off the boat to high WASP— when she married into the aristocratic Woolsey family.

THIS IS PART 4 of a FOURTEEN-PART STORY

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

 

Image: Ksenia Makagonova

When Frances met Jack’s parents face-to-face a few minutes after the wedding, they were perfectly polite. The mother, Helen, extended her palm and murmured something about what a pleasure this was. She was tall and bony in a soiled, but obviously expensive dress that would have been more suitable for a luncheon than a wedding. The father, Dewitt, sleeker and handsomer than his wife, gave Frances two quick pecks on the cheek and said he was sure she'd be a welcome addition to the family. Silver-haired, with well-tended hands and teeth, in a tuxedo that exactly fit his erect torso, he had the look of a man who thought good wine, a custom-made shirt, a day at the races were far more important than worrying about what his son was up to, or why it was that his new daughter-in-law's mother was absent from the festivities. "The mother's nuts," was what was whispered among the guests on Jack's side. "Violent schizophrenia. She went after the younger daughter with a butcher knife."

Noreen had, in fact, gone after Frances's younger sister, Peg — with a paring knife, not a butcher knife. It was Frances, only nine years old, who'd called the police because, from one minute to the next, her mother, usually so docile and quiet, had gone berserk, running through the house with a drawn blade like something out of a horror movie.

There'd been no adults present. Poor little Peg was only six at the time. Now she was seventeen, Frances's maid-of-honor, a sweet but masculine girl with a hint of hair on her upper lip and a zig zag scar on the back of her arm that she always kept hidden beneath long sleeves. Even today, when all the other bridesmaids were bare-shouldered, she wore a sweater over her gown.

"Where's your mother, dear?" Helen Woolsey asked, glancing around her as they stood outside the church.

"She's not well," Frances said. "She had rheumatic fever as a child and now her heart's so bad she has to live quietly in the country."

This was the story they always told about Noreen. Frances could see that Mrs. Woolsey didn't buy it for a second. She peered at Frances speculatively out of sharp, tea colored eyes and gave a little shrug. "How sad for you," she murmured. The photographer was trying to assemble them for pictures — the bridal couple and Kip and the senior Woolseys and Peg. Mrs. Woolsey allowed one photo to be taken before snatching her husband 's arm and announcing they had to be off.

"Where to, Mother?" Jack cried.

"We have a dinner."

"A dinner? But the reception's about to start. At the St. Regis."

"Don't think we'll be able to make that," Mrs. Woolsey barked as she descended the church steps, husband in tow. A limousine waited at the curb. She and Dewitt got in and the driver closed the door behind them.

Jack ducked his head and lit a cigarette. "My parents have a busy schedule," he muttered.

Kip's eyes darted from him to Frances, blazing with fury and pity and ferocious love, and for a second Frances thought he would hurl himself down the steps after the departing limousine, waving his fists. Instead he placed an arm around Frances and an arm around Jack. "So do we," he said, and nodded at the photographer to continue.