Bobbie, General Manager: A NovelProuty, Olive Higgins
General
Bobbie, General Manager: A Novel
Prouty, Olive Higgins
Families -- Fiction; New England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
I try to be nice to Edith, too. It isn't easy. I don't like her, and
I don't like her methods, but I don't tell her so. We don't quarrel,
although we mix about like oil and water. Of course Edith has her good
points. For instance she is the most generous person I ever knew, and
she's good-nature itself. She'll take an insult from you, pay you back
in your own coin and then exclaim: "Oh, come on, let's not fight.
There's a dear! Let's go to the matinée this afternoon." She has a
lot of practical ability too. She's a born manager, and as systematic
as a machine. The trouble with Edith is her ambition. She wants to
stand at the head of all society in the world, and to get there she
is ready to work till she drops. Just as soon as she struggles up on
top of one heap of people she begins on another, and so on. I don't
know where she'll stop. Juliet Adams' mother told me that she could
remember when people in Hilton didn't like to invite Mrs. Campbell to
their houses. That was years ago, of course, for now they thank their
lucky stars if they are invited to hers. There used to be, and are
still, lots of beautiful country places sprinkled around Hilton. These
summer people never mingled very much with Hiltonites, but as soon as
Edith was able to walk she was bound to mingle with them. Well, she
has realised that ambition. The summer colony, which is the set that
gives social distinction to Hilton, includes Edith in all of its big
functions now, in spite of the damning fact that she is a "native" and
an "all-the-year-round."
Edith's social activities are simply marvellous to me. She has her
plan of campaign--the various combinations of people to be invited to
dinner-parties, bridges, or small teas, all mapped out and written
down in a book at the beginning of each season. Then she manages to
inveigle, by means of big fat cheques, I imagine, lions--pianists, and
authors, and lecturers, whom everybody wants to see and hear--to act as
her guest of honour. So her parties are always rather popular, you see.
Oh, Edith is clever. She may not understand my nature very well, but
to the likes and dislikes, pet ambitions and pleasures of human-nature
generally she can cater to the queen's taste.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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