The Fifth Wheel | Page 3

exclusive list of invitations, I felt as much exaltation as any runner who
ever entered a Marathon and crossed the white tape among the first six.
There! That's the kind of New England girl I am. I offer no excuses. I
lay no blame upon my sister-in-law. There are many New England girls
just like me who have the advantage of mothers--tender and solicitous
mothers too. But even mothers cannot keep their children from
catching measles if there's an epidemic--not unless they move away.
The social fever in my community was simply raging when I was
sixteen, and of course I caught it.
Even my education was governed by the demands of society. The
boarding-school I went to was selected because of its reputation for
wealth and exclusiveness. I practised two hours a day on the piano, had
my voice trained, and sat at the conversation-French table at school,
because Edith impressed upon me that such accomplishments would be
found convenient and convincing. I learned to swim and dive, play
tennis and golf, ride horseback, dance and skate, simply because if I
was efficient in sports I would prove popular at summer hotels, country
clubs and winter resorts. Edith and I attended symphony concerts in
Boston every Friday afternoon, and opera occasionally, not because of
any special passion for music, but to be able to converse intelligently at
dinner parties and teas.
It was not until I had been out two seasons that I met Breckenridge
Sewall. When Edith introduced me to society I was younger than the
other girls of my set, and to cover up my deficiency in years I affected
a veneer of worldly knowledge and sophistication that was misleading.
It almost deceived myself. At eighteen I had accepted as a sad truth the
wickedness of the world, and especially that of men. I was very blasé,
very resigned--at least the two top layers of me were. Down underneath,
way down, I know now I was young and innocent and hopeful. I know
now that my first meeting with Breckenridge Sewall was simply one of
the stratagems that the contest I had entered required of me. I am
convinced that there was no thought of anything but harmless sport in
my encounter.

Breckenridge Sewall's mother was the owner of Grassmere, the largest
and most pretentious estate that crowns our hills. Everybody bowed
down to Mrs. Sewall. She was the royalty of the Hilton Summer
Colony. Edith's operations had not succeeded in piercing the fifty
thousand dollar wrought-iron fence that surrounded the acres of
Grassmere. We had never been honored by one of Mrs. F. Rockridge
Sewall's heavily crested invitations. We had drunk tea in the same
drawing-room with her; we had been formally introduced on one
occasion; but that was all. She imported most of her guests from New
York and Newport. Even the Summer Colonists considered an
invitation from Mrs. Sewall a high mark of distinction.
Her only son Breckenridge was seldom seen in Hilton. He preferred
Newport, Aix les Bains, or Paris. It was reported among us girls that he
considered Hilton provincial and was distinctly bored at any attempt to
inveigle him into its society. Most of us had never met him, but we all
knew him by sight. Frequently during the summer months he might be
seen speeding along the wide state road that leads out into the region of
Grassmere, seated in his great, gray, deep-purring monster, hatless,
head ducked down, hair blown straight back and eyes half-closed to
combat the wind.
One afternoon Edith and I were invited to a late afternoon tea at
Idlewold, the summer residence of Mrs. Leonard Jackson. I was
wearing a new gown which Edith had given me. It had been made at an
expensive dressmaker's of hers in Boston. I remember my sister-in-law
exclaimed as we strolled up the cedar-lined walk together, "My, but
you're stunning in that wistaria gown. It's a joy to buy things for you,
Ruth. You set them off so. I just wonder who you'll slaughter this
afternoon."
It was that afternoon that I met Breckenridge Sewall.
It was a week from that afternoon that two dozen American Beauties
formed an enormous and fragrant center-piece on the dining-room table
at old 240 Main Street. Suspended on a narrow white ribbon above the
roses Edith had hung from the center light a tiny square of pasteboard.
It bore in engraved letters the name of Breckenridge Sewall.

The family were deeply impressed when they came in for dinner. The
twins, Oliver and Malcolm, who were in college at the time, were
spending part of their vacation in Hilton; and my sister Lucy was there
too. There was quite a tableful. I can hear now the Oh's and Ah's as I
sat nonchalantly nibbling a cracker.