Chapter 10
Prudence and Henry Crawford, Lord and Lady Crawford, the Earl and Countess of Westingham, Geoffrey’s parents, arrived in New York after a two-week quarantine in Mexico.
They were initially appalled at the idea, but decided that a week in Cancún and a week in Mexico City would be pleasant, and they had friends who had retired in Cancún because of the low cost of living.
In the end, they had a pleasant time, enjoyed the margaritas, the tequila, the weather, and the low prices, and arrived less than a week before Gloria and Geoff’s wedding, two days before the bride and groom arrived themselves.
They were holding the wedding at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton.
Daphne had arranged it, since she and Phillip were members.
It was the most exclusive hotel in the Hamptons.
Eugenia rented the same compound that they’d had earlier in the month, since it had worked so well and housed all of them.
As a courtesy, she had booked the Crawfords into the Maidstone Inn in East Hampton, which they found so shockingly expensive they switched to an Airbnb in Bridgehampton and said they would take Ubers to the various wedding events.
Eugenia didn’t offer to have them stay with her, since she figured she and they would need a breather from one another.
Weddings were stressful, and Eugenia had found the Crawfords overbearing when she met them.
Henry drank a lot and talked incessantly about every relative in his family tree and how closely they were related to the king or queen, and Prudence was strident and giddy and asked incessant questions about Gloria’s bloodline.
After a painful dinner two years before, Eugenia had been sorely tempted to invent axe murderers and criminals in her ancestry.
The Crawfords were outspokenly dubious about the origins of Italian princes, and Henry said that most of them were illegitimate, which would be good dinner conversation with Umberto at the wedding or rehearsal dinner.
Eugenia still had to get the details of that event from Prudence.
She had asked her repeatedly in emails, which Prudence did not answer.
Gloria said that her future mother-in-law did not use a computer, but Prudence didn’t respond to Eugenia’s handwritten letters either, on impeccable Cartier stationery with Umberto’s crest on it.
And Eugenia’s family had their own crest, having descended from minor British aristocrats who had left England centuries before.
Eugenia had resisted the temptation at their first meeting to say that they were probably horse thieves.
The Crawfords had admitted to her that they weren’t fond of Americans, but had even less regard for Australians, who were originally all convicts.
They hated Catholics, which all of Eugenia’s children were, because of Umberto.
Eugenia had grown up Episcopalian herself, which was very close to the Roman church, but the Crawfords considered it closer to the Church of England, which worked for them.
During the dinner, they said they took a dim view of the Irish, although Prudence’s great-great-grandmother was an Irish baroness.
They declared their total contempt for the French, and hatred for Germans since Henry’s grandfather had been shot down over Germany during the war in a bombing raid, but fortunately had already sired Henry’s father.
Spaniards were just as worthless as Italians, only maybe just slightly worse.
They talked about how large their manor house was, how many indentured servants they had once had, and mentioned a distant relative of Pru’s grandmother who had fought with Wellington at Waterloo.
They dismissed the novel Gloria was writing and were sure that Geoff’s would be a bestseller, and they never mentioned the fact that Gloria was supporting him on her meager salary at a London publishing house.
Eugenia had a migraine after the evening.
She described it to Daphne and Phillip afterward.
He laughed and said they couldn’t wait to meet them.
Eugenia called the Crawfords at the British club in downtown Manhattan where they were staying before leaving for the Hamptons.
She had never heard of it, and it was a correspondent of Henry’s London club.
She felt she had to call them to be polite, so she did, and invited them for a drink at her apartment that night.
She asked Eloise to join her, but she was having dinner with friends, and had no desire to meet the parents of a man she couldn’t stand, whether they were about to be related or not.
So Eugenia was left to face the music alone.
She put little French cheese biscuits, pretzels, nuts, and some other snacks in silver bowls, and quickly changed into a pale blue Chanel linen suit to greet them.
They were half an hour late, and explained that they had gotten off at the wrong subway stop and wound up in Spanish Harlem.
Prudence was wearing three rows of large fake pearls and a polka-dotted red dress two sizes too tight that made her look like Minnie Mouse, and Henry was perspiring profusely in a gray wool suit in hundred-degree weather.
Eugenia was amazed they hadn’t been mugged on the subway.
Everything about them screamed “foreign tourists.” They were looking around the apartment with interest as Prudence handed Eugenia a tiny brown box with a pink ribbon on it, which she saw rapidly was a box with four chocolates in it, the kind hotel chambermaids left on your pillow at night when they turned down the beds, and must have been on their bed at the club when they checked in.
“Sweets for the sweet, my dear,” she said grandly.
Her hair was blond mixed with white, and hung limply around her face after their subway adventure in the crushing heat.
They walked into the living room as Prudence looked around, taking everything in.
“My, isn’t everything so white and modern.
How American,” she said, glancing at her husband, “isn’t it, Henry?
” He was admiring the view of Central Park and turned to smile at Eugenia.
“Our park at the manor was about that size originally, of course it’s a bit smaller now.
” His grandparents had sold off everything they could after the war, as many people had to.
Eugenia didn’t mind poverty, but she hated pretentiousness, especially with nothing to back it up.
She knew that Henry had worked at a bank in the city, and Prudence had been a secretary before they married.
Geoff had said it in passing one night when he was drunk.
They struggled through an hour of inane conversation about the club where they were staying, which was related to a minor yacht club in London, and then Eugenia finally brought up the rehearsal dinner.
“I still don’t know where you’re holding it,” Eugenia said politely. “Is everything all set?”
Prudence looked uncomfortable for a minute and then recovered.
“You know, it’s so beastly complicated to do anything online these days.
The club recommended a few places which were insanely expensive, and I don’t do well on a computer, and Henry doesn’t either.
I thought I’d let you organize something.
You know all the local places, and I didn’t know if you’d prefer to do it in the Hamptons or in the city, so I thought it best to let you decide and organize it this week,” and she’d never asked.
Eugenia stared at her in disbelief. She and Pam had been going crazy, with the help of her florist and a wedding planner that had cost her a fortune, to go over every detail of the wedding for a hundred and eighty-two guests, with everything from welcome bags to hotel arrangements, two bands, and flowers flown in from all over the world, not to mention Gloria’s dress, suitable for royalty, and Prudence Crawford had done nothing about the rehearsal dinner.
Eugenia wanted to throw the pretzels at her, as Henry blithely sipped his gin on the rocks and Prudence looked her in the eye and didn’t show a drop of remorse.
Eugenia could also guess that they didn’t want to pay for a dinner for a hundred and eighty guests when they heard the prices.
“I wish you had told me earlier,” Eugenia said politely. “So what’s your plan? No rehearsal dinner?”