My Mrs. Brown Read Online Free Page B

so comfortable in her own skin, and so well put together.”
    Rachel smiled.
    â€œWho’s that, if I may ask?” Mrs. Brown pointed to the portrait.
    Rachel explained that it was Mrs. Groton’s grandmother painted by an artist named Boldini in 1923. It soon would be hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue.
    Rachel entered the dining room. It was as big as a restaurant, with a long mahogany table and twenty-four chairs. French doors opened to Mrs. Groton’s topiary and rose gardens.
    Standing by the doors, holding a clipboard, was a woman Mrs. Brown found terrifying looking. With a helmet of raven-black hair, here was the aforementioned auction house expert Delphine Staunton.
    â€œAs I was saying, Rachel,” Delphine said, with an accent Mrs. Brown could not place, “every woman should be pretty in her own dining room. This is a very French idea,” which she pronounced as “eye-dee,” one that, “my people being French, of course, I agree with. The quality of this furniture, Philadelphia Chippendale, will command huge sales for us, I mean, for the estate, but this, how do you say, WASP decorating, is not very feminine, no? It is too stark, too plain. I doubt Mrs. Groton’s looks were ever flattered here in this room.”
    Delphine shook her head disapprovingly. “It’s not a room that flatters a woman. Quel dommage, don’t you think? No wonder she preferred the Westchester place. She would have looked better in her dining room there, the glossy green walls, the red silk chairs.”
    As the raven-headed auctioneer opined, she crisscrossed the dining room sticking little green dots on the furniture. Or white dots, or no dots. Green meant it was going to Lambton’s to be auctioned, white for the pieces of furniture and art bequeathed to museums—the Boldini, for instance, and a jolly New York City street scene by the American impressionist painter Childe Hassam—and everything else, from the copper pots and utensils in the kitchen to the majority of Mrs. Groton’s clothes, would be given to the thrift shop, hence Mrs. Brown’s and Mrs. Wood’s presence, if Mrs. Wood ever bothered to show up. How in the world could she possibly be late today of all days?
    â€œDelphine Staunton, from Lambton’s auction house, in New York, this is Mrs. Brown from the Ashville Thrift Shop,” Rachel said, introducing the two women.
    â€œHello,” Mrs. Brown said, her voice echoing in the large dining room.
    Ms. Staunton didn’t even bother to look. She twinkled her fingers, a kind of wave, in Mrs. Brown’s general direction.
    â€œPeople are going to think your little thrift shop is an outpost of Bergdorf Goodman,” Delphine said, placing green dots on the rococo porcelain chickens decorating the mantel on the dining room’s marble fireplace. “I’d wager never has such finery been sent your way, Mrs. Brown, never, ever.”
    Delphine was not looking at her when she said this, but was now bending over to inspect a brass bucket holding chopped wood.
    Mrs. Brown had encountered women like this in the beauty parlor. Whether their remarks were intended to hurt, and so often they did, Mrs. Brown knew the best thing to do was to not respond, take the high road, and let her silence get loud enough that the offender either desisted, apologized, or changed the subject.
    The doorbell rang, its echo deep—“very high church” is how the Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island had always described the sound of Mrs. Groton’s bell.
    Rachel excused herself.
    Mrs. Brown hoped it was Mrs. Wood from the thrift shop. She was left alone with Delphine, now on her knees inspecting the marble fireplace. Then, rising, she turned her shellacked black head and looked Mrs. Brown up and down.
    â€œDid you get your outfit at your thrift shop? Don’t you wonder who wore it before you? We auction wonderful vintage pieces,