The Hope Chest by Jean Stafford 9 out of 10
The Hope Chest by Jean Stafford
9 out of 10
Notes and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
The Hope Chest is the second tale in the series The Bostonians and Other Manifestations of the American Scene.
These are in turn part of:
- The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
The previous, first short story in the Bostonians is reviewed here: http://realini.blogspot.ro/2017/08/life-is-no-abyss-by-jean-stafford10-out.html
If in Life Is No Abyss we have two protagonists, Lily a twenty year old visiting her cousin and Isobel an old woman living in a poor house and enjoying the effect that has on Will Hamilton and the rest of the family, The Hope Chest seems to be all about Miss Bellamy, with only two brief exceptions, due to one visitor and the woman that helps in the house, Belle.
- “Miss Bellamy was old and cold and she lay quaking under an eiderdown which her mother had given her when she was a girl of seventeen.
- It had been her hope chest”
These are the first two sentences that explain that the tale is about a woman who reminisces about her past.
The carved cherry chest has travelled far…”her father had brought it all the way from Sicily and, presenting it to her, had said:
- “Nothing is too good for my Rhoda girl”
Rhoda Bellamy never married…in fact- “there had not, in the history of Boston society, been a greater fiasco than Rhoda Bellamy’s debut”.
The failure had been so great that the family had to move to Maine, where her mother soon had died and Rhoda had “no beau but my dear papa”.
One wonders what this monumental fiasco could have been, but the reader can only imagine or speculate on it.
Now Miss Bellamy is eighty two and she remembers that “as a child, she had loved sleep better than eating or playing”.
In the first place, when she sees a Christmas wreath, she is very angry with her help, Belle, because she does not remember.
When Rhoda Bellamy hears a knock on the door, she reminded me of the character from the previous story: Isobel.
These are both strong women, determined personages, ready to go to any length pursuing their goals.
Miss Bellamy says:
- “Who is it? Who are they that they can’t knock out loud like a Christian? If they want something, why don’t they try the doorknob? They’ll find it locked, but if they had the gumption, they’d try.”
Then the old woman speculates that this could be a squirrel, but then tough or mean as she is she determines that Belle would be fired at once.
The animal was “as wicked as any other rodent and the tail…was by no means a disguise…essentially they were rats”.
Rhoda Bellamy decides to get at the door and there she frightens the potential intruder with very harsh words…
Only this is just a small boy at the door and he wants to sell a wreath, telling his name when asked: Ernest Leonard McCammon.
Ernest wants a quarter for his wreath, but Miss Bellamy protests that the evergreen could have been stolen from one of her trees.
The boy assures her that he went to the woods and besides, he had to buy the gold and silver and his daddy gave him the red…
The old lady offers fifteen cents and does not want the cones, in an attempt at bargaining, but then offers to pay the kingly price if Ernest…would give her a kiss.
The boy, who was so determined and zealous has now lost his aplomb…”she could tell that he wanted to run away.”
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