Read Vieux Carre for Free Online Page B

a plantation, in the Garden District?
    MISS CARRIE [
gasping
]: Oh, no, no, no, no. He’s a mortician, most prominent mortician, buries all the best families in the parish.
    MRS. WIRE : And poor relations, too? I hope.
    MARY MAUDE : Miss Carrie goes into a family vault when she goes.
    MRS. WIRE : When?
    MARY MAUDE : Yes, above ground, has a vault reserved in . . .
    MISS CARRIE : Let’s not speak of that! . . . now.
    MRS. WIRE : Why not speak of that? You got to consider the advantage of this connection. Because of the expenses of “The Inevitable” someday soon, ’specially with your asthma? No light? And bad nutrition?
    MISS CARRIE : The dampness of the old walls in the Quarter— you know how they hold damp. This city is actually eight feet below sea level. Niggers are buried under the ground, and their caskets fill immediately with water.
    MRS. WIRE : But I reckon your family vault is above this nigger water level?
    MISS CARRIE : Oh, yes, above water level, in fact, I’ll be on top of my great-great-uncle, Jean Pierre Devereau, the third.
    [
The writer laughs a bit, involuntarily. The ladies glare at him
.]
    Mrs. Wire, who is this . . . transient? Young man?
    MARY MAUDE : We did understand that this was a guesthouse, not a . . . refuge for delinquents.
    MISS CARRIE [
turning her back on the writer
]: They do set an exquisite table at the Pathets, with excellent food, but it’s not appetizing, you know, to be conducted on a tour of inspection of the business display room, you know, the latest model of caskets on display, and that’s what René Pathet does, invariably escorts me, proud as a peacock, through the coffin display rooms before . . . we sit down to dinner. And all through dinner, he discusses his latest clients and . . . those expected shortly.
    MRS. WIRE : Maybe he wants you to pick out your casket cause he’s noticed your asthma from damp walls in the Quarter.
    MISS CARRIE : I do, of course, understand that business is business with him, a night and day occupation.
    MRS. WIRE : You know, I always spit in a pot of gumbo to give it special flavor, like a bootblack spits on a shoe. [
She pretends to spit in the pot. The crones try to laugh
.] Now help yourself, fill your saucepan full, and I’ll loan you a couple of spoons, but let it cool a while, don’t blister your gums . . . [
She hands them spoons
.] . . . and Mrs. Wayne, I’ll be watching the mailbox for Buster’s army paycheck.
    MARY MAUDE : That boy has never let me down, he’s the most devoted son a mother could hope for.
    MRS. WIRE : Yais, if she had no hope.
    MARY MAUDE : I got a postcard from him . . .
    MRS. WIRE : A postcard can’t be cashed.
    MARY MAUDE [
diverting Mrs. Wire’s attention, she hopes, as Miss Carrie ladles out gumbo
]: Of course, I wasn’t prepared for the circumstance that struck me when I discovered that Mr. Wayne had not kept up his insurance payments,
that
I was not prepared for, that it was
lapsed
.
    MRS. WIRE [
amused
]: I bet you wasn’t prepared for a little surprise like that.
    MARY MAUDE : No, not for that nor for the discovery that secretly for years he’d been providing cash and real estate to that little redheaded doxy he’d kept in Bay St. Louie.
    MISS CARRIE : Owwwww!
    [
Mrs. Wire whirls about, and Miss Carrie is forced to swallow the scalding mouthful
.]
    MRS. WIRE : I bet that mouthful scorched your throat, Miss Carrie. Didn’t I tell you to wait?
    MARY MAUDE : Carrie, give me that saucepan before you spill it, your hand’s so shaky. Thank you, Mrs. Wire. Carrie, thank Mrs. Wire for her being so concerned always about our— circumstances here. Now let’s go and see what can be done for that throat. [
They move toward the stairs but do not exit
.]
    MRS. WIRE : Cut it, if all else fails.
    [
Something crashes on the stairs. All turn that way. Tye appears dimly, bearing