“I’ll be there,” Matt said. “Against my better judgment.”
He hung up before Chad could reply and went back to work.
The festivities that would commemorate the birth twenty-five years before of Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV were, in the opinions of his mother and his mother-in-law (Mrs. Soames T. Browne), far more important than a simple birthday party.
It would, so to speak, if not introduce, then reintroduce the young couple to Philadelphia society. There had been a number of problems. For one thing, Chad had gone off into the Marines three days after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.
A suitable wedding, given that, would have been difficult under any circumstances, but it had been further complicated by the unfortunate business of Daffy’s best friend—Penny Detweiler, who was to have been her maid of honor—getting herself involved with drugs and gangsters.
Their hearts went out, of course, to Grace and Dick Detweiler, who were old and dear friends, but that didn’t change the fact that Penny not being Daphne’s maid of honor because she was in Hahnemann Hospital recuperating from being shot did cast a pall upon a wedding.
And then the Marines had sent Chad off to Okinawa, without Daffy, for more than two years. She had waited for him in her parents’ home in Merion—married woman or not, her taking an apartment alone didn’t make any sense—and then Chad had come home, and the second thing he’d done after taking off his hat was to get her in the family way.
And while she was pregnant, Chad had gone to work for Nesfoods, starting at the bottom, of course, as a retail salesman. His father—now chairman of the Executive Committee of Nesfoods International—had started out that way. And, for that matter, so had his grandfather. And Dick Detweiler, Nesfood’s chief executive officer. And his father.
But you can’t really have much of a social life when you’re working as a retail salesman at the bottom of the corporate ladder, and with a pregnant wife.
Things were a good deal better now. Chad had proved his worth, and shortly before the baby was born, had been promoted. He was now an assistant vice president, Sales.
And the baby was healthy and adorable. Chad and Daffy had named her Penelope Alice, after Penny Detweiler, who had broken everyone’s heart, not just her parents’, by taking one illegal drug too many and killing herself.
Both Grandmother Nesbitt and Grandmother Browne believed that naming the baby after poor Penny wasn’t the wise thing to do, but there’s no talking to young people.
Look to the good, look to the future.
At least they had their own place now. Number 9 Stockton Place, in Society Hill. Large enough, and nice enough, to have their first real party.
Society Hill—around Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in central Philadelphia—was where the social elite of pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia made their homes. It was said, with some accuracy, that Society Hill had gone downhill from the moment the loyal subjects of His Maj esty King George III, alarmed at the presence in nearby Valley Forge of a rebel named George Washington and his ragtag revolutionary army, had begun to leave town.
Society Hill had continued its slow but steady decl
ine to a slum for the next century and a half. Then a real estate developer had decided there was probably a good deal of money to be made by gutting the old houses and converting them into upscale accommodations for the affluent.
In the process of gaining clear title to the blocks of property involved, it was discovered that an alley called Stockton Place had never been deeded to the City of Philadelphia. That being the case, it was the prerogative of the owner to declare it private property and keep the riffraff out. Exclusiveness sells, as they say in the real estate trade.
At considerable expense, a sufficient quantity of cobblestones had been acquired, and Stockton Place was re-paved with them. As soon as that was done, one end of the alley was permanently closed with a brick wall, and at the other end, a Colonial-style guard shack was erected. A striped pole, controlled by a Wachenhut Corporation rent-a-cop, ensured that no one but the residents or their authorized guests was permitted to tread, or drive upon, the newly laid cobblestones.
Number 9 Stockton Place, which had been purchased by NB Properties, Inc., was arguably the most desirable of all the residences. It was a triplex constructed behind the facades of four of the twelve pre-Revolutionary brownstone buildings on that block of Stockton Place. The entrance was at Number 9. Cleverly concealed behind the facade of Number 11 was the entrance to the underground garage, with space for three vehicles.
The property was leased by NB Properties, Inc., to Mr. and Mrs. Nesbitt IV at a rate a good deal lower than it would have brought on the open market. At the time they had moved in, young Chad was being paid no more and no less than any other retail salesman employed by Nesfoods International, and it seemed the least his father—who was the sole stockholder of NB Properties, Inc.—could do for him. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt III well remembered when he had been starting out with the company, on the bottom rung of the ladder.
There would be more than two hundred guests. A buffet, of course. Chad and Daffy’s apartment was large, but not large enough to have that many people seated for dinner. Mrs. Nesbitt III had toyed with the idea of giving the party at the Merion Country Club, and Mrs. Browne had offered the Brownes’ home—a forty-two-room copy of an English manor house, circa 1600, in Merion—for the occasion, but in the end she decided the thing to do was have Daffy give the party at her own home—with, of course, the help of her mother and her mother-in-law.
Daffy didn’t really have the experience to do it, and she was busy with Penelope—both grandmothers were determined that the child never be called “Penny”—and it just had to be right.
The guest list had been difficult. Chad and Daffy’s friends had to be invited, of course, but after Daffy had presented her list, that criterion was changed to “Chad and Daffy’s oldest and dearest friends,” which cut it down to less than a hundred, and left about that number of spaces for people who were important to the young couple, socially and business-wise. All six vice presidents of Nesfoods International and their wives were invited, of course, and some other businessmen connected to the company. And the Episcopal bishop of Philadelphia, of course, and the cardinal archbishop of Philadelphia. And the mayor. And the senator. And then the friends, most of whom had known Daffy and Chad all their lives.
Bailey, Banks & Biddle did the invitations, and the Rittenhouse Club was engaged to cater the affair.
There was a reception line, the birthday couple (a privileged few would be taken upstairs, later, to view Penelope Alice) and both sets of grandparents.
Matthew M. Payne entered the line at seven-fifty, a moment after Mrs. Nesbitt III had given Mrs. Browne a significant look, indicating that she believed they should abandon the line to mingle with the children’s guests.
“Hello, Matt,” Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt III said.
“Good evening, sir,” Matt said.
“You look so nice in black tie, Matt,” Mrs. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt III said.