The Raines Family Christmas Party Sara had been waiting for years to be deemed old enough to attend the family Christmas party, which made it all the more disappointing, as she stood frozen at the side of the ballroom, to realize she was terrified and overwhelmed and really didn’t know what to do with herself in such a large place, with so many people. Party? This was more like a convention.
She strained for every possible millimeter of height. If someone ran over her, she wanted it to be because they were careless, not because they literally did not notice she was there. She was beginning to appreciate the benefits of being descended from the junior line in ways she never had before, as it meant that while she might be asked to turn up for this thing every year if her husband did not live too far away from Illinois, at least she would never, as long as she lived, be called upon to preside over it.
Who would, though, was an interesting question. It would have been different if even one of Uncle Charles’ children had been a boy at least formally recognized as legitimate, whether anyone believed the acknowledgment was a reflection of truth or not, but all he had were girls. Catherine, looking very pretty and younger than twenty-four as she spoke with someone just in Sara’s line of sight, had three children, none of whom anyone thought were illegitimate and two of them were boys, but their name, anyway, was Gardiner. And yet, the Raines Christmas party had been a staple of society here since Grandfather’s brother, Uncle Miles, was alive and head of the family; it was unthinkable that it should just not happen, or become the Gardiner party, but there was also no way Catherine would ever give the house to Alan. Sara had heard her complain many times about why she didn’t know why Theo insisted on keeping a separate household, when they could just live with ‘Mother and Daddy’ and still have more room to themselves than they did at her house.
No one was really thinking about it tonight, though; mostly they were thinking about who they were talking to, which seemed to be everyone in the world, or else complimenting Catherine or Theo (who, to Sara’s surprise, was still here; her cousin’s handsome husband had a habit of disappearing during events, but there he was, talking and drinking with a broad-shouldered, dark-haired man she vaguely recognized but couldn’t put a name to) or Uncle Charles and Aunt Lila on how well Catherine looked, to have three children now, or else, if they hadn't seen them in person since he was born, congratulating them on the baby, named Charles Augustus in honor of his maternal grandfather and a paternal great-grandfather. Sara frankly thought that, as far as names went, ‘Charles Augustus Gardiner’ was not one of the best, but she supposed that if Catherine and Theo liked it and he never admitted his middle name was Augustus in public, it was all right.
For herself, at least for now, she was going to go find the relative quiet of one of the smaller rooms the party was going on in. This was still a little much for her, she thought.