House Party Read online

  John had never felt so good in his whole life. He felt like a man who's just discovered that the cancer diagnosis was all a mix-up of papers. He felt like a man reprieved from the gallows. Like a man who's just awakened from a hideous nightmare.

  Now John felt as frisky as a young colt. He'd put on a bright necktie, and a jacket of such frivolity that he'd never quite dared to wear it before. He wished he owned a little black book filled with the telephone numbers of girls of a most amoral willingness. He was free.

  Looking over his beer glass at Kathy, he winked at her.

  She looked startled, but she winked back and smiled.

  "Kathy," he said, "you're in town most of the time, aren't you?"

  "All the time."

  "Well do you suppose I could, uh, call you up; take you out for dinner; go to the movies? Whatever you like?"

  "Well, that's awfully nice of you, John, but you see I'm more or less spoken for. Manning and I . . ."

  "Oh. Him!"

  "Now don't you start that."

  "Start what?"

  "Start saying that Manning's all wrong for me. That he's too urbane to be true. That he's a fortune hunter!"

  "Well, is he?"

  Kathy's eyes blazed. "Oh, Lord, you too! And you've been so nice and understanding and I've liked you so much. But the minute Manning's name is mentioned everybody acts as though he were a professional lady-killer."

  "Would you rather I told you a lie? Remember, you're the one who's said all these things about him. I just think that he'd be a little too hard for a nice, simple girl like you to tackle."

  "Well, now that we're getting down to cases," Kathy said angrily, "I might say that I think you and Felicia will have some pretty slim pickings in the field of domestic bliss. Talk about being hard!"

  "My domestic future has never looked rosier than right now."

  "Ha!" Kathy snarled dramatically.

  "You see, I wouldn't marry Felicia for the million dollars—or ten million dollars—it might be worth."

  "What did you say?"

  "I said that our short-lived romance has just ended with several bangs. It's all over. I'm the luckiest man in the world. Congratulate me."

  "Oh, I'm awfully sorry, John, I . . ." Kathy stammered. "Well," she said bravely, "to tell you the honest truth. I'm not sorry at all! I think you've been wise—wise and lucky. But then Felicia and I have never really liked each other."

  Once back in her room, Felicia closed the door and bolted it. She moved calmly and deliberately in the white heat of fury. Without so much as glancing at her reflection, she removed her red negligee and left it in a heap in the middle of the floor. She kicked her scarlet slippers dispassionately across the room. She felt a little hesitancy as she reached out for her hairbrush, but then she went about stroking her long black bob in a cold businesslike way. At last she felt equal to looking at herself in the mirror. She sat down at her dressing table and then got right up again with a little gasp of pain.

  No, she said to herself, control, control. Keep calm!

  Standing up, she removed her make-up and then put it on again. Now she coiled her hair up onto the top of her head and wrapped a gold turban deftly around it. She looked in the mirror again. The effect was trim and quite different. She liked it! Then she lit a cigarette and put it in the ashtray.

  She noticed that the silk scarf on the dressing table was a little frayed at one corner. Very carefully she began ripping it in long straight ribbons the whole length of the fabric. The operation took quite a bit of time and concentration, but by the time she had reduced the dressing table scarf to neat shreds, she felt much calmer. She hadn't noticed that her cigarette had fallen out of the ashtray and burned a deep, three-inch furrow into the marquetry top of the old French dressing table. But when she saw it, she was pleased. The cigarette had burned all the way down. She blew the ashes onto the Aubusson carpet.

  Felicia would have liked to have done something else to this treasure-filled room of Aunt Lily's. Perhaps she could rip the long brocade draperies into serpentine streamers; or the bedspread. Maybe she could overturn the inkwell onto the rug, or pull on the Baccarat chandelier with all her might until it came crashing down in a shower of lusters. No. She was the one who had to sleep here and it would only make her less comfortable.

  Instead she went to the closet and selected a dress of heavy white silk. She put on all her gold bracelets and big gold earrings and looked at herself again. She looked dangerous and she felt dangerous. A butterfly, exhausted, terrified to be in the strange room, flittered onto the dressing table. Neatly, Felicia scooped it up. She examined it objectively and then slowly tore off one of its wings. She put it down in the ashtray and smiled as she watched it struggle to fly, flapping one wing and then toppling over. Felicia wiped the powdery residue from the butterfly's wing onto a piece of Kleenex, let it drift to the floor and then snatched up her purse and left the room.

  In the hall she met Manning. "Hello," she said huskily. It was her basso profundo or I'm-a-dangerous-woman voice cribbed from a series of old Libby Holman records. Felicia and quite a number of men found it very attractive.

  "Aoh! Hellaoh!" Manning said. He had bathed again, shaved again, put on some more brilliantine and an elegant new suit, which he soon hoped to pay for. Going down the stairs with Felicia, he was surprised to see that Felicia had slipped her arm through his.

  "I say," Manning said for want of better conversation, "this is a most amazing aold place."

  "Yes, it is," Felicia said with a little touch of sadness in her voice. "I do hope poor Aunt Lily won't lose it!"

  Manning nearly tripped and fell headlong down the stairs. He caught himself in time. Naturally, he simply hadn't heard correctly.

  Felicia smiled to herself. I thought so, she said to herself, I thought so.

  "Bound for any place in particular, darling?" she asked.

  "Well, ecktualleh I was gaoing to pick up Kathy and take a bit of a stroll before dinner."

  "Poor Kathy, she has been hanging over the hot stove all day. Well, it's good she knows how to cook. A good thing for all of us—and, of course, especially for her."

  Manning shot Felicia a questioning look which Felicia carefully avoided. "Rotten luck, the servants marching aout like that on a big house party," Manning said debonairly.

  "Well, yes," Felicia said innocently, "but if you don't pay your staff, naturally you can't expect them to . . . What's the matter?"

  "N-nothing," Manning said. He was quite pale.

  "Have you a cigarette, Manning?" Felicia asked.

  He produced a gold case and a lighter to match. She tried the old eye-trick, so recently unsuccessful, and was amused to see how well it was working.

  "That's a divine case! Wherever did you get it?"

  "Oh, this, why-uh, Kathy gave it to me."

  "Kathy did? How extraordinary! It's lovely. You really have to hand it to working girls nowadays, how they can make ends meet! Why, the way some of them fix themselves up, you'd think they were heiresses. It's a heavenly case, anyhow. Well, I won't keep you from your little stroll with Kath."

  "Aoh, I've bags of time. It's quaite early and, anyhow, it was nothing definite. I, uh. . . ." Manning was barely able to speak coherently. Dazed, he allowed Felicia to lead him out of the house.

  "It's a shame the way this place is going to rack and ruin," Felicia said mournfully. "I remember how wonderful it used to be when we were little. Aunt Lily had six men in the garden full time." She kicked disdainfully at a tuft of crab grass on the lawn, "but ever since they lost everything . . ." Her words were falling on ears too stunned to hear. Deftly, Felicia led Manning around to a rolling stretch of lawn in plain view of the kitchen windows. She heard the oven door being closed. She's there, Felicia thought grimly, now let her watch this!

  "Teddibly sed . . ." Manning said dismally.

  "This part right here used to be my favorite place in the whole world," Felicia said, sinking to the lawn. She had arranged he
r sitting position very carefully so that she could face the kitchen and Manning's back would be turned toward it. Lowering her voice portentously she said: "This used to be called Shakespeare's garden and in it was planted every flower and herb and shrub and tree ever mentioned in any of Shakespeare's plays. Of course it was fearfully expensive to keep up—some of those things are so perishable. It had to be plowed under, but when it went, a part of me went, too, and I could see the end in sight."

  This section of the estate was the least attractive. It had always looked like this. It had been a spot where the servants had sat out in camp chairs to smoke and gossip, away from the beady eye of dear Papa, but Manning had no way of knowing this.

  "When I think of poor Aunt Lily," Felicia continued softly enough so that Kathy couldn't overhear, her eyes large and sorrowful, "having been once so rich and now . . . Well, of course she'll get a little something from the sale of the furniture. But it isn't very pleasant to have to look forward to ending your days in a second-rate hotel room after you've had everything. I know the children would all chip in and help her, but she's so proud. Felicia cast her eyes down and blew a lugubrious cloud of smoke through her nostrils. "It just makes me sick to think that this place will be some tacky summer resort next year and poor Aunt Lily . . ."

  "B-but Bryan . . . the bank?" Manning stuttered.

  "Oh, Bryan's a darling. Of course he's concerned—terribly concerned. But he's helpless. I mean he's just an employee there—a figurehead because of his name. Actually, we own the controlling stock—Mother and I—and we still can't force Aunt Lily to take a penny." Felicia was dealing in pure fiction and enjoying herself immensely. "That's why I'm so glad that poor little Kathy is getting someone as dependable as you." She smiled trustingly at Manning.

  "Well," Manning said hastily, "we've come to no definite understanding. I mean we're good friends—teddibly good. Kathy's a grend gel. Top-hole and all that, but as far as marriage goes, well I . . ."

  Felicia glanced languorously up and saw Kathy's face at the kitchen window. Little prude, she thought angrily, let her listen. It'll do her good, all the good in the world. I guess we'll put an end to her man-trap career right away, Felicia thought.

  Felicia had stalked her prey and now she moved in for the kill. Raising her voice so that it would surely carry to the kitchen, she said: "You really mean to say, then, that you're not in love with Kathy?"

  "Well, yes, that is, I mean no. That is, well, jeez—I mean dash it—no, I don't plan to meddy her. Not by a long chalk! I mean, she's grand fun and all thet, but . . ."

  Felicia saw Kathy wince. "Then," she said, "you mean that you . . . that you and I . . . that there's a chance . . ."

  "Felicia . . ." Manning said.

  "Oh, Manning, I've been so alone in the world—so helpless! No one to look after my investments. Manning, I . . ."

  "Felicia!" he groaned. She was in his arms and he was bending her back, back onto the stubble of crab grass.

  Kathy swayed at the kitchen window. Her hand groped out wildly and caught up a bottle of whiskey. She filled a tumbler to the brim and raised it to her lips. Then she felt a much stronger hand take the glass away from her. She heard the liquor gurgling down the sink. She turned slowly to see John standing at her side,

  "Well, now you know," he said.

  "Yes," she whispered. "Now I know. What a . . ."

  "Please don't say what a fool you've been. We've both learned a lot of things today. Like to go upstairs for a good cry?"

  "I guess—maybe . . . No!" Kathy said, turning toward him. "No, as a matter of fact I don't. As a matter of fact, I feel kind of, well, kind of . . ."

  "Relieved?"

  "Y-yes, relieved. And now I can see it all just as plain as the nose on my face—a pretty plain nose it is, too. I can see it all. That chi-chi little apartment of his in such elegant taste. Of course it was done by some other sap of a woman. Those abrupt telephone calls the night when I had dinner at his apartment—noncommittal conversations that ended so quickly. The way he's fingered every dress, every stick of my furniture as though he were an appraiser. Those evasive answers about what kind of work he does. I guess I know now what kind of work he does. That bogus English accent. He's really quite, quite terrible, isn't he?"

  "Thoroughly terrible."

  If s only that—well, how can a girl be such a damned idiot as to . . ."

  "I expect a lot of girls have asked themselves that about Mr. Stone."

  "You know, I think I'm going to get over this very quickly."

  "Good. I'm glad you are."

  "You know what I'm going to do now?"

  "No, what?" he asked.

  "I'm going upstairs and I'm going to take off this girdle, and I'm going to put on one of my all-American girl gingham dresses, and I'm going to throw these earrings away and put on some comfortable shoes."

  "Will you go to dinner with me some time this week?"

  "Yes. John, I will. Then I'll ask you up to my place for dinner. And you know what I'll cook for you?"

  "What?"

  "Steak and a baked potato—all the obvious man-catching things that you wouldn't dare offer to a creamed sweetbreads type like Manning. I think I'm going to chase you, John. I've only chased one man before and thank God he was too light on his feet. But . . ."

  "Think maybe you can catch me?"

  "Maybe."

  "I think maybe you can. And then?"

  "And then I'll wait a little while, just to make sure it isn't love on the rebound and then . . ."

  John put his arms around her and kissed her very politely and then a little more forcefully and then not politely at all.

  "Why, you're better than Manning Stone!" Kathy whispered. She giggled.

  "Thank you. What's so funny?"

  "It's just that you deliver such a comfortable, husbandly kiss that you don't make me feel like a vamp out of an old silent movie. Manning's embraces were always so sort of stagey and . . ."

  John kissed her again. "Now go upstairs and put on those sensible shoes."

  Going slowly up the stairs, Kathy realized that this wasn't quite the happy ending. There would be moments of self-recrimination. There would be moments of hideous embarrassment over the ass she had made of herself with Manning. There would be moments of wondering in what smart bar at what smart resort Manning would be exchanging his smart chitchat with some dumb dame. John wouldn't be perfect, nobody was. Kathy knew she would have moments of regret that he wasn't taller, more dashing, handsomer. There would probably be times when she'd look at him in his clothes—the gray flannel suits, the white button-down shirts, the conservative ties, and wonder why she had picked a man who looked just like all the men she had known all her life. But there would be good times, too—secure times, happy times, comfortable times. She'd never have to worry with a man like John. He'd be a good husband, a good father—never the roving eye. She liked him. She trusted him. She would love him very soon.

  Passing her mother's room, she looked in. "Mother!" Kathy said, "you look dreadful."

  "Thank you, dear."

  "Mother, you know what I told you last night—about Manning?"

  "Yes, dear," Mrs. Ames sighed.

  "Forget it."

  "What?"

  "I said forget it. He's not for me. He's not right for me."

  "I knew he wasn't, darling. I'm glad you found out in time.”

  "And, Mother, you know John Burgess?"

  "Yes, darling," Mrs. Ames said.

  "Do you like him?"

  "Very much. He's too good for you-know-who."

  "Well, he isn't you-know-who's any more. He's mine."

  "Kathy! Not so fast."

  "Do you think it would be wrong to marry a man who's shorter than you are?"

  "If you'd take off those high heels he wouldn't be," she said quietly. Mrs. Ames was exhausted from the afternoon.

  "That's just what I'm going to do."

  "Kathy dear?"

  "Yes, Mother?"r />
  "He's not going to approach me right away is he?"

  "No. He hasn't even asked me yet."

  "Then how do you know he'll . . ."

  "He will. I know."

  Kathy went on to her room. The first thing she did was take off her shoes. The second thing she did was to get her pint of rye from the suitcase. She poured it into the toilet and flushed it.

  27. House Cleaning

  Dinner, although delicious, had been a nerve-wracking repast. Sturgis had been rather sullen about serving it, but outraged whenever people got up to give him a hand. The seating had confused quite a number of the guests. It wasn't anything like it had been. Paul, for example, sat as far away as possible from Claire and saw to it that he was securely flanked by Kathy and Betty Cannon. Nor did Felicia sit next to John, nor Kathy beside Manning. They seemed to have reversed positions. Elly was about the only one who ended up next to the man she'd come with. However, Bryan no longer sat on her other side. Instead, she whisked Uncle Ned to that seat and even listened to his hilarious anecdote about being in Marienbad with King Edward.

  Nor had conversation flowed freely. Looking down her table, Mrs. Ames was suddenly grateful for Violet's chatter—even for her flirtatious roulades with General Cannon. Felicia was obviously playing the heavy seductress with Manning and such terms as "a little pied-à-terre in Paris . . . my house in London . . . a chateau at Pouilly-sur-Loire . . ." drifted up the table to a mystified hostess. Manning's manners toward his hostess—toward all the Ames family, in fact—seemed not exactly to have deteriorated, but to have become a little dusty. Uncle Ned, naturally, jabbered along at a great rate, foreign words and foreign titles interspersed glibly.

  Bryan looked so crumpled that Mrs. Ames could hardly bear to let her eyes meet his. Claire was white and tense. She ate nothing. She didn't speak until dessert when she turned to General Cannon at her side and said, quite loudly: "Damn you, stop pinching my leg." Then she got up and left the table.

  "Wait, Claire," Bryan had said and rushed out after her.

  The kitchen afterward, however, buzzed with warmth and affection. Kathy was making a concerted effort to be her natural self—a role in which she had grown a trifle rusty. She had insisted that Sturgis and Nanny eat a staggering meal in the servants' dining room and now she was serving monstrous portions of everything to them. Out of sisterly loyalty, she also continued her elaborate pretense about Elly's cooking and kept saying, louder than was absolutely necessary, "My, I wish we'd had time for you to bake that delicious angel-food cake of yours, Elly." This stunned everyone except Joe, who kept happily sloshing the same old roasting pan up and down in the sink until John took it away from him.