House Party

by Patrick Dennis

  "I don't think I'd better, Mother. In the first place he's Felicia's man and . . ." Her voice trailed off and she jammed a cigarette into her new black holder and waved a match vaguely in the direction of where she thought the cigarette might be.

  "Well, I wonder if Felicia would play by quite as strict Queensberry Rules as . . . Kathy! Watch out! You'll set yourself ablaze! Honestly, child, it's bad enough to smoke as much as you do, but with that contraption you make it look like narcotic addiction. Mr. Burgess is a very nice man. I had quite a chat with him down at breakfast until those little savages of Felicia's dragged him off. I must say he has a way with children. They've only had four or five scenes in the past hour. He comes from . . ."

  "Yoo hoo! Good morning everyone. Isn't it a divine day!” Violet waved vivaciously from the bath house.

  Mrs. Ames had said five years ago that all women reached an age when they should stop wearing bathing suits in public. At that time she stopped. Violet, however, still felt—rightly or wrongly—that she had reached no such age and her many bathing costumes gave violent testimony to the fact. Today she wore a strident magenta suit flounced at the hips and embroidered with seed pearls and tiny seashells. The seashell motif was carried out in some bracelets and a necklace, around the cork soles of her shoes and on the rims of her sun glasses. Over everything she had flung a hooded mantle of white teddy bear cloth. She had no intention of getting wet.

  "Good morning Lily, Kathy, Fraulein. Hello, darlings!" she shouted out to sea. "Oh, don't you love the salt air! Kathy! What a chic suit! Where on earth did you get it?" She spread her cape, sat down and began anointing herself with sun tan lotion. "My dears, this is the most divine stuff. It's new. Took them simply years to perfect it. It just lets you tan ve-ry gra-jully to the color of an apricot and then no more. Lily dear, would you be a perfect pet put some of this on my back where I can't reach? There's a love.”

  "It sounds marvelous, Violet," Mrs. Ames said, "except my shoulders are quite freckled."

  "Oh, no! Where?"

  "All over."

  "Oh, well, when I get back to town I know a marvelous little woman on Fiftieth Street who peels you—gets you right down baby skin. So I'll stretch right out here and simply toast. Just be a sun worshiper and enjoy myself. Do you have any cigarettes, Kathy? I seem to have left mine up at . . . Thank you, dear. And a light? Oh, thanks. Now I don't want to hear or speak another single, solitary word. I'm just going to lie here and commune!"

  "Hélas! Animation sur la plage!"

  "Why, Uncle Ned!" Violet shrieked.

  "Just bring my chair and my umbrella and the writing things and those dark glasses right down here, Sturgis," Uncle Ned commanded. "Ah, there they are—the lovely Pruitt sisters! Good morning my dears. Morning Katherine."

  "Good morning, Uncle Ned," the ladies called in unison.

  "Oh, Lily," Violet began in a stage whisper that carried far over the water, "isn't that just too heavenly. He's wearing his dark blue blazer and that sweet yachting cap and his monocle . . ."

  "He has the eyesight of a ferret, Violet."

  ". . . and he looks just as dapper and elegant as a prince."

  "I suspect that was his intention, Violet."

  "Oh, but Lily, doesn't it take you back? Isn't it just as though we were girls again?"

  Once settled on the sands, Uncle Ned put up his monocle and surveyed the three sirens around him. "Well, a pleasant day, my dears, I must admit. An uncommonly stylish costume, for you, Katherine."

  "Isn't it smart, Uncle Ned!" Violet gushed, "I was just telling her . . .”

  "It rather calls to mind one that poor Gertie Lawrence had in twenty-six—no, twenty-seven. Exactly the same color, except she dominated it."

  "Why, Uncle Ned! It's lovely on Kathy. Don't you think so, Lily?”

  "I think I'll go in swimming," Kathy said and got blindly to her feet.

  Kathy plunged into the Sound and swam a long, long way under water. Long enough so that she was sure the salt water had washed away the tears she was shedding. Springing up from the sandy bottom she came face to face with John Burgess. "Oh," she cried.

  "I thought you'd drowned. You were under there a long time.”

  "No such luck, I'm afraid. Besides, the tide's not quite in yet. I can still stand."

  "So can I," John said, a little defiantly.

  "So can I," Robin shouted, clinging steadfastly to John Burgess.

  "You can not, Robin Choate," Emily screamed, "because I can't and I'm taller'n you an' I can't. I'm a whole lot taller'n you; a hundred million, billion, trillion . . ."

  "You are not!"

  "I am, too," Emily screamed. "You are not . . ."

  "Hey, kids, kids! Stop it!" John said. "She is taller than you are, Hob, but that's because she's two years older. Some day, when you're grown up, you'll be taller than she is."

  "Then I can beat her up, Unca John, can't I?"

  "Look, I tell you what we'll do. We'll play a game. It's a game milled Dolphin. They're a kind of fish that breathe air and when people like sailors fall off boats then the dolphins pick them up on their backs and carry them right in to shore."

  "They do?"

  "Yes, they do. Now, Emily, you get on my back, and Robin, you get on Miss Ames's back . . ."

  "I think it'll be all right if you call me Kathy . . ."

  ". . . and we'll carry you right in to shore," John finished.

  "Straight to Fraulein," Kathy added.

  A moment later the Choate children were dumped, squealing and giggling, on the sand. "Do it again!" Emily screamed. "Again!”

  "More! More! More!" Robin yelled.

  "No. No more!” John said. "You've been in the water an hour and that's enough. Go on to your nurse."

  "Darlings," Violet screamed, "come to Granny. Oh, there Granny's precious babies!"

  "Robin. Emily! Come," Fraulein called.

  "Wanna play dawfin. Wanna play dawfin."

  "Do it again Unca John. Kathy. Do it again."

  "Darlings come to Granny!"

  "More, more. Mormormormormormormormormor-r-r-r-e!”

  "Children! Come! Here iss Fraulein!"

  Emily fixed John with a beady eye. "If you don't take me up on your back before I count to ten I'll hold my breath and never never stop an' I’ll die an’ everybody'll say you murdered me an' policeman will come an' take you to jail an' . . ."

  "Emily Choate, you stop talking like that this instant or I’ll turn you over my knee and give you the spanking you've never had,” Kathy said quietly. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking, like that to this nice man who's been playing with you all morning! Why, he's your guest. Now you apologize to Mr. Burgess this minute and then you go right up to Fraulein and try to be polite. You too, Robin."

  Emily's jaw dropped for a moment as she stared bug-eyed at Kathy. Then she said "I 'pollygize."

  "Me, too," Robin said. Docilely they marched hand in hand up the beach to Fraulein.

  "There," Kathy said and dived into the water. Stunned, John Burgess followed. With expert strokes Kathy swam out to the white raft which bobbed a hundred yards from the shore. She climbed briskly up the ladder and stood erect and glistening. For a moment she was very beautiful—tall, slim and covered with a thousand bright diamonds of water.

  Burgess followed her less agilely and sank to the planking floor of the raft. "You certainly have a way with children, Miss Kathy."

  "I have?" Kathy said blankly. "Well, it's the first I ever heard of it. I've never had any experience."

  "But the way you just talked Emily out of holding her breath. I'd have taken her out again just to keep her from suffocating."

  "I think that when she got uncomfortable she'd have stopped. I mean fair is fair. It's all right to play with children but when they start blackmailing you, then it calls for action. And I'd have given her that spanking, too. She's never had one, yet."

  "W-well, they're pretty good kids, at that."

  "They're not. Th
ey're perfectly dreadful. But it isn't their fault."

  "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.

  "Well, I mean if I had two children I'd spend a lot of time with them and . . ." Kathy suddenly went crimson. "You don't happen to have a cigarette on you, do you?"

  "As a matter of fact, I have. This case is supposed to be waterproof." John dug into the pocket in his trunks never taking his eyes oil Kathy. "Go on, I'm listening."

  "G-go on with what?" Kathy stammered

  "With what you were saying."

  "Saying?"

  "About why it isn't Bob and Emily's fault that they're so bad. You said if you . . ."

  "Ha-ha," Kathy laughed hollowly. "It's completely slipped my mind. Say, that waterproof case of yours does keep cigarettes pretty dry. I must get one. I understand you're in law, Mr. Burgess."

  "My name is John. I am in law. And you can buy those cases at any drugstore. Now go on with what you were saying."

  "If you don't mind, I'd honestly rather not. Never having had any children, I'm no authority on how to raise them and it's none of my business anyway. I'm sorry I started the whole thing. Now, let's please talk about something else."

  "All right We'll talk about you. Commence."

  "Well," Kathy began miserably, "I was born in the Lenox Hill Hospital on November nineteenth in nineteen tw . . ." She looked up toward the shore and saw Manning Stone sauntering elegantly down the rustic steps. John looked up, too. "Uh, listen, Mr. Bur . . . Listen, John. I'm getting kind of chilled out here and would you mind terribly if I were to swim in. Brrrrrrr."

  "You liar. It's a good eighty and you're perspiring. I ought to be insulted but I'm not. However, if you don't mind a word of advice, I'd suggest that you just stay put—like a siren on a rock or some thing. I expect he'll be able to swim out here to you. He looks fairly strong."

  "What are you talking about?" Kathy fumed. Really, this ugly oaf!

  "To continue: You were born in the Lenox Hill Hospital . . .”

  Manning moved down the stairs with the fluid grace that had attracted so many ladies, old and young. He had slept well, dressed carefully and breakfasted lightly in his room. That frank little talk with Kathy in the gazebo last night had been most encouraging—almost. He wished she had been more specific about the "small trust fund" she'd be coming into on her thirtieth birthday. "Small" was such a nebulous term—fifteen, twenty, twenty-five thousand a year? Well, from what he'd seen so far, small for an Ames would be large for a Stone.

  Manning retained his dreamy, wistful, faraway expression until he heard Mrs. Clendenning say "Isn't he gorgeous!" in a whisper which could carry to Montauk, then he favored the oldsters on the beach with a dazzling smile and a debonair wave.

  This morning he was wearing army surplus slacks—there was something so unquestionably smart about those old suntans—a shirt of white lawn, and custom-made espadrilles. For good measure he carried a cashmere sweater. Conservative, that was the ticket. If anyone knew how a gentleman dressed, it was Manning. He could have written a Ph.D. thesis on the subject.

  But somehow he could never avoid a tiny touch of the apache. The slacks had been taken in just a bit too much to display the lean hips and muscular thighs. The belt was buckled a notch too tightly. The shirt, a shade too sheer, was undone just one button too many at the throat. His nails—all twenty of them—were a trifle too long, too glossy. As Mrs. Laura Romeyn Gray Richardson Anderson had screamed at him some years ago: "Manny, you couldn't resist that extra drop of brilliantine anymore than I can resist throwing this glass at your God-damned beautiful head!” Then she let fly—an impetuous gesture that accounted not only for their parting, but also for the tiny scar on Manning's otherwise perfect brow.

  With just the proper amount of suave boyishness, he bowed over the hands of Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Clendenning—not quite a kiss, tint the implication of one—and favored Uncle Ned with a manful “Good morning, sir."

  "Ah, dear boy," Uncle Ned said, "how splendid you're looking him! how well you fit into this simple, rural American scene." Uncle Ned could never forgive himself for being an American.

  "Thank you, sir, and what an air of the Continent you lend."

  "Oh, Lily," Violet sighed, "isn't it just like being at a Noel Coward play to hear these gentlemen."

  "Yes, Violet, it is. One which I saw in either 1928 or '29." Then Mrs. Ames felt that she had been rude and smiled up at Manning. "Not going in swimming?"

  Manning made a swift mental note to take it easy with Kathy's mother. Unlike most of the older women he had captivated, this one wasn't quite such a pushover. "Yais," he said. "Yais, I think a bathe would be fust rate." Then he translated into Americanese and said: "Yes, I think I'll go in." He favored the assemblage with a flashing grin, casting an especially soft paternal smile upon Robin and Emily who were destroying a sand castle, and went lithely off to the bath house.

  Ordinarily Manning preferred to be seen in one of his twelve pairs of French Riviera bathing trunks—a model which could be described only as a jockstrap with a seat in it. Discreetly padded, they showed to best advantage almost all of his copper tan and the loins which had made so many hearts beat faster. With only a twinge of regret, Manning stepped into his slim Bronzini shorts, pulled the drawstring terribly tight, cast a long, admiring glance at his reflection, and congratulated himself once more on his conservatism. Covered from waist to midthigh as he was meant depriving Kathy of a better view of the merchandise, but she seemed pretty well sold as it was and there was nothing quite like an air of mystery.

  Manning's reverie at the mirror was interrupted by a sharp scream and a faint stream of blasphemy, "Oh my God, this bloody zipper!” It was Felicia.

  "I say," Manning called, "anything the matter?"

  "Anything the matter? This zipper's caught half way up the back and it's practically taken my hide off!"

  "Cahn't I help?" Manning asked, springing from his cubicle.

  "Yes, would you?" Felicia emerged, more or less covered by black satin bathing suit, its zipper at half mast along her spine.

  "It's nothing too bad, rally," Manning said, "just a little nip."

  "Easy now, please. Oh! Oh, there now, that feels wonderful."

  "It's all in knaowing how," Manning said.

  "You've been perfectly marvelous, darling. Nothing like this start the day off right."

  "Believe me, the pleasure was all mine," Manning said.

  Unseen and unheard, Paul stood in the doorway for just a second, and then slunk silently away. "Poor Kathy," he said softly, "poor old Kathy." He waited a full two minutes in the shrubbery and then he appeared, waving and shouting at the top of his lungs, "Good morning, Mother! Aunt Violet! Uncle Ned! Hi, kids!" He heard his mother gasp "What in the world has ever come over Paul?" Then, with a great deal of coughing, stomping his tennis shoes as loudly as possible on the porch of the bath house, he entered again. Felicia and Manning were just leaving, their expressions bland behind dark glasses.

  "Oh, it's you, Paul," Felicia said. "I thought it was a Comanche raid."

  "Good morning, Paul," Manning said casually.

  "Morning, Stone," Paul snarled and pulled the dressing-room curtain shut behind him with a snap. They certainly were composed, that pair—cool as cucumbers.

  10: Talking

  Looking again at his graduation wristwatch, Joe Sullivan decided that now he really would have to make an appearance. The noise from the beach told him that even the idle rich were awake. He felt like hell. He'd drunk too much last night and slept badly. He'd forgotten to bring aspirin and the nick he'd given himself shaving that morning refused to heal beneath the inexpert patch of toilet paper he'd applied.

  He had tossed all night. At six he had awakened for the day. Snapping on a lamp, he'd paced up and down the large bedroom for un hour. He had seen his manuscript lying on the chest of dm wars and wished that there had been a fireplace in the room so that he could have burned the whole book dramatically, although his publisher had a
carbon; return the advance, although he had spent most of it; and take the first train back to Indiana. Of course he’d have had to leave Elly some kind of farewell note. He had pondered over its wording. Allegorical: "Ave atque vale?' Or should it have been offhand and debonair: "It was great fun, but it was just one of those things?" Or . . . "Nuts!" Joe had said, lighting a cigarette.

  There was a ponderous French bookcase in his room, ugly as hell but undoubtedly valuable. With a good deal of struggling and lugging, he opened one of the cupboard doors, long held shut by a folded Colony Club matchbook. It was filled with old books. At least he could read something. The collection would ordinarily have amused Joe. This morning it had enraged him. He found a copy of The Good Earth, an old Magoffin and Henry Latin textbook of Kathy's, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which he had no intention of rereading, Little Men, a 1931 Social Register, and a tome entitled Diseases of the Horse. "Jesus," he snarled, "they're not even cultured! I bet they never read one of the books in Pop’s library." He finally extracted a copy of Eleanor, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward, which he decided to read as a symbol of his dead love Eleanor Ames, but finding the book long, the type small, and Mrs. Ward's punctuation marks limited to the one-em dash, he put back on its dusty shelf.

  He finally selected a yellowing copy of Michael Arlen's These Charming People. "Just, what these empty-headed parasites ought to be reading," he sneered, "foolish, pointless, dated, passé, junk. With the righteous feeling of a Vatican censor, Joe stretched out on his bed and began to read.

  Hours passed. Finally Joe closed the book and looked at watch. "Eleven o'clock! Jesus!" he breathed. Now he was furious with himself for having spent five hours reading such decadent tripe and even more furious for having enjoyed it. Slamming the book down, he got up and headed for breakfast.

  "Lutie," Jonas said, "this is too much! Eleven o'clock and couple of those society sybarites still not down to breakfast. Twelve people to feed for lunch in two hours and this week's New Republic hasn't even come yet. Why we ever came out to this. . . .”