THE HOUSE PARTY
Sitting next to his aunt, with his arm on the back of her chair, Harry,
after a cough or two and a furtive look at Kenneth, began to unfold his
plan. He wanted to invite five or six swells to his house across the
way, he said. He had thought of it when he was a boy and spent a
vacation with Tom Haynes in Kentucky. Tom had had one the fall before
and so had another comrade, and when they heard of his big house
untenanted, they said it was just the place “to paint red,” off there in
the country, where no one could be disturbed with their nightly revels,
or threaten them with the police, as had once been done.
“I told them the house was scarcely habitable,” he said, “and that only
made them the fiercer. It would be like camping out, and they are
resolved to come.”
“And do they still think us ‘niggers’?” Kenneth asked, remembering Hal’s
letter.
“Oh, pshaw!” was Harry’s laughing reply. “That was all a joke. Tom and
the rest of ’em know you are a rising doctor, and that uncle and aunt
are the nicest old couple in the world. Aren’t you, Aunt Mary?”
He had his arm around her neck, and was looking at her with the soft,
pleading eyes to which she always yielded.
“What is it you want me to do?” she asked, and he replied:
“I shall get some women to clean up the house, and some one to cook for
us. I did think of getting old Polly,—father’s nurse, you know,—but she
has broken her hip, and none of the other Morris darkies want to come,
so I must have some one else, and if you will overlook them a little and
keep them going, and—and—if I could put up some cots in the ball-room,
it would seem more like a picnic. Are you willing?”
He was smoothing Mrs. Stannard’s hair and caressing her arm, while he
waited for her to answer.
“The ball-room is pretty dirty now, and there are twelve windows to
wash,” she said, at last.
“Oh, that’s nothing. None of the boys will care if the windows are
covered with cobwebs, and I’ll get a woman to clean it up. You shall not
be troubled at all. Now give in, like a dear old auntie.”
She gave in as he knew she would, but the deacon objected. Six young
fellows sleeping in one room would raise “old Harry” and keep him awake
nights, he said, but he was finally overruled, as his wife had been. Hal
guaranteed that the “old Harry” should not be raised, and that his
guests should go to their cots in their stocking feet, and up the stairs
which lead to the ball-room from the outside. Two or three of the steps
were broken, but he would get them mended. In fact, he would do all he
could to spare his aunt, who was again assured that she was the dearest
old auntie in the world and the assurance emphasized with a kiss.
Kenneth did not like the arrangement at all. Six young men of Harry’s
stamp coming to “paint the town red” were not desirable neighbors, even
if they did go up the outside stairs to bed in their stocking feet. But
they were coming. His mother had given her consent, and she went herself
to superintend the cleaning of the house and the settling it, as far as
Hal wanted it settled. Nothing but chairs, a lounge or two, a
dining-room table and one or two smaller tables were necessary, besides
the kitchen furniture, he said. The bareness of the rooms would suit
them far better than if they were luxuriously furnished. They would not
be in them a great deal except at meal-time and possibly evenings. They
were going to hunt and fish and row and drive, and perhaps go for a day
to Rocky Point, where there were one or two choice spirits like
themselves, Hal said. He was very happy in his preparations, which went
on rapidly, so that within a week the shut-up house had assumed quite a
festive air, with the furniture Hal thought necessary, and the furniture
his aunt insisted upon, and some of which was brought from her own
house. Among other articles were curtains and rugs and two or three easy
chairs, and a mirror which had been her mother’s.
“If that comes back whole I shall be glad,” Kenneth said. “Better leave
it where it is?”
“Comes back whole,” his mother repeated. “What kind of folks do you
think are coming to smash looking-glasses? They are all
gentlemen,—‘first cut,’ Harry says.”
Kenneth laughed. When studying with Dr. Catherin in Rocky Point he had
met Hal’s choice spirits, and had heard of a party given by one of them,
and that at its close two of the number were on the floor and nearly
every dish on the table broken. But he would not tell this to his
mother, who seemed rather proud that Hal’s fine friends were coming to
visit her, as she seemed to think they were. She had no respect for
Hal’s father, but she had a vast amount of respect for the Morris
family, and had always looked upon Hal as a little superior to herself,
because he belonged to it.
“Let him have a play spell in his own house if he wants to, and you jine
in when you can,” she said to Kenneth, who answered that as there was an
unusual amount of sickness in town, as well as in Rocky Point, where he
was now called in Dr. Catherin’s absence, he should not have much time
to spend at the Morris house. He should, of course, be polite to Harry’s
guests, and do what he could to make it pleasant for them.
With this his mother was content. She had been very busy, going many
times a day across the road to see that the women hired from Millville
were doing their work right, and herself washing the twelve windows of
the ball-room, where the six cots were set up, giving it the look of a
hospital ward, Kenneth said. Hal liked it and was in high spirits. Five
had accepted his invitation, and were coming the next day. There was Tom
Haynes from Lexington and Jim Drake from Louisville. There was George
and Charlie Browne, brothers, from Boston, and Peter Pond, from he
hardly knew where, except that he was English, and a big swell with
plenty of money. He did not know him personally, but the Brownes did,
and vouched for him, and that was enough.
These were the five young men who landed at the Millville station on a
summer morning in July. Hal was there to meet them with two open
carriages, and the greetings were rather boisterous as four of them
seized Harry’s hand, calling him “Old Boy” and introducing the stranger
as “Peter the Great.” He was a little dapper man, whose head was far too
large for his small body, and whose light summer attire was faultless.
He wore a monocle part of the time, and at once made use of it to look
at Harry, assuring him that he intended to enjoy himself immensely. They
were a jolly set, and the people near the station came to their doors to
look at them as they talked and laughed and collected their
dressing-cases, hand-bags, fishing tackle, guns, gymnasium clubs, a
guitar, a violin and a mandolin, and two boxes marked “Glass,” all of
which were piled into an express wagon which Harry called up.
“Now for Liberty Hall,” they said, as they took their seats in the
carriage, giving, as they drove off, a college yell, the loud
“Rah-rah-rah’s” making the people watching them wonder if they were
crazy, and how the deacon and his wife would stand them for a week if
they continued as noisy as they had commenced.
The deacon wondered, too, when he saw them alight and heard their shouts
and jokes as they looked about them.
“I don’t know for sure, but I guess we or’to go over and welcome ’em.
They are not exactly our company, but they are Hal’s,” Mrs. Stannard
said to the deacon, urging him until, against his will, he started with
her across the street.
Hal did not see them coming, but Charlie Browne did, and said to him,
“Look, you are going to have a call. Who are the old coves coming up the
walk?”
In a moment young Browne saw his mistake in Harry’s face, which was
scarlet. He had wondered what his city friends would think of his uncle
and aunt, of whom in his heart he was ashamed. Still if he had his house
party he must have his uncle and aunt, too, and he had prepared the way
somewhat by explaining that they were old-fashioned people of the pure
New England type, but the best and kindest-hearted couple in the world.
And here was Charlie Browne, the toniest one of the lot, calling them
“old coves” and asking who they were. Rallying all the manhood there was
in him, he answered curtly: “Those ‘old coves’ are my uncle and aunt,
Deacon and Mrs. Stannard, the best people on earth, and worth half a
dozen such cads as I am.”
“By George, I’ve put my foot in it,” Charlie said to himself, but he was
equal to the emergency. “Of course. I just glanced at them. I see now,
and they are the counterparts of my grandfather and grandmother. I shall
be glad to know them.”
The deacon and his wife were in the hall by this time and being
presented to the young men, who, having heard of Charlie’s blunder,
smothered their laugh in time to be very gracious, declaring themselves
delighted to meet Hal’s uncle and aunt, whom they hoped to know more
intimately. Mrs. Stannard was completely won over, hoping they would be
comfortable, and telling them if they wanted anything to call upon her.
As she was leaving, her eye fell upon the two boxes marked “Glass.”
“For pity’s sake,” she said, in a loud whisper to Harry. “If they hain’t
brought their looking-glass with ’em! There warn’t an atom of need. I
sent one over, you know, and could send another as well as not. Better
not undo ’em if they are nicely packed.” If Hal’s face had been scarlet
when his aunt was called an “old cove,” it was purple now. He knew what
was in the boxes, and that the sight of it would shock the old lady, who
was the strongest kind of a W. C. T. U. A lie in what he thought a good
cause was nothing to him, and getting her gradually to the door, he
said: “It is not a mirror. It is Warner’s Safe Cure, which Tom has to
take.”
“Oh,” his aunt rejoined, looking commiseratingly at Tom, who stood with
his back to her, shaking with laughter. “Is it kidney? I have a splendid
recipe for that, better than forty Warner’s; or maybe the doctor can
give him something.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll let you know,” Hal said, getting rid of her as soon as
possible.
Then he turned to his companions and found the hall empty. The mirror
and kidney business had been the last straw, and the young men had
hurried through the rear door of the hall out upon the grounds, where
four of them were holding their sides, and “Peter the Great,” or “Little
Pondy,” as he was more often called, was hopping up and down, first on
one foot then upon the other, with his monocle, which had dropped from
his eye, swinging in front of him like a pendulum.
“Rich!” he said. “I am beginning to enjoy myself immensely. Would she
turn us out bag and baggage if she knew it was ‘Oh-be-joyful’?”
“Not from my house,” Hal answered, with an air of proprietorship; “but
she is a strict temperance woman, and we’d better not let her know, if
we can help it.”
Pondy, to whom the wine belonged, and who was the fastest of the set and
the least of a gentleman, notwithstanding his wealth, looked askance.
Dinner without wine would hardly be dinner, though he might perhaps get
along with beer and visit the boxes afterward.
“The old lady will let me have beer, won’t she?” he asked.
“You mean my aunt, Mrs. Stannard?” Hal said, with a great deal of
dignity, for the “old lady” offended him.
Pondy saw it and hastened to say: “Certainly, I beg your pardon. I mean
your aunt, of course. It was a slip of the tongue. If you think best
we’ll put the boxes in the cellar, where we can take a private nip now
and then, and on our last night have the bottles up with a regular blow
out. What do you say, boys?”
Instantly there went up a cheer for Little Pondy and the private nips.
“Won’t be much left for a blow-out,” Tom said, “but I vote we put the
stuff in the cellar.”
It did not take long to carry the boxes there and unpack the bottles and
uncork one of them for the little nips, which Pondy took on the spot, to
sample it, he said. As they emerged from the cellar Kenneth came into
the hall. He had been visiting some patients a few miles away and just
returned. If the young men had been inclined to make fun of the “old
coves,” they had no such idea with regard to the fine-looking man whom
Hal introduced as “My cousin, Dr. Stannard.”
They were expecting to see a common country doctor, and were not
prepared for the ease and dignity with which Kenneth met them.
He did not say he was glad to see them, but he was courteous and polite,
and said he hoped they would enjoy themselves.
“Thanks,” little Pondy replied. “We are going to enjoy ourselves
immensely.”
This enjoying himself immensely was his favorite expression, used on all
occasions, and to all appearance he did enjoy himself as the days went
on, especially after a visit to the cellar and the little nip which he
took oftener than his companions thought good for him. “The painting
red,” which had been predicted, was mostly done in the house, for as a
rule the young men were very quiet outside, especially on the two
occasions when they went to the village and sat upon the steps of the
hotel, “the dryest place he ever saw,” little Pondy said, after trying
the bar and finding nothing stronger than Vichy, Apollinaris and Soda
Water. He had ordered ale from Rocky Point, and with this and visits to
the cellar, in which his companions sometimes joined, he managed to
enjoy himself. There were long drives in the country and sails and
fishing on the pond and hunting in the woods, and the young men wore
colored shirts and sweaters and big hats, and sometimes had their
sleeves rolled up and shirt collars open and looked like anything but
swells.
Two or three times Mrs. Stannard questioned Tom as to his improvement
with Warner’s Cure, and once suggested that he give Kenneth’s pills a
trial, or her recipe, which had cured the deacon of the worst kind of
kidney trouble. With the utmost gravity Tom assured her that Warner was
doing wonders for him, and told her that if there was a drawback he
would try her recipe.
“Well-mannered young men, if they do look like tramps in their old
clothes when they come in from fishin’ and huntin’,” she said to
Kenneth, “but I don’t like their smokin’ all the time; why, I’ve
actually seen it come out of the parlor winder when they are all at it.
’Tain’t good for ’em, and you or’to tell ’em so.”
Kenneth shook his head and said: “Better let the smoke alone. If they do
nothing worse than that I shall be glad.”
He knew about the boxes in the cellar. The joke was too good for little
Pondy to keep, and he had let it out, declaring the fun “immense,” and
asking Kenneth to take a “nip” with him. It was not often that Kenneth
joined them. He was too busy during the day, and in the evening too
tired, he said, when his mother urged him to go over and call. He did go
once or twice, and found them playing cards for small stakes, drinking
beer and smoking until the room was blue and he could scarcely breathe.
They asked him to take a hand and a drink, or a pipe, as he preferred,
but he declined all three, and after sitting awhile, took his leave
without a very strong invitation to stay from any of the party.
“He’s no fun at all; don’t smoke, nor play, nor drink, nor enjoy
himself,” Pondy said, after Kenneth had gone, and yet in his little soul
he felt how infinitely superior to himself Kenneth was, and much the
same feeling permeated the crowd, each one of whom felt under restraint
when he was with them, and relieved at his absence.
They had followed Hal’s instructions, and were very quiet when at
midnight they stole up the outside stairs to their cots in the
ball-room. Once, when little Pondy had enjoyed himself too much,
he plunged into bed with his clothes on, but was promptly dragged
out and made to undress, while he kept saying thickly, “I
don’t—call—this—enshoying my—shelf by a —— shight.” After that he
kept pretty straight in the ball-room, with the exception of once
smoking in bed and setting fire to the sheets. The blaze was
extinguished, and as the sheets belonged to Hal, they were taken
away, and Mrs. Stannard never knew how near she came to a
conflagration. The next morning Pondy complained of a headache,
the result, he said, of certain hard blows aimed, he supposed, at
the burning sheets, but which by accident missed fire and hit him.
A drive would do him good. Not a noisy thing like those they had
taken in a carryall, when they had sung college songs and given
college yells, which made the people think they were lunatics on
their way to the asylum. He’d like a quiet drive with Charlie
Browne, after that pretty little bay mare he’d seen going in and
out of the deacon’s yard.
“_Con_, I heard the doctor call her. That’s a funny name for a horse.
His girl’s, maybe,” and he looked at Harry, who did not reply at once.
He knew the reason for the horse’s name and respected Kenneth’s
confidence so far as not to speak of it to his friends, and especially
to Pondy, who had made so many boasts of his conquests.
“And I don’t care for a soul of ’em, except one,” he had said, “and I
shouldn’t care for her if she hadn’t sat down on me and called me an
insolent little cur when I made some advances to her she didn’t like;
tried to take her hand, you know, when we were riding in a diligence
near Spezzia after dark.”
“Served you right! Who is she? What’s her name?” was asked, but Pondy
shook his head.
“Sha’n’t tell,” he said, “till we have our blow-out and finish Warner’s
Safe Cure. Then we’ll each drink to the prettiest girl we ever saw.”
Spying Kenneth just then in the yard, he went out to him and asked for
the bay mare for a short drive with Charlie.
“Sha’n’t be gone much over an hour. Head aches, and I want some
exercise.”
Kenneth hesitated a moment. This was the first favor any of the party
had asked of him. Con had nothing to do that day, as he was to make his
calls on his wheel. It seemed ungracious not to let her go, and he
finally consented, with sundry charges as to her treatment.
“No whip; no urging, as she is very free, and needs holding back even
when going up hill,” he said.
“All right, I’ll be careful of her as if she were your girl,” Pondy
replied, with a laugh, as he drove from the yard with Charlie Browne
beside him.
Two hours later, when Kenneth came back from his calls, Pondy had not
returned. Half an hour went by and he was beginning to feel anxious,
when there was the sound of fast-coming wheels and Con came swiftly up
the steep hill, her head held high, her eyes and nostrils extended and
her sides covered with flecks of white foam.
“I tell you, she’s a ‘corker,’” Pondy said, as he fell rather than
stepped from the buggy. “I’m mush oblige, an’ have ’joyed myshelf
’mensely.”
“Which is more than can be said of the horse. What did you do to her?”
Kenneth answered, as he began to unharness the trembling animal, who
rubbed her head against his arm with a low whinny, as if she would tell
him what had been done.
Pondy saw he was offended, and began, in a half-tipsy way, to explain
that he had done nothing but chirp to her a little and pull the reins,
and once hit her a cut just to see how fast she could go, “and, by
Shorge, couldn’t schtop her at all; went up hill an’ down as if the
devil was behind her!” he said.
“As I think he was,” Kenneth replied, leading the horse to the stable,
followed by Charlie Browne, who used some strong language with regard to
Pondy. “Took with him a bottle of whiskey,” he said, “and soon became a
drivelling fool, urging the horse to her utmost speed, and finally gave
her a smart cut with the whip. After that there was no restraining her,
and she came home like the wind, a distance of ten miles from where they
turned round, making in all a twenty mile drive in little over two hours
on one of the hottest days in summer.”
This was Charlie’s account, and after he left, Kenneth stayed a long
time with his horse, rubbing her down and talking to her as if she could
understand what he said and know he was indignant. And every tender,
loving word he said to her and every caress he gave her was more for the
Connie over the sea than for her. He called her Connie two or three
times, and wondered what the real Connie would think of the house-party,
and especially of Pondy.
The “blow-out” was to come off the next night; the last of the young
men’s stay at the Corners. Two choice spirits from Rocky Point had been
invited and had accepted. Kenneth was also included in the invitations
and wanted to decline, but thought better of it, and at eight, the
appointed hour, presented himself at the Morris house, where he found
the young men in evening dress and looking very different from the
tramps his mother had called them when they came from hunting and
fishing, in their sweaters and big hats. A caterer had been hired from
Millville, with orders to do his best, and the table was laid with
handsome linen and china and glasses, three at each plate, showing that
the “nips” held out, or more had been bought, and were to form a
prominent part of the dinner. There were ten courses, and Pondy, who had
insisted upon bearing all the expense and was master of ceremonies, had
ordered that they be served very slowly, as he wished the festivities
prolonged until after midnight. He was enjoying himself immensely as
usual, and for a time kept pretty sober, never even raising his
eyebrows, and only saying under his breath to the man on his right hand,
“_Chacun a son goût_,” when Kenneth turned down his glass as the wine
was offered him.
It flowed pretty freely with the others, and by the time the tenth
course was served there were plenty of corks and empty bottles lying
round, and Pondy could scarcely sit straight in his chair. The caterer
had finished his work and was packing his dishes in the kitchen, while
one or two waiters lingered in the dining-room, when Pondy, scarcely
knowing what he was doing, began: “Ladiesh and shentlemen. No, I meansh
shentlemen. We have enshoyed ourshelves immenshly, and now we comsh to
the feasth of reashon and flow of—of—What do you call the d—— shtuff?”
“Wine,” some one suggested, and he went on: “Yesh, wine; but that don’t
sound like it, but wine ish better to drink the healths of our prettiest
girl. Doc, you sthart her, and if you don’t like wine, take water, only
drink. Here you, waitah, fill high glasch.”
“In my profession I see so many pretty girls that I do not like to make
a choice, so I pass,” Kenneth said, laughingly.
“All right, _Chacun a son goût_ again,” Pondy replied, while the other
young men, one after another, gave the name of some girl and drank to
her health.
“My turn now, and I shall beat the crowd,” Pondy said, rising from his
chair, and steadying himself between it and the table. “Get up, pleash,”
he continued, “we must drink to her shtanding, and fill to the brim;
here, waitah.”
The glasses were filled, and the men stood up, the two from Rocky Point
holding on to the table, as they were rather shaky by this time.
“Now, one, two, three, and here she goesh,” Pondy said, and then rang
out loud and clear, “Miss Consthance Elliott.”
There was a crash, a broken glass and water spilled over the cloth,
while Kenneth’s face was white as death.
“Hallo, what’s the row? Have I sthruck your girl? Do you know her?”
Pondy asked, while his companions stood staring at Kenneth with their
wine untouched.
“I know her, yes; she is, or was, my father’s ward,” Kenneth replied,
his voice trembling with the indignation he felt at hearing Connie’s
name on the lips of the little drunken jackanapes, who answered: “Then
you know a deuced pretty girl, if she did call me an insholent cur.”
“Oh,” a chorus of voices chimed in, as the guests put down their glasses
and resumed their seats. “So she is the girl who snubbed you. Tell us
about it and where you met her.”
Either the mention of Connie, or the threatening look in Kenneth’s eyes,
partially sobered Pondy, who replied more naturally than he had been
talking for some time.
“I met her in France and Italy. She was with her aunt, a hawk-eyed
woman, and I didn’t think either of ’em hankered for my company. But,
’pon my shoul, the girl was such a shtunner that I would keep with ’em.
I’d heard American girls were eashy going, and once in a diligence, when
I shat next to her and it wash darkish, and her bare hand lay on her
lap, looking so white and shoft, I just touched it, kinder friendly, you
know, to shee what she would do. I’d held another girl’s hand five
minutes, or more, but, my Lord! I believe thish one would have throttled
me on the shpot if there had not been others in the diligence and she
hated a schene. She never spoke to me again, and her aunt forbade my
speaking to either of them. All the shame, she’s a beauty, and a catch
for some of you chaps. Plenty of tin, they shay. Here’s to her health!
Constance Elliott.”
He drank it alone, with the exception of the two choice spirits from
Rocky Point. The rest of the party were watching Kenneth, whose fists
were clenched and whose eyes were blazing with anger. He, however, sat
still while the hilarity went on, and songs were sung and stories told
and college yells were given and cigars and pipes were smoked and wine
was drank, until Pondy was beside himself, and by way of emphasizing his
good time threw his glass across the room at Mrs. Stannard’s mirror. The
noise seemed to intensify his enjoyment and make him wild. A second
glass went after the first, and a third would have followed if Harry and
Charlie Browne had not interfered.
Taking advantage of this diversion, Kenneth left the feast, which lasted
till after midnight. In the morning, when the sun looked into the
dining-room at the Morris house, it saw broken bottles and wine glasses
and stained linen and the one-hundred-year-old mirror, with scarcely a
whole piece in it. Pondy, who had grown unmanageable, had again made it
his target, calling it sometimes the “old lady” and again the “W. C. T.
U.” At last, when there was nothing more in his reach to throw, he fell
out of his chair under the table, where his comrades left him after
several ineffectual efforts to get him up.
“Lem-me-be,” he said. “I’m ’joying myshelf ’mensely, and I won’t go home
till morning. Wha’s that doctor? He didn’t like my squeezin’ the girl’s
hand. Three sheers for her.”
He tried to give the cheers, but they died in his throat, and he was
soon sleeping like a log, his last words being, “G’way, I’m ’joying
myshelf ’mensely.”
About nine o’clock seven shame-faced young men packed up their
belongings and departed, after offering to pay Mrs. Stannard for the
loss of her mirror. But she declined with some spirit. She had looked
upon the scene of the carousal with wide-eyed consternation.
“I thought they was gentlemen, and ’stead of that they was rowdies,” she
said, as she took all there was left of her mirror and carried it home,
a sadder and wiser woman.
It had belonged to her grandmother, and money could not pay for it;
neither could the long, handsome, gilt-framed mirror which came to her
within a week from Pondy quite replace it. But it did a good deal
towards it. He had been profuse in his apologies, and his companions had
denounced him to her as a fool and idiot, with whom they were through.
And she had agreed with them until the expensive mirror came, when she
weakened a little in his favor, saying she presumed it did not take as
much to affect him as it did the others. He was a small man, and very
little would upset him. It was a great shock to her to know that
Warner’s Safe Cure was wine, and that Harry had helped to drink it, and
nothing but his promise to sign the pledge availed to comfort her. He
stayed at home two or three weeks after his house party, and seemed most
of the time to be in a brown study. No reference was made by either
Kenneth or himself to Connie until the day before he started for Boston.
Then he asked, with apparent indifference: “By the way, Ken, do you know
where that girl is whose health that puppy drank?”
“You mean Connie?” Kenneth said; and Hal replied, “Yes, Connie Elliott.
Is she still abroad?”
Kenneth supposed so, although they rarely heard from her.
“She is quite an heiress, isn’t she?” was Harry’s next question.
“She will be if the mine in which she has a good deal of stock begins to
pay, as it may,” Kenneth replied, and there the conversation ended, and
the next day Harry left for Boston, telling his aunt he was going to
buckle down to hard work and make something of himself, and some money,
too, which he needed badly.