House Party (26 page)

"Elly," Bryan said patiently, "you should know that very few authors get rich on . . ."

"Some
do," Elly said. "Who cares anyway? I don't need a lot of money to be . . ."

"It's true, Elly, that the money angle is the least important of all my objections. But
some
money is essential. You will have to live somewhere, eat, wear clothes. If you have children . . ."

"You bet your boots we'll have children!"

"They will have to be cared for and fed and educated. All that takes quite a lot of money."

"Bryan," Elly said, reasonably, "please don't go entering my unborn sons in Yale. We'll worry about college
when
the time comes. Until we have to face that problem, we can find some cheap little place to live in. We'll get along just fine. Other people do."

"But you are not
other people,
Elly. You've been raised with certain standards. There are certain things you were born to expect from life."

"Such as?"

"Such as security, comfort, a way of life which people of our background and . . ."

"Things such as happiness, too, Bryan?" Elly asked.

"Naturally. And that is one of the things which I don't think you'll find. You see—as I explained to Joe, here—you two come from entirely different worlds. Well, it isn't easy to say, but, just let's look at some of the differences. Elly, you were born in a suite in the Lenox Hill Hospital . . ."

"Oh, I recall that vividly," Elly snapped.

"Horrid food," Mrs. Ames murmured. She looked worried and embarrassed.

"Then, Elly," Bryan continued, "you were taken to our house in town—twenty rooms and two elevators . . ."

"And dreadful draughts," Mrs. Ames said dimly.

"Mother, please don't interrupt!" Bryan looked annoyed.

"I'm sorry, dear."

"You spent your summers out here. You went to Miss Chapin’s School . . ."

"Which was a dump!" Elly said.

".
. . and then you were sent to St. Timothy's . . ."

"A prison."

". . . and finally to Smith College. You went to all the really good junior parties, you came out . . ."

"But, I didn't
want
to. Mother made me."

"But it's customary, dear," Mrs. Ames said apologetically.

"In other words, Elly, from long before you were born you have had all the advantages of money, of breeding . . ."

"Money, money, money!" Elly shouted. "There you go
again,
Bryan. You're talking just like a banker about to refuse a loan. I've
told
you that money doesn't mean a damned thing to me. It never did. There isn't any money left, anyhow. Mother's dead broke. This house is falling to rack and ruin. I live on what I make, just as Paul and Kathy do. You talk as if Joe was trying to get rich quick by marrying me and . . ."

Bryan turned a dark red. "There's still plenty of money left," he said quickly. "But what you won't understand, Elly, is that more than mere money, we have a heritage, a tradition, a position in society which our family has earned over the . . ."

"What
are
you talking about?" Elly shouted.

"Elly," Joe said quietly, "Bryan is right. What he's trying to tell you is that you're an Ames and a Pruitt and a lot of other aristocratic things. You've got a couple of hundred distinguished ancestors. You're big stuff where it counts the most. Your grandfathers have been presidents of the most respectable private bank in America ever since the Revolution . . ."

"Before the Revolution," Bryan said, matter of factly.

". . . while I'm just a hick from the sticks. I come from a tank town called Mooseheart, which nobody has ever heard of. I went to public schools and the state university. My father was the first person in our whole family who ever went to college. Now he's the principal of the high school in Mooseheart. My grandfather came over from Ireland as a day laborer. I'm not a gentleman and I never will be."

"Joe," Mrs. Ames breathed, "anyone who says you aren't a gentleman is . . ."

"Well," Bryan said, "you see—there it is, it's just a question of . . ."

"Bryan," Elly said, "what would you say if I were to tell you that I'm going to have Joe's baby?"

Joe's mouth fell open.

"Elly!” Mrs. Ames cried, catching her daughter's hand. "Oh, darling, why didn't you tell me?"

"You
what?"
Bryan shouted.

"Listen, Elly," Joe said, "for God's sake don't make this any worse by telling a lot of . . ."

"I said, 'What would you say if I were to tell you that I'm going to have Joe's baby?'"

"How far along are you?" Bryan asked calmly.

"N-not very," Elly said.

"Oh." Bryan sighed. He continued briskly, "Who else knows about this?"

"Nobody."

"Elly,
darling
. . ." Mrs. Ames started.

"Be still, Mother! You know nothing about these things!" Bryan said. "Now, listen to me, Elly. Although it was inexcusable for you to get yourself into a jam like this, you don't have to worry. I know how to get the whole thing fixed up. There's a doctor out in North Bergen, New Jersey—a friend of mine told me about him—he's very good, very discreet and he has no trouble with the law. But he's expensive. He'll want four or five hundred dollars—more if he finds out who we are. But thank God we're catching it in time. The operation itself is very simple. Nobody will have to know anything . . ."

"Bryan!"
Mrs. Ames said. "That's illegal. That's
murder.
It could . . ."

"Be
quiet!"
Bryan raged. "As for you," he said wheeling on Joe, "of all the despicable, low . . .”

"Bryan," Joe said, "Elly isn't telling the . . ."

"But, Bryan," Elly said loudly, "suppose I wanted to
have
the baby?"

"To
have
the baby?" Bryan said. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Maybe."

"Bryan," Mrs. Ames said. "This is Elly's
baby
and what you're suggesting is . . ."

"My God, Elly," Bryan said, "how could you go and get yourself into this mess and then have the gall to . . . Well, all right, so you don't want an abortion," he said more calmly. "That can be arranged, too; it costs more money and it's a whole lot chancier, but you could go away somewhere—Europe or Arizona or some little out-of-the-way place where nobody knows you. Mother could go with you. Then when the baby's born it could be immediately put up for adoption. There are thousands of couples—nice people—who want to adopt . . ."

"Bryan! Have you gone mad?" Mrs. Ames gasped. "Here Elly goes and has a perfectly lovely baby—the first one in the family—and you thrust it off on . . ."

"Mother, for
God's
sake, will you try to stop talking like a damned fool . . ."

"Really, Bryan . . ." Mrs. Ames began.

“. . . and try to realize how important this is? If this story were ever to leak out, the family would be
ruined.
The bank. My career. The whole . . ."

"It doesn't seem to me," Mrs. Ames said, "that
anything
could be as important as . . ."

"Listen, everybody," Joe said, standing up. "Let's stop this
right now.
Elly isn't telling you the truth. There isn't any baby. I've never done anything more than kiss her."

"I wish you had!" Elly said.

"If you'll just forget all this and let me out of here . . .”

"Well,
Elly!" Bryan snarled, "I suppose you think all this has been pretty
funny,
upsetting Mother and me with this childish he about something that . . ."

"No, Bryan," Elly said,
"I
don't think it's been one bit funny! I think it's been about the most disgusting five minutes I've ever gone through—and about the most educational. To think that I've spent my whole life thinking you were God's gift to suffering humanity: Bryan Ames, Loving Brother; Bryan Ames, College Athlete; Bryan Ames, Most Likely to Succeed; Bryan Ames, Naval Hero; Bryan Ames, Rising Banker; Bryan Ames, Liberal; Bryan Ames, Gentleman. It sounds like the Tom Swift series, and it's just about as believable."

"Elly, I . .
."

"Shut up!" Elly snapped. "I haven't finished! You've been sitting there behind that desk just like a junior bank executive telling Mother and Joe and me exactly where we stand. Well,
I'll
take over the interview for a while, so you can rest up for when Manning Stone comes in to ask you about Kathy. Now . . ."

"Manning Stone?" Bryan said. "Marry into
our
family. That phony?"

"Phony?"
Elly expostulated, "Sure he's a phony. We've got a houseful of phonies! We've got a great-uncle who's a phony international playboy. We've got an aunt who's a phony sub-debutante. We've got a cousin who's a phony wronged wife and mother. Claire Devine is a phony society belle. Even poor old Kathy, for the moment, is a phony glamor girl. But, Bryan, of all the phonies we have on hand, you're the biggest and the phoniest."

"And
what
do I pretend to be that I'm
not?"
Bryan asked.

"A nice guy. And that's the worst kind of phony you can possibly be. You're a professional nice guy, Bryan, and you're just about as nice as a puff adder!"

"Elly . . .” Bryan said.

"You're a display piece, Bryan. And I've got to admit you do a pretty good job of it. For twenty-two years I thought you were the genuine article, and you've fooled other people even longer.
Everybody
loves you Bryan; everybody always
has.
Good old Bryan Ames! Always the friendly smile, the polite word, the helping hand. Bryan Ames, the people's friend, the good Christian, the model gentleman. Well, you've certainly proven yourself today. If
you're
a gentleman, give me a confidence man."

"Elly " Bryan said, rising, "don't you know how much I
love
you? Don't you understand what your happiness means to me? I . . ."

"You don't love
anybody
but Bryan Ames and you don't give a damn for
anybody's
happiness except your own. Mother can rot out here in this haunted house for all
you
care, just so long as she keeps up a front of being the rich and lovely Mrs. Ames—née Pruitt—the way she used to be. You don't care whether she's happy or not just as long as she makes an impressive prop for you. I could be married to a dimwitted degenerate, and you'd be delighted, if he'd gone to the right school and had the right family tree; and especially if he'd inherited a cushy job, the way you did, instead of using his wits to make a career of his own. You don't know
anything
about architecture, but Paul can spend the rest of his life designing toilet seats, for all you care, just as long as he's employed by a well-known firm and gets his hair cut on schedule. As for Kathy . . ."

"Stop it, Elly, for God's sake stop it!" Bryan roared.

"I will
not
stop it, Bryan Ames! You've developed yourself into quite a personality—regular
How to Win Friends and Influence People
stuff—and it rings just about as true as a wooden nickel. You've been
everybody's
best friend for so long that you even believe it yourself. Well, you're a shallow, snobbish, sneaking, slick operator, so full of the glory of your dead ancestors that you haven't even become a living human being!" She stopped for
breath.

"Elly, that's enough," Mrs. Ames said. She looked worn and
much older, "Joe, you know that you have my consent to marry Elly. And Elly wants to marry you. I shall never be able to apologize for what you've been put through this afternoon. I won't even try. But if, after what you've seen and heard today, you still want to marry into this family, I-I hope you'll be very h-happy." She pressed her handkerchief to her lips.

Joe got up and kissed her very gently. "Thank you, Mrs. Ames. I'd still like to. Come on, Elly," he said pulling her toward the door.

"And Joe," Mrs. Ames said. "I'd like so much to meet your mother. I think she's done a far better—well, a
very good
job on you."

"Thank you. I know she'll want to meet you, too."

At the door, Elly turned toward Bryan, her eyes brimming. "Bryan," she asked softly, "how could you . . ."

"Come along, Elly," Joe said. He drew her out of the room and closed the door. Mrs. Ames and Bryan were alone.

"There," Kathy said, turning down the oven. She spoke to no one because she was all alone in the big kitchen. Elly had disappeared some time ago—so like Elly, to dash off leaving the table half set—and Mother had faded away soon afterward. And eventually Aunt Violet, after a lot of foolish talk about that odious General Cannon, had drifted off to her realm of chin-straps, eye pads, frown plasters and lubricating creams. Kathy had prepared the whole dinner—or as much of it as she could this far in advance—all by herself. She didn't mind doing it, either. In fact, she rather preferred it. She had kicked off her high-heeled shoes and padded around comfortably, making radish rosebuds and rolling butter balls. She had thought how, if this kitchen were hers, she would have moved the stove just so, put the sinks here, had cabinets built there to save steps and make the room more efficient.

Now she sat down at the table and wriggled her toes luxuriantly. Conscientiously, she went over tonight's menu: soup, simmering; roast, in the oven; vegetables, prepared; rolls, ready to bake; salad, made and chilling; dessert, in the icebox; table, set; wine bottles, opened; canapés, spread; ice, all set for the cocktails. Kathy was feeling extraordinarily good. She went to the icebox to pour herself a glass of beer and then thought better of it. All day long on only three cans of beer and she wasn't feeling a bit nervous or ill at ease. She sat down again and lit a cigarette.

She thought idly of the happy days ahead when she'd be Mrs. Manning Stone, of the kitchen she'd have in their apartment—a room about half as big as this one and about twice as big as the little kitchen she had in town. She thought of the exquisite little dinners for two she could prepare when Manning returned, tired from rehearsals or exhausted from long interviews with the drama critics. They wouldn't be these matter-of-fact meat and potatoes meals, but something subtle and faintly exotic, served on Italian damask in ivory candlelight. There would be little pink shrimps, taupe mushrooms, golden breasts of capon. The sauces would hint of cognac and sherry, of basil and thyme and marjoram and dill. She would quit her job and devote her full time to making a beautiful, beautiful home, to cooking beautiful, beautiful dinners, to giving beautiful, beautiful parties for Manning's beautiful, beautiful friends and to raising Manning's beautiful, beautiful children.

Kathy came back to earth with a jump as John Burgess said, "Can I help?"

She saw him standing in the doorway, his homely face wreathed in smiles. How much younger he looked!

There isn't a thing you can do " she said, "except sit here with
me and chaperone a baron of lamb. This oven's so cantankerous and
old that you have to watch it. And we might have a can of beer together." Kathy got up and went to the icebox, "I might also put on my pumps. There's nothing quite so fetching as slopping around the kitchen in your stocking feet—like a slatternly old
Hausfrau."

"Don't. You look very nice. You look
relaxed.
Also, I can see the top of your head. It's a splendid top of a head."

For the first time Kathy realized that he was just as tall as she was—even a little taller.

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 her 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.