Chapter IX: 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.