Carney's House Party/Winona's Pony Cart

  “Joe likes perfume,” Betsy remarked, sauntering across the room in her best imitation of a show girl’s alluring gait.

  “Sure you don’t want us to come along?”

  “Positive.”

  “I suppose you’ll hurry back home?”

  “I suppose we won’t,” said Betsy.

  “It’s nice to see some love run smoothly,” Isobel observed.

  Carney laughed. “It didn’t always run smoothly for Betsy and Joe.”

  “Well,” said Betsy, “it’s running smoothly now.” She waved her hand, caught up the freshly cleaned white bag and ran out of the house.

  It was four o’clock when they returned. They had gone to Heinz’s, Betsy explained. Joe came in, walking with a swing as of old, to say hello before he left for the hotel. Carney greeted him with hearty liking.

  He was blond with tufted golden brows above very live blue eyes, and a strong face full of humor and courage. He was a good one for Betsy, Carney thought.

  “I suppose you hate me for snatching Betsy away from Minneapolis before she was hardly unpacked.”

  “I couldn’t hate you, Carney,” Joe replied. “But now she’s going to come home and stay home.”

  “The voice of authority,” said Betsy.

  She was sparkling with happiness.

  The house party had fun dressing for this last party. After an early supper they went upstairs to take turns bathing, to button one another’s dresses, and make one another’s puffs and psyche knots, and tie large graceful bows around one another’s heads.

  Annoyed as she was at Sam, Carney found herself wishing that she was wearing pink. But Isobel was wearing pink. Carney chose a white net with a hobble skirt which she hated. Miss Mix, the dressmaker, had persuaded her to have it because hobbles were the style.

  Carney and Isobel wore the Liberty capes they wore to Chapel at Vassar. Carney’s was red wool. She wrapped it about her haughtily as Sam came up to the porch where they were waiting. But after a genial hello he went straight to her mother. Carney heard him telling her about Bobbie. Fred had helped him rig up a boat on which Bobbie had played all day, pretending to be Huck Finn.

  “I’ll bring him home safe and sound tonight,” Sam said.

  Cars were arriving rapidly now. The Sibley home had been chosen as a point of departure for the Crowd. All the girls were in filmy dresses. It seemed as though bits of the sunset were drifting around the lawn. The boys were wearing blue coats and white trousers.

  Everyone crowded around Joe Willard, especially members of the Class of 1910. The Crowd had not seen him since graduation night and it was a happy reunion.

  So many boys had brought cars that some couples drove out alone. Sam and Isobel went alone.

  The party left Deep Valley with the afterglow still in the sky, but by the time they arrived at Murmuring Lake the full moon was rising. The Hutchinson lawn was strung with Japanese lanterns, and the big house was blazing with lights.

  Inside, the rooms were filled with great bowls of flowers: phlox, purple and white; dahlias, snow-on-the-mountain, cosmos and nasturtiums and daisies. An enormous cut-glass punch bowl was filled with fruit punch and surrounded by cut-glass cups.

  The high dark-paneled dining room with its hand-painted ceiling and crystal chandelier had been cleared for dancing. The doors which led to the big screened porch were open. One could dance inside or out on the porch with a view of moonlit lake.

  No piano-playing aunt furnished the music here. A three-piece orchestra—piano, violin and harp—was tuning up in the music room. Bobbie appeared in the Sunday knicker suit, very scrubbed and peachy. He and little Genevieve, whose hair was in glossy ringlets, passed out the programs.

  These dainty cards had small pencils attached. Names were scribbled with jokes and compliments. Larry wrote his name five times on Carney’s card.

  “After all,” he said, smiling, “I’m going home tomorrow. Nobody knows when I’ll dance with you again.”

  Sam took just one waltz toward the end of the program.

  Dancing began. The senior Hutchinsons looked on radiantly. Although Mrs. Hutchinson lay in her chaise lounge as usual, she was elegantly dressed with a corsage bouquet on her shoulder.

  Bobbie and Genevieve devoted themselves to the punch. After watching her brother consume six glasses, Carney asked Cab to stop in the midst of a two-step.

  “Bobbie! You’ve gone to dancing school. Why don’t you ask Genevieve to dance?”

  Bobbie put his arm stiffly around Genevieve’s waist. They circled a few times, smiling broadly, bumping into everyone. But the punch bowl was more attractive. They soon returned to that. As soon as it was empty, it was replenished again.

  The orchestra played all the most popular tunes—“Chinatown, My Chinatown” and “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Oh, You Beautiful Doll!” When they played “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” everyone sang, of course, Dennie improvising a magnificent tenor.

  The Crowd was happy, Carney thought, looking around. Winona and Dennie were clowning. Betsy and Joe were blissful, of course. Tom seemed to have forgotten Isobel and was giving Alice a rush.

  Hunter looked wretched, and it appeared to Carney that he and Ellen had quarreled. They were never together, and Ellen—who could not dissemble—was dancing with stricken eyes.

  Isobel and Sam were having fun. He liked to try out the new dances, and she knew them all. They danced a dexterous Turkey Trot which the Crowd stopped to watch and applaud. Isobel’s hair came loose in curls around her laughing face.

  Carney applauded with the rest, but she felt something hard inside her chest. She had never felt anything like it before. It was like an angry fist.

  She was scornful of Isobel. “What about Howard?” she thought. “I wouldn’t be that fickle!”

  Another part of her nature spoke up in Isobel’s defense. “She’s never said she was serious about Howard. You’re just mad because things didn’t work out for you and Larry.”

  But she knew that wasn’t true. The pleasantest feature of her evening was the fact that she and Larry were enjoying each other so much.

  They hadn’t got on as well as this since he came from California. He looked outstandingly tall and attractive in the blue coat and white trousers. They felt relaxed, at ease with one another. His eyes laughed down at her with genuine affection.

  Bonnie pulled Carney aside. “Are you sure you were telling the truth about Orono? You and Larry seem devotion itself.”

  “It’s platonic,” answered Carney.

  “Platonic friendships can be very dangerous.”

  “Not this one!”

  Sam came up for his dance, his blue eyes squeezed tightly in his inflexible smile. The orchestra began a favorite song.

  “Let me call you sweetheart,

  I’m in love with you…”

  The other dancers sang, but Sam and Carney didn’t. Trying to erase their lingering embarrassment, she talked with unusual animation. Sam, at his most suave, kept talking, too.

  “It’s been a wonderful party, Sam.”

  “Well, we tried to think of everything,” he answered. “Even a moon. Have you seen it?” And holding her elbow he drew her out to the porch, through the screen door, and down the steps.

  The lawn smelled deliciously of white stock in the garden. As they strolled they fell into silence again. Passing beyond the lanterns, they reached an open knoll where there was a wide view of the lake.

  The moon was high and majestic now. The golden path across the water seemed like a rug unrolled before a queen.

  “Isn’t that a nice show?” he asked. “I put it on just for you.”

  “Yes,” Carney answered uneasily. “Larry and I admired it driving out.”

  He dropped her arm. “I suppose you’re saying that on purpose.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, of course not!” He sounded sarcastic. “Well, let’s go in!” He hooke
d his arm into hers again, and turned her forcibly toward the house.

  When they reached an elm tree so large and thickly leaved that its shadow defeated even Japanese lanterns, he stopped and kissed her.

  Carney broke away from him. She was really angry now. It was possible to forgive what had happened the night before…they had both been wrought up. But this was different. It was inexcusable.

  He still said nothing about…liking her or anything. He was stalking beside her toward the house.

  Of course, maybe he thought that she was engaged to Larry? Well, he could ask!

  At midnight the Hutchinsons served a supper which far outshone the usual Deep Valley ice cream and cake. Chicken salad, sandwiches cut in hearts and circles and half-moons, molded jellies, ices, and little frosted cakes.

  Afterward there was one more dance. The orchestra (well fed and rested) played “Good Night, Ladies” and then switched to “Home Sweet Home.”

  Carney was dancing with Larry, and she smiled into his face as though she had been paid to smile and would be fined if she stopped. Larry held her closely and smiled in return. Across the dance floor Bonnie lifted warning eyebrows. They seemed to ask, “Are you sure?”

  Genevieve was curled up on the library couch, winking in an effort to stay awake. Bobbie, on the floor beside her, was playing with a box of treasures which he had acquired during the day—important things like stones and shells and turtles.

  The girls went upstairs for their wraps, and in the laughing hubbub of farewells Carney heard Sam say, “Come on, Bob! Got to get started! You and the turtles can have the back seat to yourselves.”

  Carney stepped forward grimly. “Bobbie will come with Larry and me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have him intruding on you and Isobel.”

  Sam stared at her. “What do you mean…intrude on me and Isobel?”

  “Well,” said Carney, feeling foolish, “it isn’t very suitable for you two to have a little boy along.”

  “It’s just as suitable for us as it is for you…more so, I would say. Bobbie certainly isn’t going to intrude on you and Lochinvar.”

  “He’s my brother and he’ll come with me,” said Carney. Her cheeks were as red as her cape.

  “He’s my guest and I shall take him home,” said Sam.

  They glared at each other until Carney burst into laughter. Sam didn’t laugh. He looked at her wrathfully. He sought out Bobbie where he was playing with the turtles and swept him dramatically out to the Loco.

  18

  Betsy Gives Advice

  IT WAS THE LAST NIGHT OF The Little Colonel’s House Party, and her guests were well aware of it. They could hardly fail to be, for Betsy Ray, who always took notice of “last times,” had been saying for several days: “This is the last time we’ll go down to Heinz’s…This is the last time we’ll take the Seven Mile Drive…This is the last game of Five Hundred.” And now: “This is the last night of the house party.”

  Moonlight favored the occasion. The sleeping porch was silvery bright. They could see plainly the outline of the hills, the little turret on the barn, the dooryard trees, which had grown so familiar over the summer.

  Betsy and Bonnie went down to the kitchen to bring up a spread “for the last time.” The four girls sat in their beds eating Nabiscos and cherries, corn bread and pickles and a nubbin of cold pork, discussing the house party with the greatest thoroughness.

  They went in retrospect over the parties, drives, and picnics. They recalled the thrill of Larry’s coming.

  “All that excitement and then nothing happened!” Betsy groaned. “Nobody in the whole crowd eloped except Bobbie.”

  “But we thought Isobel had,” said Bonnie, “the night she stayed to dinner with the Hutchinsons.”

  Isobel’s laugh rippled. “There was nothing romantic about that.”

  “What do you mean? You didn’t elope, but it was certainly romantic.”

  “Not a bit. I stayed in order to talk with Sam’s father.”

  “His father!” everyone cried, and Carney felt that hard fist churning in her chest again.

  Betsy sat up straight in exasperation. “I knew that you and Sam were sweet about each other, but I didn’t think it had gone that far.”

  Isobel swayed with mirth. “What do you mean?”

  “Why, when you talk to the parents, things are getting serious.”

  “But Mr. Hutchinson and I were talking business,” she replied.

  Betsy and Bonnie pushed her over and crammed a pillow into her face. Carney looked on, smiling stiffly.

  “I’ll explain! I’ll explain!” Isobel cried in muffled tones. She sat up, breathless. “I wanted to talk with Sam’s father because I thought he might be able to help Howard.”

  “Howard!”

  “Yes. Knowing someone like Mr. Hutchinson might mean a lot to a newcomer to the Middle West.”

  “Who’s coming to the Middle West?”

  “Howard. He has a job in Minneapolis, at one of the mills. It’s a wonderful opening. And Mr. Hutchinson is going to pull a few wires to make it even better.” She added softly, “I’m very glad. It’s so important to me.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I want to tell you. The last night of the house party seems a suitable time.” She threw back her curls and smiled. “I’m engaged to Howard Sedgwick.”

  “You’re engaged!” There was a triple shriek.

  “Yes. We were engaged before he came to see me at Vassar. That’s why Mrs. K let him stay to dinner, because he was my fiancé.”

  Bonnie and Betsy threw their arms around her rapturously. They hugged and kissed her and pelted her with questions. Carney couldn’t seem to join in. She sat stiffly, thinking.

  It all fitted in—or almost all. Isobel had wangled the invitation to the Sibleys because she wanted to see Minnesota. She wanted to know whether she could bear to come and live among the Indians. Carney remembered the ring of truth in her voice when she came back from the phone and said that Howard wanted to know how she liked the Middle West. And she had wanted to meet the influential Hutchinsons so that she could forward her fiancé’s interests. Yes, it all fitted in.

  “But, Isobel!” Bonnie was saying. “How you’ve been acting all summer!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why…flirting with everyone!”

  “Pooh!” said Isobel. “It doesn’t hurt a little boy like Hunter to like an older girl. Tom and I were just having fun, and as for Sam…I don’t say I’d have forgotten Howard if I could have hooked Sam, but I’d have been tempted. He’s so attractive, don’t you think so, Carney?” Her tone was meaningful.

  “Moderately,” said Carney.

  “You admit now, don’t you, that he’s not a baby hippo?”

  “He’s lost weight,” said Carney furiously, “worrying over you.”

  “That’s nonsense,” answered Isobel. “He’s known about Howard for days.”

  And that, too, fitted in. Carney remembered his almost bored inquiry after the New York ’phone call, “Was that Howard?”

  What didn’t fit in was Isobel telling all this with such frankness. It wasn’t a bit like her.

  She was looking at Carney searchingly now. “Maybe it’s you he’s worried about.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” said Carney.

  “Sam and I talked about you when we were driving in last night.”

  “Did you? What did you say?”

  But Isobel slipped down in the bed and stretched luxuriously. “Don’t ask me any more questions. I’m tired, and I want to go to sleep.”

  “Isobel Porteous!” cried Carney. “If I ever knew anyone who liked to make a mystery of things, it’s you!”

  Isobel yawned and stretched in the moonlight.

  “Bon nuit,” she murmured. “Tomorrow night and the next night on a sleeper!”

  “I’ll be back in St. Paul,” said Bonnie.

  “And Joe and I will be back in Minneapolis. He’s coming to Sunday night lunch. Isob
el, your news is wonderful! It puts just the finishing touch to the house party. Don’t you think so, Carney?”

  “Yes,” answered Carney. She was too mixed up to say more.

  Once again she lay awake, faced by a problem. She had done that more this summer than ever before in her life. She was still offended at Sam, but her heart was singing because of what Isobel had said. Isobel seemed to think he was crazy about her, Carney.

  Carney couldn’t help admitting that she liked him. “Or I might, if he didn’t go around kissing everyone!”

  But how was she to let him know she liked him…and still save her pride? She didn’t want him thinking she was used to being kissed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

  Bonnie, the usually perfect confidante, could be of no help. She had had no experience. She had hardly seen a boy from the time she left Deep Valley until she returned to it.

  Isobel had had experience, but Carney wouldn’t ask her for the world. She liked her again, she discovered. All her affection had come pouring back in the strangest, most mystifying way. But she couldn’t ask advice from her. Isobel wasn’t…kind enough.

  That left Betsy. And Betsy wasn’t ideal. She was too romantic—she dramatized everything—while Carney was matter-of-fact. But she was sympathetic and kind; and she understood boys.

  Carney resolved to talk with Betsy. And in keeping with her habit of leaving nothing unsettled longer than necessary, she crept to the adjoining bed.

  “Betsy! Wake up!”

  “What?”

  “Wake up! Come on in my room. I want to talk with you.”

  In her bedroom Carney lit the gas. Betsy came in, rubbing her eyes. She had put her arms through the sleeves of her silk kimono, bright red with large green dragons on it. She curled up on the high-backed bed while Carney shut the door and sat down in the bird’s-eye maple rocker.

  “What’s the matter?” Betsy asked drowsily.

  Carney said without preface, “Sam Hutchinson kissed me.”

  “He did?” Betsy was wide awake in an instant. “How did he happen to do that?”