House Party Read Free

conditioning and television built into a Boulle chest."
    "Oh! Television's very vulgar. I only look at I Love Lucy."
    "Well, I only look at the roof caving in. Come now, if you want to be helpful you can give me some advice on where to put all these people for the weekend."
    "Oh, Lily, you know I love to plan parties.”
    "Then come.”

2: Bedrooms
     
    The heels of Lily's pumps and Violet's mules echoed and reechoed through the vast empty rooms of the old Pruitt Place as they walked across the central hall. The house and its grounds were, indeed, one of the earliest showplaces on Long Island. Erected in 1885 by dear Papa, as a token of esteem for the woman he was about to marry, the house was an outstanding example of the work of Richard Morris Hunt in the white heat of his eclecticism. Mr. Hunt had said it was an adaptation of a real French chateau and dear Papa had seen no reason to doubt the master builder's word.
    But because of the current craze for summer cottages, Mr. Hunt had suggested that the house be built entirely of shingles and dear Papa, sensing that shingle would be far cheaper than limestone or marble—and far more stylish, too—happily agreed. The house was to be sizable, but not too large to be run by dear Papa's staff of ten, whose aggregate salaries came to just thirty-five dollars a week.
    In the interests of economy, a ballroom was omitted, but the central hall was made large enough to accommodate three or four hundred dancers with some degree of comfort. Encouraged by this saving, dear Papa had agreed to add a smoking room, billiard room and music room to the already scheduled drawing room, morning room, sitting room, dining room, reception room and library. These, along with a kitchen, pantry, laundry, servants' hall and a hot little conservatory, made up the first floor. At the end of the central hall, a massive staircase wound its ponderous but majestic way around a pipe organ to the second floor's labyrinthine corridors and twenty bedrooms. Above that were attics and store rooms and ten miserable cubicles for servants, sweltering beneath the shingled mansard roof.
    The relationship between dear Papa and his architect had been an exciting one, fraught with quick thrusts and Machiavellian betrayals, heavy with grudging compromises. Mr. Hunt had suggested walnut panelling for the major rooms; dear Papa held out for oak—bright gold, dead black and fumed. Dear Papa won. Mr. Hunt also urged dear Papa to buy a lot of genuine French antiques, and here dear Papa was forced to compromise. But for every one of Mr. Hunt's fauteuils dear Papa bought a Morris chair; for every Régence commode, a smoking stand; for every écritoire, a roll-top desk. As Mr. Hunt was fond of Aubusson tapestries, ormolu candelabra and marble statues, so was dear Papa fond of Tiffany glass, paintings of moose, and vases filled with peacock plumes. Only time was to prove that neither man's taste was infallible.
    But when Lily took over as chatelaine, she found that with the aid of paint, a crowbar and the Salvation Army, most of dear Pupa's mistakes could be removed. In its heyday, when her children were growing up, when her husband was alive, when money was coming in and not going out, the house had a kind of incredible charm. Mrs. Ames had a certain uncertain certainty in questions concerning what was right, what was wrong, what was good and what was bad. Under her supervision, the possible rooms had become beautiful, the impossible ones interesting, and all of them comfortable. Its charm was still evident, but like a weary beauty, past her prime, the house showed signs of loneliness and neglect. It was at its best with a crowd of people—under artificial light.
    "I suppose," Lily said to her sister as they reached the second floor, "that with Uncle Ned coming, we'll have to open the whole bachelors' wing. He said something about expecting his old suite again."
    "Oh, the bachelors’ wing! Lily, the sound of it is too terribly