House Party Read Free Page A

romantic for words. Remember when dear Papa was alive and these rooms were filled with our beaux down for the weekend. And Uncle Ned would always come up the drive in a beautiful carriage with two men on the box! And there were never less than twelve at table. La, but those days were fun—the swimming, the picnics, the croquet . . ."
    "Well, those days are gone forever, Violet. The world just isn't like that any longer." Mrs. Ames opened the door of Uncle Ned's suite. Ned Pruitt was dear Papa's younger brother. The two men had hated each other cordially, but dear Papa generously said that blood was thicker than water and that there'd always be a place under this very roof for his frivolous waste-wealth brother when his every penny had gone and he'd eaten and drunk himself into some fatal disease. Dear Papa had died at the age of fifty-five. Uncle Ned was now eighty-six and going stronger than ever.
    Lily struggled to open the windows. "These rooms are all right, I know. Nanny did them properly just this week. All they need is airing and some flowers."
    "Oh, let me arrange a pretty bouquet for dear Uncle Ned. And there's that big dressing room for his beautiful, beautiful clothes."
    "Violet, doesn't it sometimes strike you that Uncle Ned's clothes are a little silly in this day and age? What would people say if I were to go about in a hobble skirt and buttoned boots?"
    "Oh, but Uncle Ned wears them with such an air!"
    Uncle Ned's suite consisted of an oval sitting room, and octagonal bedroom, a large dressing room and bath, and a room for his valet. It was decorated somewhat more elegantly than most of the guest rooms because even though dear Papa had despised young Ned and his prodigal way of life, Ned's friendship with Edward VII, Lily Langtry, Harry Lehr, Kaiser Wilhelm and other august personalities of the period rather impressed dear Papa and led him to the wan hope of some day entertaining royalty in this very house, in which case Uncle Ned's famous friends could have these rooms and Ned could be housed up in the servants' quarters. Nothing had ever come of dear Papa's plan.
    "And, Lily," Mrs. Clendenning cried from the bedroom, "would you just look at this—an autographed picture of Marie of Roumania. Dear Uncle Ned must have left it behind when he was out here two years ago. Isn't . . ."
    "That's very interesting, Violet, but he has so many pictures of dead people I'm sure he's never missed this one. Now see that the windows are open in there and don't dawdle. We've got a lot to do today." Moving back to the hall, Mrs. Ames said, "I think well put Felicia's young man right here in the blue room."
    "In the blue room, Lily?" Mrs. Clendenning cried. "I'd so hoped we could put Mr. Burgess in the Venetian room: those lovely silvery walls and that beautiful big bed. Pope Clement XIII once slept in it. And poor Felicia is so . . ."
    "The Venetian room indeed! There's a wet spot on one lovely silvery wall as big as your bottom. It's so damp you could raise orchids in there. And as for that bed, it feels as though Pope Clement were still in it. Won't any of you ever realize that this house has gone to rack and . . ."
    "But, Lily, you could have all that fixed. I know a little decorator who does . . ."
    Mrs. Ames turned her blazing eyes on her sister. "Have it fixed? I can't even afford to have my hair fixed. Felicia's Mr. Burgess can just pig it in the blue room. If it was good enough for Theodore Roosevelt it's quite good enough for . . ."
    "Oh, Lily," Mrs. Clendenning said, opening the door of the blue room, "let's not bicker today. It's going to be a lovely, lovely weekend! I know it is. Just like it always was. Just as it was when we were girls."
    Silently the two sisters went about opening up rooms in the bachelors' wing—Uncle Ned's suite, the blue room for John Burgess, the red room for the gentleman who was coming out with Katherine Ames, the green room for the young man who was visiting Eleanor Ames.
    "You'll do the