House Party Read Free Page B

flowers for the men?" Mrs. Ames asked.
    "Oh, I'd love to, Lily!" Mrs. Clendenning gushed.
    "Good. Use up the peonies first. They're beginning to die anyhow."
    "I always feel so sad when the peonies start to go."
    "Don't, Violet. The weeds come to take their place. Now, where shall we put this Miss Devine? Someplace nice, I think. She's Paul's friend. I'd thought of the French room, but of course Felicia's in there."
    "Why not the rose room across from Felicia, Lily? That's sweet."
    "But it's right next to Felicia's children. I'm sure they'd disturb Miss Devine."
    "Nonsense, Lily, they're as good as gold and as quiet as mice. Why, Fraulein was saying to me just yesterday . . ."
    A shrill scream and a burst of voluble German in the second person interrupted Mrs. Clendenning's euphemistic description of her grandchildren.
    "I think I hear one of your golden mice right now, Violet," Mrs. Ames said.
    “Heavens,” Violet cried. She ran to the end of the corridor and threw open the window. "Yoo hoo! Yoo hoo! Emily! Robin! Here I am, darlings! No, look up here. Here's Granny! Emily, darling, stop pummeling your brother so. That's not nice. Emily! Fraulein, will you stop her! Darlings, stop that this minute and Granny will give you something."
    Mrs. Ames was of two minds about her sister's grandchildren. She felt that they were neglected by their mother, spoiled by their grandmother, and badly raised by their fraulein. Mrs. Ames thought that little Emily Choate was a sneak and a bully and as selfish as her mother. Little Robin Choate was, in her opinion, a whiner and sniveler and a thorough-going coward. Yet she envied Violet for having grandchildren and wished that she herself might have some to spoil just as outrageously as Violet did.
    Mrs. Clendenning's scene at the window subsided and she returned, flushed with pleasure to her sister's side. "Oh, the darlings! Carefree young spirits! It's a pity none of your children ever married, Lily."
    "Isn't it!" Mrs. Ames said rather more sharply than she had meant to. "Now if you'll just see to the rose room for Miss Devine, I'll make sure that the children's rooms are aired."
    "Oh, do please hush, Lily. You'll wake Felicia."
    "Wake Felicia? I don't know how a corpse could sleep with you shrieking out of the window that way. Besides, I should think she'd want to get up. It's eleven o'clock."
    "But, Lily, poor Felicia needs her rest. She's exhausted."
    "Exhausted from what? She did nothing but lie on the beach all day yesterday and play solitaire with herself after dinner."
    "I meant emotionally exhausted, Lily. This divorce has dealt her a cruel blow." Violet punctuated her remark with a look of wise martyrdom.
    "I see," Lily said. "Now if you'll just attend to the rose room—very quietly, of course—I'll look after the children's old rooms."
     
    Mrs. Ames always felt a kind of sadness whenever she went through the rooms where her four children had grown up. These bedrooms were so empty and lonely now, yet she could still feel the presence of her young. Mrs. Ames was glad that her children had flown the nest. She kept telling herself that. She wanted them to have lives of their own—not to cling to her. But when she went through their bedrooms the four of them seemed so far away.
    Eleanor Ames was the youngest and her room was nearest the old nursery where Nanny could keep an eye out for her. Elly's room was—well, it was just impossible, that was the only word for it. Even when it was tidy, as it was now, it was still a mess. It was us irrepressibly Elly as ever, strewn with snapshots of friends, with half-begun collections of fossils and butterflies and coins and matchbooks. Elly's old doll, once a ravishing princess from the Nain Bleu, still sprawled on the bed, her rose complexion pitted and battered, her flowing tresses cropped like a convict's. One arm dangling loosely from her chamois torso; a golden slipper forever lost. On the wall were moth-eaten old pennants from boarding