Carney's House Party/Winona's Pony Cart Page 8

  “Bobbie,” called Carney as her brother peeped through the swinging door. “Pancakes for Sam!” And presently Bobbie came in, walking slowly and proudly with his burden. His straight hair fell into his face; his lower lip was gripped in concentration by two king-sized front teeth. Those teeth had outgrown all their companions.

  The pancakes delivered, he inspected the table with a calculating eye. Then he went over to Betsy.

  “Want to buy some bluing?”

  “Why, yes. Are you in the grocery business, Bobbie?”

  “If I sell enough bluing I can win a baseball suit.”

  “I have my pocketbook right here.”

  The transaction completed, Bobbie proceeded to Sam. “Want to buy some bluing?”

  “Sure,” answered Sam. “I’ve just been needing some.”

  Bobbie looked ingratiating. “How many bottles?”

  “I’ll take a dozen.”

  “Boy!” Bobbie let out a whoop. “Sis!” he shouted, running to Carney. “I can send for the baseball suit!” He raced to the library and returned with a pile of bottles. “That will be a dollar and twenty cents,” he said, forcing a businesslike tone. “It’s very good bluing. Your mother will like it.”

  “A dollar and twenty cents. Ch…” as the familiar word formed on his lips, Sam caught Carney’s twinkling eyes and stopped. He put his hand in his pocket and left it there. Bobbie was watching him radiantly.

  “I started to say ‘charge it,’” Sam said to gain time. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t do that.”

  “I should say not,” said Bobbie. “My terms are strictly cash.” He waited a little anxiously for Sam’s hand to emerge from his pocket.

  Carney’s gaze was triumphant. Sam scowled at her and spoke in an undertone. “There’s one person I won’t borrow from, and that’s you!” he said.

  “Our Dad doesn’t approve of borrowing; does he, Bobbie?” Carney asked.

  “I should say not. That’s the way to the poor house, he says. Gee!” added Bobbie, his face dimming a little. “Maybe you can’t afford to buy twelve bottles?”

  “Yes I can,” answered Sam. “My mother would never forgive me if I passed up a bargain like this.”

  Betsy Ray had reached for her purse again but Sam’s eyes went to Isobel who smiled understandingly.

  “I have my pocketbook right here, Sam, in case…” she glanced at Bobbie…“in case your wallet is out in the auto.”

  “Why, thanks,” he answered in a tone which breathed relief. “Just a couple of dollars.”

  Walking out to the Locomobile Carney danced up to Sam. “Maybe that will teach you to carry money!”

  “It was a close shave, all right,” he answered, smiling. He was really remarkably good-looking. And not even very fat, she thought, marveling. In proper clothes, he was just stocky and strong.

  Lloyd and Tom had arrived in Lloyd’s auto. Tom had laid aside his uniform, but he was so straight that he looked military even in civilian clothes. He was a large, dark-skinned, heavy-featured boy, not handsome, but with an arresting white-toothed smile. He was obviously affected by Isobel’s charm.

  “I’ve made a momentous decision. You’re coming in our car,” he told her, taking her arm.

  That was hard on Sam and Hunter, Carney thought, but it couldn’t be helped. Isobel and Betsy went with Tom and Lloyd, while Bonnie, Carney and Hunter climbed into the Locomobile. Although the day was warm there was a breeze rippling through the grain fields.

  “A good day for sailing,” Sam said with satisfaction. “Know anything about it?”

  “Not much, but Isobel does.”

  “I like rowboats better,” said Bonnie.

  “I like canoes,” said Carney.

  “Do you paddle, or just sit and look beautiful?”

  “I paddle. I’ll race you to The Point.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “I think I’d rather be in the same canoe,” he said. Now why did he say things like that, Carney wondered irritably, when he was so obviously in Isobel’s train?

  “Bonnie,” she said, to squelch him, “remember the races we used to have with Larry and Herbert?”

  “Who are Larry and Herbert?”

  “Who are Larry and…” The girls laughed.

  “They’re important people,” Bonnie said. “At least, Larry is.”

  Before she could say any more the big Locomobile, followed closely by Lloyd’s Buick, swept through the gateway of the Hutchinson place, and up the ascending driveway to the big white clapboard house. Sam halted in the porte-cochere.

  “We’ll leave your bags,” he said. “And I’d like you to meet Mother.”

  The entrance hall was stately, with a fireplace, and on the newel post at the foot of the wide stairs stood a bronze lady holding lights. As they passed from room to room Carney looked with admiration at the lofty hand-painted ceilings, the dark paneled walls and richly carved furniture. Velvet draperies covered with gold embroidery hung in the doorways.

  Only the music room was light. This was in white, and a mirror which covered one wall doubled its whiteness. The carpet was sprinkled with roses. A Steinway grand piano stood invitingly open.

  “I’ll try to slip in and play on it, before I go,” she thought.

  “Mother!” Sam called, entering the library. Carney saw Betsy gazing up at the books which were in cases five shelves high with cloisonné jars at the top. The chairs here were deep and soft. A Persian carpet spread color on the floor.

  Open doors beyond showed a massive four-post bed, bedroom chests, and bureaus. Carney remembered having heard that Mrs. Hutchinson was a semi-invalid. Probably she slept downstairs.

  “We live in this library except in the summertime. Then we move on to the north porch,” Sam said, leading the way.

  They heard a chime of voices, and when he opened the door they looked through green vines, down sunshine-flooded lawns to the silvery lake. The wide screened porch was furnished in wicker with a swing hung from the ceiling, and it was sociably crowded.

  Mrs. Hutchinson lay on a chaise lounge with Queed in her lap. She was small and fragile in a silken tea gown. Her welcoming hand flashed with rings. A little girl on a stool beside her was leafing through a copy of Puck. An elderly lady was knitting. Two youngish women shared the swing.

  “We always have relatives around,” Sam observed to Carney.

  “So do we,” she replied. But the effect, she thought, was different in her home. In the course of brief introductions, Sam had kissed his mother, his little sister, and his grandmother, and hugged two cousins. In her home such demonstrations were reserved for important meetings and partings.

  Sam and his guests didn’t sit down, although they were urged to do so.

  “We want to get to sailing while there’s still a breeze,” he said.

  “But you’re coming back for lunch?”

  “Oh, sure! See that there’s plenty to eat.”

  A smiling maid took the bags. She wore a cap and a ruffled white apron like maids at East Hampton, not just a clean kitchen apron over gingham as Olga did. The house party and its attendant cavaliers ran down to the beach.

  Green white-capped waves came racing to meet them, and the new boat was a shining beauty.

  “How many can you carry?”

  “Four in a pinch,” Sam said. But he soon announced that he would keep his load to three. It was clear that Isobel was the only girl present who knew anything at all about sailing. The others were slow about scrambling up the sloping deck when the sailboat heeled over, and even slower about ducking when he tacked and the boom swung. Pretty dunderheads, Sam called them.

  Isobel, however, was magnificent. Her years at East Hampton had made her familiar with all the maneuvers of small craft. She scrambled expertly to provide balance; she ducked even more expertly to avoid the swinging boom. Alone of all the girls, Sam remarked, she had had sense enough to put on nonskid shoes.

  When he suggested that she sail the boat for a while, she accept
ed with delight.

  “She sails it like a clipper captain,” he shouted as they set off. Isobel was radiant, quite undisturbed by wet skirts and windblown hair. The spray caused her hair to curl in tendrils about her face.

  Carney and Lloyd were already in a canoe. Fred, the man-of-all-work, was bringing oars for a rowboat, for Betsy and Bonnie proposed to row to Pleasant Park, Betsy’s mother’s girlhood home.

  So with Isobel and Tom, or Isobel and Hunter, but always with Isobel, Sam sailed to the Inn Point, to Babcock’s Bay, and other beauty spots. Paddling leisurely, Carney glanced now and then toward their adventurous sail. She heard Sam’s big laugh and Isobel’s soft one, and she felt a little twinge of loneliness for Larry. It was really too bad to have your best beau half a continent away!

  A bell ringing from the big white house called them to luncheon.

  “We’re perfect frights,” Carney remarked.

  “You look swell,” said Sam. But in spite of this reassurance the girls were relieved when Rose, the pretty maid, led them upstairs, past the lady on the newel post, to a large high-ceilinged bedroom with satin draperies and mahogany furniture and an enormous bed covered with a satin spread. A bathroom adjoined.

  “Isn’t it the most gorgeous house?” Betsy asked. “I feel as though I were in one of my own stories.”

  “Yes, it’s gorgeous, and homelike, too.”

  “Your baby hippo has turned into a very handsome young man.”

  “Tell that to Isobel.”

  “Long Island’s fairest daughter,” Betsy joked.

  Isobel laughed her soft, lazy laugh. “He’s a perfect darling,” she said.

  Luncheon was served on the north porch. There was a window near the table opening off a pantry, and the cook passed things through to Rose. The table was set with place mats. Carney had seen them used at Professor Bracq’s at Vassar, and resolved now to give her mother a set for her birthday. The effect of the partially bare, polished table, reflecting a bouquet of daisies and delphiniums, was very attractive.

  Mr. Hutchinson sat at the head of the table. He dominated it, and not only because he was handsome. He was like a large warm sun sending out rays. He was expansively pleased, Carney could see, to be surrounded by family, relatives, and friends, lavishing them with everything good.

  The food was richer and heavier than Carney was accustomed to at home. There was thick spiced gravy on the meat, highly seasoned dressing on the salad; the vegetables were drowned in butter; great squares of butter accompanied the hot biscuits; and the dessert—mousse, they called it—was made from frozen cream.

  Talk was easy and merry. Everyone was relaxed to an extent unusual in family parties as Carney had observed them. Until she went to college she had always taken her family for granted. But since coming back to them from the outside world, she sometimes tried to evaluate and classify the Sibleys. Now she found herself comparing this opulent family life with her own.

  Somewhat to her surprise…not being used to fanciful ideas…she compared them in terms of color. Sam’s home, with its lavishness, its warmth, its indulgent extravagant affection, was like a rich deep purple. Her own, she decided, was dove gray. Dove gray seemed to express disciplined affection, reticence, order, thrift, justice, and kindness.

  She had never, she thought suddenly, heard her father or mother say an unkind word about anyone. But they didn’t laugh and play like this.

  “We have fun, though,” she thought. “We pop corn on Sunday nights. Dad makes rarebits for company. We get maple sugar from Vermont and ‘sugar off,’ when there’s new snow, like Mother used to do when she was a girl.”

  She felt suddenly a little uneasy.

  “I don’t know how I’d get along in a family like this. I hope Larry is sort of…dove grayish.”

  And then she felt really confused, for her thought was a tacit admission that in her heart she expected to marry Larry.

  Mr. Hutchinson was beaming at her down the table.

  “And what about you, Miss Caroline?” he asked. “Are you for or against?”

  Carney was dismayed. She hadn’t been listening to the conversation. She had no idea what they were talking about.

  “I believe,” said Isobel, “that she agrees with Miss Milholland.”

  That explained it. Isobel had been telling about Inez Milholland, the Vassarite who, forbidden to lecture on Woman’s Suffrage on the campus, had addressed her fellow students from a graveyard just over the boundary line.

  “Yes, I’m for it,” Carney said.

  “I’m surprised,” said Mr. Hutchinson. “I’m surprised and disappointed. You’re too pretty to be a Suffragette.”

  Now her father, Carney thought, favored Woman’s Suffrage. He believed it would be an influence for good.

  She was still woolgathering while everyone looked at her expectantly, but Betsy Ray came to her rescue.

  “You promise not to throw rocks through the Hutchinsons’ windows, don’t you, Carney?”

  “Yes, I promise that,” said Carney, smiling at the Sun God who relented and asked Rose to bring her some more mousse.

  9

  Carney’s Future in a Handbasket

  THEY COULDN’T SWIM, of course, until two hours had elapsed, so after lunch they spread blankets on the lawn. The wind had died down, and it was growing hot. The air smelled of red clover; and hollyhocks in a hedge along the kitchen garden glowed in the sunshine like a stage set.

  Isobel looked up at the sky where thick white clouds were piled against the blue. She said with a glance at Sam that they looked like sails. Tom said they looked like continents and Betsy said they looked like white of egg pricked out by a fork.

  “They’re like nice clean clothes hung to dry,” Carney declared.

  She and Bonnie brought out sewing bags which they had packed along with their bathing suits.

  “Such industry!” cried Betsy, piling cushions for her head.

  “We’re embroidering center pieces, just alike.”

  “Do you girls have hope chests?” Lloyd asked.

  “We certainly do.”

  “I don’t,” said Betsy. “My husband and I are going to use paper plates and napkins.”

  “Poor Joe!”

  “Lucky Larry!”

  “Who is this Larry you’re always talking about?” asked Sam with a meaningful glance toward Bonnie. His misapprehension brought delighted smiles.

  While Carney and Bonnie sewed, and Betsy did nothing, Sam and Hunter played mumble-the-peg. Lloyd, who had brought his camera, got a shot of a mother bluebird feeding her babies. Tom strolled to the car and returned with a box of chocolates. In spite of the enormous luncheon so recently consumed, this was greeted by approving shouts.

  “You used to bring fudge when you came down to see me at West Point,” he said to Carney, offering the box.

  “Wasn’t I a good ‘drag’?”

  “Swell!”

  “This year you have to come to Vassar to a dance.”

  Carney and Isobel began to tell about dances at Vassar.

  “They start at four o’clock sharp.”

  “Four in the afternoon?” demanded Sam.

  “Of course. Broad daylight. And you have to come in full dress, white tie and all. It’s so every male menace can be off the campus by eleven.”

  “Isn’t it,” Sam asked solicitously, “just a little hard to round up men for your dances?”

  “A little,” Isobel admitted.

  “But our crowd is lucky,” Carney put in. “Win, one of our Tower girls, lives in a boys’ school. Her father is head master there. She rounds up boys enough for all of us.”

  “And next year,” added Isobel sweetly, “Tom is going to come. Aren’t you, Tom?”

  “Yes,” said Tom. “I’m a bold fellow. Are the dances fun after they start?”

  The girls looked at each other, and Isobel’s laugh rippled.

  “Well,” she admitted, “bunny hugs and turkey trots aren’t allowed. I lost my privilege
s for six weeks last spring because I tried one innocent little turkey trot.”

  “I was put off the dance floor because my psyche knot fell down,” chuckled Carney. “The walls are lined with chaperons, watching out for unladylike behavior. They even pass on the music we choose. Last year they struck ‘Too Much Mustard’ off the program. Now what under the sun is wrong with ‘Too Much Mustard’?”

  “Bonnie!” cried Betsy. “Aren’t we glad we’re going to the U?”

  “Oh, but Vassar is wonderful!” Carney insisted. “Men aren’t everything. Are they, Isobel?”

  “Certainly not. Besides when we girls dance in J parlor, Carney dresses up in her father’s dress suit. She’s as handsome as Jack Barrymore.”

  Carney burst into a laugh. “One night we stuffed that dress suit with pillows and put it out in the hall. We scared the night watchman into fits.”

  Inspired by these happy memories they broke into song:

  “We are from Vassar,

  Vassar are we

  Singing for gladness

  Right merrily…”

  Betsy and Bonnie, Lloyd and Sam tried to drown them out with, “Minnesota, Hail to Thee.” (Bonnie didn’t know it very well, but she did her best.)

  Tom burst in, too.

  “On, brave old army team,

  On to the fray,

  Fight on to victory

  For that’s the famous army way…”

  And Hunter, who was registered at Carleton, shouted, at the top of his voice:

  “Carleton, our Alma Mater,

  We hail the maize and blue!”

  Sam cupped his mouth in his hands.

  “Four o’clock!” he yelled. “Who’s for a swim?”

  Everybody was.

  Back in the house, the girls went upstairs again. They changed into bathing suits, tying bandana handkerchiefs around their heads and putting on stockings and bathing slippers. Fred greeted them like an old friend, and when Carney and Isobel set off with the boys to swim to the diving tower, he offered to take Betsy and Bonnie along in a rowboat.

  Both Carney and Isobel were excellent swimmers. Again and again Carney climbed to the tower and dove. She loved the cold shocking plunge, the vigorous push through cool greenness up into sunshine and the wonder of blue arching sky.