Delphi complete works of.., p.130
Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 130
“No,” he was saying quite seriously, “I really was building a fire. When I pick lilies it will be for a much more welcome occasion than this, but you won’t be alive to enjoy it.”
“Bur-r-r-r,” muttered the irrepressible Bentley, turning up his coat collar and going through an elaborate pantomime of a shivering man. “That ought to hold me for a while.”
Mr. Willows looked at him coldly, then turned to the others.
“And now,” he continued, “if you don’t mind I’d like to know how in hell you all got in here.”
“Oh, we don’t mind in the least,” drawled Vera Hutchens. “We were barging by like a bunch of lost scows and we thought we’d just drop in. Make a night of it. Break out the flasks, boys.”
“That was a no-good thought, Vera,” observed Tim slowly. “In fact it was just too bad. And that little part about making a night of it is all wet. It’s a washout. Don’t trouble about taking off your things. If you want to make a night of it why don’t you go out and build yourself a great, big snow man?”
“Oh, I say,” complained Carl Bentley. “This is no go. We’ve just dropped in, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Tim, grinning, “and you can just drop out again. And I don’t quite understand how you managed to drop in, to begin with. You must have damn well broken in. I locked the door myself.”
“Wrong again,” retorted Bentley in a gloating voice. “We were invited in most cordially.”
“And who was so ill-advised as to do a mad thing like that?” demanded Tim.
“Sally,” trumped Bentley.
Tim was momentarily stunned.
“Where do you get off calling my wife Sally?” he got out. “So far as I know you’ve only met her twice in your life.”
“You never can tell,” insinuated Vera. “It’s a small world, you know. Small and wicked, Tim.”
Tim cast the speaker a mean look.
“Viper!” he said. “You’d be writing poison-pen letters if you knew how to write.”
“Listen, Tim,” chimed in Helen. “Don’t be such a crab. We all live in the same town, don’t we?”
“Unfortunately we do,” snapped Tim. “Wish we didn’t. If we all lived on the same street, I suppose, according to your way of thinking, we’d be entitled to sleep with each other as a sort of neighborly gesture?”
“Something like that,” said Helen.
“How do you mean, something like that?” demanded Tim. “It must be that or nothing.”
“Oh,” replied Helen. “Is that the type of man you are? No half measures for you.”
“You can see that for yourself, my dear,” put in Vera. “Look how he’s dressed. Always ready for something to turn up.”
“Come, come!” exclaimed her husband, a thickset, well-dressed gentleman, solid, successful, and sly. Ted Hutchens felt that he had at least one valid claim on local immortality. He had played polo at the Westchester-Biltmore once and only once. “Come, come!” he repeated, as if rebuking a child, as he looked heavily at Tim Willows. The look and the admonition infuriated Tim.
“Go, go!” he shouted. “Everybody go. Get out. Beat it. Do you think I’m going to hide behind this curtain the whole damn night?”
“That was your own idea,” drawled Vera. “For my part I think you looked sweeter in your simple little shift.”
“Vera!” cried Mr. Hutchens.
“Sally!” exclaimed Carl Bentley. “At last.”
“Why are your voices raised in unseemly dissent?” asked Sally with easy good nature as she came gracefully into the room. “Oh, I see. It’s only Tim,” she continued, looking curiously at her husband. “You do look brisk, dear. I thought you’d died in that basement ages ago.”
Tim was bereft of words. He clutched at the curtain and stared at his wife. She was clad in a flaring pair of pajamas and was wearing a short, silly-looking little jacket that did not seem to mean anything. He recalled having seen such outfits featured in newspaper advertisements.
“Sally!” he called in a hoarse voice. “Are you walking in your sleep? Look at yourself.”
“What do you mean?” she retorted, sidling up close to the statuesque Mr. Bentley, who was looking at her with glowing eyes. “Why don’t you look at yourself?”
“I mean those things you’re wearing,” said Tim. “They’re not decent for public display. Go up immediately and put something on.”
“Don’t be dull, Tim,” his wife replied. “These are hostess pajamas. They are supposed to be worn on informal occasions. Just such occasions as this — among friends.”
“You’re putting it mildly,” replied Tim. “They don’t encourage friendship. They invite ruin.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Sally, smiling up slowly into Mr. Bentley’s eyes. “I’ve a remote idea myself that one seldom sleeps in them.”
Mr. Bentley favored his audience with a laugh not unlike a neigh, a significant sort of a neigh.
“All right!” cried Tim, thoroughly aroused by this little exchange. “I can play, too.” With this he stepped out from behind the portières and stood revealed to the company in his disheveled shirt. “This garment, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, turning slowly round with his arms extended, “is what is known as a host’s slip-on. It may not look so good, but it’s a damn sight franker and more practical than my wife’s costume.”
Taking advantage of the small panic created by his sudden unveiling, Tim limped to a nearby table, from which he snatched a hip flask and helped himself to a powerful drink, a gesture which gave to his shirt an amusing frontal elevation. Amid the appreciative giggles of the women and the subdued expostulations of the men he turned his back on the company and, with as much dignity as he could command, limped painfully from the room, the shovel still in his hand and Dopey at his heels. In the hall he placed the shovel in the cane rack, to the everlasting humiliation of several snooty walking sticks, then slowly mounted the stairs, his modesty becoming more assailable the higher he proceeded. Even the violent slamming of the bedroom door failed to shut off from his ears the pent-up frenzy of a jazz orchestra avalanching from the radio. For a moment he stood looking irresolutely at the door, then, opening it a little, he listened, Dopey doing likewise.
“Whoopee!” came the hearty voice of Carl Bentley. “Come on, gang. Let’s go.”
“I wish to God you would,” muttered Mr. Willows. “You big, inane bastard. Having a real nice time, aren’t you? Seeing life in the suburbs. Wildfire! Aw, go to hell.”
Once more he closed the door, this time quietly, and, hobbling over to a cabinet, took from it a glass and a bottle of whiskey. Thus equipped he sought a chair and sat staring vacantly at Dopey sprawled out at his feet.
“It’s a good thing, stupid, you don’t drink,” he observed. “You’re sufficient of a damn fool just as you are.”
Dopey tried, but failed to understand. It didn’t matter. Everything was all right. He was comfortable.
“Listen,” continued his master, choking over his drink. “I’ve a good idea to get drunk and beat you up . . . within an inch of your useless life . . . to a pulp . . . a regular jelly.”
The dog’s snakelike tail thumped against the rug. His master was being funny. He was such a nice man. Dopey felt himself moved to kiss him, but was too comfortable to make the effort. Some other time. Wearily his eyes closed. He sighed. Things always worked out for the best.
Tim Willows arranged himself another drink and sat listening to the radio. Gradually his feet began to tap time with the music. He had forgotten about his toe. Too bad he was such an indifferent dancer. He’d like to take a fling himself occasionally.
“Obsolete,” he muttered gloomily. “Should be scrapped.”
Mr. Ram looked thoughtfully down on man and beast. He felt that he would like to do a little something also about this dog. There was too much of it.
CHAPTER THREE
Good Clean Fun
IN THE LOUNGE below, everything was getting better and better. That is, if noise counted. Something in the nature of a celebration in joint honor of modern and ancient days was in progress. It was rather a loose, heavy-handed affair, but those present seemed to enjoy it. Figuratively speaking, Diana was dancing improperly on the belly of a prostrate Volstead, while Bacchus poured gin in his eye. This interesting blending of Dionysian and suburban rites was, as a matter of fact, nothing more nor less than a typical cocktail-necking party such as many find it necessary to attend in order to discover if sex still appeals. The Pagan and Christian eras endeavored to merge while still retaining the worst features of both. The result was an evening of nice clean fun. After all, what is a neck more or less, plus adjacent territory, among friends? Wives were not so much exchanged as released on short-term loans. This was the modern touch, the smart thing to do. The festivities over, these fair ladies would be returned to their husbands a little bit thumbed and dog-eared and more than a little drunk. It was one of those sportive occasions at which enmities are inevitably aroused and sordid recriminations incubated, for by the very nature of things there are few husbands and wives whose limits of conduct and powers of self-control register exactly the same. One or the other member of the tandem is sure to go too far. Then all hell pops.
Husbands and wives who intend to carry on together at all permanently should never attend the same cocktail-necking party unless one of them passes out and is unable to know what the other is doing. Otherwise it either cramps the style of both or furnishes the divorce courts with fresh customers.
Really, it’s the devil and all to be modern — much too much of a strain. It involves, oddly enough, a swift return to a primitive state of arboreal promiscuity. Few people can follow this path with linked hands and light hearts. Each side is too heavily weighted with inhibitions and prejudices. Each side is vainly endeavoring to nibble the icing of the cake in order to retain the whole. The result is rather crummy.
Into Mrs. Tim Willows’s party half a dozen fresh votaries had been introduced. They had been rung up and called in, and among them were a couple of unattached young women.
There is nothing like the presence of a couple of young women, unattached, among a number of not too old matrons to accelerate the tempo of a party. The young matrons were immediately put on their mettle when Joy Tucker and Agatha Green appeared. Then the married ladies started in to prove to the world that they had found in the matrimonial state a great deal more than they had lost. As a corollary of this they naturally had more to give. On the other hand the virgins hinted of fair but difficult, although not impassable, territory still unexplored. This, of course, was a challenge to the adventurous. Altogether it was a stimulating and healthy form of competition from which the males as usual profited, adding thereby to their already overflowing reservoirs of complacency.
Naturally there was little conversation. Under the most favorable circumstances there would have been little conversation. These people were not so constituted. However, everybody talked a great deal and shouted even more. Risqué stories which were neither risqué enough nor funny enough occasioned sporadic gales of laughter. And through it all, above and around it all, piercing the smoke and perfume and the good old American tang of gin, the tireless-tongued radio lashed dancing couples into fresh paroxysms of activity.
It was just as well that Tim Willows remained alone in his room save for the companionship of Dopey and Mr. Ram. To begin with, at such parties he was not so good. He generally drank too much and observed too much, and the more he drank the more he observed, until at last he saw things that were not there at all. Then, again, his ideas of necking were disconcertedly crude. . . . He believed in treating a girl like a human being entitled to an intelligent exchange of ideas. Frequently women who had been gamely prepared to offer almost unlimited necking facilities were surprised to find that they had actually been talking for at least half an hour with Tim Willows, and enjoying it. This rather frightened them. They became a trifle subdued. Several stiff drinks of gin were required to bring them back to their former state of carefree animalism. On the other hand, there had been several occasions when only the intervention of Sally and several husbands had prevented him from dragging some woman upstairs and teaching her what for, as the English insist on having it. He steadfastly refused to remember these occasions, claiming that he had been too far gone in his cups to know what he was doing. Tim Willows was too simple and direct a person to be a successful modern. He belonged to a vanished era when people talked and played and loved with effortless enjoyment.
For another reason it was just as well that Tim remained in his room. It was Carl Bentley’s evening. By tacit consent the women of the company had left that gentleman to Sally. He was her man. Not even the young women attempted to horn in. Had they tried, their efforts would have proved fruitless. Carl Bentley was now hot on the scent. He had put in some of his best work on Sally and he had reason to believe that his campaign would soon be crowned by a complete capitulation. Sally was the pick of the lot, by far the most desirable woman in town, with no exceptions.
So Carl Bentley danced with Sally, drank with Sally and whispered suggestively in Sally’s small pink ear. Above stairs Tim just drank and sought comfort in Kai Lung, than whom there is hardly a greater comforter, thanks to Ernest Bramah. When the unattached young women began to tap dance more with their abdomen than their toes, Bentley took advantage of the occasion. Everybody was present and accounted for, although neither clean nor sober.
“Sally,” said Mr. Bentley in a voice almost as low as his intentions, “let’s go out to the kitchen where there aren’t so many people. You can’t hear yourself think in here.”
Sally looked indifferently round the room and carelessly moved off kitchenward. The blood was racing in her veins and her head felt delightfully dizzy and confused. Nothing much mattered except a good time . . . a little life. This man, Bentley, was so much more dominating and possessive than Tim. She liked that. Tim, in spite of his horrid ways, was rather too much of a gentleman. He made no parade of virility. He did not endeavor to master her. Sally decided he was not quite big enough. She preferred the size of Carl Bentley. He could smother her, and at the moment she felt like being smothered. It must be said for Sally that she was far, far from being herself. Modern gin is not a good thing for good girls, although it is awfully good for bad ones. Carl Bentley, well knowing this, followed her with a bottle.
What happened in the kitchen is nobody’s business. It should be stated, though, that Tim Willows and his dog descended into the small pandemonium of the lounge only a few minutes after the disappearance of Sally and Carl Bentley. He was just in time to witness Vera Hutchens slapping her husband in the face because that unfortunate gentleman had remonstrated with her for kissing the same man too long and too often.
“He always gets like this,” she complained to the company at large. “Because he has a nasty mind he thinks everybody else is like him. Insults me, he does. Well, just to satisfy you, my dear,” — and here she laughed recklessly— “I’ll kiss him as much as I like and you won’t stop me.”
This she proceeded to do. Throwing herself into the arms of a tall, quiet person who was extremely well heeled with grog, she satisfied herself and her husband as well as the man she was kissing. It did not matter so much to the man. He hardly knew whom he was kissing. He was just kissing some woman and so far that was all right.
“Suburbia at play,” observed Tim in his quiet, sardonic voice. “Don’t you girls and boys ever learn any new games?”
Tim was regarded with interest, particularly by several women in the room. He had managed to struggle into a pair of pajama trousers and was wearing a magnificent dressing gown. His feet were encased in a pair of comfortably padded slippers. He had done things to his hair and tidied himself up generally. Few persons if any realized how binged Tim Willows really was.
“Carry on,” he continued pleasantly. “Some of you men who are able had better do something about Hutchens or we’ll be having a murder on our hands.”
This was nearly the truth. Hutchens, Vera, and the man of her choice were involved in an unseemly tussle. Vera was beginning to scream and cry, and the men were calling each other some pretty bad names. It was not a thing to see, yet at these parties it was always being seen.
Tim, whose dim but all-observing eyes had noted the absence of his wife and Carl Bentley, moved quietly toward the kitchen. Dopey, his ears flat against his head, followed fearfully. Quietly Tim passed through the pantry and opened the kitchen door. So engrossed was Bentley in his occupation that he failed to note the presence of an observer. Tim gazed thoughtfully at the man’s back for a moment, then, lifting Mrs. Twill’s heavy rolling pin from the rack close at hand, he brought it down violently on Mr. Bentley’s head. That misguided gentleman swayed gently on his feet, then crumpled to the floor.
“Sorry,” said Tim, looking coldly at a white-faced Sally, “but really, you know, the kitchen is no place for this sort of thing. One doesn’t play with fire here, one actually uses it. But, of course, you know nothing about that.”
He rummaged about in a drawer and produced a long, sharp knife. With this he approached the prostrate figure.
“My God, Tim,” breathed Sally as the room spun round and round her, “what are you going to do?”
Tim was cold white drunk and his words seemed to proceed from an ice box rather than from a man’s chest.
“I’m going to cut his damn head clean off,” he told his wife, “and throw it in the faces of your friends. That will teach them to behave themselves — fighting and screaming and semi-fornicating all over my house . . . what a way, what a way. Yes, off goes this one’s head. Want to kiss it good-bye while it’s still on?”
With a shuddering cry Sally dropped to her knees beside the still figure of Mr. Bentley. She placed a hand over his heart and looked up at her husband with a drawn face.
