Читать книгу The Lorenzo Bunch - Booth Tarkington - Страница 7

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By midnight the party for the Foots was at its height. Mr. Ben Raphael, in the Parkers’ kitchenette, had brewed the goulash his talent for which had brought about his recent adoption into the Lorenzo bunch; plates were filled, and, besides the goulash, beer, stronger liquor, sandwiches, potato salad and coffee were abundant. Noisily jocose, sitting or standing at will, the company forsook dancing and cards and applied themselves to supper in the Parkers’ apartment. Several husbands, reckless of what they were certain to hear at bedtime, made an impenetrable semi-circle of themselves close before the beautiful Mrs. Foot; but apparently she was accustomed to such formations. At least, when she was congratulated upon her success, a little later, she showed a lack of enthusiasm.

Young Ola had been sent to spend the night with a schoolmate, leaving her small room to be used as a repair shop for the ladies; and after the supper Arlene and Irene found themselves alone together there for a few moments. “No wonder you’re making such a hit,” Arlene said heartily. “You and Ernie are both going bigger with the bunch than I ever saw anybody yet, and it’s easy to see why. You’re so sweet to everybody, Irene, I guess the girls’ll forgive you for being a beauty—though I don’t know what they’ll do to the boys when they get a chance at ’em!”

Irene, seated before Ola’s little dressing-table, moved a stick of compressed scarlet grease attentively along her lips, making their lovely outline more conspicuous. “That so?” she said, casually preoccupied and not using any sweetness now. “I guess men’ll make kind of a fuss over somebody new any time. I thought these big-town men of yours were going to be different from the fellows back home in lots o’ ways; but I guess not—seem just about the same.” Then she went on, seemingly in absent-minded and idle inquiry, “Say listen, Arlene, where’s that fellow live that turned around on the sidewalk and you were sore with me for getting just the least bit sociable with him, that day we were shopping downtown? Where’s he live?”

“Nowhere in this part o’ town.”

“No, I s’pose not.” Irene looked into the mirror thoughtfully, touched her lips with color again; then said, with the appearance of being slightly more interested, “Who’s that fellow that made the goulash, this Mr. Ben Raphael? Never takes his eyes off me. Gives me kind of a funny feeling. He got a wife around somewhere?”

Arlene laughed. “No; Ben’s no marrier. He’s a good fellow, though. Don’t you like him?”

“How do I know?” Irene asked indifferently. She rose, glancing down at herself. “Out o’ date,” she said, referring to the silvery dress. “Best I got, though. I s’pose all these women sized it up for year before last, didn’t they?”

Arlene spoke rallyingly. “I expect you know well enough it don’t matter what some people wear, Irene!”

“Don’t it?” Irene said. Then, near the door, she made a face; symmetries of nose, lips and brow became contours of protest. “I guess it might to the people that got to wear it.”

She opened the door, and the smiling Ben Raphael, not a foot away, carried her off gayly to the Stems’ apartment for more dancing. Bridge, however, was not resumed, nor were fresh bottles lacking from the supper table. Glass-in-hand singing began; spirits became both more frolicsome and more sentimental; intimacies increased in warmth. Everybody called Mr. and Mrs. Foot Ernie and Irene, and Art Finch sang “I Wanna Go Some Place Else” with his arm about Ernie Foot’s shoulders. Ernie Foot was discovered to possess a voice, himself, a light baritone, and was awarded the remarkable tribute of a general silence while he sang “Mandalay” with such effect that a little later he had to sing it again. His fraternity brother, Mr. Finch, made himself a master of ceremonies for this repetition.

“Hush up, everybody!” he shouted, waving his glass imperiously. “Listen, Ed, will you kindly shut up one minute? Ernie’s going to sing Mandalay again. Charlie, will you close the old trap just once in your life while Ernie sings Mandalay? Listen, Mabe, will you can that yapping? Ernie’s going to sing Mandalay. Mabe, if you won’t can your yapping for decency’s sake, will you do it for mine? I ask you! Will you kindly can it for mine?”

“If you’ll kindly quit spilling gin all over me, I will,” his wife said. “My! Wait till to-morrow and what you’ll hear about the spectacle you been making of yourself all night seventeen different ways. Maybe eighteen!”

“Eighteen what? Whose spectacles?” he asked; but, before she replied, forgot her. “Si-lunce!” he shouted. “Si-lunce, everybody! Brother Ernie Foot’s going to sing Mandalay again!”

Ernie sang Mandalay again. There were other songs; couples sang, dancing, and there was sporadic singing in all three apartments. Art Finch pounded Charlie Rice and Ed Stem upon their chests, declaring his Brother Ernie Foot to be the finest man he’d ever known; and both of them agreed with this, Charlie Rice passionately. So great was the enthusiasm for Ernie Foot, indeed, after his second singing of Mandalay, that this trio, Messrs. Stem, Finch and Rice, who had earlier spent hours in competition for the glances and dances of his wife, now ended by forgetting her very presence and leaving her almost entirely to the persistent Ben Raphael.

Charlie Rice finally admired the new friend so emotionally, in fact, that he couldn’t speak of him without tears in the eyes and was therefore conducted down the corridor to his own apartment by his sharp little wife, Lida. His departure cost him nothing of value, however, as the other guests were dispersing, and Brother Finch was already locked up in his own kitchenette, singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow!” over and over, while Mabel put their apartment to rights and let down the bed. A little later all three polished brown doors, the Parkers’, the Stems’ and the Finches’, were closed for the night with only their proper tenants inside.

Roy Parker, glancing over the disordered room, was delighted. “Went off just right,” he said. “They all had a good time and they certainly made a big fuss over Ernie. Seemed to me they liked her, too, didn’t they? Might think she’d been spoiled—such a star for looks—but I didn’t see a sign of it. Mighty nice sweet woman, don’t you think so, Arlene?”

“Yes—I guess so. You sit down, Roy.” She took from him a tray upon which he was placing dishes and bottles dangerously. “I’ll straighten everything up and have it done before you finish that cigar.”

“Guess you will,” he said, obeying. “You can do more and better and quicker’n anybody I ever knew—with those long arms of yours, old lady.” He became reflective. “Yes, sir, I guess it was a pretty good party. The bunch seemed to take to ’em right from the start, don’t you think so, Arlene?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Fine!” he said. “You understand of course the bunch are old friends of ours and I don’t mean I’d ever want to shake ’em; of course not. Our having this new friendship that’s maybe better wouldn’t interfere with the old, and of course I want the old friends to like the new ones. They do like ’em, too; don’t you think so, Arlene?”

“Yes, I expect so.”

“Fine!” he said again, and chuckled. “I expect Ernie and Irene are talking it over in their own apartment right now, the same as we are. I expect they’re both tickled to death over it, Ernie and Irene. Don’t you expect so, Arlene?”

Arlene, busy and capable, moving rapidly about the room and into the kitchenette and back again, said yes, she expected so; but her tone was not assured. She wasn’t convinced that Irene Foot’s present condition was one of delight. Irene’s parting words to host and hostess had been properly effusive; but Arlene had perceptions that roused doubt within her when her husband spoke of the probable happiness now pervading the Foots’ apartment on the fourth floor.

The doubt was a shrewd one, moreover. Mr. and Mrs. Foot had descended to the fourth floor and had entered their new abode without the husband’s perceiving that he was doing all the talking. He was enthusiastic, grateful to the Parkers, pleased with all his new friends and no doubt, too, with himself for being so obviously liked. He talked on gayly, unaware that his beautiful wife’s silence was eloquent; until finally, as he was unfastening his collar before a mirror, he felt her lack of responsiveness. Innocently continuing to observe himself in the glass after he had detached the collar, and pardonably pleased with what he saw, he asked, with almost no misgiving, “Don’t you think it was a pretty big evening for us, Irene?”

She hadn’t begun to undress; she was sitting in one of the apartment’s two upholstered armchairs, and her face wore no expression whatever. She spoke in a flat voice. “Oh, stop looking in that looking-glass! Don’t you ever get tired?”