The Perfect Host (24 page)

I said to myself, “Henry, my boy, stop staring at the lady. You’ll embarrass her.”

She turned to me just then and gave me a small smile. Her eyes were widely spaced, and the green of deep water. “I don’t mind,
really,” she said, and I realized I had spoken aloud. I took refuge in a grin, which she answered, and then her left eyelid dropped briefly, and she looked away. It was a wink, but such a slight, tasteful one! If she had used both eyelids, it wouldn’t have been a wink at all; she would have looked quickly down and up again. It was an understanding, we’re-together little wink, a tactful, gracious, wonderful, marvelous, do you begin to see how I felt?

The party progressed. I once heard somebody decline an invitation to one of Ferris’s parties on the grounds that he had
been
to one of Ferris’s parties. I had to be a little more liberal than that, but tonight I could see the point. It was because of Cordelia. She sat still, her chin on the back of her hand, her fingers curled against her white throat, her eyes shifting lazily from one point in the room to another. She did not belong in this conglomeration of bubbleheads. Look her—part Sphinx, part Pallas Athene …

Ferris was doing his Kasbah act, with the bath towel over his head. He will next imitate Clyde McCoy’s trumpet, I thought. He will then inevitably put that lampshade on his head, curl back up his upper lip, and be a rickshaw coolie. Following which he will do the adagio dance in which he will be too rough with some girl who will be too polite to protest his big shiny wet climaxing kiss.

I looked at Cordelia and I looked at Ferris and I thought, no, Henry; that won’t do. I drew a deep breath, leaned over to the girl, and said, “If there were a fire in here, do you know the quickest way out?”

She shook her head expectantly.

“I’ll show you,” I said, and got up. She hesitated a charming moment, rose from her chair as with helium, murmured something polite to her companion, and came to me.

There were French doors opening on to the wide terrace porch which also served the front door. We went through them. The air was fragrant and cool, and there was a moon. She said nothing about escaping from fires. The French doors shut out most of the party noises—enough so that we could hear night sounds. We looked at the sky. I did not touch her.

After a bit she said in a voice of husky silver,

It was simple and it was perfect. I looked at her in wonderment. “Who wrote that?”

“Christina Rosset-ti,” she said meticulously, looking at the moon. The light lay on her face like dust, and motes of it were caught in the fine down at the side of her jaw.

“I’m Henry Folwell and I know a place where we could talk for about three hours if we hurry,” I said, utterly amazed at myself; I don’t generally operate like this.

She looked at the moon and me, the slight deep smile playing subtly with her lips. “I’m Cordelia Thorne, and I couldn’t think of it,” she said. “Do you think you could get my wrap without anyone seeing? It’s a—”

“I know what it’s,” I said, sprinting. I went in through the front door, located her coat, bunched it up small, skinned back outside, shook it out and brought it to her. “You’re still here,” I said incredulously.

“Did you think I’d go back inside?”

“I thought the wind, or the gods, or my alarm clock would take you away.”

“You said that beautifully,” she breathed, as I put the coat around her shoulders. I thought I had too. I notched her high up in my estimation as a very discerning girl.

We went to a place called the Stroll Inn where a booth encased us away from all of the world and most of its lights. It was wonderful. I think I did most of the talking. I don’t remember all that passed between us but I remember these things, and remember them well.

I was talking about Ferris and the gang he had over there every Saturday night; I checked myself, shrugged, and said, “Oh well.
Chacun à son goût
, as they say, which means—”

And she stopped me. “Please. Don’t translate. It couldn’t be phrased as well in English.”

I had been about to say “—which means Jack’s son has the gout.” I felt sobered and admiring, and just sat and glowed at her.

And then there was that business with the cigarette. She stared at it as it lay in the ashtray, followed it with her gaze to my lips and back as I talked, until I asked her about it.

She said in a soft, shivery voice, “I feel just like that cigarette.” I, of course, asked her why.

“You pick it up,” she whispered, watching it. “You enjoy some of it. You put it down and let it—smolder. You like it, but you hardly notice it …”

I thereupon made some incredibly advanced protestations.

And there was the business about her silence—a long, faintly amused, inward-turning silence. I asked her what she was thinking about.

“I was ruminating,” she said in a self-deprecating, tragic voice, “on the futility of human endeavor,” and she smiled. And when I asked her what she meant, she laughed aloud and said, “Don’t you know?” And I said, “Oh. That,” and worshipped her. She was deep. I’d have dropped dead before I’d have admitted I didn’t know what specifically she was driving at.

And books. Music, too. When were at the stage where I had both her hands and for minutes on end our foreheads were so close together you couldn’t have slipped a swizzle stick between them, I murmured, “We seem to think so much alike.… Tell me Cordelia, have you read Cabell?”

She said, “Well, really,” in such a tone that, so help me, I apologized. “Lovely stuff,” I said, recovering.

She looked reminiscently over my shoulder, smiling her small smile. “So lovely.”

“I knew you’d read him,” I said, struck with sweet thunder. “And Faulkner—have you read any of Faulkner?”

She gave me a pitying smile. I gulped and said, “Ugly, isn’t it?”

She looked reminiscently over my other shoulder, a tiny frown flickering in her flawless brow. “So ugly,” she said.

In between times she listened importantly to my opinions on Faulkner and Cabell. And Moussorgsky and Al Jolson. She was wonderful, and we agreed in everything.

And, hours later, when I stood with her at her door, I couldn’t do a thing but shuffle my feet and haul on the hem of my jacket. She gave me her hand gravely, and I think I stopped breathing. I said, “Uh, well,” and couldn’t improve on it. She swept her gaze from my eyes to my mouth, from side to side across my forehead; it was a tortured “No!” her slightly turning head articulated, and her whole body moved minutely with it. She let go my hand, turned slowly toward the door, and then, with a cry which might have been a breath of laughter and which might have been a sob, she pirouetted back to me and kissed me—not on the mouth, but in the hollow at the side of my neck. My fuse blew with a snap and a bright light and, as it were, incapacitated my self-starter. She moved deftly then, and to my blurred vision, apparently changed herself into a closed door. I must have stood looking at that door for twenty minutes before I turned and walked dazedly home.

I saw her five more times. Once it was a theater party, and we all went to her house afterward, and she showed great impartiality. One it was a movie, and who should we run into afterward but her folks. Very nice people, I liked them and I think they liked me. Once it was the circus; we stayed very late, dancing at a pavilion, and yet the street was still crowded outside her home when we arrived there, and a handshake had to do. The fourth time was at a party to which I went alone because she had a date that night. It devolved that the date was the same party. The way she came in did things to me. It wasn’t the fact that she was with somebody else; I had no claim on her, and the way she acted with me made me feel pretty confident. It was the way she came in, slipping out of her wrap, which—caught on her—bracelet, freezing her in a profile while framed in the doorway.… I don’t want to think about it. Not now.

I did think about it; I left almost immediately so that I could. I went home down and slumped down in an easy chair and convinced myself about coincidences, and was almost back to normal when Dad came into the room.

“Argh!”
he said.

I leapt out of the chair and helped him to pick himself up off the middle of the rug. “Blast it, boy,” he growled, “Why don’t you turn on a light? What are you doing home? I thought you were out with your goddess. Why can’t you pick up your big bony feet, or at least leave them somewhere else besides in the doorway of a dark room?” He dusted off his knees. He wasn’t hurt. It’s a deep-piled rug with two cushions under it. “You’re a howling menace. Kicking your father.” Dad had mellowed considerably with the years. “What’s the matter with you anyhow? She do you something? Or are you beginning to have doubts?” He wore glasses now, but he saw plenty. He’d ribbed me about Cordelia as can only a man who can’t stand ribbing himself.

“It was a lousy party,” I said.

He turned on a light, “What’s up, Henry?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing. I haven’t had a fight with her, if that’s what you’re digging for.”

“All right, then,” he said, picking up the paper.

“There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s one of the most wonderful people I know, that’s all.”

“Sure she is.” He began to read the paper.

“She’s deep, too. A real wise head, she is. You wouldn’t expect to find that in somebody as young as that. Or as good-looking.” I wished he would put his eyebrows down.

“She’s read everything worth reading,” I added as he turned a page a minute later.

“Marvelous,” he said flatly.

I glared at him. “What do you mean by that?” I barked. “What’s marvelous?”

He put the paper down on his knee and smoothed it. His voice was gentle. “Why Cordelia, of course. I’m not arguing with you, Henry.”

“Yes you—well, anyway, you’re not saying what you think.”

“You don’t want to hear what I think.”

“I know what I want!” I flared.

He crackled the paper nervously. “My,” he said as if to himself, “this is worse than I thought.” Before I could interrupt, he said, “Half of humanity doesn’t know what it wants or how to find out. The other half knows what it wants, hasn’t got it, and is going crazy trying to convince itself that it already has it.”

“Very sound,” I said acidly. “Where do you peg me?”

He ignored this. “The radio commercial which annoys me most,” he said with apparent irrelevancy, “is the one which begins, ‘There are some things so good they don’t have to be improved.’ That annoys me because there isn’t a thing on God’s green earth which couldn’t stand improvement. By the same token, if you find something which looks to you as if it’s unimprovable, then either it’s a mirage or you’re out of your mind.”

“What has that to do with Cordelia?”

“Don’t snap at me, son,” Dad said quietly. “Let’s operate by the rule of reason here. Or must I tear your silly head off and stuff it down your throat?”

I grinned in spite of myself. “Reason prevails, Dad. Go on.”

“Now, I’ve seen the girl, and you’re right; she’s striking to look at. Extraordinary. In the process of raving about that you’ve also told me practically every scrap of conversation you’ve ever had with her.”

“I have?”

“You’re like your mother; you talk too much,” he smiled. “Don’t get flustered. It was good to listen to. Shows you’re healthy. But I kept noticing one thing in these mouthings—all she’s read, all the languages she understands, all the music she likes—and that is that you have never quoted her yet as saying a single declarative sentence. You have never quoted her as opening a conversation, changing the subject, mentioning something you both liked
before
you mentioned it, or having a single idea that you didn’t like.” He shrugged. “Maybe she is a good listener. They’re—”

“Now wait a minute—”

“—They’re rare anywhere in the world, especially in this house,” he went on smoothly. “Put your hands back in your pockets, Henry, or sit on ’em until I’ve finished. Now, I’m not making any charges about Cordelia. There aren’t any. She’s wonderful. That’s the trouble. For Pete’s sake, get her to make a flat statement.”

“She has, plenty of times,” I said hotly. “You just don’t know her! Why, she’s the most—”

He put up his hands and turned his head as if I were aiming a bucket of water at him. “Shut up!” he roared. I shut. “Now,” he said, “Listen to me. If you’re right, you’re right and there’s no use defending anything. If you’re wrong you’d better find it out soon before you get hurt. But I don’t want to sit here and watch the process. I know how you tick, Henry. By gosh, I ought to. You’re like I was. You and I, we get a hot idea and go all out for it, all speed and no control. We spill off at the mouth until we have the whole world watching, and when the idea turns sour the whole world gets in its licks, standing around laughing. Keep your beautiful dreams to yourself. If they don’t pan out, you can always kick yourself effectively enough, without having every wall-eyed neighbor helping you.”

A picture of Mr. Bohackus with the protruding china-blue eyes, our neighbor of long ago, crossed my mind, and I chuckled.

“That’s better, Henry,” said Dad. “Listen. When a fellow gets to be a big, grown-up man, which is likely to happen at my age, or never, he learns to make a pile of his beloved failures and consign them to the flames, and never think of them again. But it ought to be a private bonfire.”

It sounded like sense, particularly the part about not having to defend if it was right enough to be its own defense. I said, “Thanks, Dad. I’ll have to think. I don’t know if I agree with you … I’ll tell you something, though. If Cordelia turned out to be nothing but a phonograph, I’d consider it a pleasure to spend the rest of my life buying new records for her.”

“That’d be fine,” said Dad, “if it was what you wanted. I seriously doubt that it is just now.”