Edith and John Part 14

But, ho! Let us smile, instead of crying at their follies. For no nation ever yet raised a monument to men representing such principles.

CHAPTER IX.

A THANKSGIVING PARTY.

In Oakland avenue there stands another mansion. It is a lofty pile of brownish stone, and is luxuriously complete in its every detail.

Standing as it does on a prominent hill, it comes in for a great share of excellent praise for its beauty and magnificence, and is cla.s.sed as a close rival of that other mansion in Highland avenue.

Here lived, when in the effulgence of his power and influence in the complicated machinery of a big city, one Jacob Cobb--a short, squatty, round-faced, blue-eyed, clear-complexioned man of business, so far as anybody knew about his worldly affairs. Here his wife Betty, and daughters, Susanna and Marjorie, entertained the eclat of society according to the a la mode of fas.h.i.+on; and many were the gay parties, b.a.l.l.s and dinners that they gave for the select few const.i.tuting their circle of acquaintances.

Charming, indeed, were these great affairs, unrivaled in all their appointments in the high-toned residential district in this unequaled city of social madness and financial debauchery. Oh, yes; charming they were, indeed, to those select of the very select who pandered to Mammon in the workaday hours and to Bacchus in the time of refreshment.

Aye, aye; here came the proud, the haughty, the vapid, the insipid; the hilarious strumpets of swelldom, the strutting monstrosities of fas.h.i.+on, the pompous parrots of mimicry; the glib scandal-mongers, the gregarious loiterers over afternoon teas; the straight-laced of the kid-gloved gentry, the sn.o.bs, the prudes, the fops; the blase young men, the genteel puppets, the vacuous gentlemen, the bombasts, the old curmudgeons; the doting mothers, the innocent maidens; with now and then a sprinkling of the good, the sage, the savant, as a savory condiment to the mess of social pottage the Cobbs dished out of their pot of ethics.

These events were wonderful achievements in the life of Mrs. Cobb, and Mr. Cobb paid the bills without a murmur or complaint.

Mrs. Cobb was sumptuously independent in the conduct of these affairs.

All the glories of the Queen of Henry of Navarre could not equal her glorious accomplishments in the one great and only ambition of her life--s.h.i.+ning in society. Mr. Cobb was b.u.mptuously indifferent as to how his wife shone, just so she shone, and that in her s.h.i.+ning she did not obfuscate him altogether.

Mrs. Cobb was chunky, like her husband. She was the quintessence of charm. She was the substantive mood of the present tense of the verb to be. She was gay, humorous, and a true leader--in her line of activity.

She was near the middle time of life, but she had lost little of her beauty. Her dark brown eyes snapped like sparks of fire, and her cheeks glowed pink when she was enjoying the company around her; when in a different mood, she ever had the fine quality of knowing how to be pleasant when most bored.

Mrs. Cobb's afternoons were of course mild affairs, but still very grand to all those idle ladies who deemed it a distinctive honor to receive an invitation, and a compliment to their refinement to be there.

Accomplishment and refinement! O, fudge!

Mrs. Cobb must celebrate Thanksgiving day. She and her husband must offer up their oblation, in their own unhampered fas.h.i.+on, to the gracious Lord who had blessed them with so much to be thankful for. And they did celebrate.

It was to be an unsurpa.s.sed dinner at seven, a violation of the rule of etiquette for such state affairs; but as dancing was to follow, the order of formality was modified, so that the exhilarating whirl could thereby be prolonged. She, therefore, sent out the exact number of fifty invitations, equally distributed among ladies and gentlemen. The dinner was served in the great dining room, dazzling with its silver, gold, gla.s.s and polished wood, with carnations and roses burdening the air with their mesmeric fragrance.

Promptly at the hour of seven, Mr. Cobb, with Mrs. Cobb on his arm, struck out through the maze of palms and smilax and other greenery, for the feasting board. Arriving at the table, with her husband, she delivered him at the head, and she took a seat on his right hand (all contrary to form, but she was original, if anything), with her favorite bachelor friend, Miram Monroe, on Mr. Cobb's left, as a cold balancing weight to old man Cobb's ebulliting spirits. Next to Mr. Monroe sat Miss Edith Jarney. Jasper Cobb sat opposite Miss Jarney, and by his side was Miss Star Barton; and so on down the long table sat the other sublunaries of the Cleopatra of fas.h.i.+on, the number not stopping till a second long table was filled with similarly handsomely gowned ladies, and gloomily groomed gentlemen, with the Cobb girls sitting among them in peek-a-boo fluffiness.

"Mr. Monroe," said Mrs. Cobb, after having made some trifling remarks to some of the other guests, showing her white teeth with the vivaciousness of a young girl, "you appear not to be enjoying yourself tonight."

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Cobb," he replied, with a board-like stiffness, "I am delighted."

"Mrs. Cobb," interjected her husband, beaming one of his sly winks at her, "you should not tease Mr. Monroe tonight. Just behold the fair young lady he has by his side!"

"Mr. Cobb, you are so jolly tonight," she answered. "Mr. Monroe did not salute me when he arrived this evening, so I am in ill-humor with him."

"Beg your pardon, Mrs. Cobb," said the ghostly Monroe. "The fact is I had no opportunity. Sure, madam, I would not slight you for the world, did you give me the opportunity."

"Mr. Monroe," said Mrs. Cobb, in her best humor, "you must get rid of your rigidity of expression, or I will be compelled to get another man, younger than you, to take your place. I am now almost tempted to put my son in your place; Jasper, you know."

"I will not hear to that, Mrs. Cobb," interrupted Edith. "Why, I shall attempt to enliven Mr. Monroe." Then to that sedate imbecile, she said: "Mr. Monroe, cheer up. See, every gentleman present but you is in the fullness of his grandiose verboseness tonight. Cheer up, and be alive for once!"

Mr. Monroe turned a lethargic smile upon Edith, and whispered, loud enough for his near auditors to hear: "Miss Jarney will do me the pleasure, I am sure, of reaching me the salt."

"Why, with pleasure--salt--salt," said Edith, with a gay and mischievous laugh. "This man--waiter, waiter--wants some salt to salt down his opinion of women's rights."

"Good, good!" applauded Mrs. Cobb. "Now, what are your opinions of women's rights, Mr. Monroe?"

"I am salting them down," he replied, sadly, as he began to spray most liberally his salad, which looked, before he ceased, as if it would be in a brine of thick salineness. "My opinion of women is--aside from my mother--that they are a lot of soap bubbles."

"You bad man," said Mrs. Cobb, lowering her eyebrows; "that is no definition. Women's rights--what is your opinion?"

"They haven't any rights, save what the men choose to give them," he whispered looking at Edith, with as much expression as a monkey.

"You bleak old bachelor," retorted Mrs. Cobb. "Edith will never have you for saying that."

Edith turned a wrathful glance upon Mrs. Cobb, and gave a scornful laugh at the jest. Then she turned to Mr. Monroe, who had ceased in his rapid-fire eating long enough to look at her like a plaster cast might look.

"Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, who had been earnestly engaged with Miss Barton, paying her the closest attention with his palavering nonsense, "I am jealous of Mr. Monroe."

"Indeed," returned Edith.

"I am, indeed," he answered, and the impropriety of his remark struck Edith's ear discordantly.

"What a great teaser you are, Jasper," said Mrs. Cobb.

"A chip of the old block," said Mr. Cobb, smiling at his joke, as he took it to be.

"Jasper does not mean a word of it," said Mrs. Cobb, at the same time hoping that he did.

"With due consideration for my friend, Mr. Monroe," said Edith, "I will turn my attention to him."

Then Edith summoned up all her latent subst.i.tutes for naturalness, and bore down upon Mr. Monroe with such a load of banter and mirthful sayings that that gentleman eventually smiled, to the surprise of everybody. Then it became alarmingly noticeable that Mr. Monroe was paying close attention to Edith's highly interesting but entirely a.s.sumed form of gabbling--so much so, in fact, that it was feared by Mrs. Cobb once that he was on the point of taking Edith in his unloving embrace, and running away with her. But Mrs. Cobb saved him from this duncely possibility by saying:

"Be careful, Mr. Monroe, or you will do something desperate directly!"

Mr. Monroe quickly recovered himself and became a living sphynx again.

"Hah, Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, catching the trend of things Edithward, "now, I am jealous."

Miss Edith turned to him, with pretended hautiness, and should liked to have said, "Impudence," but forbore that unlady-like expression in deference to her own good breeding. She was relieved, however, from making any answer to him by Mr. Cobb, who arose at that critical moment and announced, most graciously and grandiloquently, that the table would be cleared of the women and menu to make way for cigars and wine.

All of which orders being carried into execution, as per custom, the waiters proceeded to serve those two refres.h.i.+ng desserts. They sat long over their cigars, and longer over their wine--till the air was an ultramarine blueness, and the men in tipsy joyousness.

Mr. Monroe was very thirsty, it turned out, from the number of gla.s.ses that he drained, which had an happy effect upon him. For, with the disappearance of the wine down his esophagus, came a set grin on his face, akin to the smile of a disgruntled ghost. Young Cobb, aside from smoking enormously, imbibed freely, much against his personal appearance and qualifications to enter much farther into the pleasures of the evening. All the other gentlemen, including old man Cobb, entered into the libations with rare partiality--except Mr. Jarney, who, it was seen, refrained from partic.i.p.ating in the dispatching of the invigorating liquor, a const.i.tutional habit with him. This trait was looked upon by his now inebriating friends as a high breach of etiquette in not sipping wine after breaking bread at the home of a friend, and was an affront not to be condoned on such an occasion. But Mr. Jarney, while not approving of such baccha.n.a.lian practices, as far as he and his family were concerned, looked askance at them, so long as they were confined to others, and he made no protest.

After the free lubrication of their unsettled nerves and muddled heads, the men arose to join the ladies, who in the meantime had dressed for the ball, now to follow.

When all was in readiness and the band had struck up a softly insinuating waltz, Mr. and Mrs. Cobb wheeled out on the floor and glided around the room with the agility of two sixteen-year-olds. Mr. and Mrs.

Jarney came after them, stately and graceful in their evolutions. Then came the ghost--Monroe--looking like a piece of burning asbestos, as a result of the wine, with his arm around the waist of Miss Edith. Then came young Cobb, whispering words of foolishness into the ear of Miss Barton, as they went round and round in a delirious whirl--to him. Then came all the other ladies and gentlemen, the latter suffering wondrously in the advanced stage of booziness. No, we will not cast all the shame upon the men in their journey of giddiness, for some of the bewitching woman, ah, and even unbewitching, too, presumed it their blessed privilege to partake of a little of the tonic of joy, as an equalizer to the wabbling motions of their husbands or friends.

Number after number, in this wise, was pulled off, each time the bibbers adding more and more wine as a wash down after each exhausting exhibition. So in consequence, after awhile, man after man began to fall by the wayside, and call feebly upon the good Samaritan: Bromo-seltzer, or bromo-something else: to keep them in condition to continue the mad seance. But the little imp Wine, once he secrets himself in the corpuscles of the blood, is a pretty difficult being to placate in so short a time. Not satisfied was he in laying hold of the faultless gentlemen in spike-tailed coats and immaculate bosoms, sparkling with all the iridescence of the purchasing power of money, but he sought out some of the decolleted dames and gauzyed damsels, and enveloped them in his opiatic arms. Even Mr. and Mrs. Cobb were not spared from his envelopment; for, after the fourth set, they became so maudlin in their hilarity that the sober servants were called upon to lead them out of the ballroom, from which they went, in a great state of regal debility, into the seclusion of their own bedchamber, there to sleep away their Thanksgiving potation.