The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss (10 page)

An office boy appeared at the doorway, saying “This way, sir,” and a handsome, sporty old gentleman of certainly more than eighty years walked briskly into the office.

“Mr. Tower?”

Rutherford jumped to his feet to get him a chair, and the old man nodded vigorously as he took his seat. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, indeed,” he said.

He was really magnificent, Rutherford decided as he sat down again and looked him over. He had thick white hair and long white mustaches, a straight, large, firm, aristocratic nose, and eyes that at least tried to be piercing. His dark, sharply pressed suit covered a figure whose only fault was a small, neat protruding stomach, and he wore a carnation in his buttonhole and a red tie with a huge knot.

“You are in the business of making wills?” the Colonel asked.

“That is my claim.”

“Good. Then I want you to make me one.”

There was a pause while the Colonel stared at him expectantly. Rutherford wondered if he was supposed to make the will up then and there, like a sandwich.

“Well, I guess I'd better ask a few questions,” he said with a small professional smile. “Do you have a will now, sir?”

“Tore it up,” the Colonel said. “Tore them all up. I'm changing my counsel, young man. That's why I'm here.”

Rutherford decided not to press the point. “We might start with your family, then. Do you have a wife, sir? Or children?”

“My wife is dead, God bless her. No children. She had a couple of nieces, but they're provided for.”

“And you sir?”

“Oh, I have some grandnephews.” He shrugged. “Nice young chaps. You know the sort—married, live in the suburbs, have two children, television. No point in leaving them any money. Real money, I mean. Scare them to death. Prevent their keeping down to the Joneses. Fifty thousand apiece will be plenty.”

Rutherford's mouth began to feel pleasantly dry as he leaned forward to pickup a pencil. He quite agreed with the Colonel about the suburbs. “And what did you have in mind, sir, as to the main disposition of your estate?”

“I don't care so much as long as it's spent,” the Colonel exclaimed, slapping the desk. “Money should be spent, damn it! When I was a young man, I knew Ward McAllister. I was a friend of Harry Lehr's, too. Newport. It was something then! Mrs. Fish. The Vanderbilts. Oh, I know, people sneer at them now. They say they were vulgar, aping Europe, playing at being dukes and duchesses, but, by God, they had something to show for their money! Why, do you know, I can remember a ball at the Breakers when they had a footman in livery on every step of the grand stairway. Every step!”

“I guess you wouldn't see that today,” Rutherford said, impressed. “Not even in Texas.”

“Today!” The Colonel gave a snort. “Today they eat creamed chicken and peas at charity dinners at the Waldorf and listen to do-gooders. No, no, the color's quite gone, young man. The color's entirely gone.”

At this, the Colonel sank into a reverie so profound that Rutherford began to worry that he had already lost interest in his will. “Perhaps some charity might interest you?” he suggested cautiously. “Or a foundation? I understand they do considerable spending.”

The Colonel shrugged. “Only way to keep the money out of the hands of those rascals in Washington, I suppose. Republicans, Democrats—they're all alike. Grab, grab.” He nodded decisively. “All right, young man. Make me a foundation.”

Rutherford scratched his head. “What sort of a foundation, sir?”

“What sort? Don't they have to be for world peace or some damn-fool thing? Isn't that the tax angle?”

“Well, not altogether,” Rutherford said, repressing a smile. “Your foundation could be a medical one, for example. Research. Grants to hospitals. That sort of thing.”

“Good. Make me a medical foundation. But, mind you, I'm no Rockefeller or Carnegie. We're not talking about more than twelve or fifteen million.”

Rutherford's head swam. “What—what about your board?” he stammered. “The board of this foundation. Who would you want on that?”

The Colonel looked down at the floor a moment, his lips pursed. When he looked up, he smiled charmingly. “Well, what about you, young man? You seem like a competent fellow. I'd be glad to have you as chairman.”

“Me?”

“Why not? And pick your own board. If I want a man to do a job, I believe in letting him do it his own way.”

Rutherford's heart gradually sank. One simply didn't walk in off the street and give one's fortune to a total stranger—not if one was sane. It was like the day, as a child at his grandmother's table, when she suddenly gave him a gold saltcellar in the form of a naked mermaid with a rounded, smooth figure that he had loved to stroke, only to be told by his mother that it was all in fun, that “Granny didn't mean it.” It had been his introduction to senility. Projects like the Colonel's, he had heard, were common in Wall Street. It was a natural place for the demented to live out their fantasies. Nevertheless, as the old Colonel's imagined gold dissolved like Valhalla, he felt cheated and bitter. Abruptly, he stood up. “It's a most interesting scheme, Colonel,” he said dryly. “I'd like a few days to think it over, if you don't mind. Why don't you leave me your name and address, and I can call you?”

The Colonel seemed surprised. “You mean that's all? For now?”

“If you please, sir, I'm afraid I have an appointment.”

After the old man had placed his card on the desk, Rutherford relentlessly ushered him out to the foyer, where he waited until the elevator doors had safely closed between them. Returning, he told the receptionist that he would not be “in” again to Colonel Hubert.

That night, Rutherford tried to salvage what he could out of his disappointment by making a good story of it to his wife as she sat knitting in the living room of their apartment. Phyllis Tower was one of those plain, tall, angular women who are apt to be tense and sharp before marriage and almost stonily contented thereafter. It never seemed to occur to her that she didn't have everything in the world that a well-brought-up girl could possibly want. Limited, unrapturous, but of an even disposition, she made of New York a respectable small town and believed completely that her husband had inherited an excellent law practice.

She followed his story without any particular show of interest. “Hubert,” she repeated when he had finished. “You don't suppose it was old Colonel Bill Hubert, do you? He's not really mad, you know. Eccentric, but not mad.”

Rutherford felt his heart sink for the second time as he thought of the card left on his desk—“William Lyon Hubert.” He watched her placid knitting with a sudden stab of resentment, but closed his lips tightly. After all, to be made ridiculous was worse than
anything
. Then he said guardedly: “This man's name was Frank. Who is Colonel Bill?”

“Oh, you know, dear. He's that old diner-out who married Grandma's friend Mrs. Jack Tyson. Everyone said she was mad for him right up to the day she died.”

Again his mouth was dry. It was too much, in one day. “And did she leave him that—the
fortune?”

“Well, I don't suppose she left him all of it,” she said, breaking a strand of yam. “There were the Tysons, you know. But he still keeps up the house on Fifth Avenue. And
that
takes something.”

“Yes,” he murmured, a vast impression of masonry clouding his mind. “Yes, I suppose it must.”

“What's the matter, dear?” she asked. “You look funny. You don't suppose you could have been wrong about the name, do you? Are you sure it was Frank?”

“Quite sure.”

Buried in the evening newspaper, he pondered his discovery. And then, in a flash, he remembered. Of course! Mrs. Jack Tyson had become Mrs. W. L. Hubert! What devil was it that made him forget these things, which Phyllis remembered so effortlessly? And fifteen million—wasn't that just the slice that a grateful widow
might
have left him?

The next morning, after a restless night, Rutherford looked up Colonel Hubert's number and tried to reach him on the telephone, but this, it turned out, was far from easy. The atmosphere of the great house, as conveyed to him over the line, was, to say the least, confused. Three times he called, and three times a mild, patient, uncooperative voice, surely that of an ancient butler, discreetly answered. Rutherford was obliged to spell and respell his name. He was then switched to an extension and to a maid who evidently regarded the ring of the telephone as a personal affront. While they argued, a third voice, far away and faintly querulous, was intermittently heard, and finally, on the third attempt, an old man called into the telephone “What? What?” very loudly. Then, abruptly, someone hung up, and Rutherford heard again the baffling dial tone. He decided to go up to the house.

When he got out of the cab, he took in with renewed pleasure the great façade. He knew it, of course. Everyone who ever walked on the east side of Central Park knew the eclectic architecture of the old Tyson house, rising from a Medicean basement through stories of solemnified French Renaissance to its distinguishing feature, a top-floor balcony in the form of the Porch of the Maidens. To Rutherford, it was simply the kind of house that one built if one was rich. He would have been only too happy to be able to do the same.

Fortunately, it proved as easy to see Colonel Hubert as it was difficult to get him on the telephone. The old butler who opened the massive grilled door, and whose voice Rutherford immediately recognized, led him without further questions, when he heard he was actually dealing with the Colonel's lawyer, up the gray marble stairway that glimmered in the dark hall and down a long corridor to the Colonel's study. This was Italian; Rutherford had a vague impression of red damask and tapestry as he went up to the long black table at which an old man was sitting, reading a typewritten sheet. He sighed in relief. It
was
the right colonel.

“Good morning, Colonel. I'm Tower. Rutherford Tower. Do you remember me? About your will?”

The Colonel looked up with an expression of faint puzzlement, but smiled politely. “My dear fellow, of course. Pray be seated.”

“I wanted to tell you that I've thought it over, and that I'm all set to start,” Rutherford went on quickly, taking a seat opposite the Colonel. “There are a few points, however, I'd like to straighten out.”

The Colonel nodded several times. “Ah, yes, my will,” he said. “Exactly. Very good of you.”

“I want to get the names of your grandnephews. I think it advisable to leave them more substantial legacies in view of the fact that the residue is going to your foundation. And then there's the question of executors . . .” He paused, wondering if the Colonel was following him. The old man was now playing with a large bronze turtle—the repository of stamps and paper clips—raising and lowering its shell. “That's a handsome bronze you have there,” Rutherford said uncertainly.

“Isn't it?” the Colonel said, holding it up. “I'd like Sophie to have it. She always used to admire it. You might take her name down. Sophie Winters, my wife's niece. Or did she take back her own name after her last divorce?” He looked blankly at Rutherford. “Anyway, she's living in Biarritz. Unless she sold that house that Millie left her. Did she, do you know?”

Rutherford took a deep breath. Whatever happened, he must not be impatient again. “If I might suggest, sir, we could take care of the specific items more easily in a letter. A letter to be left with your will.”

The Colonel smiled his charming smile. “I'd like to do it the simple way myself, of course. But would it be binding? Isn't that the point? Would it be binding?”

“Well, not exactly,” Rutherford admitted, “but, after all, such a request is hardly going to be ignored—”

“How can we be sure? Do you see?” the Colonel said, smiling again. “Now, I tell you what we'll do. I'll ring for my man, Tomkins, and we'll get some luggage tags to tie to the objects marked for the different relatives.”

Rutherford sat helpless as the Colonel rang, and told Tomkins what he wanted. When the buder returned with the tags, he gave them to the Colonel and then took each one silently from him as the old man wrote a name on it. He then proceeded gravely to tie it to a lamp or a chair or to stick it with Scotch tape to the frame of a picture or some other object. Both he and the Colonel seemed quite engrossed in their task and entirely unmindful of Rutherford, who followed them about the study, halfheartedly writing down the name of the fortunate niece who was to receive the Luther Terry
Peasant Girl
or the happy cousin who was to get the John Rogers group. By lunchtime, the study looked like a naval vessel airing its signal flags. The Colonel surveyed the whole with satisfaction.

“Well!” he exclaimed, turning to Rutherford. “I guess that's that for today! All work and no play, you know. Come back tomorrow, my dear young man, and we'll do the music room.”

Rutherford, his pockets rusding with useless notes, walked down Fifth Avenue, too overwrought to go immediately back to the office. He stopped at his club and had an early drink in the almost empty bar, calculating how long at this rate it would take them to do the whole house. And what about the one on Long Island? And how did he know there mightn't be another in Florida? It was suddenly grimly clear that unless he managed to get the Colonel out of this distressing new mood of particulars and back to his more sweeping attitude of the day before, there might never be any will at all. And, looking at his own pale face in the mirror behind the bar, he drew himself up and ordered another drink. What was it that Clitus Tilney always said was the mark of a good lawyer—creative imagination?

At his office, after lunch, he went to work with a determination that he had not shown since the Benzedrine weekend, fifteen years before, when he took his bar examinations. He kept his office door closed, and snapped “Keep out, please!” to each startled young man who banged it open to get to the real estate safe. He even had the courage to seize one of them, a Mr. Baitsell, and demand his services. When Baitsell protested, Rutherford asserted himself as he had not done since his uncle's death. “I'm sorry. This is an emergency,” he said.