The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss (43 page)

“There is no more to be said, Mr. Bleecher! Kindly leave my house.”

When Winthrop heard the reverberation of the slammed front door, he stirred himself from his reverie and strode to the table where Bleecher had deposited his ashes. Picking up the small crystal bowl which contained them, he dashed it to pieces in the grate. He heard a short laugh from the hall.

“How you must have enjoyed that!” Of course, it was Rosalie.

On New Year's Day the principal families of Manhattan maintained open house, but it was the custom of the hosts to desert their wives and to join the call-paying throng. Winthrop, when weather permitted, would start in his carriage as low as Canal Street, where a few old relatives still held out, and, proceeding north up Broadway, would make as many as a dozen calls—including one to his own house—ending at his Aunt Joanna Lispenard's on Forty-fifth Street. But on January 1, 1860, he set about these calls with anything but a New Year's spirit. Though careful to keep a holiday look in his eye, he was concentrating on grimmer matters, and his sips of eggnog were mere tokens. Still, there had to be an element of excitement in the execution of a clever plan, and Winthrop was not despondent as he made his way quickly through the crowded drawing rooms and clicked his glass against those of friends.

By the time he had arrived at Lewis Andros's square brownstone house on the corner of Great Jones Street and Broadway, he had accomplished the minor part of his mission. He had placed suggestions in half a dozen important ears. But the big job was still before him. When he spied old George King, the white-haired, tight-lipped, soft-voiced “landlord of the Bowery,” at the end of Andros's crowded picture gallery, where Christian slaves and lions, Western sunsets and hunting Indians looked like canceled postage stamps amid the waving arms and nodding heads, he put down his glass, made his way towards him and led him apart from the others. Mr. King listened, nodding sagely, as Winthrop rapidly and succinctly delivered his message.

“Bleecher's name will come up at the next meeting of the Admissions Committee,” King responded.

“Then I am just in time. I am sure you agree, sir, that we do not wish such a scoundrel in the Patroons'.”

The King eyebrows formed a brief, black triangle, an odd patch under a cloud of white. “If we were to lose every member who had ever lusted after his neighbor's wife, you might be surprised at the gaps in our midst. To tell you the truth, Winthrop, there is a certain solidarity among men in these matters. I am not even sure that the scoundrel, as you call him, would be blackballed on your facts.”

“A neighbor's wife! How about a fellow member's wife?”

Again the triangle appeared, higher, isosceles. “You didn't mention that to be the case.”

“I had hoped it would not be necessary.”

“Ah, but I'm afraid it is. And what is worse, I shall need to know which member.”

Winthrop hesitated. “It's a very delicate matter.”

“But you are asking me to perform a very delicate task.”

“That is true, sir. It is my cousin Charley.”

“Charley Ward! Dear me.” King shook his head to indicate that Winthrop had not improved his case. “Charley Ward is not in very good odor at the club. He imbibes too much, and two years ago there was some trouble about a bill . . .”

“I paid that, Mr. King.”

“Yes, no doubt, my dear fellow, and everyone at the Patroons' admires and respects you—I shouldn't be at all surprised to see you in my chair there one day—but don't you think that these things are better patched up or hushed up? Surely, Charley has nothing to gain by letting this sorry tale get about. Mightn't it make matters even worse for him?”

“Do you imply, sir, that the board might
still
elect Bleecher?”

“Well, it's hard to predict these things.” King's shrug was a bit impatient now. “Mightn't it be better not to risk it? You would lose so much more in defeat than you would ever gain in victory.”

“I am sorry, then, Mr. King, that I cannot spare you my farther information. Bleecher used your daughter Jane as his intermediary. She carried his letters to Annie so that Charley would not know.” Winthrop did not quail before the old man's acidulous stare. “You cannot think that I would say such a thing if I were not sure of my facts.”

Both men now looked across the gallery to where Annie Ward, precariously reunited with her husband, and Jane King were giggling together. Jane was small and dark and sounded very silly. Charley Ward, standing beside them, seemed absorbed in his dark glass.

“I shall take care of the matter you speak of, Ward,” the old man said gratingly. “But God help you if your facts aren't right!”

“Happy New Year, Mr. King,” Winthrop rejoined coolly, with a departing bow. “I hope it will be happier for all of us—but one.”

As Winthrop walked up to Annie, she threw back her head to emit the famous laugh.

“Hello, King Arthur,” she greeted him in her deep voice. “Here are all your court! There may be a few dents in the Round Table, but nothing that can't be hammered out. If one has a good hammer. And you always
do
have one, don't you, dear?”

“I try to please.” Nothing could dampen Winthrop's sudden exhilaration. Here were Annie and Charley together, and his plans for Bleecher were working!

“What have you been saying to my father, Winthrop?” Jane King asked with a little grimace. “I never saw such a scowl.”

“Oh, I'm sure he'll tell you about it,” Winthrop responded cheerfully. “Don't you and he have little father-daughter chats from time to time?”

“Angels protect me!” Jane turned to Annie. “What do you suppose Winthrop's telling him?”

“I hope he's told him what you've been up to,” Charley said to Jane with a sneer. “I daresay the old man won't fancy the kind of service you apply to Annie's journalist friends . . . oh, dear!” Seeing Winthrop's frown, Charley clapped his hand over his mouth with mock dismay. “I promised not to mention a certain name, didn't I? I promised to leave
him
to Cousin Winthrop!”

“And you had better keep that promise, too,” Annie retorted with heat. “Or our so-called reconciliation will be of brief duration.”

Winthrop, seeing Lewis Andros in the doorway, escaped to his side. “Have you a word for me, sir?”

“Yes. Are you calling on the Cranberry Hardys today?”

A wrinkle of scorn slid over Winthrop's face. “I wouldn't normally.”

“Well, I suggest you do. His store takes a full-page advertisement in the
Daily Post
twice a week. A word from him to the editor, and Bleecher's out of a job. I've sent my son-in-law to broach the matter with Hardy. It's up to you to close it.”

Winthrop's nod was military in its abruptness. “I'm on my way, sir.”

Cranberry Hardy had built the largest mansion in Manhattan, larger even than Mr. Astor's. Its four tall stories were encased in white marble, covered by a high mansard roof and studded with clusters of Corinthian columns. Hardy was the greatest merchant of New York and the proprietor of the largest department store, but the money was new and the family plain, and the Ward ladies had never called. Winthrop, however, had met Hardy in Trinity Church business matters and had received his New Year's bid. It was the perfect chance; he was not expected to bring Rosalie.

He donned his friendliest smile as he passed through the crowded reception rooms of the marble mansion. He was careful to betray none of the condescension that he felt for the over-opulent interior, filled with marble statues from American studios in Rome: a Cleopatra, an Augustus, a Miles Standish, two fighting gladiators. Winthrop recognized none of the guests; he wondered if Hardy recruited them from the store's personnel.

He found his host puffing at a large cigar and talking to a small, respectfully listening group of younger men. Hardy was a bald, heavy-jawed man with tiny, glistening eyes. He broke away without a word of apology to his audience when he saw Winthrop. Taking him firmly by the elbow, he propelled him to a corner.

“So you'll call, Winthrop Ward, when you want a favor from the merchant. Is that about the size of it?”

“So it might appear. But it also so happens that I was planning to give myself the pleasure of calling today in any event.”

“Without the Mrs.?”

“My wife is receiving today.”

“How would I know? She didn't ask me.”

“She will next year.”

Hardy snorted. “Well, enough of that. I shouldn't be too rough with a man who comes to bid me a happy New Year. But this business of Jules Bleecher sticks in my craw. What's it to me that the man's a bounder? Why should I care if he hankers after one of your society matrons? Can't you take care of your own? Must I get the poor lecher fired for you?”

“We hoped that you might regard our cause as yours,” Winthrop answered smoothly. “And that you might agree that such a wrong inflicted on a gentleman like my cousin affected all the leaders of the city.”

“I ain't in your crowd, Ward.”

“Isn't that your choice, sir?”

Hardy stared. “Are you telling me that I could get into the Patroons'?”

Never had Winthrop's mind worked so fast. “I am not telling you that you could get in. That would be a question for the Admissions Committee. But I can certainly tell you that I should be glad to write you a letter of endorsement.”

Hardy snickered. “I know that dodge. ‘Dear Board of Admissions: I promised Mr. Cranberry Hardy that I would write a letter for him. This is the letter. Very truly yours, Winthrop Ward.'”

Winthrop breathed in relief. Now he had him! “Mr. Hardy,” he said in a higher tone, “I cannot conceive what there may be in our past relations to justify your impugning my honor. If I were to write for you, it would be to heartily endorse your candidacy. And I should stand by my letter. After what you've just said, of course, there can be no further question of that.”

He turned to go, just slowly enough to give Hardy the time to catch him by the arm. “Don't take offense, Ward. I was too hasty.”

“I'm afraid you were.”

“Maybe one day I'll ask you for that letter. But not yet a bit. In the meantime, thank you. Tell me, what's old Andros going to do if I don't bring him Bleecher's head on a platter? Have the Bank of Commerce call all the store's demand loans?”

“Not at all. Mr. Andros is simply asking a favor from one business leader to another. He may be in a position to return it one day.” Hardy put his thumbs in the pockets of his red waistcoat and balanced to and fro, his lips pursed as if to whistle but emitting no sound. “Well, I confess that I wouldn't mind having a few more friends in your crowd. God knows, Jules Bleecher doesn't mean a damn thing to me, and he's probably a horse's ass anyhow. But I don't much care for the idea of old Lewis Andros sending first his son-in-law and then you. Damn it all, Ward, if Andros wants Bleecher's head, let him come here and ask for it!”

“Today?”

“Well, there's no time like the present, is there?”

“I can't guarantee it, but I'm on my way back to Great Jones Street!”

Ten days later, at nine o'clock in the evening, Winthrop again received Jules Bleecher in the library at Union Square. This time Winthrop sat at his desk, touching his fingertips together, his face impassive, grave. Once again his heart was beating uncomfortably, but this time the discomfort was punctuated with the tickling of a fierce jubilation. Bleecher, with darkened countenance, was walking up and down the Persian carpet.

“My first impulse was to call you out,” he was saying, “but I knew that would do no good. You burghers don't fight. Then I thought of going to your office with a horsewhip. But that would have been playing into your hands. Your friends on the bench would have put me in jail for a year or more. And then, thinking it over, I began to cool off. I began to be even interested in what had happened to me. What sort of a man are you, Winthrop Ward? Or are you a man at all?”

“What I am need not concern us, Bleecher.”

“Oh, but it concerns
me
. I find myself without a job and without a friend in a city of brownstone fronts with locked front doors. How the hell did you do it? And why? You're not her husband. You're not even a very close relation.” Bleecher paused to stare at his silent host. “It couldn't be that you're in love with Annie yourself?” He shook his head slowly as Winthrop failed to move a muscle. “No, that would be impossible for a snowman like you. But I still must ask of someone, as Othello asked of Lodovico:

 

‘Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil

Why he has thus ensnared my soul and body?'”

 

Winthrop's lips tightened in contempt. How typical of the poetaster to turn to Shakespeare in his ranting! “You and I, Bleecher, will be bound to disagree on which is the demi-devil. You have lived much abroad and cannot be expected to understand the customs of simple American Gentlemen who still believe that a marriage vow is sacred and that homes should be protected.”

“But from whom, in the name of God? Your cousin is the one who has threatened his own home from the beginning. Have you any idea, Ward, what his wife has had to put up with?”

“I think I have an idea.”

Something in Winthrop's tone made Bleecher stare at him again. “Maybe you're not a snowman, after all. Be frank, Ward. If you did what you did out of jealousy, I'll forgive you all. I'll even shake your hand!” Winthrop rose. The exhilaration had departed from his chest. “We could talk all night and never understand each other. Let me put my last proposition before you. You have in your possession certain letters from Mrs. Ward and Miss King. Is that not so?”