The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss (61 page)

I found it pleasurably warming, but it also dug an odd little crater of desolation somewhere in the root of my being. For I could never be as they, or really included by them. They shared a fraternity of looks and sports and jokes and easy masculinity of which I could never be a true part. At a later date, Bob, the younger brother, would tell me that he recognized only three types among his male acquaintance: “swell guys, shits and genial shits.” He didn't say it, but I knew the only category I could aspire to was the third.

Jack, who was slightly more serious than his younger brother, brought up the subject of Mr. Dunbar's great repute.

“Dad tells us, George, that you know Mr. Dunbar better than anyone else does in the whole firm. Even than Dad. Do you consider him one of the great men of our time?”

“The greatest,” I replied stoutly.

“More so than Theodore Roosevelt?”

“Even than him.”

There were surprised looks around the table. Mr. Leslie, after all, had been a member of the ex-President's administration.

Mrs. Leslie now spoke for the first time. “Mr. Manville, no doubt, is speaking of financial greatness. Surely he will concede that Mr. Roosevelt is the greater
man
.”

“Not even at the risk of disagreeing with my hostess.”

“Aren't you forgetting an essential quality in greatness? Theodore proved himself a hero at San Juan.”

Was the Christian name meant to subdue me? I was defiant. “You agree then with Brooks Adams, Mrs. Leslie?” What, after all, had I to lose? “That war and faith are the marks of a high culture? And that we live in the dark age of the goldbug?”

She looked at me now with a first flicker of interest. But it was just a flicker. “You and I, Mr. Manville, are surely the only ones of this benighted group who have read
The Law of Civilization and Decay
. Yes, I feel there's something in his theory.”

But the glance that she bestowed on her sons robbed me at once of my new consideration. What could she think of a world where such a one as I might outrank two such strapping fellows?

“Lees Dunbar,” she continued now in what was almost a growl, “never fought in a war. And he was of an age to have done so.”

“My wife has always been a breather of fire and brimstone,” Mr. Leslie intervened hastily to divert the discussion from so disloyal a turn. “She would rather have had Mr. Dunbar in uniform even if it would have put him on the wrong side!”

But I felt quite justified now to use my hostess's weapons against her. I declined his polite invitation to make a joke out of it.

“President Roosevelt's father did not fight in that war, either. And what is more, he bought a substitute.”

“There you are, Ma!” Bob exclaimed. “He got you on that one!” His father again changed the subject as his wife indignantly shook her head. I felt, perhaps unreasonably, that I had been almost a success.

When I walked again with Marion the following morning, however, I was much less sure of this, at least as far as she was concerned. She was pensive and responded to my remarks with short replies which effectively killed each new subject offered. At last I challenged her.

“You're different today. Did I say or do something wrong last night?”

“Oh, no, not at all. You were very lively and amusing. And I know that's not so easy with a family like mine.”

“But they're charming!”

“You found Mother charming? You interest me.”

“Well, perhaps that's not just the right word for her. Deep persons may have little use for charm.”

We had come out of the woods to a clearing in the center of which was a pile of rocks which offered inviting seats. At least they invited Marion to pause.

“Shall we stop here for a bit, George? I want to talk to you.”

She seated herself on one of the higher rocks. Then she gazed across the meadow for a full minute before she spoke, very articulately and coolly, except for an occasional throb in her tone. She must have prepared her speech. Perhaps she had risen early to do so.

“I had a sense last night that Daddy and the boys were throwing me at you. Now, why should they wish to do that, you will ask. I'm not exactly the last leaf on the tree. I'm only twenty-three and certainly not ugly. No, please don't interrupt. Let me talk. What has happened is that I've been through a wretchedly unhappy time. I fell in love with a man called Malcolm Dudley. He was twenty years older than me and had a problem with drink and something of a poor reputation with women. And he had no job—only enough money for a bachelor's life of sports. Obviously not the beau that Daddy ordered. But oh, George, he had charm! Talk about birds lured from trees! And the sweetest nature in the world. And he loved me. He really loved me!”

I saw by the caged wildness of her eyes how fiercely that love must have been returned. I was even nearly persuaded that the wretched Dudley could not have been altogether a sham. Had he cultivated her for her fortune and been caught himself?

“He saw perfectly that he was a hopeless match. He even shed tears over the fact that he had got us both into such an emotional state. Mother said she'd rather see me in my coffin than wedded to such a man. And then Daddy killed the whole thing. He hired a detective who discovered that Malcolm had an illegitimate child by a girl in Philadelphia. Of a good family, but poor. Daddy confronted us both with this. He offered to make a settlement on Malcolm if he would marry the girl and give his child a name. Malcolm turned to me and said he would do as I told him. What choice did I have?”

What could I say to
that?
I was dumbfounded that any father could have known his daughter so well. For indeed there was a Roman quality to Marion. One could hardly imagine her in any role but the heroine.

“And
did
Dudley marry the girl?”

“He did. He agreed it was his duty. There was a terrible scene. He wept.”

“He seems to have done his share of that.”

“Don't malign him! He's a man of the deepest feeling.”

“But what sort of marriage will his be? And if he had a drinking problem to boot . . .”

“I know, I know!” She clasped her hands in agony. “It may all be god-awful, but at least that child will have a name.”

I had no need to probe further into the well-deserved purgatory of Mr. Dudley. I allowed some moments to pass in which I might have been musing on the sadness of her story. Then I asked:

“And what does all this have to do with your being thrown at
me?
”

“Well, you see, I told my family that I could never love again.”

“Oh, come now.”

“And I can't!” Her tone was passionate. “You must believe that!”

I shrugged. “Anyway, you convinced your family of it.” I made my tone bitter. “And they decided you'd better meet a man who wouldn't mind? Who would be satisfied with other considerations? Such as money and social position, not to mention interest in the firm? And while they were at it, hadn't they better pick a comer? Possibly even a future partner?”

“Oh, George, don't,” she pleaded. “I'm so ashamed. I didn't see it that way when Daddy asked you down here. It wasn't until I saw how he and the boys made up to you at dinner that I realized what was going on. Oh, please go home now—I'll take you to the train—and in the future try to think of me as kindly as possible.”

It was at that moment that I may have fallen in love with Marion. That is, as much in love as my stunted nature allowed. I also saw that she was precisely the wife I needed, from every point of view I could
then
imagine. How could my clear mind not take that in? That I might, for the asking, have everything: love, position, wealth! Everything, I might have added had I not been so green, but this young woman's love.

“Let me propose something, Marion. I shall go back to town now, as you suggest. But can we meet again with the promise that neither of us will ever mention Malcolm Dudley or your father's little project vis-à-vis myself again?”

“You like me well enough to want to do that?”

“Why don't you give me the chance to find out? There'd be no commitment on either side.”

Oh, how her large brown eyes peered and peered at me! Marion knew that she hadn't fathomed me at all.

“Well, why not?” she demanded, almost wearily, at last. “What does either of us really have to lose?”

My courtship of Marion was a curious one. I could have asked, like Richard III, if ever woman had been that way won. It was all based on the premise that she was no longer capable of loving, that her emotional capital had been too lavishly spent on Mr. Dudley to have left more than a trickle of income to water, with a bare adequacy, any romance conjured up to avoid the aridity of old-maidhood. I did not for a minute believe that her capital had been so depleted, but it suited my purpose that
she
should believe it and that I offered the best practical solution to escaping the pity of a too loving family.

She liked, on our now regular meetings, to inaugurate serious discussions. She would even suggest a topic for each of our walks: could women be bankers; was divorce the only answer to an unhappy union; was charity demeaning to the recipient; should we get into the war in Europe. I did wish at times that she would be less blunt in facing what she deemed to be the bleak status of her emotional options. I had never before been as close as this to a young woman, and the idea of romance as a partner or even a possible competitor to my infatuation with work was beginning to titillate me. But Marion did little to enhance this feeling.

I was now invited to spend an occasional weekend with the Leslies on Long Island. Mrs. Leslie had consented to tolerate me—barely. Marion and I took long—rather too long—rambles across the countryside. She seemed never to tire and showed a preference for thick woods and even brambles over paths. When we rested—always at my request—on some rocky seat, she would not even let me take her hand in mine.

“Let us be sensible, George. We needn't go in for anything like that until we know just where we're headed.”

“But where
are
we headed? You must remember, please, that
I
have not been the victim of an unhappy love affair. It's not so easy for me to be cool and detached. My heart was free. Until I met you, of course.”

“I like your ‘of course.'” Her mildly amused smile seemed to define the distance she had placed between us. “I see perfectly that you
want
to be in love with me. But that doesn't have to mean that you are. Or even that you ought to be.
Have
you ever been in love, George?”

“Never.”

“Then maybe you never will be. And maybe that's not a bad thing. Lots of people never fall in love, I'm sure. Probably many more than is generally suspected.”

“I wonder if your mother isn't one of them.”

“Oh, no,” she replied quickly. “I'm sure Mother's very much in love with Daddy. The shoe's on the other foot there.”

She didn't pursue this interesting idea, but it struck me suddenly that she might well be right. There could have been a coolness under her handsome father's cheer and a passion behind her plain mother's moodiness. And could
this
be why Marion was tolerating my uneasy courtship? Because she wanted a mate who would not importune her? A partner in the firm, like her father, who would be a credit to her name and not a bore about her body? And now that the horrid idea had surfaced, I had to know.

“Marion, just what is it that you have in mind? Why are you putting up with me at all?”

She met this calmly. “That's a fair question. I think we should both be weighing the pros and cons of marriage.”

“But what sort of a marriage? What the French call a white one?”

She flushed slightly and looked away. She had not been quite ready yet for such candor. But she met the challenge. “Yes, do you really care? Please don't be a hypocrite, George. I have this idea that you're not a very passionate man. And what you did on the side would be no business of mine. I suppose a lot of people would think it cold-blooded that we should be having this discussion at all, but I don't really see why. Marriages have been ‘arranged' throughout history. The only difference is that we'd be doing the arranging, not our parents.”

“But yours, I gather, would go along with it.”

“Daddy, certainly.”

“And your mother?”

“Oh, one can never be sure with Mother. But at least she hasn't said she'd rather see me in my coffin, as she did with poor Malcolm.”

“Thanks!”

“Well,
you
asked. You and I might be a great team in running Dunbar Leslie one day. Daddy always says that Mrs. Dunbar and Mother didn't do their share of the social side. Well, I wouldn't be like that!”

I sighed. “And I suppose you won't even allow that love might come after marriage.”

“It's better not to count on it. I
do
like you, George. I like your honesty and your seriousness. And I think we might get on very well together. There. That's enough for now. Let's walk on.”

I think we both felt that matters had been accelerated by the great event that now befell me. At least a year before I had deemed it possible, I was elected a partner in Dunbar, Leslie & Co. Mr. Leslie came himself to my office to congratulate me warmly. Then he rose to close my door. Speaking in a lower tone, he added:

“And if this brings another pot to boil, you will find no objections from one John T. Leslie, Esquire.”

What could a young man do but blush, jump to his feet and grasp the hand of the eminent gentleman who consented so graciously to be his father-in-law?

The flatness which I undeniably felt would surely not have been an aspect of my reaction a year before. Not having met the Leslies, I should have been as close to ecstasy as was possible for one of my temperament. But now that I had seen in them the life of the successful banker
combined
with the joys of family love and solidarity, I could recognize a fuller and more rewarding existence than any I had ever visualized. I had qualified as a husband for a Leslie, but only on a stipulated condition. Like the Byzantine general Marcian, I would be elevated to share the throne with Empress Pulcheria, but not her bed.