The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss (64 page)

“Dirty pool! It wasn't too dirty for your sacred Mr. Dunbar to play!”

“That's a lie! He never did!”

“Really, George, you're too naive. This business of the one god being Lees Dunbar and Manville being his prophet has got to have an end. Dunbar himself didn't dare tell you all he was up to!”

I went on my way without another word, but fury and sickness ate at my heart.

That night Marion accosted me in my study, where I was sipping a strong but single predinner martini.

“Aggie Norman just called me. She said you were shockingly rude to Hugh this afternoon. They're both very upset. She thought you must have been feeling ill or perhaps had had some piece of bad news.”

“No, I'm feeling fine. And the only bad news I've had is that Hugh and his little gang are planning a vicious stock market raid. But the good news is that I've taken a resolution which has given me the greatest satisfaction. I intend never to set foot in Hugh Norman's house again. Seeing him in the office will be quite enough.”

“George!” Marion looked aghast. “Hugh and Aggie are my closest friends!”

“Oh, you may go there as often as you like. My good resolutions apply only to myself.”

“But what on earth has Hugh done to you?”

“Nothing to me. And nothing to anyone else that he hasn't done a dozen times before. It's simply that now at last I
see
him. And I find I don't like what I see.”

“But that's crazy!”

“Will you kindly then allow a lunatic to finish his cocktail in peace? I have nothing more to say on the subject of Hugh Norman.”

Marion left me at this, but the following day, finding me still adamant, she proposed—and I, after some musing, accepted—this practical compromise. She would continue to go to the Normans', attributing my absence to a need of evening hours for the composition of an economic thesis, and Hugh and Aggie would come to us only for larger parties where he and I need exchange only a few formalities.

To tell the truth, I was surprised at my own obstinacy in refusing to cross Hugh's threshold. I suppose it was my only way of expressing my hostility to everything he represented to me. Other than that, I had no recourse but in the dreamland of fantasized violence. But what a hotbed that was! I imagined myself as a fiery U.S. attorney, brilliantly reinterpreting old cases and laws to criminalize his pools. I saw him abjectly pleading for mercy before a stern, gavel-wielding judge. I even saw . . . but a truce to this childishness. The only benefit I conceivably derived from my rage and helplessness may have been in a dim, dawning sense of what I still might accomplish with my wrecked life.

Some such glimmer, anyway, may have prompted me to come to better terms with Marion. After all, our absurd and unnatural design for living had been as much my doing as hers. I invited her to my study at cocktail time to discuss how our compromise was working.

“Don't you really think, Marion, that under the circumstances my distancing myself from Hugh may have made all our relationships easier? Not only his and mine, but yours and mine and even yours and his?”

She examined the back of her outstretched left hand as if she were appraising her ring. “You and I have never really discussed my relationship with Hugh.”

“What would have been the point? Obviously, I have accepted it. It was quite clear to me, long before you took up with Hugh, that your heart had not died with Malcolm Dudley.”

“I was an awful goose about that, George.”

“But I
knew
you were. Not a goose, but deluded. I knew you'd get over him, and I took advantage of that. That's why I have no moral right to object to Hugh. As
your
friend. He need not, of course, be mine.”

“That's really very handsome of you. And if at any time you want a friend, a lady friend I mean, you will find me equally understanding.”

“Oh, I'm sure it might even be a relief to you. But I shan't be needing one.”

“You don't ever have the needs of other men?”

“Let's put it that I'm neuter. That avoids odious speculations.”

But Marion did not want even her husband-in-name-only to be that. “I'd rather put it that you're virtuous.”

“Thank you, my dear. I accept the mask.” In fact, I was virgin to both sexes, as ascetic as a priest. But only in priests was this considered admirable. “Let me put something more serious to you. Isn't divorce the obvious solution to our bizarre situation? You married me to become the consort of the future sovereign of Dunbar Leslie. You overestimated my claim to the succession. Why not marry King Hugh?”

Marion's expression was fixed now as she concentrated on the problem. “Hugh and I have discussed that, and we had guessed you wouldn't stand in our way. But there are two compelling reasons against it. First, a double divorce under the circumstances, followed immediately by the marriage of a partner's wife to the senior partner, would damage the reputation of the firm. And secondly, Hugh and I could not bear to hurt Aggie Norman, who has been so wonderfully understanding about us.”

“More so than I've been?”

“Oh, yes. Because I haven't been giving Hugh anything that you really wanted. And Aggie has wanted Hugh to have the kind of love she hasn't been able to give him since her illness. I can't take anything more from her than I already have. She must remain Mrs. Hugh Norman.”

I wondered if this generosity did not spring more from Marion than from Hugh. But anyway I approved it. “Aggie has told me herself that the polio gravely damaged her heart. She doesn't believe she has long to live.”

“All the more reason not to hurt her! And of course she might live for years. I sincerely hope she does. But that brings me—plunk—to a very, very delicate question. One that I've been wondering if I'd ever have the courage to ask you.”

“You mean, how good is
my
health?”

“Oh, my God, no! For what do you take me? I'm sure you'll bury us all. And I shouldn't blame you if you did it with some satisfaction. No, what I was going to ask you . . .”

She paused. “Really, I wonder if I can.”

“I think I'm beginning to guess. Marion, are you by any chance pregnant?”

“No!” she exclaimed excitedly. “But you're very warm. Thank you, George, now I think I
can
tell you. I want to bear Hugh's child. Only one, if it should be a boy. Or more, until a boy came. Call me crazy if you will, but I have this strange feeling that a son of Hugh's and mine would one day be head of the firm! Oh, I'm sure of it! Try to believe at least in my sincerity, George.”

“I should think the boy would indeed have an excellent chance. Your father would probably leave him his entire interest in the firm, and with that, added to Hugh's, he'd have to be retarded not to go far.”

“Oh, George, don't make mock of it, please.”

“I'm entirely serious. You and Hugh, I assume, would be counting on me not to deny paternity.”

“Would that be asking for the moon?” But she held up a quick hand to keep me from answering and hurried on in an almost breathless voice. “Please, George, listen to me carefully before you decide against it. I know it's a tricky business, but I'm sure we can work it out if we all agree. Hugh, like you, has never had much interest in children. He'd only be doing this for me. He's perfectly willing to have you be the putative father. He promises he'd never interfere or embarrass you with claims about the child. And I'd see that you're never troubled with it. Oh, if you will see me through this, George, I'll be your staunch ally! We haven't been very friendly since I fell in love with Hugh, but you will find there's a lot I can do to make your life pleasant and agreeable. You'll see!”

I got up and walked to the window. I found myself unexpectedly touched. There was always something rather noble about Marion; she showed it even with her present proposition. And, really, why should I not oblige her in this? I had been, like my father, a
man complaisant
. Before that I had been, at least in Marion's mother's eyes, a
fils complaisant
. It seemed only logical that I should now become a
pere complaisant
.

“So you've found love at last, Marion.” I turned back to face her. “And Hugh is really lovable?”

“I love him anyway.”

“And he you?”

She paused. She was always honest! “Ah, don't ask too many questions. He loves me as Hugh can love.”

Could she have realized that this was the one way to save my pride? No, she was not so subtle.

“Have your baby, Marion. I'll go along.”

***

These things are always known, or at least suspected. We four put on a very good act, but I fear nonetheless that at least a faint odor, something
un peu malsain
, emanated from our performance. Certainly Marion's mother sniffed us out. And it was I, of course, who bore the brunt of her unspoken contempt. If Aggie Norman could be considered generous in her self-effacement, and Hugh romantic even in an adulterous part, and Marion at least forgivable for a gripping passion, what word could mitigate the scorn that might be justly heaped on my role?

Perhaps most confusing to the prying observer was the genuine devotion I felt for John Leslie Manville, born ten months after my fateful conversation with his mother. He was an enchanting little boy full of smiles, and when he stretched out his arms to me I hoped indeed that he might one day occupy Mr. Dunbar's chair. I'm afraid that Marion found my fondness for the child somewhat embarrassing, even showing a lack of taste, but Hugh, cold fish that he was, did not seem in the least to care.

I spent much of my free time now aboard my sixty-foot motor yacht, the
Arctic Tern
, which gave me all the haven I needed from worldly distractions. Whenever I could, I would head out to the ocean, sitting contentedly on the bridge by my skipper, a pair of binoculars hanging from my neck, as satisfied with foul weather as with fair. I eschewed the new habit of fitting out these beautiful vessels with period furniture and master paintings. I insisted that mine be shipshape in every respect: nothing placed on the gleaming bulkheads but charts, and all chairs and divans upholstered in spotless white leather. Whiteness indeed was everywhere on board except in the shining mahogany of table legs, rail tops and instrument covers; it enhanced my sense of the nothing from which we come and to which we shall surely return. It was white that made my boat almost disappear against the alabaster of the horizon. Only at sea was I truly alone with my aloneness.

And what of my stoic hero? What would Marcus Aurelius have said? That I had borne too much? Been too much a stoic? But had he not looked the other way from Empress Faustina's notorious love affairs? Nor had he objected to the naming of Commodus as his heir, although he might with a clear conscience have denied paternity of that cruel and dissolute youth. John Leslie Manville, at least, appeared to be a promising child. No, I concluded that the great emperor would have sanctioned my stand.

What finally aroused me from what I might term the spiritual hibernation of these years was the lunatic market boom of 1929. If my social relations with my fellow men had almost ceased, the activity of my mind had not. Indeed, it had taken advantage of my solitude to be more active than ever. The excuse that Marion had used to explain my absence from the Norman soirees—namely, that I was working on some economic thesis—had become true. I
did
now spend my evenings, as well as a good part of my days, in the office studying market trends, past and present, and seeking to determine what principles, if any, guided them. My goal was to place a finger on the very pulse of free trade. Were the rules which Mr. Dunbar and I had sought to apply to a tiny fraction of the general market extendable in any way to the whole? He had had a dream of accomplishing this by himself, but it had been the dream, at least in his senescence, of a megalomaniac.

It was perfectly evident to me, by the spring of that fateful year, that stocks had reached prices which could not be maintained. I was later to be deemed a great prophet, but in fact there had been many men of equal perspicacity. I adjusted my own portfolio to my dour prognostications, investing it in government obligations and the soundest blue chips, but I was much concerned with the firm's capital in which I, both as a partner and as co-trustee with Marion of her trusts, had a substantial interest. Hugh, who was primarily in charge of the Dunbar Leslie funds, was an all-out bull.

When I went to his office to discuss this, he pooh-poohed my doubts.

“Do what you want with your own, George, but don't fuss about the firm's. What we have, and what we're
going
to have, should make us more a power in the land than we've ever been.”

“But you see, I don't believe that. Are you prepared to buy me out?”

He frowned. “Well, if you insist. Though it's a bit awkward, with everything invested right up to the hilt. I suppose we
could
raise the cash.”

“And for Marion, too.”

“Marion! Does Marion want out?”

“I haven't asked her. But I think she will when she hears my reasons.”

“Marion doesn't know anything about the market, for Pete's sake!”

“She can learn. I owe it to her to safeguard her fortune. And that of our son.”

“Your
son?” Hugh peered at me with squinty eyes.

“Our son,” I repeated firmly. “John Leslie Manville.”

“Oh.” He might have been reflecting that my reclusive life had affected my reason. “I see. Of course. Well, talk to Marion if you think you must. But I should warn you that I intend to talk to her, too. With sums like this involved, it becomes a serious firm matter. And Marion has always put the firm first.”

“A New York heiress never puts anything ahead of what has made her that” was my parting shot.