Honorable Men

by Louis Auchincloss

  Elihu, seeing that the discussion was heading into trouble, intervened.

  “I think all we can ask of Chip is that he keep an open mind—right up to Tap Day itself.”

  “Do you mean, Dad, an open mind about the societies or an open mind about joining one?”

  “Both.”

  “In other words, you expect me to stand in the Branford Court with the others?”

  “If it’s not asking too much of you. How do we know that you won’t have a sudden conversion?”

  “Like Saul on the road to Damascus!” Lars exclaimed, with his loud laugh. Elihu smiled, but Matilda did not.

  “Why do you care so, Dad?”

  “Because he was a member of Bulldog himself!” Matilda answered impulsively for her husband. “And because he knows all the fine things it stands for! Because he doesn’t want his son to repudiate all of his values and spit at an institution that represents a spark of idealism in a dangerously cynical world!”

  “Oh, Ma, can’t you let anyone make up his own mind? Must you always butt into everything?”

  “Chip! I must ask you not to take that tone with your mother. It is unkind to her, offensive to me and embarrassing to your friend and guest.”

  Only Elihu could say such things without in the least raising his voice.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “Really, Chip,” Lars intervened, “is it asking so much of you to stand in the courtyard? It isn’t as if you were committing yourself to anything.”

  There was a considerable silence before Chip replied.

  “Very well, I agree to stand in the courtyard. If you, Dad, and you, Ma, agree to say nothing more about it. And do nothing more about it!”

  Elihu now gave his wife his steeliest look. It was brief but effective, and a silent compact was reached. The conversation was turned to Hitler and the Rhineland, and after lunch Chip and Lars drove back to New Haven.

  ***

  Only two weeks later, however, Lars reported a new development to his roommate. The society that was flirting with Lars wanted Chip as well, and Lars had been put on notice, with the greatest discretion, that Elihu Benedict had been in touch with some of his old Bulldog friends to reassure them about Chip. Elihu was evidently endeavoring to convince them that the column in the News had been no more than “a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,” and that Chip, as his name implied, was something off the old block.

  “That does it then,” Chip said grimly. “I shall not stand in Branford Court on Tap Day.”

  “Shall I stay away with you?”

  “You know you want Keys. Don’t be an ass.”

  It took him some time to persuade Lars that he was not irretrievably committed to his roommate’s cause. And why was Chip so committed? Why did he regard the matter as concerning only him and not Lars, nor indeed any other of his classmates?

  He went to West Seventieth Street in New York that night, but, in an uncharacteristic visit to the bar, he drank so much that he lost the capacity to do anything more. Flora, his favorite of the girls, who was in love with him, sat by him most of the night and listened uncomprehendingly to his rambling.

  “I’m not what they think I am,” he told her, again and again. “I never have been. I never will be. But I can’t convince them. ‘Look at him!’ they cry. ‘Can’t you see he’s an angel?’ Even you, Flora, my love. Even you.”

  In the end she put him to bed and lay quietly beside him. The next morning he departed while she was still asleep. He did not even have a hangover.

  Two days later there was a knock at their study door in Berkeley, and Lars opened it and let out a little bark of surprise.

  “Why, Mrs. Benedict! What a happy surprise!”

  “Be a good boy, Lars, and leave me alone with Chip.”

  “Mother, it’s his room, too!”

  But Lars was already out the door, and Chip stood up stiffly when he saw that his mother was looking graver than he had ever remembered her. He saw, too, that it was more than gravity. He could sense the full extent of her desperation in the length of her preparatory pause. It was not like her, indignant, to delay the flood tide of her reproaches. Chip had been deep in Shakespearean tragedy that whole term, and he likened her now to Volumnia, preparing her warrior-son for battle.

  “I think you must have found out that your father went to Chicago to attend his annual Bulldog dinner especially on your account.”

  “I certainly never asked him to. And I believe he committed himself to do nothing for me in the matter.”

  “Anyway, he went. Nothing else matters to him where your future and happiness are concerned.”

  “My happiness? Am I not to judge that for myself? It is my life, isn’t it P Or is it?”

  “I was waiting for you to say that. Of course it’s your life. And I can perfectly understand that your father may have gone too far. It may be that the whole matter should have been left to you. But what I believe is not debatable—what I believe even you would not argue—is that your father was motivated by anything but his great love for you.”

  Chip saw at once how the issue had been drawn. If he let this pass…! “Unless I were to argue that a son may be part of a father. And in that respect a paternal love may be tinted with ego. That even…”

  “Do you dare to argue that?” his mother interrupted in a harsh tone. “Do you dare to argue that you have not been the very apple of his eye? Oh, take it out on me as much as you like. Call me a monster of selfishness, of possessiveness. Say that I don’t mind using every murderous weapon in a mother’s arsenal! I don’t care! It’s true, if you like. But at least admit that your father has adored you unselfishly from the moment you were born. Why, your sisters and I don’t even exist for him on the same plane that you occupy.”

  Chip quailed, fearing that he was already lost. He made no answer, and she pounced on his silence.

  “Very well. Then let that be settled. And now let us come to what you propose to do. You propose to reject a bid from Bulldog that is entirely your due and that your father has simply tried to make doubly sure would come your way. Why? Out of some kind of moral principle? What principle? You can hardly seriously argue that Bulldog is immoral or pernicious. Is it to be consistent? But you have said yourself that you need not be ruled by a single article in the News. So what is it?”

  Chip stared at that frozen face, fascinated by its unusual rigidity. She hardly seemed his mother now; she was more like a jealous and abandoned mistress. “What is it?” he repeated, half in a whisper.

  “It’s your desire to wound your father!” she almost shouted. “Your desire to hurt him as deeply as you can. To humiliate him, debase him, roll him in the mire!”

  “Mother! What are you saying? When have I been anything in my life but his son?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” She was moaning now, closing her eyes and shaking her head back and forth as if to repel some horrible supposition. “I’ve never understood you. Ever since you were a little boy you seem to have been watching us as if we were—I don’t know—freaks. My father used to say the same thing. That you were judging us. For what? For loving you so much? For loving you more than your sisters? For we did, God help us! Why could you never tell us what was wrong? It isn’t as if we wouldn’t have listened! All we ever wanted was for you to be happy and well!”

  At this, appallingly, she cracked. Like some great galleon in a violent storm, she swayed to and fro and then half-fell to the couch, as under the crashing wreck of masts and sails, to give way to a fury of sobbing. When she seemed to be losing her breath in gasps, he hurried to her side and tried to clasp her in his arms. But even in his anxiety, even as she attempted vehemently to push him away from her, a part of his mind was still able to see that this was the Volumnia who forced Coriolanus to spare Rome at the cost of his life and soul.

  “I’ll take Bulldog if I’m tapped!” he cried in desperation. “I promise!”

  He
r only answer was to stop sobbing and sit up on the couch to repair some of the damage of her emotion with the aid of a handkerchief and a bit of powder, clumsily applied.

  “I don’t care what you do,” she said shortly. “I’m going home. You needn’t come down. The car is right below.”

  Chip took her at her word; one always did. When she had left the room, he went to the window and saw that, sure enough, her chauffeur, an ex-forger, had parked the old green Cadillac directly by the Berkeley gate. He saw his mother emerge on the street accompanied by Lars, who must have been lurking in the corridor. And who must have been the one who had warned her of his resolution not to be tapped! They were engaged in a conversation that continued for a few minutes after she had got into the car, Lars leaning in the window. Then she drove off, and Lars, waving up to Chip, re-entered the college.

  “Your mother wants me to be sure to remind you of your promise. I gather her arguments have prevailed. A good thing, too. You’ve been making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  Chip was rent between the impulse to laugh wildly and a bitterness that threatened hot tears. So it had all been a scene, after all! And he had worried about having thoughts of Shakespeare while she suffered! She, who was no longer Volumnia, magnificent in her obsession, but Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, doing her vulgar maternal duty as she vulgarly conceived it. When he spoke at last to his roommate, his voice, very cool, was yet tremulous.

  “You may take the same message to my dear mother, Lars-Osric, that Hamlet sent to the King. ‘Sir, I will walk here in the hall; if it please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me; let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.’ ”

  “Which means, I take it, that you will walk in Branford Court on Tap Day and win at the odds?”

  “I fear I shall gain my shame even so.”

  Lars’s smile gave way to an expression of guarded concern. “I’m afraid you’re still taking it all a bit tragically, my friend. Consider, like Dr. Johnson, how insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth hence.”

  “Osrics are not expected to know when they are acting in tragedies.”

  Lars let out one of his whoops of laughter. “Are you trying to insult me, Chip? I verily believe you are!”

  ***

  Chip was the last man tapped for Bulldog, and he jogged off obediently to his room, where he was duly initiated into the rites of that arcane institution. But later that night, when he and Lars, who had accepted his bid from Scroll and Key, were sitting up over a brandy, they discussed an unexpected development of the day.

  Chessy Bogart had also been tapped for Bulldog! The seniors had evidently felt that it was time to give recognition to the new editor-in-chief of the Lit. Of course, Lars knew the story of his expulsion from Saint Luke’s and the attempted implication of Chip. He was concerned that Bogart’s election might ruin his roommate’s pleasure in his own. But Chip did not think so.

  “In a way I’m almost glad. I like to have him where I can keep an eye on him. I’ve always been conscious of him skulking in the background.”

  “Now what on earth do you mean by that? Or must I go back to Hamlet to find out?”

  “It’s hard to explain. Have you never felt that a person has been endowed with the special mission of punishing you?”

  Lars stared. “Is there something about you and Bogart that I don’t know?”

  “Nothing that would strike you as having any importance. It’s only a question of what happened to whom when.”

  “Do you enjoy trying to baffle me?”

  “Isn’t it obvious that I don’t want to talk about it? Don’t worry, my friend. I have it all under control. When I told my ma I would do as she asked, a change came in my life.”

  The term was almost over; a premature summer seemed to be crowding into the last days of Academe. Chip invited Chessy to go to New York with him for a night. He took his old Saint Luke’s acquaintance to the finest of French restaurants, and the two young men got fairly high on cocktails and wine.

  “You know, Chip,” his guest observed at last, “I was a shit, four years ago, to betray you to your grandfather. But I didn’t imagine he’d even mention it to you. I thought he’d just quietly quash the whole scandal.”

  Chip had been waiting for this; he was entirely at his ease. “Oh, I saw all that. I think you even owed it to the guy who was caught with you. You didn’t know Grandpa, that’s all. I had to let you down. But if I owe you something, I can make a payment tonight. Drink up and I’ll take you to a place I know.”

  At West Seventieth Street, Chessy, dazzled for all his would-be sophistication, was introduced to the beautiful Flora, who took care of him for the whole night.

  On the train going back to New Haven, Chessy was silent. He dozed most of the journey. But when they got to their station, he smiled almost sheepishly and gripped Chip’s elbow. “Jesus, that was a night! Thanks, Tarzan.”

  Chip said nothing, but in the taxi on their way to the college, Chessy, wider awake now, remarked with a smirk, “And I always thought you were such a good boy.”

  “Was I so good at boarding school?”

  “Are you referring to that one little slip? But I assume I was irresistible! Why did it torture you so, Chip? Everyone did it.” “I guess I liked to imagine myself as the one wicked person in a virtuous world.”

  “You couldn’t have thought I was virtuous!”

  “But you see, that was just the conceit of it. You existed only as one of my tempting devils.”

  “Thanks!”

  “You asked for it. Anyway, I have belatedly discovered that I was wrong. The rest of the world is quite as bad as I am.”

  “Or as good?”

  “Either way. Does it matter?”

  “And is it better for you, now, having made this great discovery?”

  Chip thought for a moment. “I really don’t know. Certainly it makes me less dramatic.”

  “To yourself?”

  “To whom else?”

  “Ah, you are an egotist.”

  For the remainder of the term Chip and Chessy were constantly together. It was a bit of a trial to the little group at Berkeley, particularly to Lars. Chessy’s social standing in the class might have soared with his election to Bulldog, but his appearance and manner were hard for Chip’s friends to accept. Chessy, with his uncle’s allowance, was a far more dapper character than he had been at prep school; he now affected brilliant vests, bow ties and striking cuff links, and he had managed to get himself put on a New York debutante party guest list and had met a number of the girls whom Chip’s friends knew. Yet his cockiness, his sarcasm and biting wit did not endear him to the campus leaders. He was obviously a social climber—indeed he made no effort to conceal it—yet once he had penetrated a circle that one might have deemed the ultima Thule of his worldly ambition, it seemed to have been only for the purpose of making fun of the men he found there.

  “It may sound hypocritical to you, but I find it in my heart to be almost sorry for the guy,” Lars confided, a bit disingenuously, to Chip. “The moment he achieves a goal, it loses all its taste for him. If he ever gets to heaven he’ll be looking over God’s shoulder to see if there isn’t someone more important he ought to be talking to.”

  “He’ll never get to heaven.”

  Lars looked at him curiously. “Is that another of your conundrums? What do you see in him, Chip?”

  “Don’t you suppose the Benedicts and Alversens were like that a generation back?”

  “No, I’m damned if they were! Everyone in the top drawer didn’t have to social-climb to get there.”

  “Maybe it’s just my own vulgarity. I recognize a fellow sufferer.”

  “But you haven’t a vulgar bone in your body!”

  “How do you know what I am—deep down?”

  Lars shrugged. “What did you two do in New York the other nig
ht?”

  “Oh, we took in a show.”

  “What show?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Lars sighed and gave it up. “All right, pal, have it your way. But I’d like to be a fly on the wall at one of your sessions in Bulldog when that guy gets going on his plans for the future!”

  “There’s more to Chessy than is dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio.”

  “Can it, Hamlet!”

  Chip said no more, but he had to admit privately that Lars’s apostrophe was just. For had not Hamlet awakened from the dream of his own guilt to confront a guilty world? Gertrude and Claudius were shabby folk, but were they any shabbier than the court over which they presided? At any rate, he would do things his way from now on.

  8. ALIDA

  CHESSY BOGART called me early on the morning after the Swimming Club dance where I had met his friend Chip Benedict. He seemed to have taken it for granted not only that I should be up, but that I should be expecting his call, for when Mummie rapped on my door she called in, “I told him you were asleep, but he insisted you weren’t!” As I picked up the telephone, I looked out the window and saw that it was once again one of those perfect Bar Harbor days.

  “If you want to come sailing with Chip and me, you’d better get down here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “I’m at Max’s, getting things for the boat. It’s only a step from the pier.”

  I hurried out of the house, without bothering to answer Mummie’s anxious inquiry. She was clad in a pink wrapper with coffee stains, and she was holding a half-eaten piece of toast. What had I to do with such a dowdy?

  After parking my car behind the Star Theatre, I walked down the hill on Main Street, my heart aglow. The gulls wheeled and squawked above, and in a restaurant window even the doomed lobsters, cruelly piled one on top of another, failed to arouse my usual repulsion.

  Chessy, immaculate in a white T-shirt and ducks, was waiting for me outside the store, holding the brown bag that contained his purchases. His smile was frankly insinuating.