“Hurry and do as I say. It’s poor little Agnes—Miss Gooch, I mean. Your aunt just called. There’s something wrong and your aunt can’t reach the doctor. Hurry, for God’s sake, hurry!” He grabbed my hand and we raced pell-mell down the corridor. As we passed the light box, Mr. Pugh pulled the switch, throwing the place into blackness. “Lights out!” he yelled. He clutched my hand even harder and we tore down the dark hall. Ahead of me there was the squeak of the bathroom door and in the shaft of light from the lavatories I saw vaguely that Junior was feeling his way back from the can. But it was too late to do anything about it. We collided in the dark, and I heard Junior land on the linoleum with a splat. “Can’t you watch where you’re going, Babcock?” Mr. Pugh shouted testily. But if Junior ever answered, I didn’t hear it. By then we were out of the dorm and running toward town.
Mr. Pugh looked like an ostrich and he ran like one. We got to the Old Coolidge House in no time flat and I stopped. “Come on,” he shouted, heading for the front door.
“Not me,” I said. “Not on your life. The whole Board’s in there. You’d better come up the rope with me. You shouldn’t be here either.”
“Don’t be silly. They won’t see us. This is important.”
“So is graduating. You take the stairs, I’ll take the rope.”
He shot into the front door and out of sight. I raced around to the back of the hotel and began to whistle. I needn’t have. The rope was already hanging out of Auntie Mame’s window. Panting, I started to climb it. I guess I was more winded than I thought because by the time I was halfway up I had to stop for breath. There was a piercing scream right in front of me. Then the lights went on and I was hanging there face to face with Mrs. Babcock, clad only in a cotton nightgown and her curlers.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” she screamed. “Help! Dwight! Dwight! A thief!”
I let go of the rope and fell with a plunk into the shrubbery below. Lights were flashing on all over the Old Coolidge House. I made for the front door just as the desk clerk came charging out. Then I turned on my heels, ran around the hotel, and into the back. I went through the kitchen with a crash of crockery and streaked up the back stairs. I could hear all kinds of voices now, but none louder than Mrs. Babcock’s. Running through the second-floor hall, I saw a door flung open and about twenty old men pouring out in St. Boniface blazers. “There he goes!” someone shouted. I recognized the voice as Mr. Babcock’s, but I didn’t stop to chat. Instead I pounded up the last flight of stairs and into Auntie Mame’s room.
“Darling boy! You’ve come at last!” Auntie Mame cried, latching the door behind me.
“How’s old Agnes?” I panted.
“Not well, darling, but I’ve finally got the doctor on the telephone. He’s on his way now.”
There was a terrible commotion outside in the hall. “He went in there,” a voice shouted. “Break down the door!” There was a terrible heaving and thumping. Spellbound, I watched the old door giving. Its antique hardware couldn’t hold out for long, and with an earsplitting crash, the door burst in, followed by the twenty old men in the St. Boniface blazers, the desk clerk, and Mrs. Babcock. And once they’d crashed through the door, they kept right on going, knocking down the bridge table and Auntie Mame’s bar. Mrs. Babcock, who had had no part in breaking down the door, was the only one on her feet, but she managed to lurch into the gramophone, which began to play “Empty Bed Blues.”
“My God!” Auntie Mame gasped, “chorus boys!”
I’ll admit that the Board, all dressed in red and blue blazers and white flannel trousers and sprawled out among the cards and liquor bottles, did look a little like some badly neglected and long mislaid road company of Floradora. I snickered in spite of myself. But it was no time for comedy.
“There he is!” Mrs. Babcock screamed. “That’s the one! I’d recognize that bow tie, those dark glasses anywhere!”
“But, Mrs. Babcock,” I said, “I was only …”
“My God,” a voice said, “it’s that Dennis brat. It’s him and that shameless aunt of his.” Picking himself out of the melee of arms and legs, Mr. Babcock advanced menacingly toward me. “So! You haven’t seen that sorceress since Christmas, eh? In Europe, is she? Well, I’ll tell you where I wish both of you were and that’s …”
“Dennis! What’s the meaning of this?” It was Dr. Cheevey, his black eyes looking smaller and meaner than ever. “What are you doing out of school at this hour? Where’s your pass?”
“I haven’t one, sir,” I whispered.
“What does the poor child need with a pass when I’m here, his legal guardian, to see to his well-being?” Auntie Mame asked with as much innocence as she could muster. “After all, isn’t it Mother’s Day or something?”
“Pipe down, please,” I muttered.
“You’re a disgrace to the uniform, Dennis,” Dr. Cheevey snapped.
“Nonsense! The boy’s not even wearing one,” Auntie Mame said loyally.
“That’s fifty demerits right there!” Dr. Cheevey said.
“And trying to rob me,” Mrs. Babcock cried. “I had my opal brooch right out on the …”
“You little scoundrel!” Mr. Babcock said, coming closer to me.
“Lay one hand on this blameless child and I’ll snatch you bald-headed,” Auntie Mame said, standing between us. Then she amended her statement: “Balder-headed, that is.” She was at her best as the mother tigress.
Then Dr. Cheevey got into the act again. “Out of school after hours and without a pass. Improperly dressed. Trying to steal. Any one of those things is grounds for immediate dismissal. Why, I …”
He was interrupted by a sharp cry of pain from the next room. “Mrs. Burnside, I …” It was Agnes. I knew little of obstetrics then, but what was about to happen to her was obvious—even to me.
“Good God,” Dr. Cheevey moaned, “who are you?”
“I,” Agnes said with simple grandeur, “am Mrs. Patrick Dennis.”
“Jesus,” Mr. Babcock whispered.
“A St. Boniface boy married … and practically a father?” one of the Board breathed. “That’s awful, isn’t there some rule against …”
“I don’t believe there is,” Dr. Cheevey said stupidly. “The case is without precedent.”
“Listen,” I cried, “I’m not married to Agnes. We’re not even going steady. She just tells everybody …”
“Oh, Christ,” Mr. Babcock said, “now he’s gone and got some girl …”
“Think,” Dr. Cheevey began portentously. “Think of the school’s reputation!”
“Think of mine!” Agnes wailed.
“Stop all this at once,” a voice shouted. Mr. Pugh stood like an avenging angel at Agnes’ side. “Patrick is innocent. I’m the one who dragged him out here. And this young woman—this paragon of sullied virtue—isn’t his wife. She is my wife—or will be very shortly.”
“Ernest!” Agnes cried, and threw her arms around him. Then she doubled up with another seizure.
“Pugh, you’re finished at St. Boniface!” Dr. Cheevey roared. “You …”
“Well, here I am. Never let the stork beat me yet,” a cheery voice called from the door. “Say, we’d better get going. It looks like nip and tuck as to whether we’ll make it to the hospital, Mrs. Dennis.”
“Miss Gooch, please, doctor,” I said.
“Mrs. Pugh, if you please,” Mr. Pugh said.
“Sorry, gentlemen,” the doctor went on briskly, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to clear the way. I’ve got to get this little lady out of here. My car’s right at the door.”
“Wait, I’m coming with you,” Mr. Pugh said, grabbing up Agnes’ satchel. The three of them hurried out, and all I heard of Agnes was a cry of pain.
“Well, young man,” Dr. Cheevey began.
“Patrick!” Auntie Mame said suddenly. “Poor little Agnes! I can’t let her have her baby all alone—not after all I
’ve been through with her. We must follow them!” She grabbed her purse with one hand and me with the other and whisked me out to the hall and down the stairs.
“Stop that brat!” Mr. Babcock yelled.
“Dennis! I command you to …” I didn’t hear the rest of Dr. Cheevey’s message.
“Wh-where’s your car?” I breathed as we reached the street.
“Ito’s hidden it in Boston. It doesn’t matter. Here, I’ll borrow this old wreck.”
Before I knew what had happened, I was in the front seat of a totally strange car with Auntie Mame bent over the steering wheel. There was a thunderous roar and the jalopy leaped forward.
“Huzzah! We’re off!” Auntie Mame cried.
“Jesus! Of all the cars in Apathy, you had to steal the Nashcan!”
Well, to make a long story short, Agnes gave birth to a fine girl whom she christened Mame Patrick Dennis Burnside Pugh. Mr. Pugh married her in the hospital just as soon as he could arrange the license. He was fired, of course, but Auntie Mame got him a much better job in a much better school. He’s headmaster there now and said to be very happy.
With a rap of second-story work and a getaway in a hot car, I didn’t see much point in returning to St. Boniface. Neither did Auntie Mame. From her stateroom on the Normandie she wrote an ingenuous little letter to Dr. Cheevey, telling him where his car was, and enclosed a large check for a new library if they’d promise not to put her name on it—a clause which must have delighted the Board of St. B.
I don’t know whether I ever graduated or not. I’d already passed my college board exams so it didn’t much matter. But since I’m still being asked for contributions to the St. Boniface alumni fund, I guess maybe I did.
Chapter Seven
in the Ivy League
According to the Digest, the Unforgettable Character was a great one for education. She’d never had much learning herself—that seems remarkable, doesn’t it?—and she was determined that her orphan boy was going to have a college education. In fact, the Unforgettable one was so enthusiastic about higher learning that she threw herself right into the swing of things on campus, just so she could share his school interest with him and see that his life at college went smoothly.
Now do you really think that’s so great? Auntie Mame did more than that—much more—and she’d already had a college education.
In the summer of 1937, I became eighteen. From that day on, what I did with my time, my money, my schooling, myself, was entirely up to me.
Mr. Babcock and I went over a lot of formalities in his little office at the Knickerbocker Trust Company. He was very businesslike, very impersonal. I didn’t quite follow him through all the technicalities of investment, but I did understand that at eighteen, I was comparatively rich. The Knickerbocker Trust Company had sunk every cent of my inheritance into stolid, conservative stocks and bonds—nothing flashy, nothing chancy—and all through the depression my little pile had grown and grown until it became what Mr. Babcock called “almost a fortune.”
“Very well,” Mr. Babcock said coldly, “I assume that you understand the details. Anything you’d like me to explain again?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Babcock.”
“You are, from the moment you sign these papers, your own boss. I shall have no further jurisdiction over your money. It’s a frightening thought. I hope—all of us here at Knickerbocker Trust hope—that your money will remain with us. I think you will admit that we’ve done a pretty fair job of looking after your estate, despite That Man in the White House. And I, personally, have tried as much as your Aunt Mame would allow me, to guide you through the difficult years of adolescence. I don’t know how good a job I’ve done on that. Now you are to be your own free agent. As the market stands now,” he continued, “the interest from this money, invested as it is, should amount to a little more than eight thousand dollars per annum. That’s quite a nice bit of money.”
“It certainly is,” I said, not even trying to conceal the light in my eyes.
“And, of course, you may draw on this income.”
“You mean I just ask?”
“That is correct. You simply make a request in writing.”
I picked up the scratch pad from his desk and wrote: “Please give me $5,000.00 now. Sincerely, Patrick Dennis.”
“Here, Mr. Babcock,” I said, handing him the sheet.
His shoulders sagged and his face became a portrait of utter defeat. “Oh, God,” he moaned, “what’s the use? You’ll end up exactly like that mad, waste-wealth aunt of yours. Well, it’s too late now. All my work gone for naught. I give up. You and that Aunt Mame of yours—two of a kind! You’ll end up in debtor’s prison or worse and I can’t honestly say I’ll be sorry. The cashier will give you your money. Go now, and God look after you—nobody else will.”
So I was eighteen, I had my own money, my liberty, and my youth. I bought a little six-cylinder Packard convertible—they cost less than a thousand dollars in those days—a new phonograph, a lot of records, and plenty of clothes, and every three months the Trust Company sent a check for two thousand dollars which, despite Mr. Babcock’s grim prophecies, I was never quite able to spend. The following fall I began college.
The typical St. Boniface boy who went up to college had a passion for crew, a preference for Bryn Mawr girls, and a dog-like devotion to the old varsity traditions. It was the stamp of St. B., but since I’d gone to St. Boniface Academy entirely against my will, I decided to be just as atypical as possible. On the other hand, I took a look at the freshmen with a purpose—the boys who sent in little disjointed bits of blank verse to the pretentious literary magazine, who spread a new kind of Christianity, who spoke heatedly about how Sophocles should be presented by the dramatic society—and they seemed just as callow and pompous and affected then as they do now. So I fitted into neither mold. I was a free floater on campus.
But soon I sought my own level with the four young men on campus who were like me. We had no school spirit, no pennants and loving cups, no reproductions of Cézanne and Roualt to fill our rooms. We just had furniture, bottles of gin, cans of beer, phonograph records, and copies of the New Yorker. The football team could win, lose, or drop dead for all we cared—as a matter of sorry fact, it lost continuously for three years out of the four. The debating society could resolve whatever it liked about Russia: Friend or Foe, it mattered naught to us. The dramatic workshop could present Electra in modern dress or The Women in the nude, but not to us. The socially conscious could call all the bonfire meetings, agitate all the student strikes they liked; we were unconcerned. And the theological boys could save every soul but ours. We kept up our grades because it seemed the wisest thing to do. Otherwise our interests were entirely off campus.
Our only god was Fred Astaire. He was everything we wanted to be: smooth, suave, debonair, dapper, intelligent, adult, witty, and wise. We saw his pictures over and over, played his records until they were gray and blurred, dressed as much like him as we dared. When any crises came into our young lives, we asked ourselves what Fred Astaire would do and we did likewise. We thought we were hot stuff but we were very young in those days.
Every week end I drove off to New York with a carload of junior Fred Astaires, who settled comfortably in the bedrooms of Auntie Mame’s big house on Washington Square and practiced being suave with their hostess. Auntie Mame loved it all. She liked company, and the younger and gayer the better. She taught us how to mix drinks the way she thought Fred Astaire would, she rounded up packs of girls for us and wangled invitations to all the gayest parties, she regaled us with sophisticated chitchat, and kept a steady stream of her famous friends performing for us. The boys loved her, and because of Auntie Mame’s lavish week ends, we rapidly got the reputation of being mysterious, mature, worldly, and rather fast around school.
Later on we all joined the same club. Not because we liked the club and not because the club liked us, but becau
se our families, our clothes, our connections, our money, and our scholastic standings made us desirable members. Then, the club set the best table on campus and had a pipeline to all the most beautiful girls. Hence we became mutually attractive to each other. Such is the purity of youthful friendships.
But as freshman year drew to a close, a subtle change came over Auntie Mame. One week end I went up to Boston to visit a girl I’d met and when I got back to school, Auntie Mame was pacing angrily up and down my room. “How dare you!” she said.
“How dare I what?”
“How dare you run off to Boston and not tell me a word about it? Here I sit at home twiddling my thumbs waiting for you and your friends, and you don’t even have the decency to drop me a post card saying you’re not coming!”
“But I never tell you when I’m not coming; only when I am.”
“Well, I’ve been holding open house for you and your gang every week end. What else was I to think? There I sit, alone and lonesome and worried half to death, with a whole pack of amusing people invited, and you don’t even show up.”
“But, Auntie Mame …”
“Don’t interrupt me. I’m not in the habit of running a hotel for a young ingrate like you. Nor is it my habit to give up my entire personal life just to be taken for granted by a thoughtless nephew who doesn’t care whether I live or die. Now, next week end I’ve really planned a lovely party and I want you there with all your friends. No ifs, and, or buts about it. And don’t think I’m going to forget this right away, because I’m not!” She strode out of my room and slammed the door.
It was a strange performance for a woman who lived as casually as Auntie Mame, but gradually I began to see the true picture. She had taken my friends to be her friends. She enjoyed them, they flattered her, amused her, gave her confidence in her eternal youth. Slowly she had come to depend on them as an audience to whom she could display her wit, her charm, her wealth, her looks. They needed Auntie Mame to supply the beds, the board, the parties, the liquor. But she needed them for something more. She needed them to assure her that she was still young, still beautiful, still desirable.
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