The Last Bastion

by Peter C. Wensberg

  “I’ve had the most remarkable telephone call.”

  The two men stood side by side in the Men’s Lavatory of the Charles.

  Silence greeted Walter Junior’s pronouncement.

  “It was from a man named, if I heard it correctly, Henry Handle. He was calling from a livery service in Somerville.”

  “A livery service?” asked Dormant. They surreptitiously waggled, rearranged, zipped themselves, moved to the mirror, inspected the ravages of the years, laved their fingers.

  “Yes. Ultra Elegance, Inc., I think it is called. They provide limousines for all occasions.”

  “Did he tell you this?”

  “Actually not. He put a musical recording on the telephone because he had to speak to someone else. I learned the details from the recording. I’ve never heard a recording such as that on the telephone before. It was set to the tune of ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’”

  “Why was he calling? Does he want you to rent one of his cars?”

  “No, not at all. He wants to attend the dinner we are giving on the third.” Walter Junior collided gently with his friend in the doorway of the Men’s Lavatory.

  “Mr. Handle, the liveryman, wants to come to dinner?” said Roger, immobile with surprise.

  “Yes, and bring several of his friends. He is, uh, president, I suppose it is called, of the Benevolent and Paternal Order of Elks in Somerville.”

  “Walter, let us sit down over here. I’m not sure I’m following all this.”

  “Well, you see, it’s quite straightforward. The Elks, uh, Lodge in Somerville is facing the same problem as we. They have been ordered by the Licensing Board to admit women as full-time, regular members, or lose their license to serve alcoholic beverages by the end of March. Or is it the first week in April?”

  “How did they find out about the dinner?”

  “Mr. Handle told me that one of the uh, brethren, is related to our Food Service Coordinator.”

  “Our what?”

  “I believe he is referring to Old Jane. In any case, it seemed a good opportunity to see the question from yet another point of view. So I invited them to come.”

  “You invited them?”

  “Yes. Do you feel it was a mistake?”

  “Quite the contrary! I think it is a splendid idea. Just what the members need. Another point of view. Some new faces around here. Should make for an interesting evening. Are all the Elks Lodges under the gun?”

  “No, apparently not. This is a prominent one and the Board is making it the test case.”

  “Test case, indeed. Let me buy you a preprandial something or other. Walter, you have not lost the capacity to surprise, to amaze, in fact. What will you have?”

  “The usual.”

  “You’re supposed to pick it up!” The angry cry echoed through the night from an upper floor of a building on the corner of Exeter and Commonwealth. Tasha had pulled to a favorite spot under the street lamp right at the edge of the curb. Her white hide gleamed in the light as she bent to her task, an air of ineffable dignity cloaking her face. Owen made no answer. He was seething with anger, as angry as he had ever been in his life, at least since that final fight with Abbie. The problem, he realized, was that he had nothing specific to be angry at. That was the ultimately maddening circumstance. There was no fight, no event, nothing Demi said. In fact that was the problem. She said nothing. He couldn’t talk to her. She didn’t return his calls. After a great evening, a great night, a strange night perhaps, but a great morning together, then: nothing. I’m not going to keep calling, he had told himself, then called again. She had changed the recording on her machine. Now there was no name, no preamble, no amenities. Just the admonition to leave a message. After the tone. Beep had changed to tone. “Fuck the tone,” said Owen.

  Tasha looked up at him inquiringly, then finished and moved on. “You’re supposed to pick it up!” Again came the cry in the night. Generations of New England respect for the rule of law and the perfectability of the race resonated in the unseen woman’s voice. It cast a challenge to the forces of evil, the enemies of society, the despoilers of civilization. It was shouted bravely into the darkness, like Farragut at Mobile or Jones to the Serapis.

  Seymour and I are not so far apart, thought Owen, as the dog led him down the barren tract between tall tree shadows. It is easy to criticize him, to suspect him, but I’m not exactly on the side of the angels myself. He tried to remember if he had ever discussed this particular social issue with his friend. He thought not. I wonder what he would call me? Scoffshit, he decided. Somehow it made him feel better as the dog took him home, but the anger would not go away.

  Chapter 28

  Walter St. Henry Thomas Junior entered the library bearing his accustomed afternoon Amontillado, paused and looked helplessly about as if seeking some word of counsel from those assembled. “Roger, move over so Walter can sit down,” said the Distinguished Poet a little testily. Dormant, his criminal status temporarily suspended, looked up from his first martini. “You’re in Senior’s chair. Move over one.”

  “Oh, sorry, Walter. Here, sit right down.” He hoisted himself and moved, martini balanced with care, from one black leather chair with wooden legs to an identical one next to it. His departure revealed a brass plate affixed to the front of the seat he vacated:

  PRESENTED TO

  WALTER ST. HENRY THOMAS

  ON THE COMPLETION OF

  SIX TERMS

  AS PRESIDENT OF

  THE CHARLES CLUB

  1936–1960

  Walter Junior sank with a sigh into the chair now reserved by custom as his own. Large of ear and nose, his noble but somewhat sharply pointed head balanced on well tailored shoulders, its visage displaying an emotional gamut which ranged from pensive to melancholic. His father, universally remembered as Walter Senior, had during his lifetime been for many the embodiment of the Charles Club, his twenty-four years as Club president surpassing any before or since. During his tenure members of the Nominating Committee agreed that Walter Junior might some day succeed his father as president and, indeed, Junior was physically and emotionally prepared to both carry on the tradition of Thomas leadership and to inject the young blood many members felt was needed. Club tradition, however, allowed a president to continue in office as long as health and enthusiasm permitted. Senior’s blood proved more durable than expected.

  He was fifty years old and his son twenty-one when, in 1936, Walter Senior assumed the helm of the Charles. The great structural reforms of 1925 had been accomplished but the mortgage that made them possible proved an onerous burden after 1929. What shallow resources the Club treasury possessed were drained in the maintenance of the improvements, many of which—like the steam heating system and alternating current—were unfortunately invisible. Senior gained much credit for steering the Club through a trying period. Several special assessments upon the membership failed to tarnish his popularity. During the shortages and alarms of the Second World War fewer members used the Club, but Walter Senior, too old to fight but too energetic to stand still for long, stayed on the bridge. His son departed to the Navy and returned, a stoop-shouldered, tired, thirty-one-year-old Lieutenant Commander, to find his father in robust health and still the admiral of the Charles. When, in 1960, the expiration of Senior’s sixth term neared, the Nominating Committee (now composed of sons and nephews of the president’s contemporaries) felt that some action must be taken. Senior, a disciple of Bernar McFadden, whose regimen he followed faithfully every day, ran to the Club each morning in an era when urban runners were assumed to be escaping the consequences of illegal action. At seventy-four he could still out-distance most dogs and other pursuers. A five-course dinner, three wines, a decent port, and some of the Club’s best Napoleon were required to soften Senior to the suasion of the Nominating Committee. Only the offer of the title President Emeritus allowed a compromise to be struck. Senior stepped down, his blood turbid as ever. Junior, however, could not step up since it was felt tha
t two Walter St. Henry Thomases, one President and one President Emeritus, would not suit.

  In 1974, at the age of eighty-eight, Senior graciously relinquished the Emeritus title after holding it less than fourteen years. Junior, now fifty-nine, wearing the bifocal eyeglasses disdained by his father, became president. Six years later Senior was cut down by a Cambridge taxi as he was bicycling on Beacon Street at the rush hour. No one occupied his chair in the Library until—after a decent interval—Junior assumed it, as all agreed, by right.

  The President of the Charles Club, once seated, sighed and stuck his long nose in his sherry.

  “My sentiments exactly,” said the Distinguished Poet. “How much longer do we have?”

  “A week past the next meeting of the Licensing Board, which is scheduled for the fifteenth of March,” said Gland, standing back to the group, staring out the window like a martial cherub at parade rest.

  Dormant finished his martini. “I believe the time has come to call a special meeting of the members and change the bylaws,” he said, reaching over to press the bell button.

  “Oh is that what you believe?” snapped the Distinguished Poet. “Well, pray believe as well that the Charles Club will become a local—no, a national—laughingstock. That expression derives, as I am sure you know, from the stock in which fools were restrained in the center of town and held to ridicule, which certainly will be the fate we deserve if we capitulate to that Greek fury …”

  “What do you propose we do, then?” asked Owen.

  “I propose we close the Club while we continue to fight in the courts. Or … or, keep the Club open for lunches and dinners. But without the alcohol.”

  “Balls.”

  “It wouldn’t be the end of the world,” asked the Distinguished Poet querulously, “would it?”

  “It would be the end of the Club,” said Walter Junior. “No one would come. They’d dine at home. Or at another club.”

  “Then we have no alternative,” said Dormant matter-of-factly.

  “As I am sure you recall it is the constitution of the Club that defines the requirements of membership, not the bylaws. It requires a two-thirds vote of the membership to change the constitution. I am almost certain such a measure would not carry.”

  “The alternative is, in fact, to close the doors.”

  “Sell the clubhouse, I suppose.”

  “Condominiums,” murmured someone.

  “How they’ll all laugh,” said the Distinguished Poet. “It will have been such an easy victory for her.”

  Gland continued his intent perusal of Commonwealth Avenue. “Hum,” he said.

  “Are you sure the members couldn’t be persuaded?” asked Owen, leaning forward to address Walter Junior. “Are principles, outdated ones at that, worth the destruction of a great old institution?” He immediately wished he had not spoken.

  “Hummm,” said Gland, not unmusically.

  “I think many of us feel principles represent the only value we are discussing,” said Walter Junior gently. “An outdated principle is a principle nonetheless. The Charles was founded more than a century ago with certain ideas in the minds of its founders, as a gathering place for gentlemen of like tastes and background. What value has the Club itself if we abrogate the reasons for its creation?” Gland began to dance lightly on his rather small feet, his bulk rippling gracefully with each hop. “Are you well, Seymour?”

  Gland turned to face them, his scarlet face radiant. “Beautiful,” he said.

  “Easy, Seymour,” said Owen.

  Gland’s feet flew in a flamenco of unguessable emotion. His fat fists flailing, he strove for communication. “Listen to me!” he cried. “Beautiful!”

  His audience sat expectant. Abel, a tray of drinks in his hand, paused in the doorway. The dark old room was silent except for Gland’s insufflation.

  “What do you think is so beautiful?” asked the Poet. “Sad is what I call it.”

  “God in heaven the answer has been right in front of us all the time.”

  “Seymour.” Owen stood up and put his hand on Gland’s shoulder. “Whoa, boy.”

  “THE PILGRIMS,” he hurled the fateful words upon them. “The Pilgrim Club is the answer.” He snatched a glass of scotch from Abel’s tray and drained it. It seemed to unlock his larynx.

  “What is the question?” asked Dormant.

  “Give him a …” But Walter Junior’s words were submerged.

  “The Pilgrim Club, why didn’t we see it before? They have precisely the same problem we do, and that splendid investment portfolio, and no mortgage, no mortgage at all, on that big, beautiful, brownstone house on Clarendon Street. They will never change their membership; they see it as a matter of principle, just as we do. They are not as old as the Charles Club—we’re some forty or fifty years older—but what matter? All we have to do is merge the two clubs, they keep their clubhouse, we keep ours, we’ll all agree to abide by the rules, Ladies Entrance and what all, and we can have a party or two with them each year. Their chef is damn good, perhaps as good, but, no, I doubt that, still his way with veal is a wonder I’m told, and they have a place on a lake in Maine. We can try to negotiate the use of that on alternate months in the summer, and the Massachusetts cursed Licensing Board can go hang. But we’ve got to move fast, we’ve got to get to them before the …” He could not find the breath to get the S word out.

  “Before the Somerset,” breathed Walter St. Henry Thomas Junior. “Before the Somerset, I’ll be bound, or salvation slips from our grasp.”

  Chapter 29

  As it turned out, the table was laid for twenty-eight. Organized in a squarish U, it filled the Dining Room. After some shifting of chairs and tables, a fire in the occasionally-used fireplace was ruled out since the chairs along one leg of the U backed up to the hearth too closely for the comfort of guests or servants. While Abel and Old Jane conferred on the arrangement of the room and the younger women set out the best silver service, Gland and Walter Junior, surveyed the acceptances and plotted seating. Normally somnolent in the morning, the Club bustled.

  The Pilgrim, which responded promptly to the mailed invitation, sent along six names, including the heads of the two committees in which true power resided, Garden and Activities, the president, and three senior staff officers. The Tavern promised three, identified as the full complement of their Standing Committee. Adam Winchester would represent the Somerset. Since he selected the Somerset’s wine in consultation with no one except God, Seymour and Walter Junior were well pleased to have landed him. The St. Botolph offered two members of their Nominating Committee. The Charles would field all twelve of the Strategists. No word had arrived from the Somerville Elks, which assuaged Seymour somewhat, but Walter Junior insisted on reserving four places as a safeguard. “Shall we seat people in blocks?”

  “Well, boy, girl, boy, girl is out of the question.”

  Walter Junior glanced up nearsightedly from the diagram he was carefully drafting on a sheet of Charles Club stationery. He had taken over the task after Seymour threw the sixth wadded sheet in the direction of an empty Chinese umbrella stand, a longish toss across the Library from the table at which they sat, a pot of coffee between them. Poor aim bothered the president of the Club less than the fact that the letterhead ordered from Shreve’s was in perennially short supply. “I thought they might wish to confer as the evening’s discussion progresses.” He drew a careful line along the edge of a magazine to complete the diagram of the table.

  “Confer? If I know this crowd they’ll be conferring with the wine wherever you put them.”

  Walter Junior sighed. “This is an important, a critical gathering of those most affected. As far as I know there has never been a meeting of the Boston clubs.”

  “Not the single-sex clubs.”

  “I anticipate a brisk, uh, discussion of the issues. We should try to lead it to perhaps achieve some consensus before the end of the evening.”

  “I anticipate brisk swilling and gob
bling. And if I know our membership we will lead it.”

  “In any case perhaps it is better to mix the guests in more traditional fashion. They can as well, uh, confer after the meeting.”

  “Where are you putting me?”

  “Next to Charlotte Coupon.”

  “Coupon’s wife?”

  “Yes. She’s a new member of the Pilgrim and they seem to have put her right to work. Interestingly enough, she never uses the Charles.”

  “Who is on my other side?”

  “Well, I had not made it completely around the table as yet but whom do you …?”

  “Put Owen there.” Gland helped himself to a fresh cup. Walter Junior, who had planned to tether an Elk there, followed suit.

  Five Elks presented themselves, resplendent in the sort of clothing often rented from Mr. Tux for a daughter’s wedding. A white Lincoln Town Car with six doors, a television antenna and black windowglass settled down to wait for them in front. Their arrival in the midst of the cocktail hour in the lobby was acknowledged by a burst of silence, followed by cheerful conversation all around. Abel helped them to drinks. Walter Junior came forward. “Greetings. So glad you could come. I am Walter St. Henry Thomas Junior.”

  The lead Elk, looking past his host for the others named, grasped the proffered hand.

  “Henry. Henry, too. Henry Handle, that is. Nice to be here. Nice. Oh, thanks. Meet my fellow members. I’m the well, just say I’m the head guy in our chapter. Hell of a situation. We wanted to find out what you all’re going to do. Nice of you to have us. Great place you’ve got here.” For the moment they huddled together for protection and warmth, noses to the danger, tails to the cold wind which blew under the foyer door.

  Adam Winchester stood stolidly at the other side of the room, his square figure encased in a black dinner suit of a cut not often seen since Coolidge’s death. Abel extended a tray for his empty glass as the great man was approached by a Pilgrim from one side and a Taverner from the other. “Adam,” they said in unison.