The Scarlet Letters

by Louis Auchincloss

  As he rose in the firm Ambrose was careful to cultivate close friendships with his fellow clerks, particularly those in whom he saw the most brilliant legal future. He discarded the somewhat shaggy appearance he had adopted in academe, and took care now to be well groomed, with his thick, prematurely graying hair properly clipped and combed, his square chin held up but not arrogantly, his large lanky figure no longer slouching but straight. People meeting Ambrose knew that they were in contact with a man who knew what he was doing and what he could do for them.

  His family now came round to something like an appreciation. His father gave him money that he no longer needed, and his mother allowed him to kiss her without placing a hand on his shoulder.

  Bertha was delighted with him, but not surprised; she was only disappointed that his work prevented him from having a social life as animated as his legal one. Stuffy actually brought him some slight and undesirable business, and Rosebud, who despite a rich husband had only a small property of her own, named him an executor of her will.

  There were still periods when his old black moods would descend upon him, days, though infrequent, when he would without excuse fail to appear at the office and drink inordinately in his small apartment, and growl at his new image in the mirror and confound himself for succumbing to the false standards of the old world of the de Peysters and falser ones of the new world of the Goulds and Fisks. Yet he was still beginning to wonder if, given the powers of a president with a majority behind him in both houses of Congress, he would do more than add a few teeth to the Sherman Act and lower the tariffs. The world, as Justice Holmes had said, wouldn’t be much better off if the riches of the rich were scattered among the innumerable poor. It would be Ambrose’s function, if he had any at all, to grease the wheels of such financial machinery as kept things going. But his law firm, if it ever should be his, would at least be a beacon of honesty! Uncle Charley was all very well, but he had his moments of compromise with men who emitted a faint scent of brimstone. Ambrose would have to wait. But he could wait! Then he would put the bottle down, take a shower and go back to work.

  There was little time for love in his busy life, but there was some. When his uncle, foreseeing the day when his nephew might become a partner and desiring him to have experience in all the firm’s departments, transferred him for a season into the field of trusts and estates, Ambrose found himself spending more time than was actually required drawing a will and trusts for the pretty and flirtatious young bride of an aging financier. Uncle Charley, who had a sharp nose for the ultra-proper, scented trouble early, and, anxious not to have the financier upset, summoned his nephew for a little “chat.” To forestall resentment he cloaked his caution in terms of general advice.

  “You never knew my partner, Oscar Tully, did you, Ambrose? He retired before you joined us. He was not quite a man of our background—he had had to make his own way in life—but he was a first-class lawyer, and he had a wise and pithy way of expressing basic truths. ‘Give a lady client everything you have above the waist, nothing from below.’”

  Ambrose was amused by his own shock at so unexpected a crudity. “You mean never have an affair with a client, sir? Do you imply that I’m in danger of one?”

  “No, no, dear boy, I’m merely stating a principle. Though of course you’re a handsome enough young fellow. And unattached, too. There are uncles who might say, If the shoe fits, wear it.”

  “It seems to me you just have.”

  “Well, there’s no harm done, in any case. But that isn’t the real matter I have to discuss with you today. I want you to go to Boston and do a little job for me. I say a little job, though it may take three or four weeks. You’ve heard of the Reverend Philemon Shattuckup there?”

  “The great preacher? Yes, of course.”

  “He’s not only a great preacher and an old Harvard classmate of mine, but, like many Massachusetts divines, he’s a gentleman of considerable wealth. There’s a rather messy and nasty accounting proceeding going on there involving the estate of a bachelor brother of his, a mistress claiming this and that, and so forth. He doesn’t want to get too much involved in it, though of course he and his sisters have to put in appearances, but he wants a smart lawyer to keep an eye on what’s going on and check on the family counsel, in whom he has limited confidence. That’s where you come in. I know you haven’t been admitted up there, but you can attend the hearings as his private watchdog and tell him if you think it’s advisable to send in additional troops.”

  “But won’t the family counsel object?”

  “They needn’t even know about it. And if they do find out, so what? Nobody’s going to pick a row with Dr. Shattuck. You’ll be staying with him and his family. It’s a mansion on Commonwealth Avenue, and I’ve no doubt you’ll find yourself very comfortable. Besides, there are five unmarried daughters, all reasonably attractive.”

  “Do you suggest I might have my pick of them?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised. A strapping New York attorney could be a rather tempting morsel to a closely guarded Boston debutante. Of course, there are a couple of brothers, and a seven-way division can wreak havoc on a family fortune, but plenty of those saving Bostonians are even richer than generally supposed.”

  “Do I strike you as so mercenary, sir?”

  “You don’t strike me as anything, silly boy. Can’t you see I’m talking in generalities?”

  “But if the shoe fits…?”

  “Exactly! Then wear it!”

  “Have you any advice as to which daughter I should start on?”

  “You’ll want me to propose for you next!” Uncle Charley retorted with a gruff laugh. “But seriously, Ambrose, and coming down to individualities, it’s time you thought of settling down. I’ve always said that an associate is less valuable to us both in the year that he’s courting and in the one following his marriage, so let’s get that period behind us as soon as we can. For I don’t have to tell such a smart aleck as you that you have a future in this firm!”

  Ambrose smiled to himself at the idea obviously in his uncle’s mind that he had to be got away from the pretty client before she jeopardized his career, but he knew it would do him no harm to be considered something of a philanderer provided he did not carry it too far. He lightheartedly adapted himself to his new role and journeyed north to visit the Shattucks.

  The house was as impressively strong as its famous architect, Henry H. Richardson, could make it; its stout red brick appearance and heavy Romanesque arches suggested that the zealous faith which it enshrined was ready to be militantly defended against any heresies that managed to flourish, even in the frosty New England air. The Reverend Philemon Shattuck, a hearty man of God, made Ambrose robustly welcome in a female household ruled but by no means cowed by its ebullient head, and he found himself almost at once congenial with the middle one of the five daughters. Harriet, or “Hetty,” was a pert, pale-faced and somewhat diminutive young lady, with unwaved auburn hair and darting, shrewdly observing black eyes, not indeed particularly pretty but alive, alert and voluble. He also noted the perfect family unity and good will: the other four, having noted her immediate interest in the newcomer and his seemingly equal response, at once left the field to her. Boston was certainly not like New York.

  On the first Sunday of his visit he went with the family to divine services and to hear Dr. Shattuck preach in that other, even more awesome structure of Mr. Richardson’s, Trinity Church, whose vast auditorium was filled to capacity. Ambrose listened, impressed but unpersuaded, to the sometimes mellifluous, sometimes thundering oration of the great cleric. His theme was happiness, the glorious happiness that should attend a true faith, even in the midst of grievous tribulations, a faith mighty enough to have inspired early Christian martyrs to sing joyful anthems at the very moment that famished lions approached them in the arena. Ambrose could not but marvel that so much polished and splendid oratory should be expended on so fatuous a theme.

  It was a beautiful day
of early spring, and he suggested to Hetty, who had sat beside him in the family pew, that they walk back to the house. Crossing the square he paused to look back at the bold and rugged magnificence of the somber temple they had just quit.

  “It’s really, isn’t it, to our century, at least up here in Boston, what Chartres was to France in the thirteenth? It expresses the hardy faith of the pilgrim fathers.”

  “Not quite,” she cautioned him. “Aren’t you forgetting it’s an Episcopal house of worship, a limb, if you like, of the Church of England, and that’s precisely what they came over here to get away from?”

  “I guess what the British can’t conquer they reconquer.”

  She turned to walk on. “At least in Boston whatever a church stands for, we let it stand clear. We don’t bury it under skyscrapers, the way you do in New York.”

  “Not yet,” he said grimly.

  “You mean we’ll come to it? I suppose we must. New York, like Britain, can be counted on to win in the end.”

  “Omnia vincit vulgarity!”

  “That’s what Mr. Henry James seems to think. Have you read his American Scene?”

  “No. I find life too short for his late style.” He spoke sincerely. He was no Jacobite, but it impressed him that she was.

  “That’s your loss. He cites the example of Trinity Church on lower Broadway being dwarfed by its colossal neighbor, an office building erected by its very trustees!”

  “You see that as a symbol of our era? That business dominates the cross? That business is the cross?”

  “I’m not so keen on drawing conclusions, Mr. Vollard. But I like to face facts.”

  “For what purpose? For your own diversion?”

  “Isn’t that enough? Facts are really all we have to go on. But we have to be sure first that they are facts. Trinity Church is put out of face by an adjacent skyscraper. That seems plain enough. It gives me something to start with.”

  “But the very way you state it leads inevitably to a hostile conclusion. You’re a cynic, Miss Shattuck, though you may try to conceal it.”

  “The way you conceal what you think about my father?”

  “How do you know what I think of your father?”

  “By the way your eyes roamed around our dining room the first night you stayed with us. You were thinking, Isn’t this pretty posh for a man of the cloth? Is it the Gospel according to Saint Matthew or Barchester Towers?”

  “Miss Shattuck, I’m beginning to be afraid of you.”

  “You mean because I spied a fact?”

  “More because I dread the conclusion.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “That I’m an ungrateful and ungracious guest.”

  “But I’ve come to no such conclusion! As to gratitude I see no call for it—you’ve come here to help us—and as to manners, yours have been above reproach.”

  “And manners are what count?”

  “Well, certainly as much as unuttered thoughts, over which we have no power.”

  “Then I needn’t be afraid of you?”

  “I don’t think you need be in the least afraid of me, Mr. Vollard.”

  They were soon on first-name terms, and in the ensuing fortnight became good friends indeed. His duties in following the Shattuck case consisted largely in attending the court sessions; his evenings were free to dine with the Shattucks or take Hetty and one of her sisters to a concert or play. And sometimes they would sit apart from the others in a corner of the long dark-paneled parlor, glinting with old silver pieces, and talk. Nobody interrupted them. He was marked as Hetty’s beau.

  Perhaps it was a bit premature. He found her provocative but reserved, challenging in her inquiries but moderate in her tone, tending to be at once sarcastic and commonsensical. She never said or did anything that would be classified as flirting, yet he was convinced that he had made a definite dent in her affections. Had he wanted to? He wasn’t sure. He certainly hadn’t wanted not to. Still, there was no question in his mind that she was the very opposite of the florid type of beauty that had thus far stirred his senses. He had no particular hankering to sleep with her, but he was sufficiently aware of the cruder side of his nature—as revealed in sundry episodes—to know that he was quite capable of mating with any passably attractive female.

  One evening he amused himself by probing into the question of her attitude towards her famous father and his hearty evangelicalism. He scented dissent behind the bland wall of her apparently total loyalty.

  “I can’t help wondering what sort of a Christian you are, Hetty. You’re certainly not strictly orthodox. I mean you don’t strike me as one who swallows the story of Jonah’s being swallowed by the whale.”

  “Can’t there be different ways of interpreting scripture?”

  “You mean you can twist it to mean anything you please?”

  “No. To mean what a serious and impartial mind can deduce.”

  “And that will be God’s truth?”

  “One hopes it will be truth.”

  “You’re elusive, Hetty. I can never pin you down.”

  “Why should you want to?”

  “Oh, to know where I stand with you, I suppose. Or even if I want to stand with you. I don’t really think I’m a Christian at all. I certainly don’t have any truck with the idea that Jesus was divine. I guess I fit into the school that holds he was a simple and rather harmless fanatic about whom a monstrous legend was created by a clever priesthood. My family’s religious attitude has always struck me as the quintessence of hollow gentility.”

  Hetty smiled. She was not in the least shocked. “In Boston we might call you a transcendentalist.”

  “That would clean me up, would it?”

  “Well, enough so we could ask you to dinner. Or at least to come in afterwards.”

  He was suddenly almost angry. “Can you never take anything seriously?”

  Her face became blank at this. “Oh, I’m serious enough. Isn’t it you who are being rather reckless? Isn’t it you who’s rocking the boat?”

  “Don’t boats sometimes need rocking?”

  “It’s better to wait till we’re a little closer to shore.”

  “You’d die, wouldn’t you, Hetty, to maintain the status quo? To keep intact the little world that meekly worships your father and his God?”

  Something almost like a frown for a moment clouded her brow. “My father does no harm to anyone. And he makes hundreds of people happier than they otherwise might be.”

  “By stuffing their heads with fairy tales!” Of course, he knew that he had gone too far. He didn’t care. The unruffled pallor of her attention stifled him.

  “What would you offer them instead?” was her cool inquiry.

  “Oh, maybe something that you just called truth.”

  “I can only respond with Pilate’s question.”

  At this he threw what last discretion he had to the winds. The others had already retired for the night, and they were now alone in the parlor, having assured Dr. Shattuck that they would turn off the lights. Ambrose had even started to do so, and the increased darkness suited his blackening mood. He turned back to her.

  “You have no concept of what sort of man I am!” he exclaimed. “You’d despise me if you did!”

  “Don’t be too sure of that.”

  “How would you feel if I told you that one of your attractions to me was your money?”

  She had remained quietly seated while he busied himself about the room. “I should probably wonder if you’d find it enough. I daresay you’ve heard greatly exaggerated amounts. Pa says people always think one is poorer or richer than one is.”

  He gaped. “You wouldn’t mind being married for your money?”

  “I certainly would if that were my suitor’s only consideration. But if it were merely another item in the inventory of my charms, I would have to accept it in almost any man who wanted to marry me. At least here in Boston. And from what I’ve heard about New York, it’s not a city devoid
of material concerns. Even a millionaire might covet my dowry. He might see it as a guarantee that he wasn’t being married for his money.”

  “You are certainly a very practical woman,” he muttered.

  “But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want virtues to balance the material factor. As Macduff says of Malcolm’s asserted vices: ‘All these are portable, with other graces weighed.’”

  Ambrose picked up the quotation with a fierce delight. ‘“But I have none!’” he cried. “‘Nay, had I power I should pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, uproar the universal peace, confound all unity on earth!’”

  “Well, we’re both Shakespeare lovers anyway,” she said, rising to help him turn off the last lamps. “And that in itself might be almost enough. But I warn you, Ambrose. If you think you can turn me off with the list of your imagined faults, I’m not taken in. Like Hamlet, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

  The next days were deeply troubling ones for Ambrose. It was perfectly clear now that Hetty was ready to receive and willing to accept his proposal of marriage, that she had carefully weighed him in a mind not liable to deception and had come to the conclusion that he was worthy of the strong affection he had aroused. It was also clear to him that she did not regard him as in any way obligated to make such a proposal and that she deemed his conduct, far from seductive, to have been strictly that of a gentleman, a guest in her father’s house and an agreeable friend. If he chose to leave their relationship at that, there would be no recriminations, no tears or fuss, no unseemly expressions of disappointment. The little woman was a lady, and a great lady at that.

  A signal point in her favor was that she would require no false or hypocritical avowals of eternal passion. She would take him just as he was, a man who wanted a wife because a wife and children were what every sensible male should want, and a wife whose grace, decorum, social position and, yes, even money would smooth his progress to the success to which he naturally aspired and which he certainly deserved. To the world she would be the perfect spouse, and in private the perfect mate for a man of his doubts, depressions and soaring ambition. And he for her? Well, wasn’t that her lookout? And wasn’t she admirably equipped to look out for herself? Was knowing that love was more on one side than the other really taking advantage of her? Wasn’t it almost always the case?