The Friend of Women and Other Stories

by Louis Auchincloss

  CAROLINE: There’s very little I haven’t guessed about Alexander. What is it that I haven’t guessed about the Hones?

  MRS. HONE: That we’re Paleolithics.

  CAROLINE: You’re what? (Irritated, as she takes it in as only another manifestation of Mrs. Hone’s heavy eccentricity) Oh. Well, I’m glad I don’t have to depend on Alexander’s hunting, if that’s what you mean.

  MRS. HONE (Loftily): Alexander and I were never ones to love our fetters. If he has put aside his slingshot and is visiting the priestess of a neighboring village, is it up to his old mother, whose love of freedom he inherits, to give him away? Don’t worry, Caroline. Alexander will always return to his cave.

  CAROLINE (Bleakly): Well, when he does, he’ll find that I haven’t put aside my slingshot. Or my small stone hatchet.

  MRS. HONE (Moving to the offensive): Why do you suspect my boy? What are your grounds?

  CAROLINE (Coolly): My grounds, as you might imagine in such a case, are utterly inadequate. For instance, this summer, when I was away at the Cape with the children, I heard that he was seen dining at a restaurant in the city, in a corner, with a dark-haired girl who kept turning her face away from the room.

  (ELIDA suddenly looks around in consternation. She turns quickly back to the bookshelves.)

  And the other day when I was going through the pockets of a suit of his that I was sending to the cleaner’s I found two used ticket stubs for the Lincoln Theatre. That’s where The Ballad Girl is playing. I told him that night that I wanted to see it and asked him if by any chance he’d been. He said no. (After a pause, significantly) He said he was dying to.

  MRS. HONE: You call that evidence?

  ELIDA: A very little goes a long way with a man as stuffy as Alexander.

  MRS. HONE: He couldn’t have forgotten going to a musical comedy?

  CAROLINE: Hardly. When he was still dying to see it.

  MRS. HONE (Sternly): It could be that he doesn’t find his own cave as enticing as it might be. It could be that he’s not the only one at fault.

  CAROLINE: Oh, of course. Anyone but your darling boy!

  MRS. HONE: Look into your own heart, Caroline. Search there.

  CAROLINE (Exploding): My heart! How can you defend him, Mrs. Hone? Of course, if you think keeping some little slut in a love nest, presumably with my money, is Paleolithic, I don’t suppose there’s any point in our discussing it. To me it’s disgusting.

  MRS. HONE: You may think me an immoral old woman, Caroline, because I don’t go around calling everything I see disgusting. There’s nothing disgusting under the sky. There are only things that are beautiful. (Meaningfully) And things that are not beautiful.

  CAROLINE: I wonder if you would have taken an attitude quite so philosophic while Mr. Hone was alive. Was he in the habit of paying visits to priestesses in neighboring villages?

  MRS. HONE (Shocked): Caroline! De mortuis!

  CAROLINE: Oh. I beg your pardon. That, I take it, was one of the things that was not beautiful.

  MRS. HONE: When I had trouble I handled it myself. I didn’t go about the town advertising my shame.

  CAROLINE (Getting up): I take it from that that there is some shame to advertise. In your opinion, anyway. Who is this girl, Mrs. Hone?

  MRS. HONE (Closing her eyes and shaking her head): I see nothing. I hear nothing.

  CAROLINE: Is it someone I know?

  MRS. HONE (Her eyes still closed): I hear nothing. I see nothing.

  CAROLINE (Grim): Well, at least we know where we stand. And at least I’ve found out there is someone. We’re dining with you tonight, I believe?

  (MRS. HONE simply nods.)

  And then to the opera? What is it to be?

  MRS. HONE (Murmuring): Tristan.

  CAROLINE (Smiling ironically): How appropriate. Till then.

  (Exit CAROLINE door C.)

  MRS. HONE (Reaching her hand out toward ELIDA): Give me a hand, dear. I want to go to my room.

  (With ELIDA’s assistance MRS. HONE struggles to her feet.) Whew! That girl’s visits are always bad news, but this one has laid me flat. I’ll need more than my usual nap this evening, Elida. You can bring me another nip of Scotch. To warm my blood. (Raising her hand suddenly to her brow) And she’s coming for dinner, too! Oh, me trials and tribulations!

  ELIDA (Anxiously): You didn’t believe what she said, Aunt Nellie? It couldn’t be true, could it?

  MRS. HONE (Giving her a sidelong look): How should I know? She doesn’t know who, if that’s what you’re worried about. She hasn’t even a suspicion. Your old aunt was a lady from start to finish. Don’t you think?

  ELIDA (Staring): Do you know, Aunt Nellie?

  MRS. HONE (Mimicking her): Do I know, Aunt Nellie? What do you suppose, my little innocent? Do you think having eyes, I see not? Of course, I know. I know that me pride and joy, the only issue, shall we put it, of this old body, has left the straight and narrow at the behest of a certain young lady. And vicee-versee.

  ELIDA (Aghast): And who is this certain young lady, Aunt Nellie?

  MRS. HONE (With a mocking air of astonishment): Who indeed? Who, I wonder? Oh, Caroline doesn’t know, I grant you. But then, she’s stupid. She can’t see what’s under her nose. And I won’t tell her, either. Never fear. But I know. And you know, too, you foxy creature. Who’s the little baggage that’s been waiting so shamelessly in the front hall to tempt my virtuous boy whenever he comes to call on his old sick mother? Who’s that, I’d like to know?

  ELIDA (Her hands on her cheeks): Aunt Nellie! It’s not true!

  MRS. HONE: Pish, tush.

  ELIDA (Wildly): It’s not true! It’s not!

  MRS. HONE (Snorting): Neither do I have pains in my joints. Neither is Tristan a beautiful opera.

  ELIDA: But we’re cousins, Aunt Nellie. Alexander has never been anything more than kind and considerate to me.

  MRS. HONE: Do you keep pictures of all your cousins on your dressing table?

  ELIDA (Appalled): Aunt Nellie! You were in my room!

  MRS. HONE: Certainly I was in your room. Aren’t you my business, child?

  ELIDA (Suddenly passionate): But you had no right! That’s my room! The only place in the world that I can call my own. I must have one place that’s private… can’t you see that? (She sinks down on the sofa and covers her face with her hands for a moment. Then she looks up and, after a moment, shrugs) It was only a silly picture that a photographer snapped on Broadway and sold us for fifty cents. I kept it as a souvenir.

  MRS. HONE: Broadway? So it was you at the theater, after all. Oh, my prophetic soul, I knew it! (She sits down heavily beside ELIDA and puts her arm around her shoulders.) My child, you don’t think I’m angry with you, do you? Or that I disapprove? You don’t think your poor old aunt has gone over to the philistines? That she’d take Caroline’s side? Oh, Elida. Look at me, child.

  (ELIDA looks away.)

  “To love and be so loved, yet so mistaken.” Look at your old aunt and tell her all about it.

  ELIDA (Shaking her head): But there’s nothing to tell.

  MRS. HONE: Oh, nothing, is that it? You talked about nothing when you dined together, when you went to the theater together, when you came home in the dark in a taxi?

  ELIDA (Indignant): But that wasn’t the way it was, Aunt Nellie! Not at all. Alexander took me out to dinner exactly once, the same evening he took me to the theater. Someone at the bank had given him tickets that afternoon, and Caroline was away. There wasn’t time to get anyone but me.

  MRS. HONE: Funny he should have lied to her about it.

  ELIDA: But you know how jealous she is!

  MRS. HONE: And I suppose he doesn’t sit up here and talk to you after you’ve bundled me off to bed.

  ELIDA (Trying her best to be patient): He sometimes sits and finishes his drink, yes. Why not? Isn’t he my own first cousin?

  MRS. HONE (Grunting): Cousin? As if that had anything to do with the price of eggs. (Sound of doorbell again) That’s
probably him now. (Getting up slowly) I’ll ask him. We’ll see if he tries to pull the wool over his poor old mother’s eyes.

  ELIDA (Frantic): Oh, Aunt Nellie, for God’s sake, please! Do you want to embarrass me to death? Now, please, it’s time for your rest. I’ll send him right in as soon as you’re ready.

  MRS. HONE (Shrugging): All right, dear, all right. I know when I’m not wanted. (Almost with a leer) When the young have to be alone! (She goes to door C. Mocking) Oh, Caroline! if you only knew!

  (Exit MRS. HONE door C.)

  (ELIDA covers her face for a moment after her aunt has gone and then, recovering, turns to door C. as ALEXANDER HONE enters. He is a medium-size man, somewhat under forty, dressed soberly and carefully in brown, his tie tied in a tiny knot. He is handsome in a mild, smooth, round-faced fashion and has the cautious, occasionally sly affability of the conscientious if not totally convinced conformist. One feels that his resistance, if any, would spring from irritability rather than anger.)

  ALEXANDER: Good evening, Elida.

  ELIDA (Tense): Have you forgot you’re dining here tonight? In an hour? Don’t you have to go home and dress?

  ALEXANDER (His hand on his forehead): God, I’d forgotten all about it. Tristan for four bloody hours. I’d better beat it. How’s Ma?

  ELIDA: Fine.

  ALEXANDER (Looking at his watch): Maybe I have time for one drink. (Sighs) It’s been a long day.

  ELIDA (Hesitating): Alexander?

  ALEXANDER: Yes?

  ELIDA: Can I ask you something first? Something rather personal?

  ALEXANDER (Amused): Shoot.

  ELIDA (Blurting it out): Why didn’t you tell Caroline that you’d taken me to the theater?

  ALEXANDER (After a pause): How do you know I didn’t?

  ELIDA: She was here just now. She’s found the ticket stubs. And she’s livid. Really!

  ALEXANDER (Pursing his lips): So that’s why she’s been so persnickety lately. Does she know who it was?

  ELIDA: No. She came to ask your mother if she knew.

  ALEXANDER: And did she?

  ELIDA (Hesitating): Yes. But she didn’t tell.

  ALEXANDER (Smiling as he takes this in): Good old Ma. Oh, Elida, this could be quite a lark, you know!

  ELIDA (Upset at his attitude): But why didn’t you tell her?

  ALEXANDER (Changing his tone, surprised): Why? Do you think I have to tell her every time I step out with a pretty girl?

  ELIDA (Appalled): But you know it wasn’t like that! You know it was perfectly innocent!

  ALEXANDER (Raising his eyebrows): Do I? Speak for yourself.

  ELIDA (Horrified): Alexander! What are you saying?

  ALEXANDER (Shrugging): Simply that when I take a pretty girl out to dinner and the theater, it may be many things, but I hope it’s not innocent. Good Lord, how old do you think I am?

  ELIDA (Stepping back): Oh!

  ALEXANDER (Taking the offensive): Well, would you really prefer it was innocent?

  ELIDA: I?

  ALEXANDER (Moving a step closer to her): Would you really rather I looked upon you as Mother’s little helper? Would that be more gratifying?

  ELIDA (Staring; in a low, reproachful voice): What must you think of me?

  ALEXANDER: What must you think of me? (Insinuatingly) Never as a friend? A warm friend? (Coming closer) One who might like to be warmer?

  ELIDA (Throwing up her hands): Alexander! What about your wife?

  ALEXANDER (Smiling broadly): But that’s just the beauty of it, don’t you see? Right under her nose and she’d never guess! Never in a million years!

  ELIDA: And you think I’d allow myself to drop to—that?

  ALEXANDER: Now don’t tell me you’re going to go prudish on me. I know what girls are like. It’s all an act with them. I thought you at least were above hypocrisy.

  ELIDA (Desperate): Will you go now? Please?

  ALEXANDER (In a coaxing tone): Oh, come off, Elida. After all, it’s all in the family. (He seizes her hand and tries to pull her to him.)

  ELIDA (In horror): Oh! (She disengages herself furiously and rushes from the stage by door C. ALEXANDER shrugs and walks to the table with the whiskey decanter, which he is picking up as the curtain falls?)

  Scene 2

  SCENE: Same, an hour later

  AT RISE: ELIDA is alone, dressed in a simple brown evening dress, moving about the room, arranging ashtrays, fixing flowers, doing the necessary before a dinner party. ALICE enters door C.

  ALICE: Mr. DeLancey, Miss Elida.

  ELIDA: Oh, thank you, Alice. (Exit ALICE, and enter WINTHROP DELANCEY, in evening clothes, a tall, slender, distinguished man, in his early forties, with thin, receding hair combed straight back from his temples, a slightly hooked nose, and clear eyes that stare at one with a calm, semicurious detachment.)

  WINTHROP: Good evening, my dear Elida. I’m afraid I’m a bit early.

  ELIDA: Oh, but I hoped you would be, Winthrop. I got ready early just in case.

  WINTHROP: Well, a man couldn’t ask for a better welcome than that, could he? (They both sit. ELIDA leans forward; clasping her hands, nervous.)

  ELIDA: There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t know if you know it, but… (Shyly) Well, you’re really the one person around here to whom I can talk.

  WINTHROP: Dear me, I hope that isn’t so. I should have thought Cousin Nellie would have had a great deal to say—

  ELIDA (Interrupting): Oh, Aunt Nellie’s been very kind. It’s not that. But you know how she is.

  (They exchange an understanding look.)

  And her friends. And this room! (She looks about and gives a little shudder.) Sometimes when I look around at the accumulated piles of opera programs, the old coins, the bits of seashell, all those huge art books so jammed in the shelves, and the statuettes… (She sighs.) Well, it seems almost like a great heap of bones. The aftermath of a life devoted too fiercely to devouring art and relics. As if, in the end, even discrimination has gone, and a buttonhook is the same as a Botticelli.

  WINTHROP (Sympathetic): What William James called the inertly sentimental condition?

  ELIDA (Eagerly): Well, isn’t it? Isn’t that just what it is?

  WINTHROP (Shrugging): You should know far better than I. Cousin Nellie is your aunt. She’s only my cousin by marriage.

  ELIDA: But you’re her lawyer. Don’t lawyers have to know everything about their clients?

  WINTHROP: Well, she’s considerably less sentimental, I can assure you, when it comes to business. If that’s what you mean.

  ELIDA (Getting up and walking restlessly about): I wonder if it wouldn’t be a nicer world the other way around.

  WINTHROP: How do you mean?

  ELIDA: If people were more realistic about the arts and more sentimental in business.

  WINTHROP: People have their responsibilities, you know.

  ELIDA (Nodding rather sadly): Don’t I know. Uncle Robert Hone used to talk a great deal about his responsibilities. As a child I used to think of them as the small gold objects that dangled on his watch chain which he was always fingering. (She turns back to him with a shrug.) Now Alexander wears them on his.

  WINTHROP (Smiling): You’re very cynical tonight.

  ELIDA: I feel cynical.

  WINTHROP: Has anything happened?

  ELIDA (Eagerly): Yes, something has happened. It’s what I’m trying to tell you.

  WINTHROP: Is it SO difficult?

  ELIDA: I find it so. Because I keep thinking there are two yous. The Winthrop who’s always been kind enough to listen to my petty problems, and the Winthrop who’s Aunt Nellie’s lawyer. Who belongs to all those clubs.

  WINTHROP: Nonsense. There’s only one, and he’s your friend. Now go sit on the sofa and turn your back to me. You’ll find it’s easier that way.

  ELIDA (Doing as he says): Does this really help? I’ll try. (A pause) Maybe it would be easier if I started with them.

  WINTHROP: Them?


  ELIDA: Aunt Nellie and Alexander. And Caroline, too, of course. (After a pause) You see, when I first came here to live, I assumed, with all the self-pity of a poor relative, that they had everything. (With a sweeping gesture) Everything in the whole world that they could possibly want. And I, of course, had nothing. Nothing, that is, that they could want. It was a question, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning would have put it, of the chrism being on their head, on mine the dew.

  WINTHROP: I see.

  ELIDA: And then suddenly… well, it’s hard to describe. It was rather like a nightmare. Instead of hovering in the wings as the pale and shadowy companion, it seems… now promise me you won’t laugh, Winthrop?

  WINTHROP (Quietly): You know I won’t laugh.

  ELIDA: Well, it seems I’m the leading lady.

  WINTHROP: The leading lady?

  ELIDA: It’s as if the curtain has suddenly gone up and there I am, caught alone before a glare of lights, utterly unprepared, not a line in my head, with Alexander and Aunt Nellie and Caroline sitting out there in front, clapping their hands and stamping their feet for me to begin.

  WINTHROP: But to begin what?

  ELIDA: The drama.

  WINTHROP: Drama? What sort of a drama?

  ELIDA: Well, I guess you’d call it a romantic drama.

  WINTHROP (After a pause, frowning): I trust there hasn’t been any trouble with Alexander.

  ELIDA (With a short laugh): Trouble!

  WINTHROP (Sternly): Has he been bothering you, Elida?

  ELIDA: He thinks I want to have an affair with him. (Turning back around, coming out with it all now) And Aunt Nellie’s convinced that we are. Not only convinced, but revels in it. And Caroline’s wild with suspicion, although not of me yet. Isn’t it fantastic? And all over nothing, Winthrop!

  WINTHROP (Shaking his head): Fantastic.

  ELIDA: Wouldn’t you think they had enough out of life without wanting me, too. It’s indecent.

  WINTHROP (Nodding): I suppose there’s always something indecent about starvation. You see, they’re starved, Elida. Starved for one little slice of genuine emotion. Oh, they’ve been snapping at each other for years, I know that, but they have no real appetite for themselves. They’re too much alike. They want to sink their teeth into a real person.