The Rector of Justin

by Louis Auchincloss

  How could I think I would survive being his boy, his son, his victim? My formmates keep their respectful distance; the faculty step gingerly by me. The Rector’s hound is safe only when the Rector is present, to allay with a finger’s touch the bristling hair on his neck. But if I give him youth, he gives me redemption. I enter into him and become but a pulse of a mighty being. With what dawdling sentiment do I see myself as an aide-de-camp standing on a hilltop over the battle, absorbed in my general’s tactics and mindless of the shells and bullets over my head! But there will be other battles in which such things may receive their due consideration.

  The war has been a godsend for people who like to blame things on things. My virgin sister Alice and my virgin-in-heart mother at Cannes, on terrace after terrace, nibbling macaroons under a macaroon sun, tell of me and my vices in subdued tones that throb with pride. A total wreck, so much promise, such a tragedy, such a loss. Oh, yes, it might have been better had he been killed outright. There are worse things than death, far worse, and it is I, his mother, who tell you that. I hope when I go, I go quickly, like dear Mr. Popley, at eighty-eight, on his tennis court at Hyeres last Sunday. I should never wish to survive my faculties or live to be a burden to Alice. I want to live just so long as I’m useful, not a minute longer. Well, it’s kind of you to say so, but if I do look young for my years, it’s because I try to take an interest in what the young people do and say. After all, the future depends on them. And that’s what I mind about Charley. He doesn’t seem to care what’s happening in the world today outside of that woman (I won’t mention her name!) and her trashy crowd. Well, of course, I can’t imagine what Dr. Prescott thinks about it! When Alice was last in Paris, she ran into her right smack in the Rue de la Paix. Naturally, she cut her. Oh, yes, she cut her dead. Alice is one of the few of her generation who remembers how to do that. It’s another of the arts that was lost in the war.

  I can hear the rumble of Dr. Prescott’s laugh in the rustle of autumn leaves on the Champs Elysees as I sip my Cointreau. I can hear it in taxi horns. I heard it in the exchange of artillery in the Argonne; I heard it in the slush of boots through the oozing mud of the terrible spring of 1918. He was always bigger or smaller than life, louder or softer than any sound. At times he was as silly as a letter from Mother; at times he seemed to bear as little relation to my present as the memory of one of Alice’s big marquise dolls. And at times he loomed over the war-lit battlefield like a leering caricature of the Kaiser, exulting in Armageddon, or exulting that he had predicted it, flitting back and forth across the beam streaked firmament with Cardinal Richelieu in a grotesque game of tag, now the pursued, now the pursuer, like a dog and cat in a jerky animated cartoon.

  Ridiculous? The only faith of Marlowe and Webster was that the grinning skull was less ridiculous than the jeweled crown that it wore askew. But can naught be funnier than zero?

  16

  Brian’s Journal

  DECEMBER 7, 1942. I am a bit shamefaced to enter in this journal, on the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor, that I am happier than ever before in my life, but I am beginning to understand that happiness is a state of which God approves. A man who has attained spiritual union with him could be happy in the Roman arena; indeed, we read of saints who were. Dr. Prescott used to quote Phillips Brooks who, when asked if he was happy, would reply: “Yes, perfectly.” Well, I have not achieved any such state of grace, but I think I can safely say I have attained peace of mind. I believe that I am doing what I ought to be doing and that if I live and graduate I will be ordained in the spring of 1945.

  I would go every weekend to visit Dr. Prescott, to whom I owe it all, if he would allow me, but he says that it is unpatriotic to take up train space. Actually, the train to New Paisley is never full, and what he really wants is to have me learn to stand on my own feet. He realizes the effect of his personality on mine. There are those who say that his continued presence so near the school is evidence that he doesn’t realize its effect on Mr. Moore’s, but they are wrong. There is no such effect. Duncan Moore is totally independent of Dr. Prescott, and Dr. Prescott is well aware of it.

  Which does not, of course, mean that Dr. Prescott likes it. That is another story.

  Last weekend he let me come to Justin because he was preaching in chapel. I arrived at the start of morning service and slipped into a back pew as the choir was passing down the aisle singing “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand,” followed by the two headmasters, acting and emeritus, Moore towering over his predecessor, his firm bass voice clearly distinguishable above the sopranos and tenors, and Dr. Prescott, very grave and majestic, his lips moving but emitting no audible note, his eyes fixed on the great altar window of St. Justin before Rusticus. For all Moore’s height and noisiness he might have been a schoolboy walking beside his principal.

  Divinity school has made me more aware of Dr. Prescott as a clergyman. Mr. Griscam told me once, in his half denigrating way, that as long as the headmaster had to be a minister only an hour a week, his conscience required him to put on a good show for at least those sixty minutes. There was a small degree of truth in this, for Dr. Prescott at times felt guilty, not at having no parish duties (for, obviously, he had no time for them), but at never having wanted them. His principal reason, however, for giving so much care and devotion to the chapel service was that he regarded it as the keystone of his educational plan. God might indeed be everywhere, but he was particularly in chapel when masters and boys worshiped together.

  As Mr. Havistock had once pointed out, there might have been a touch of the theatrical in Dr. Prescott’s one-time practice of reciting the service by heart, but I think almost everyone agrees that he is a great preacher. Mood follows rapidly upon mood; pathos, humor; the rich, resonant tones soar into serenity and dip into raking sarcasm. He can be funny; he can be awesome; he can be sublime. Only the envious could begrudge him the pleasure that it so obviously gives him. It is the pleasure, after all, of a great artist.

  That morning he took his text from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and he described amusingly the natural exasperation of those who had borne the heat and burden of the day only to receive the same wage as the Johnny-come-latelies of the afternoon. But then suddenly the note of levity fell away; a pucker appeared in his brow and the tone deepened.

  “What then in all seriousness, my boys, should be our attitude to the blessed of this earth? To those who have better looks, better bank accounts, better health? Or even better character, or better faith in God? Should we not pray (and this can be hard!) that they may be as happy as they seem? And should we not confess to ourselves that the ease of their circumstances does not necessarily mean that God loves them less? Indeed, he may love them more. For the blessed of this earth can be very lovable indeed. And none of us is a Christian until he has accepted the parable of the laborer in the vineyard. Until he is willing to share the kingdom of God equally with those who have toiled but a fraction of his working day. Until he has recognized that it would not be the kingdom of God if there were any differences in it.”

  After chapel, as I was greeting Dr. Prescott on the steps, Mr. Moore came up to ask me very cordially to lunch at the head table. To my surprise Dr. Prescott intervened impatiently.

  “No, no, Duncan, I’m taking him to lunch at my house. I want to find out how he’s doing at school.”

  “Perhaps then you will both come over afterwards?”

  “He has to get back to Cambridge. I’m going to put him on an early train.”

  I had known nothing about either lunch or my train, but obviously my role was silence. It occurred to me that Dr. Prescott was treating his successor with much the same testiness that he had used to show Mr. Griscam. Was it the treatment that he meted out to those who disputed his absolute control of Justin? Feeling sorry for a headmaster who had to operate under such a handicap, I felt impelled to observe, when we had left Mr. Moore: “Everyone tells me he’s doing a splendid job.”

  Dr. Prescott stop
ped short and plunged his walking stick into the earth. “Are you trying to bait me, Aspinwall?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Well, you’re behaving as if you were. Every Tom, Dick and Harry makes a point of seeking me out to tell me what a great job Moore’s doing. They want to see if the old lion can still roar. They’re trying to goad me into breaking the sacred rule that condemns the retired to silence.”

  “Surely, sir, you can’t think that of me?”

  He gave me a sharp, hard look, pulled up his stick, grunted and continued his way across the grass. “Well, I grant that you’ve always seemed a particularly fulsome admirer of mine. Keep it up, my boy, keep it up. If it’s not sincere, tell me it is. The old live on flattery, you know.”

  Happily I knew him well enough now to discount some of the seeming malevolence of his mood. “Wherein has Moore been so deficient?” I asked as I caught up with him.

  He stopped again abruptly and once more stuck his walking stick in the ground. “Have you noticed how the boys go into the dining room? Always in my day they were dismissed by forms from assembly and passed to their places at table in a double line. Now they all push in together in a crush that jams up in the doorway like a New Year’s Eve crowd in Times Square!”

  I was too surprised for a minute to say anything. Was this the man who twenty minutes before had transported me to a vineyard in Palestine, who had given me fresh insight into what could be accomplished from the pulpit? Could one descend from so spiritual a sublime to so earthy a ridiculous?

  “I suppose they still manage to get into the dining room,” I said wonderingly.

  “Of course they get in. But does appearance mean nothing to you? When you’ve been a schoolteacher as long as I have you’ll know that appearances are three-quarters of the battle.” He pulled his stick up. “No, nine-tenths!”

  “I am surprised to hear it from one so steeped in fundamentals.”

  “Oh, I know, you think I’m an old fusspot,” he muttered crossly as he walked on. “But that’s just because I happen to be old. If I were twenty years younger and said the same thing, people would say I was profound. That’s the hell of old age. You’ll find out, Brian!”

  “I doubt it, sir. With my heart I shall not make old bones.”

  He gave me a swift appraising glance. “You seem very accepting.”

  “Oh, but I am. I don’t mind at all. I shall probably have much more time than I need to make the small contribution that I’m likely to make.”

  We talked now of more cheerful things, of the beautiful clear winter weather and the prospect of snow. I had spoken designedly of my heart because I had wanted to interrupt his own inclinations to self-pity. We went to the little cottage that he had rented and ate Mrs. Midge’s good roast beef. He lives very simply, waited on by his devoted housekeeper and one maid. I have heard that Mrs. Prescott’s trust went to the daughters on her death and that he has refused any contribution from them. But he has no interest in worldly things. All he wants is a seat from which to watch the continuation of his school. I am only sorry that he watches it quite so closely.

  April 6, 1943. The Dean preached at Justin this morning, and knowing that I always like to go back to the school he very kindly asked me to drive over and back with him. I was surprised not to see Dr. Prescott in chapel, but Mr. Moore explained at lunch that he had a slight cold and had been told to stay in.

  “Go see him if you have a minute,” he admonished me, as if such a visit were a charity and not a privilege. “He’s all cut up about the news we got yesterday of Martin Day. You remember Martin, don’t you? He was senior prefect in ’37. Shot down in the Pacific. A wonderful boy. But tragedy’s all we hear these days, isn’t it?”

  The Dean said he would not be leaving for Cambridge for an hour, and as soon as the meal was over I hurried to Dr. Prescott’s house. I found him alone in the living room by a fire, very morose and rather remote, but obviously glad to have someone to talk to. I sat in the chair opposite and occasionally poked the fire, allowing him to ramble on at will about Martin Day.

  “He was the kind of boy you couldn’t fault, Brian. Straight as they come, hardworking, hard-playing, devoted to a widowed mother, the inspiration of younger brothers and sisters. Yet he seemed to look at life with an impassive resignation, a kind of contained bitterness, as if he were saying: ‘Oh, yes, I’ll do my best; I’ll even make it a good best, spit on me though you may.’ He was the best senior prefect I ever had; he took infinite burdens off my shoulders—and yet, do you know, Brian? I never warmed to him as I should have. He was charmless. Totally charmless. Can you imagine a priest of God caring about such a trifle as charm?” In disgust he smashed his fist down on the table beside him and made the lamp and ashtrays jump. “Can you imagine a supposedly serious headmaster caring about a smile, a trick of expression, a way of joking? Yet I did. Charley Strong, whom you know all about, had extraordinary charm. But he was no finer than Martin Day. Less so. Oh, yes, less so.” He sighed and shook his head regretfully. “And poor Day wanted my affection and knew he wasn’t getting it, and he accepted this just as he accepted everything else. Just as I’m sure he accepted that last horrible dive into the blue of the Pacific!”

  “Oh, come, sir,” I interrupted at last. “Surely you’re making things worse than they are. I was with you once when Day joined us for a walk, down on a visit from Harvard. You were exceedingly nice to him. I remember it distinctly.”

  “If I was, it was because I was making up for what I didn’t feel. A man who sets himself up to be a headmaster should distribute his affections equally.”

  “You mean he should appear to,” I corrected him. “Even our Lord preferred John to the other disciples.”

  He gave me a testy stare. “Will you tell me why you are always so bent on excusing me, Brian?” he demanded. “Is it because of that work of hagiography on which you are embarked? Do you object to my departing an inch from the role of saint to which you have so ruthlessly condemned me?”

  I remembered how he had torn into Mr. Griscam for his proposed biography and could only suppose that it was my turn now. He had never before mentioned my habit of making notes about him, but I had known, of course, that he must be aware of it. Cordelia, if no one else, would have told him.

  “I wouldn’t really call it a work of anything,” I answered humbly. “It is true that I collect stories about you. Would you care to see what I’ve got? I’ll burn them all if you wish.”

  I had not expected that so little oil would settle such troubled waters. Dr. Prescott looked suddenly almost sheepish. “No, no, dear boy, you’re very welcome to what you’ve got. If anyone is going to ‘collect’ me, I had as soon it be you.” He looked again into the fire for several silent moments. “As a matter of fact I have a prize bit of ‘Prescottiana’ for you that I was looking over this morning. When one is past eighty one doesn’t wish to have papers in one’s possession that one would not be willing to have anyone see in case of a sudden demise. This document must decidedly be either burned or placed in trusted hands. Would you take it subject to two conditions?”

  “What would they be?”

  “To be sure that David Griscam never sees it. It was written by his son, Jules, who died twenty years ago, and it would pain him.”

  “I promise.”

  “Wait. That’s not all. You will also promise me that if you ever publish anything about me, you will incorporate the gist of this document. Of course, you need mention no names.”

  I hesitated. “May I ask why?”

  “Because it is the record of my greatest failure. That’s why I got it out yesterday when the news came about Martin Day. Martin was not so great a failure of mine as Jules. The Japs killed Martin, but I killed Jules. Or, not to be melodramatic, I sent him down the path that ended in his death.”

  It was my turn now to stare into the dying fire as I debated my next remark. “I thought he committed suicide.”

  “I have always dreaded to think so, for
if it was suicide, it was also murder. Jules’ car, a Bugatti sports model, left the highway between Nice and Cannes and crashed into a rock pile. It was traveling at eighty miles an hour, and Jules, as usual, had been drinking. But Jules was not the only person killed. There was a girl in the car. Why should he have made that poor little Riviera tart pay the price of his own mad follies?”

  “Maybe she wanted to die with him.”

  “And maybe somebody has a taste for cheap cinema,” Dr. Prescott retorted crisply. “Two months before his death he sent me—out of the blue, for we hadn’t met in three years—an extraordinary document. So far as I know, nobody but myself has ever seen it—except, of course, the French psychoanalyst for whom it was apparently written. He must have been trying to get Jules to exorcise me by writing me up. I have heard of such therapies. One dredges up the old guilty incidents and reduces them to impotence by simple articulation. I suppose Jules was so proud of the finished composition that he wanted to show it to his old headmaster.” His smile was very wry. “Or maybe he just wanted revenge.”

  “Did he get it?”

  “He got it when he died.”

  He rose and went slowly to his desk from which he took a thick pile of white papers held together by a rubber band. When he handed it to me I saw that the top page bore the letterhead HOTEL DU PARC and was closely covered by a thin, spidery handwriting.

  “You accept my conditions?” he pursued.

  Again I hesitated. But, after all, I had only not to publish. “Without reservation.”

  “Then it’s yours. Along with whatever you got from poor old Horace Havistock. He died, you know.”

  “Oh, no, I—didn’t.”

  “Yes. Two weeks ago.” He nodded gloomily. “High time, too. His mind was going. And I believe David Griscam gave you something?”