Honorable Men

by Louis Auchincloss

  ELIHU BENEDICT was still only in his early seventies, but he was gaunt and gray, and there were long periods when he neither moved nor spoke. He liked to be taken every morning to his office directly below Chip’s, hung with his beautiful collection of Fitzhugh Lane seascapes. Chip had prepared him for the interview with a memorandum on the Barnheim offer and the arguments in favor of its acceptance.

  When Chip came in, his father told him calmly to close the door. The two sat in silence before the old man spoke.

  “Let me see whether I understand you correctly, my son. You say that this offer will considerably enrich the Benedicts. You say that further resistance to the takeover might not only fail, but could leave us worse off than we now are. And then—and this is what interests me particularly—you say that the techniques of resistance are morally offensive to you.”

  “That’s it, Dad. Is there any reason people should not be free to purchase stock as they wish?”

  “Even if what they really wish is to dismember an old family business?”

  “Well, that’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? They’re in business. We’re in business. They think they can run Benedict more cheaply and profitably.”

  “And do you think they can?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Because our management in recent years has diminished the quality of the product to a point where it can be as readily produced by others as by ourselves?”

  Chip stared into the impenetrable paternal eyes. He was not accustomed to this dry wind of detachment. “I suppose so, yes.”

  “And in order to enable us to enter the broad market of popular glassware, we had to go public. And once we had gone public, we had to anticipate that we might be bought out. So what have we accomplished?”

  “We’ll have made a lot of money.”

  “But we had a lot of money. And we had the pleasure of manufacturing beautiful things.”

  “All that is true, sir.”

  “And now we’ll be rich. Period.” Elihu looked away from his son. His voice was still devoid of any emotion. “I don’t understand you, Chip. I don’t know what motivates you. I never have. You build things up only to tear them down. Maybe you’re a true man of your times. Maybe the idea of a small, family-run company that does one thing proudly and does it well is hopelessly old-fashioned. I have given you full rein and gone along with your ideas. You have turned your five talents into ten. You are a success. It’s your world. You can live in it. My time is almost over. I’m just as glad.”

  Chip, looking at that long, immobile profile, knew that there was nothing to say. His heart ached with frustration. Was the lifetime of love that this man had given him to end on this note of desolation? Could he not throw his arms around the old man and cry, “Dad, I love you, I love you!” No. Because Elihu was too good for that. Elihu wanted more than that. He wanted a son who would run Benedict as he had run it. He knew that this would never be and probably never could have been. He accepted it. But it was bitter tea, and no amount of demonstration, no matter how sincere, no matter how heartfelt, was going to make it any sweeter.

  “You know, Dad, that I’ll do as you say. If you tell me to reject the offer and go on with the fight, I’ll do it. I might even be relieved!”

  “But I shall not tell you to do that, my son. I have no idea of resuming the duties and prerogatives of an office that I resigned of my own free will. You have assumed those duties, and you must discharge them as you see best.”

  “But you think me a callous opportunist,” Chip replied bitterly. “Say it!”

  His father turned back to him with eyes that contained no reproach, but rather a look of unexpected sympathy. “No, my boy, you’re wrong. You belong to your time, I to mine. I am only sorry that you do not get the kick out of your time that I did out of mine. You’re not happy, Chip.”

  “I’m certainly not happy about this.”

  “No, but you should be. By your own lights. If you believe in them.”

  “I don’t know what I believe in, Dad.”

  “I wish I could help you, dear boy. But I can’t. It’s too late. I’m too old. But then I’ve never really understood you. Talk to your mother. Talk to Alida. But I think I need to rest now. This has been a trying experience. Don’t worry. I’ll get over it. Call Timmy, will you?”

  Chip opened the door to call his father’s orderly, and while they waited Elihu asked him about his future. “Will you work for the new syndicate?”

  “No, I couldn’t. Nor will I live in Benedict. It would be too hard, after being top dog here. I’ll probably move to New York.” He tried to laugh, but the laugh would not come. “I’ll do good works to make up for my sins!”

  But his father did not smile back. “Alida will like that. She’s got New York in her blood. Though she has done a wonderful job here in Benedict.”

  Alone, Chip wondered how his father could be so wrong about Alida. He knew that the scene with her was going to be almost as difficult as the one with Elihu. He went directly home now from the office to get it over with. He found Alida in her garden and led her into the living room, where he told her of his decision. She listened, gaping, and then to his dismay she dropped into the sofa and started to sob.

  “What are you doing to me?” she cried. “You can’t just take a girl’s life and snap it in two like that!”

  “I didn’t think you’d take it quite so hard. Perhaps I should have prepared you more for it. I know you feel that there hasn’t been a proper communication between us. I’ve always found it difficult to be frank about myself. But now I’m trying. It’s going to mean everything to me to get away from Benedict once this deal has gone through. I’m pretty sure I’ll want to live in New York. There are all kinds of things I might go into there—hospital work, libraries, zoos. I know you’ve made a great life for yourself here. No one appreciates that more than I do. But you can do it again in New York.” He hesitated. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked a real sacrifice of you before now.”

  He could see that this gave her pause. She reached one hand doubtfully out to him, but then pulled it back.

  “You say you’ve never asked a sacrifice of me. I guess that’s true. Except for my silence, my not intruding. It’s not easy for a woman to be silent, not to intrude. But now you’re asking me to give up the only life I’ve ever loved and go back to one that I know I’m going to hate and despise!”

  “How can you possibly know any such thing?”

  “Because I do! Why can’t we stay in Benedict? Even if we lose the company. You say we’ll be richer. Why can’t we stay and run the charities and the other things in town that nobody’s going to kick us out of?”

  “Live in Benedict after we’ve lost the company?” He marveled that even she could not see this. “Think of it, Alida! Have you no pride?”

  “Not like yours, that’s for sure.”

  “You can’t seriously ask it of me!”

  “Look what you’re asking of me.”

  “But that’s different. A man has to make certain basic decisions for himself. I want to go to New York where my law firm is. It’s a bigger life than here. You can’t expect me to stay in this backwater just because you feel cozier here!”

  “Oh, so that’s what it is after the Benedicts cease to rule. A backwater!”

  “Exactly!” He was immediately convinced that she had stumbled upon a truth. “That’s just what it is without the Benedicts. And the Benedicts would be nothing here without the company.”

  “So it’s all a matter of pride and vanity,” she retorted bitterly. “You didn’t consult me when you surrendered the company to those pirates. Why consult me about moving to New York? Why not just tell me when it’s time to go?”

  He was silent, if only by an act of will. He moved to the window as he tried to control his temper. But he found that he was trembling all over. How dared she put her sentimental attachment to a few easily duplicatable activities in a small town against his whole future? Had he not giv
en her everything? Oh, of course, he recognized with an angry shake of his head, she would argue no, that he hadn’t given her happiness, that she had had to find that for herself in Benedict. But wasn’t it her duty—yes, her wifely duty, or did that concept no longer exist?—to assist him with some show of cheerfulness in his resolution to move where he could be most useful, most fulfilled? It wasn’t as if he were not providing her with every luxury, every opportunity for a braver, bigger life. It wasn’t as if he were asking her to give up a serious profession, such as medicine or law.

  The telephone rang, and he reached automatically to pick it up. He heard his mother’s voice, flat, toneless.

  “Chip? Come over, please. Your father’s had another stroke. I think it’s the end.”

  “It’s Dad!” he almost shouted at Alida. “He’s dying!”

  “Oh, Chip!” She hurried over to put her arms around him. “Oh, Chip, my poor darling. I’m so sorry!”

  But even in the frenzy of his need of her sympathy, he was able to push her off. “I don’t think even you will want to stay in Benedict now!” he cried in anguish.

  18. ALIDA

  NINETEEN SIXTY-ONE, the first year of Jack Kennedy’s presidency, found us settled in Manhattan in a large apartment on Park Avenue that we had rented furnished, as I had not the heart to dismantle our house in Benedict or the energy to decorate a new one. Our city abode was as expensively conventional as an elegant department store’s sample rooms; it was full of bright chintz and handsome imitations of Colonial furniture, and Chip had a library with mahogany paneling and English hunting prints. But it was comfortable, and Chip at least seemed content. He went downtown every day to his law firm, but much of his time was devoted to public trusteeships. Of course, he was just what every charitable institution dreamed of: a board member who was willing to work as well as give, who could speak eloquently at meetings and read between the lines of a financial statement. Before our first year in town was up, he had been elected to the boards of the Public Library, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens. He was on his way to becoming “Mr. New York.”

  With me it was just the opposite. The bottom had simply dropped out of my life, and there was nothing that I wanted to do. Eleanor was at Yale Law School, immersed in her studies, which was perhaps just as well, for she and I continued not to get on. I think I tried, but her dry refusal to accord the slightest importance to anything that I cared about was certainly daunting. Dana, my darling, was in his last year at Saint Luke’s, but Chip refused to let me visit the school more than once a term, for fear of my “mollycoddling” him. My literary agent (pretentious term, considering the exiguity of my output) had submitted without success to several publishers a short romantic novel. My publishing record at the age of forty-two was three short stories in magazines and a slender volume of sonnets.

  I knew plenty of people in New York, but too many of them revived unpleasant memories of my debutante year. My parents were beginning to dote: Daddy’s memory was largely gone, and Mummie’s storytelling about society folk had become compulsive. Chip and I dined out a certain amount—he was always in demand—and we sometimes entertained, but I found myself allowing these parties to be done by caterers. It seemed that I had left my soul in Benedict.

  I didn’t know how to assess my resentment of Chip. There were times when he seemed to me a veritable monster of egotism and selfishness. That he should have so calmly accepted the rape of a business that had been the basis of our lives and of his parents’—with such fatal results to the latter—and now have embarked so cheerfully on a totally new career seemed to indicate more than a prodigious capability of accepting the inevitable; it seemed to suggest an actual spirit of cooperation with fate. Had Chip wanted Benedict to fall to the enemy? Had his ethical concern been mere quibbling? But even his poor dead father had not gone this far, and I tried to repress the suspicion. At worst his scruples must have been quixotic, not malicious. But what a price we had to pay for his quixoticism! And there he was, so to speak, his hands in his pockets, whistling.

  He and I were more remote from each other than at any point of our marriage. Chip seemed to sense the existence of my doubts and difficulties, but he also appeared to have decided that only I could solve them for myself, that any interference on his part would be officious. He would tell me in the evening about the events of his eventful day, and his failure to question me about my own I could attribute only to his tact. The contrast between our days would have been too sad. We went to the Piping Rock Club on weekends, where Chip played golf or squash and I took long solitary walks in the woods. On Saturday nights he still made conscientious love to me. I suspected that he might have private arrangements for additional satisfaction in that area (God knows he had experience!), but I did not much care. It was like his new interest in being a public citizen—something that did not really seem to have much to do with me.

  My problem was how to get through the days. During the war, when Chip was away, I had had a minor problem with alcohol. It had not been bad enough to be spotted by anyone but my all-seeing motherin-law, and she had been kindness itself in her gentle warnings. What had appalled me then, and what appalled me now, was the prospect of appearing drunk to others. In my periods of greatest temptation I had managed to overindulge only in afternoons and evenings when I was quite alone. And even then the quantity that I consumed was not great, as I have never had a strong head. I used to recall Granny Struthers’s dictum: “It’s not a compliment to a lady to say she holds her liquor well.” She might have revised this had she lived into our time!

  I tried to arrange my day into zones that would offer the least ennui and the least temptation. I lingered over breakfast in bed with the newspapers. An early lunch at the Colony Club made for a short morning. I could usually find someone to eat with there, and company kept me down to a single cocktail. Few women at the club took more than one in midday. In the afternoon there was the blessed narcotic of bridge, at the Colony or at the homes of friends, and the evening was apt to provide a social engagement where I would be safe under Chip’s observant eye. But if he was out of town, I would watch television alone and go to bed early after several (too many) libations. Fortunately he was not often out of town.

  The cards were what really saved me. I had always played a respectable game of bridge, but now I conceived the ambition (never spurn an ambition!) of becoming expert. I found a teacher who would take me in the morning, which took care of that part of the day, and I soon discovered that I needed something better than the casual afternoon foursome that I had been able to put together, sometimes with difficulty, at the club. What I really needed was three regular players who were as good as I, or preferably a little better. And these I found through Suzanne Bogart, whom I had not seen since she and Chessy had left Charlottesville after the terrible episode of the cribbed Law Review note.

  Suzy had changed a lot from the timid, pretty creature whom Chessy had brought to our midst at law school; she was now a fine, full, marble-skinned, rather stocky woman who seemed to be perfectly content with female society and had developed considerable self-assurance. She brushed aside the hostility between our spouses as if we had been two mothers discussing a spat of fisticuffs between their young sons.

  “I don’t see that what happened between Chip and Chessy need be any concern of ours. Wouldn’t you like to join a bridge foursome that meets two afternoons a week? We just lost Anne Stone, who’s had to move to Florida, poor dear. The other two are old pals of yours from deb days: Amanda Bayne and Dolly Jones.”

  Indeed, they had been two of my “disciples” in my foolish debutante career! Amanda Bayne had not married; she had survived her parents and lived rather elegantly alone in an apartment hotel. She was still pretty, though she had to work to be. She was one of those lacquered creatures, perfectly dressed, polite, amiable, with mildly artificial good manners, who seem oddly content with an existence of unvaried routine from which all the challenges that are supposed t
o make life worth living have been carefully pruned. It seemed characteristic that her perfect teeth had never known a cavity. Dolly, who had been born Dolly Hotchkiss and was now divorced, had been more ravaged by life. Childless and rudderless, she spent her evenings alone without a Chip to stand between her and the whiskey bottle. Daytime was her discipline; she managed to pull herself together for the card table.

  We rotated our afternoons between Suzy’s bleakly modern apartment, hung with Chessy’s small but fine collection of abstract impressionists, Amanda’s elegant, bibelot-crowded, high-ceilinged chamber at the Lamballe and my own Park Avenue abode. We never met at Dolly’s, probably because she associ ated her own domicile with intemperance. Anyway, we never served anything but soft drinks or tea. Suzanne would produce the ice and bottles herself, I had a maid for the purpose, and Amanda would ring down to the hotel restaurant for what she needed, producing the necessary tip from a desk drawer that I noticed was filled to the brim with quarters.

  As I look back on our sessions, my three women companions, pale figures all, seem to merge with the walls around them. We never gossiped or quarreled over bids or criticized each other’s play. Rudeness, I have found, is more a characteristic of male than of female players. Some men must always act the strutting cock, even at the card table. But in our muted sessions I heard little but the click of a played card, the swish of a shuffle, the quiet enumeration of a bid, the subdued, almost apologetic “double,” the faint, disappointed “oh” at the appearance of an unexpected trump, the permissible sigh of relief at the making of a slam. And behind us, around us, I see Suzy’s white walls and the jagged lines and exquisite spirals of a Picasso drawing, or the gleaming glass cupboard of Amanda’s China trade tureens and platters, or the fashionable, mauve decade portrait of her grandmother by Boldini.

  The real people were in my hand or on the board: the royal families of the four suits, the imperial aces, the loyal soldiers of the guard. We rarely used a pack more than half a dozen times; we relished those easily sliding surfaces and the smart tick of a stiff back as it was placed on the card previously played. Time and anguish were suspended as I concentrated on my contract, assessing the hands of my opponents, counting my possible tricks, plotting ruffs and the establishment of a long suit. I was in a world of consoling finiteness, where there was nothing beyond the fifty-two cards and their infinite per mutations. I was pitted against the terrible deity of chance with the only weapon a human being could rationally expect: his capacity to make each card play for its greatest value. Call it peace, euphoria, a drugged existence—I was at least at ease as I played. Only when we put the cards away was life again empty and bare.