Honorable Men

by Louis Auchincloss

  “Me? Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?”

  “Not if both sides consent. It’s often done.”

  “But I have no idea of consenting! I want my lawyer to be entirely on my side.”

  “But I would be. Because your side is Chip’s. And I’ll tell you something else. I’ll charge no fee, either to you or Chip. When we’ve fixed upon a settlement, I shall insist that you submit it to an eminent domestic relations lawyer of your choice—Chessy Bogart excepted—and ask him whether you could do any better in a more adversary proceeding.”

  “Why Chessy excepted?”

  “Because he hates Chip. He wouldn’t be fair. Chip is perfectly willing to give you anything you want—within reason. And even beyond reason, if the settlement’s in trust and will go ultimately to your children. So there’s no point going through the expense and dirt of a public proceeding, is there?”

  I think at that moment I almost hated Lars. What was he doing but depriving me of the only satisfaction that an injured wife wants?

  “But Chip has behaved outrageously!”

  “With this girl? What did you expect when you left him alone in Washington?”

  “It was his idea to go to Washington! Just as it was his idea to leave Benedict! What’s a woman expected to do? Travel all over the globe after her wandering, philandering husband?”

  “What about your philandering with Chessy?”

  “Oh, he told you about that, did he? Well, he’d never have known it if I hadn’t told him. Can you compare a single roll in the hay with a lifetime of adultery? Oh, yes, I suppose you and Karen could. To the truly chaste there are no degrees in carnality.”

  Lars smiled. Had he not been possessed of considerable charm, his condescension would have been intolerable. “All that would make no difference, Alida, if you and Chip really loved each other. But as long as that is all over, what’s the point of recrimination? Isn’t it wiser for you to let each other go and get on with your own lives? How does it help to nurture hate and self-pity?”

  “What life do I have to get on with?” I was also about to ask him what made him so sure that I no longer loved Chip, but some tattered shred of pride prevented me. I thought of Karen and Lars, like the good in Elinor Wylie’s plea for Cres-sid, going down to their marble vaults, their heads erect, their eyes serene, their shining raiment unspotted. And what was left of me but a shivering, naked, crouching figure whose G-string of a soul-saving personal resentment had been brutally snatched away?

  “You have a great life to get on with,” Lars insisted. “You’re only in your forties, and you’re still a beautiful woman. You have a son who needs you and money to do useful things with. Frankly, I think you’ve been always a bit in Chip’s shadow. You’ll find yourself at last on your own two feet. The great thing is to let the bitterness go. It isn’t easy, I know. It takes character. But I think you have character. Why don’t you take a giant first step by allowing me to start drafting a separation agreement?”

  “All right, all right!” I covered my face with my hands.

  “You’ll find that you have everything you need.”

  “I don’t want anything! Tell Chip I’ll give him his divorce and he can keep his money!”

  “That, of course, is an emotional reaction that will pass. Neither Chip nor I will allow you to be anything but a rich woman. But here’s a better idea. Why not tell him yourself? Tell him that you’ll let me have a try at what I propose.”

  My hands dropped to my sides. “You mean telephone him?”

  “No. Tell him directly. He came here with me. He’s down in the lobby. We agreed that if you were amenable, I’d ask him to come up.”

  “How can he be here? I thought he worked night and day at the Department.”

  “He’s quit his job. As of yesterday.”

  “But why?”

  “Apparently he’s seen the light.”

  “No!” I spoke almost in a whisper.

  “I’ll send him up and be on my way. And believe me, Alida, you’ve made a very brave and a very wise decision.”

  I turned abruptly away from him and walked to the window and looked up at a dirty gray sky, for minutes, it seemed, on end, until I heard my husband’s familiar firm step in the hall. When I turned to greet him, I thought my heart would burst. He was as handsome as the day when I had first seen him in the ballroom of the Bar Harbor Swimming Club.

  “Lars tells me you’ve left the Department!”

  “I won’t say ‘Better late.’ ”

  “You really and truly have changed your views?”

  “At long last.”

  “And are you sorry? Are you repentant?” But what was I saying? I was desperate in my misery, my abandonment.

  “Repentance is a sterile thing. I did what I thought was best at the time. Now it’s over. We go on. That’s all.”

  “We?”

  “The people who made the errors.”

  “Not you and I?”

  “What do you mean, Alida?”

  “Is it too late for us to try again?”

  His eyes flickered; obviously, he had not foreseen this. But what could break his resolution? What ever had? “I’m afraid so.”

  “This girl, this Violet … Is she pregnant?”

  “No.” How he must have despised me!

  “But she will be?”

  “You mean after we marry? I hope so.”

  “You’ll have lots of babies? Lots and lots?”

  Had he not been so controlled, he would have blushed for me. As it was, he simply replied: “We’ll have as many as Violet wants. I think she’ll make a good mother. I may be old to start being daddy again, but with any luck I should live to see them grow up, and if not, Violet can handle it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll see them all grow up!” I cried bitterly. “I’m sure they’ll make you a grandfather, which Eleanor and Dana probably never will. And I’m sure you’ll get on with them better than you did with our children, because, damn you, you can learn by your mistakes. While I…”

  I could not go on. The sudden appalling vision of the man’s strength, like some ineluctable glacier, moving on relentlessly over the frozen bodies of his first wife and offspring, moving on from a past that crumbled to nothing behind it, with hardly a memory, certainly not a regret, robbed me of even the desire to protest. I saw him now as a statue, shining, glowing, unveiled, with alabaster limbs and one arm, like Perseus’ up-stretched, holding the head of Medusa. And what was Medusa? Myself? Oh, no. I was simply one of the fallen chips from the block of marble out of which he had been sculpted. My mind reeled. I closed my eyes. I saw the features of the beheaded monster. Whose were they? Whose but his? How banal, how obvious! How true.

  “Do you want to stay here tonight?” I asked politely.

  “No, thanks. I think it’s better from now on if we regard it as your apartment. I told Lars to prepare the papers for conveying it to you. I’ll be staying at the Union Club.”

  “And Violet?”

  “She’s with her mother. I’m dining there tonight. To meet Mrs. Crane. Wish me luck.”

  “You won’t need it. When have you ever?”

  When he had gone at last, I thought I would collapse. Or at least I thought I wanted to collapse. I suppose it was only anger that kept me erect, anger at the ghastly vision of the life that I had simply flung away for this man while he was all the while preparing himself, however unconsciously, to be a better husband and father to a second family. For that, horrible as it was to admit, was just what he would be; he had learned enough, damn his eyes, from the experience of his multitudinous sins. It would be my ultimate humiliation to hear him praised!

  Anger, anyway, I would have to cultivate. Anger might save me from the temptation of trying to soil his happiness and good fortune by depositing the reproachful carcass of Alida Benedict, a suicide or victim of drugs and liquor, on the doorstep of his child bride. What would he do but call a garbage truck? No, I could not let myself g
o the way he and Eleanor were so smugly sure I would go. I had still one ally, an ally all the stronger in that his need of me was as great as my own of him.

  I went to my desk and scribbled out a desperate cable to Dana. I told him that I had agreed to a divorce and that his father was planning to remarry. I begged him not to object if I were to fly over to Stockholm and stay in a hotel in his neighborhood. I promised not to interfere with his life there. I ended with the words “Darling, I need you. Please!” But I wondered whether, in the sternness of his dedication to a cause of which I had been at best a wobbly support, he would see fit to stretch out a hand. It would be just my luck to see puritanism take its last twisted stand in both my children.