The Golden Calves

by Louis Auchincloss

  “Isolation? You mean the director is held in such awe?”

  “On the contrary. The director is held in such disesteem.”

  “But why on earth should that be? Do you mean they’re all jealous of you?”

  “They may be that indeed, but it has nothing to do with their low opinion of me. Surely, Peter, you know that I’m generally regarded as Claverack’s sidekick? They think he put me up to what I did in the Speddon affair. And they’re right, too. He did.”

  Mark’s gray-green eyes, intent now upon his host, took on a look of what seemed almost defiance.

  “But, my dear fellow, surely your giving Miss Vogel back her old job—and her being willing to take it—must have quieted people down on that score.”

  “Not really. I guess they figure it’s some kind of tricky ploy. Anita herself has been nice enough, and her friend Carol Sweeters at least talks to me now, but I can never feel sure of him. He’s as slippery as an eel. You can’t tell where to have him.”

  “I know. That smile. And those ghastly compliments! I always feel that he’s really insulting me. But what strikes me as curious in your situation, my candid friend—if I may be equally candid—is that Claverack himself does not seem to regard you in the same light that you say the staff do. Far from considering you his sidekick, I’m under the distinct impression that he wonders whether you’re not entirely too independent of the sacred trustees. And in particular of the sacred chairman.”

  Mark’s immediate broad smile seemed, charmingly, to accept the worst. “Exactly. You might say that I’ve slipped between two stools. A toady to the staff and a rebel to the board. Oh, Peter, if only you were in Claverack’s place! I think we’d get on wonderfully. Why don’t they rotate the job of chairman? They do in some museums.”

  Peter had a sudden dazzling vision of their working together, the wise old Roman emperor leaning on the strong shoulder of his adopted successor, the perfect union of sagacity with adventure, of experience with innovation, of an old man’s love with a young man’s … well, affection. Yes, surely he could call it that!

  “Well, of course it’s my fault. I’ve always tended to avoid administrative work, and there was Sidney just dying to take it off my hands. Perhaps he has had the job long enough. We’ll see.” Peter gazed now complacently into the golden mist of his glass. “Tell me something, Mark. So long as you are fancy free at the moment, how would you like to come down this weekend to Long Island? You’ve never had a proper look at the pictures there. Come on down—we’ll be all alone. Inez is away, I believe, and her children are in their own wing. We’ll eat well and drink well and revel in beautiful things!”

  It worked out just as Peter had hoped, at least on Friday night and Saturday. Mark showed no interest in having any company but his host’s, and he roamed with him through the treasure-laden rooms, between succulent meals, with long appreciative pauses before each work of art. Even when, on Saturday afternoon, he organized a softball game for Inez’s children and some of their friends, Peter felt gratifyingly included, for Mark insisted that he act as umpire and feigned a jocular but still convincing outrage whenever a youngster had the nerve to challenge the old boy’s ruling. The house came alive under Mark’s enthusiasm as it never had under Augusta’s silent and efficient management.

  Only once was Peter upset by anything his guest said, and that was when, standing before the Gauguin of the Pont-Aven period, a shimmering green summer landscape with yellow wheat and three small, white-capped Breton women, he exclaimed: “You know, Peter, anything so beautiful begins to quell my doubts about putting European art in a museum dedicated to another continent. After all, beauty is beauty, and there isn’t so much of it around that we can afford to be too fussy about periods and geographies. So long as I can see that in a museum, am I going to care that some people might think it really belonged in the Met or the National Gallery?”

  So Mark had doubts. Well, of course, he would have. Peter should have known that. And now Mark was going to have to get over those doubts; that was all.

  What was much worse—oh, very much worse—was Inez’s arrival on Saturday night in time for dinner. She had been staying with her sister Doris in Greenwich, a visit that always put her in a bad mood, as Doris invariably managed to insinuate the superior position of the younger and still married sibling to the older divorced one. And then, too, Doris’s husband was rich and successful, and Inez had to be partially supported by her parents. But when Inez saw Mark, of whose bachelor status and temporary freedom from romantic entanglement she had evidently somehow apprised, she became as soft and pliant and rolling-eyed as a cat in heat. She paid scant attention to her father and directed every remark to the affable but (Peter prayed) not unduly impressed director.

  As the conversation developed, it became uncomfortably apparent that Inez was quite prepared to make a bonfire of her old man to warm even the fingertips of this potential admirer.

  “I can just imagine what a dull weekend you two must have been having, cooped up here alone. Really, Dad, couldn’t you have arranged something better for poor Mark? A game of golf or tennis at Piping Rock? Or had some neighbors over for a drink? But no, I can see what he’s been exposed to.” Here she winked conspiratorially at Mark. “Lectures, lectures and then more lectures about all the art in the house. My, my. How are your tactile values, Mark? In good significant form?”

  Peter would not have believed that even Inez could be so odious. Mark, he had to acknowledge, responded with great tact. He managed to smile at her jokes, all meanly pointed at her father, treating them as if they were the friendly jibes of a fundamentally adoring daughter, and at the same time to imply, by glancing with a little nod at his host, that any implication that the weekend had not been the greatest fun was patently absurd.

  “I’m not a great one, Inez, for club sports. That softball game with your kids was just fine for me. The rest of the time I was more than happy to relax and bask in this beautiful atmosphere. Your father’s been the deprived one. He’s probably been pining to get out on the golf course.”

  “Oh, Daddy doesn’t play golf. He doesn’t play anything, really. His idea of exercise is to stroll along the bay and yack about Monet and Manet. But if you’d like, I can give you a bit of a change after dinner. Betty and Al Herrick are having a party down the road. I told them I didn’t know when I’d be getting in from Greenwich, so they said to come over any time. How about it?”

  “What do you think, Peter?”

  “Oh, Daddy hates going out after dinner. Besides, there won’t be anyone his age there.”

  “Well, thanks very much, but I think I’ll stay here with him.”

  “You don’t have to, you know. He always likes to go to bed early.”

  Peter was beside himself. Not only did he resent Inez’s active effort to appropriate his guest; he was upset by the suspicion that Mark really wanted to go. The Herricks were well known as party givers; the atmosphere would be bright and festive. He might even find a mate, even Inez, God forbid! But the one thing Peter knew he must not let himself be was the curmudgeon who stands between youth and gaiety. And he had too much sense to taint the picture that he hoped he had created in Mark’s mind of the old epicure reigning in his temple of art with the less lovely image of the old fogy unwanted at the younger party. Could he not just hear the diplomatic Betty Herrick’s too-gracious greeting: “Oh, Inez, darling, what a sweetie pie you are to have brought your wonderful father! I wouldn’t have dared ask him to this philistine affair. And now I shall drag him into a corner and have him all to myself. For I put everyone on notice that I entertain a clandestine passion for Mr. Hewlett!”

  “No, Mark, you must go. I insist. Inez is quite right. I like to turn in very early.”

  Mark allowed himself to be taken off to the Herricks immediately after dinner, and Peter, too vexed to be able to read in bed, took two sleeping pills that he might not hear the crunch of wheels on the gravel below his window and know how late they came
in.

  However late it had been, Mark was down in time to breakfast with him on Sunday morning. Gratifyingly, he made no reference to the party but started at once on a discussion of the Manet in the dining room.

  “I was thinking, when I woke up, that I’d found just the place for it in your new gallery—”

  Inez, who never rose till lunch time on Sundays, came in at this point and took her seat.

  “Heavens, what brings you down so early?” Peter asked, a bit cattily. “I thought only a fire alarm would get you out of the sack before noon.”

  Inez’s glance at her father was baleful. “I thought I’d better rescue Mark from the early morning lecture. I’ll bet you’re on the subject of the museum already.”

  “If we are, it’s because Mark brought it up.”

  “Did he? Then you have him obsessed.” Angered perhaps that Mark should look so fresh, in contrast to her own puffed cheek pouches and dark undereyes, infallible evidence of her late hours and alcoholic consumption, she proceeded now to challenge her parent on his own ground. She turned to Mark. “I suppose you were talking about Daddy’s new gallery. Or is it galleries, by now? I know it’s heresy to say it, but how far can you really go along with his little game of giving every artist abroad some kind of Western ticket to fit him into a museum supposedly dedicated to North America? The games people play to cram things into categories where they don’t belong! Is Henry James a Yank or a limey? Did that hysterical last-minute change of citizenship really give him to His Britannic Majesty? And what about T. S. Eliot? And John Sargent? And Arshile Gorky and Rothko and de Kooning and all the rest? And Einstein? God bless America! A few more pogroms abroad, and Daddy can stick all the world into your museum!”

  Peter put down his napkin and left the breakfast table. He thought it almost safe to abandon Mark to a woman making herself quite so unattractive.

  In the back seat of the old Cadillac limousine, returning to the city that afternoon, Mark revealed to Peter that Inez had asked him down for the following weekend.

  “I hope you’re coming,” Peter responded in a tone that committed him to nothing.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not. I told her I had a heavy work schedule. I trust you don’t mind, sir.”

  The “sir” still occasionally slipped out. Peter let it pass. “I don’t mind at all, dear boy. As a matter of fact, I shall be staying in town myself next weekend.”

  Delighted with this victory over Inez, he decided to push his luck, and he invited Mark, when they arrived in town, to dine with him a second time at the Patroons. His weekend house guest obviously had no excuse, and he seemed willing to accept; Peter enjoyed a sense of exhilaration when he found himself once again with his young friend in the huge dining hall under the ceiling of naked nymphs, who were safely made only of paint.

  “You know, Mark, there is something to be said for men’s clubs. It may be heresy to utter the words, at least in liberal circles, but I impenitently maintain that the sexes have something to gain from occasional segregation. It’s not really so much a case of excluding women as it is of excluding sex. Of having some place where social relations can be conducted without the intrusion of physical attractions.”

  Mark looked around at the bad portraits of the old men and smiled. “What about homosexuals? Wouldn’t you have to keep them out too?”

  “Most emphatically! Except those who stayed firmly in the closet. I’d have no pinching at my bar.”

  “When you put out to sea? I used to have arguments on that subject with my friend Chessie. She claimed that no close human relationship was free from all degree of sexual attraction. You might not be conscious of it, but there it was.”

  “Even between you and me?” Peter chuckled as if he had cited some boundary mark of fleshlessness. But he was sorry as soon as he had said it. It was only too evident, even to his reluctant and prudish imagination, that in his desire to enfold this handsome young man in what he liked to think were paternal arms, all kinds of homoerotic urgings might lurk. He felt no great need to worry about this, because he was perfectly aware that nothing short of a mind-numbing stroke would ever keep him from behaving like a gentleman. It was nonetheless the better part of valor not to go skipping around on those slippery borders. “Well, I suppose we’re all monsters in our ids. But I still think men have something to offer men, and women no doubt women, in occasional isolation from the other sex.”

  “I don’t think any but fanatical women’s libbers would give you much of an argument on that. It’s just the doing business in clubs that they don’t want to be kept out of.”

  “But we don’t do business at the Patroons!”

  “Oh, Peter, how can you say that? You do it all the time. You’re doing it tonight. Isn’t the museum your real business?”

  “Then everything’s business.”

  “Isn’t that what Marley’s ghost said? ‘Mankind was my business’!”

  “But not womankind.”

  This was a subject on which Peter could wax very hot, but he was sure that there was no subject over which it was worth his while to get angry at Mark.

  The next morning he telephoned Inez to tell her that Mark was not coming down the following weekend. He must have allowed some note of satisfaction to creep into his tone, but even so he was hardly prepared for the poisoned arrow that she now struck into his heart.

  “Did you talk him out of it?”

  “Why should I have done that? I told him that I wouldn’t be there myself.”

  “And why did you do that?”

  “Because I won’t!”

  “Isn’t that a rather sudden change of plans?”

  “Really, Inez, what are you getting at?”

  “Simply that the poor young man, who is after all a kind of dependent of yours, couldn’t very well agree to come to your house when he’d been coldly informed that you wouldn’t be there.”

  “Coldly? I wasn’t cold.”

  “Do you think I can’t imagine how you said it?”

  “Inez, I repeat. What the hell are you getting at?”

  “Watch out, Daddy. We don’t want you turning into a dirty old man who wants the handsome young director all to himself.”

  Even in the red wrath that made the room around him seem to crackle, he was still aware that a last-minute moderation was making Inez try feebly to turn her murderous onslaught into the appearance of a bad joke. And then a kind of panic seized him. Was he really known that way? Did people actually smirk as they said such things about him? At last he emitted an audible growl of anger and hate. “Don’t be more of a bitch than God made you.”

  Her scream deafened him, and he dropped the telephone on the desk. As his hearing returned, he gazed at the instrument in dismay. He could make out a babbling and the words “unnatural father” and “beast” and then a great hullabaloo of tears and threats of leaving the house with all her brood. With a deep sigh of recognition at the irreparable damage he might have done, he put the instrument back in its cradle.

  ***

  Julia, the following evening, was dining with him and Mark at the French restaurant Oise, amid scarlet draperies and eighteenth-century portraits that were actually not copies. Peter had deliberately selected the place as the most expensive in town to reward Julia for her diplomacy that same day in patching up a truce with the alienated Inez. For it had come over Peter in a horrible moment that if Augusta should return to find Inez and her family gone, in addition to all the business of the gifts and the gallery, she might really walk out on him for good.

  Julia had never seemed brighter nor more brilliant, and she and Mark, studying their menus and prices, were having a congenial time making up, as he had urged them, the most expensive meal that money could buy and then blandly ordering it. They seemed in the shortest possible time to have established a happy rapport and one that entirely included him. Peter beamed at both of them. How did Julia do it?

  As the meal progressed, she turned from the subject of foo
d and wines to the topic that Inez had despised.

  “I’ve heard that your forte is handling collectors, Mark. Perhaps because you understand that the collector himself is a kind of artist. I used to play a game of trying to piece together the great collectors from their collections. With J. P. Morgan it was obviously magnificence. All the gaudy courts of old Europe glitter in his things. With Frick it was to create an illustrated history of art. With Mrs. Havemeyer … no, I was never sure what Mrs. Havemeyer was after. Her El Greco cardinal put me off. Why a cruel and bigoted grand inquisitor? And then I read somewhere that the subject wasn’t Guevara at all, but some other, lovable old cardinal who had collected rare books and manuscripts.’’

  “And she wouldn’t have bought him had she known that?” Mark asked.

  “I really think she might not have. Is that absurd? I don’t know why I should associate poor Mrs. Havemeyer with the inquisitor, and yet I felt he was somehow a key.”

  “What about your father?”

  “Oh, Daddy … well.” She fixed a long, affectionate gaze on Peter. “Daddy likes to capture the world in little perfect slices and tuck it away in jars. Each picture must be a whole in itself. His El Greco, the Auto-da-Fé, is just that and only that, as his crucifixions are only crucifixions. And his landscapes are always detached and independent as the rest of the geography.”

  “Which is why he’s so passionate about Cézanne? And maybe why there are no seascapes?”

  “That’s it! One can’t look at seascapes without thinking of more sea. And I’ll go a step further. It may be why there are no abstracts.”

  “Because they can’t be separated from infinity?”

  “And infinity terrifies me!” Peter broke in now with delight. “Oh, you two read me like a book.”

  Julia reached for his hand resting on the table. “And it’s a very good book.”

  “A classic,” Mark agreed.

  “Well, that calls for champagne! Mark will think I’m always ordering champagne. Why not?”

  When he went back to his apartment that night, Peter was thoroughly relieved and happy. He decided that he had never had a more wonderful evening in his whole life. But the trouble with wonderful evenings was the speed with which they were over. There was only one thing that would make this one last forever.