Diary of a Yuppie

by Louis Auchincloss

  “Does she ever talk about it?”

  “Never. Not that she conceals it. She will say, ‘You can’t imagine, darling, what a sty I came from.’ But then she shuts it out, muttering, ‘One of the reasons I can do things for the poor and wretched is that I know how little can be done.’”

  I also began to observe that the old girl’s memory was going. One day when she and I were lunching alone at the Amboise, she betrayed a notable lapse.

  “People have no idea what a job it is to give away money. They think you ought to be able to spot flatterers by their oiliness. They don’t realize that the worst liars are the presidents of our great universities and museums. Because these men think it’s morally justifiable to do anything under the sun for a good cause. Look at David King sitting over there, smiling smugly at that man—what’s his name?—from the Colonial Museum. Can’t you just see David’s swallowing every word he’s being told? And he’s so puffed up, too, about running his own foundation. ‘Why do I need a great staff, like Ford?’ he asks. ‘Does it take any more time to write a check for a hundred g’s than one for a million?’ Very amusing. And all New York worships David. So generous! So great-hearted! But I’ll bet he gets taken to the cleaners on half his grants.”

  “He should be like the Ford Foundation, then, and have more staff?”

  “Well, Ford’s the opposite extreme. Too many people, too many reports. And that quaint dread of public opinion that foundations should be exempt from and aren’t at all. No, I tell you, Bob, when I die, I’m going to leave what I have to half a dozen institutions that I believe in, to do with as they choose. Let them cut the lawn or build buildings, what does it matter? They’re going to find a way to get around your restrictions, anyway. All you can do is pick the best, and, mind you, the best won’t be any too good.”

  “But, Ethelinda,” I protested, “what became of your idea of the charitable trust? With Sylvia as a trustee?”

  “Charitable trust? Sylvia? What are you talking about, dear boy? You’re thinking of some other old gal you were making up to after too many cocktails. I’m going to tell Sylvia she’s taking you out too much.”

  I did not press the point and allowed her to tell me about David King’s handsome young male secretary who was leading his boss by the nose…

  “Nose, did you say?”

  “Oh, Robert, you’re terrible!”

  I told Sylvia that night that I had found our great lady a bit tired.

  “Tired? Did she say anything in particular?”

  “She didn’t seem to remember anything about our charitable trust discussion. Not a word.”

  “Of course, she’s old. And older than people think.”

  “Yes, but is she…?”

  “What?”

  “Well, entirely all there?”

  “Look here, Bob.” Sylvia turned on me now, very firm. “Ethelinda’s mind is as good as yours or mine. Her memory may be slipping a bit. But that doesn’t mean she’s non compos.”

  “Until it slips altogether. It’s one thing if you forget what you had for dinner last night. It’s another when you forget the question before you can answer it.”

  “Ethelinda’s a long way from that.”

  “All right, all right! Why be so grim about it?”

  “Because she’s talking about naming you as well as me a trustee of her trust.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “And Gil Arnheim. The three of us. I know she’s been discussing it with him.”

  “But you told me he was dragging his feet. Maybe he’s worried about her testamentary capacity.”

  “No, it’s not that at all. It’s because he doesn’t want to see us cut in on his business. The people who control Ethelinda’s trust are going to be persons to reckon with in this town. And we’ll be two out of three!”

  “Meaning that we would use the power of philanthropy to advance ourselves in the world?”

  “No, dear, no.” Sylvia sighed as if she were dealing with a tedious child. “How many times have you told me that you’re honest to a fault? You shouldn’t rub it in so. It might make people wonder. And I ought to resent your insinuation that I’m in any way less scrupulous than you. Let me simply assure you that the trust will be scrupulously run. We’ll be the ones who are running it, that’s all. Ethelinda, in the full possession of her faculties, will change her will to name you and Arnheim as executors and you and me and Arnheim as trustees. And it’s very important that we all believe her to be of sound mind!”

  “Even if she isn’t?”

  “Bob, I think I’ll kill you if you destroy my scheme! It’s so beautiful. Ethelinda will be of fully sound mind when she executes that will. Believe me! Neither Arnheim nor I will allow her to do it on one of her bad days. You know, as a lawyer, that a person can have sane and less sane moments. Isn’t that so?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Then it’s a question of picking the right one, isn’t it?”

  “Unless the testator shouldn’t execute a will at all. What about the family? Won’t they contest?”

  “You mean Ethelinda’s own nieces and nephews? She has some, actually. No. Because they’re getting substantial cash legacies that will lapse if they contest. And if they should contest and by a miracle knock out the will, they’d only revive an older one that also leaves everything to charity. So they’ll shut up and take their bequests.”

  “I see. It fits. But why does Mr. Arnheim go along with you?”

  “Because he’s still going to be an executor and trustee.”

  “And he’s afraid of what you might do if he doesn’t cooperate?”

  “Of course he is. Even though I wouldn’t do a thing. But I don’t have to tell him that, do I? Can’t I leave him to his own ruminations? You see, I know that Ethelinda, most of the time, wants this alteration in her will. She may change her mind, but is that any reason that her present, perfectly rational plan shouldn’t be implemented? Particularly when not a penny less will go to charity? The only change will be that you and I become persons of consequence. Is that a crime?”

  Well, was it? The admirable creature had thought it all out. Her scheme was foolproof. The Lows were not Ethelinda’s heirs-at-law or next of kin; they had no right to contest. And her own relatives were quieted with legacies and the prospect of losing all if they so much as peeped. Who lost? Nobody. The charitable trust would come into being under the new will. Only Sylvia Sands and Robert Service would mark the difference, and was anyone the worse if they had a hand in honestly and conscientiously distributing the treasure? Of course not. And the eyes of all New York would be on Sylvia and Robert.

  “It fits,” I repeated. “It fits almost too well. But won’t we get commissions?”

  “And why not? Shall we not earn them? For don’t misunderstand me, Bob. I expect to be a very good trustee!”

  Could anyone doubt it? Not I.

  15

  IN THE MEANTIME I was having my troubles in the office. It was probably because, strapped between my law work and social life, I had less time for firm management. I had even been known to miss a partners’ lunch, leaving the sardonic Doug Hyde to act as chairman in my place. But even when I had missed a meeting, I felt entitled to review any actions taken by those attending. After all, according to my calculations, I was now directly responsible for sixty-five per cent of the billings of the firm.

  Doug warned me that there was trouble afoot. Some of the younger partners were beginning to resent what they termed my “arbitrariness.” Their leader was a thirty-year-old, the newest partner, brought forward, alas, by myself, one Oswald Burley, a tall, bony, good-looking “whiz kid,” a Harvard Law Review man, the son of a federal judge, who had joined us instead of one of the greater firms because he deemed us more “up and coming” and who had taken it upon himself, from the first day of his membership in the firm, to address us as if he had been a founding father.

  He did not hesitate to challenge the direction in which I was leadin
g the partners, dubbing it the “march to uniformity.” He warned not only the partners but the associates that lawyers everywhere were losing their sense of the profession as a noble and learned calling and allowing it to degenerate into “just another business.” What particularly irritated me was that “Oz,” as he was called, appeared to have no recognition of how galling his homilies were to me. He took it for granted that we were all what he termed “men of good will” and that it could only take a few candid and open conversations before even Bob Service would come over to his side. He had a lot to learn.

  “It won’t do to underrate Oz,” Doug warned me. “He seems to cast a kind of spell over the younger partners.”

  I knew that Doug was the strongest support I had in the office. He was slower and more easygoing than I, so he inspired a greater trust, but behind that impassive, sober countenance and the occasional mocking glint in his eye lay a firm conviction that I was running a taut ship and one on which he could depend to bring a greater prosperity to Douglas Hyde, the ambitious father of six little boys.

  “I wish he’d use his curious spell to bring in new clients,” I retorted.

  “You know what might be a smart move? To put him on the executive committee.”

  “Have you lost your marbles?”

  “No. I’m quite serious. If you put him on the committee all the lower-point partners will feel they have a voice there. And you’ll still have an easy majority. Think it over.”

  “I tell you right now. The day he goes on that committee, I go off!”

  Doug shook his head. “That’s not the way to handle him. You’ve got to learn to compromise, Bob.”

  “Compromise? From a position of power?”

  “Yes. While you still have it.”

  “Doug, you don’t seem to realize that this firm needs me a hell of a lot more than I need it.”

  “Okay. But people do strange things if they think they’re being kicked around.”

  “They’re not being kicked around.”

  “I said, if they think they are.”

  Certainly Oz Burley showed no signs of “going away.” He took to haranguing us at firm lunches as if we were a seminar gathered to heed the words of a wise professor. Even his good temper aroused my ire. He was so reasonable, and he expected us to be equally reasonable. His pale thin handsome face, bent over the notes that he had the boldness to bring to the table, his hesitations that somehow kept pace with his stubborn reiterations, his air of bland assumption that we lived, didn’t we, in an enlightened sector of a dark universe, maddened me. How did he have the nerve to put himself, created by me, in my category? But he did. Here is a sample of his ranting:

  “I think I should bring to the firm’s attention that some of the biggest law partnerships in the country are opting for an even distribution of profits. When you’re elected a partner under such a system, it takes you a while, say three or four years, to work up to the norm, and when you’re old and about to retire, you work down, or ‘phase out’ over an equal period, but for most of your productive life you share evenly with your partners. It’s to me a very attractive idea. We should all be working for the same goal. The fact that one of us happens to have lost a difficult case while another has had a large estate fall in shouldn’t vary our remuneration. One should assume that all partners are doing their best.”

  What was it about him that brought out the worst in me? I heard myself calling down the table, “What’s the difference between your system, Oz, and the one devised by Lenin for the Soviet Union?”

  “Simply this. That our ‘communism,’ if that be the right term, is a private agreement and not one imposed by the state. If each partner in a lucrative firm were to receive half a million in income, he could hardly call himself a proletariat.”

  “But the partner who goofs off gets as much as the one who sweats his ass to bring in the clients!”

  “The partner who goofs off should soon cease to be a partner,” Oz retorted coolly. “I am assuming a firm in which we all pull together. If a client doesn’t pay, we should give the client up, unless there’s some pro bono or public relations reason for holding on to him. And if that’s the case, why should the partner stuck with that client be penalized? Consider it, gentlemen. Wouldn’t it be pleasant to practice law without having to think every minute if you’re charging as many hours as Bob Service?”

  The murmur around the table established that he had made a point.

  It was not long after this that, as foreseen by Doug, a serious movement got under way to put Oz Burley on the executive committee. I let it be known that I should resign from the committee if this occurred, but this did not have the deterrent effect that I had anticipated.

  “Face it, Bob,” Doug warned me. “The younger men don’t really care if you get off the committee. They think you’re getting too bossy. Of course, if they thought you’d quit the firm, they’d give up about Oz. But they figure you’re not going to do that. They figure it wouldn’t be worth your while to break up the firm on so small an issue.”

  “Maybe they don’t know me,” I said grimly.

  “Well, it wouldn’t be worth it, would it? And, as a matter of fact, it might be easier to control Oz on the committee than off.”

  “That’s not the point, Doug. The point is that I’ve worked my tail off to create a firm that operates efficiently. And I didn’t do it to have to justify myself to a young snotnose every time I sneeze or take a leak.”

  “Well, if it comes to a vote, I think you may lose.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Narrowly but possibly.”

  Sylvia and I were dining that night at Ethelinda’s, and for once I dreaded the party. But she told me that Ethelinda, too, was tired and wanted me to sit with her after dinner in a corner of the library. There was only room for one on the small sofa beside her, and when I was seated there she indulged in the unusual gesture of stroking my hand. I gazed into her eyes and then down at those long brown speckled fingers. Smiling, she re-leased me.

  “Forgive me, dear. I am just warming my old bones at the fire of your young life. You and Sylvia have it all before you. Ah, well, I can’t complain. I’ve had most of it myself. The great thing is not to have wasted your life. So many do.”

  “You mean you’ve done everything you wanted?” Her air of somber reflection made me suddenly as serious as she. “Everything you’ve really wanted to do?”

  “I think so. Though for a time I had to do things I didn’t want, to get to where I had a choice.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Isn’t that a rather personal question, young man?”

  “I suppose it’s very personal. But you’re a great woman, Ethelinda, which means that everything that went into you has to be worth knowing. Why should I waste our precious time in chitchat?”

  This gratified her. “You have a point. Let me tell you this, then. You may have noticed that I am a great admirer of this lady.” She reached a hand to touch the porcelain bust of Madame de Pompadour in a niche between the red morocco volumes on the shelf behind her. “I guess I’ve read all there is to read about her. And do you know the most interesting fact in her story? She was cold.”

  “You mean cold-hearted?”

  “No, dear boy. Cold as a lover. Cold in bed. She had to put it on, even with the king, who was a veteran lover and hard to fool. How relieved she must have been when she discovered that she could keep his heart and give his body to the little harlots of the Pare aux Cerfs. Now all of France was hers to play with: gardens and palaces and paintings and statues and books and plays and music. And how much she made of it all!”

  But I held her to the point. “Did you have a deer park for Mr. Low?”

  “Come, Robert, are there no limits?”

  “Should there be? Among friends? Real friends?”

  She weighed this. Then she shrugged. “Anyway, Sidney was too old when I married him to need anything like that. But my second husband … well, je
ne dis pas!”

  “And your first?”

  “Ah, that was love.”

  “And all the time, even in the early days, you knew, you were sure, that if you could ever get everything you wanted, it would be wonderful?”

  “Yes, I did. And it was.”

  “That is wonderful.”

  “You don’t think it would be so with you?”

  I hesitated. But she had been frank. I owed it to her. “No.”

  “Your life is like those advertisements for the ocean liners: ‘Getting there is half the fun’?”

  “Getting there is all the fun.”

  “Dear me. Well, then, let’s hope you never get there. That your life will be one long cruise.”

  I made the mistake of persisting. I really wanted to know. After all, what was I working for? Ethelinda seemed to have turned into a python, an oracle. She was Delphi itself. “You’re sure that you love all your beautiful things for themselves? For their own intrinsic beauty?” I asked.

  “What else?”

  “You’re sure it’s in no way for what they do for you? I mean for the splendid background they make for Ethelinda Low? Oh, I know that sounds bad, but I can’t help wondering if any of us can ever really get out of ourselves. And if anyone could tell me, it would be you!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m not at all sure that I want to.”

  I quickly changed the subject to gossip and kept it there for the rest of the evening. I hoped that I had obliterated the bad impression, but I hadn’t. In the taxi Sylvia demanded, “What in God’s name were you doing to Ethelinda? When I said good night, she complained you’d accused her of buying pictures to show people how rich she was.”

  “I didn’t quite say that.” I tried to explain what I had said, but it didn’t come out very differently.

  “I take it Ethelinda hit the nail on the head.”

  “Well, can’t we ever be serious in this world of yours?” I complained, exasperated. “Don’t you ever get starved for a bit of truth?”