Honorable Men (11 page)

“You know, Chip,” his guest observed at last, “I was a shit, four years ago, to betray you to your grandfather. But I didn't imagine he'd even mention it to you. I thought he'd just quietly quash the whole scandal.”

Chip had been waiting for this; he was entirely at his ease. “Oh, I saw all that. I think you even owed it to the guy who was caught with you. You didn't know Grandpa, that's all. I had to let you down. But if I owe you something, I can make a payment tonight. Drink up and I'll take you to a place I know.”

At West Seventieth Street, Chessy, dazzled for all his would-be sophistication, was introduced to the beautiful Flora, who took care of him for the whole night.

On the train going back to New Haven, Chessy was silent. He dozed most of the journey. But when they got to their station, he smiled almost sheepishly and gripped Chip's elbow. “Jesus, that was a night! Thanks, Tarzan.”

Chip said nothing, but in the taxi on their way to the college, Chessy, wider awake now, remarked with a smirk, “And I always thought you were such a good boy.”

“Was I so good at boarding school?”

“Are you referring to that one little slip? But I assume I was irresistible! Why did it torture you so, Chip? Everyone did it.” “I guess I liked to imagine myself as the one wicked person in a virtuous world.”

“You couldn't have thought I was virtuous!”

“But you see, that was just the conceit of it. You existed only as one of my tempting devils.”

“Thanks!”

“You asked for it. Anyway, I have belatedly discovered that I was wrong. The rest of the world is quite as bad as I am.”

“Or as good?”

“Either way. Does it matter?”

“And is it better for you, now, having made this great discovery?”

Chip thought for a moment. “I really don't know. Certainly it makes me less dramatic.”

“To yourself?”

“To whom else?”

“Ah, you
are
an egotist.”

For the remainder of the term Chip and Chessy were constantly together. It was a bit of a trial to the little group at Berkeley, particularly to Lars. Chessy's social standing in the class might have soared with his election to Bulldog, but his appearance and manner were hard for Chip's friends to accept. Chessy, with his uncle's allowance, was a far more dapper character than he had been at prep school; he now affected brilliant vests, bow ties and striking cuff links, and he had managed to get himself put on a New York debutante party guest list and had met a number of the girls whom Chip's friends knew. Yet his cockiness, his sarcasm and biting wit did not endear him to the campus leaders. He was obviously a social climber—indeed he made no effort to conceal it—yet once he had penetrated a circle that one might have deemed the ultima Thule of his worldly ambition, it seemed to have been only for the purpose of making fun of the men he found there.

“It may sound hypocritical to you, but I find it in my heart to be almost sorry for the guy,” Lars confided, a bit disingenuously, to Chip. “The moment he achieves a goal, it loses all its taste for him. If he ever gets to heaven he'll be looking over God's shoulder to see if there isn't someone more important he ought to be talking to.”

“He'll never get to heaven.”

Lars looked at him curiously. “Is that another of your conundrums? What do you see in him, Chip?”

“Don't you suppose the Benedicts and Alversens were like that a generation back?”

“No, I'm damned if they were! Everyone in the top drawer didn't have to social-climb to get there.”

“Maybe it's just my own vulgarity. I recognize a fellow sufferer.”

“But you haven't a vulgar bone in your body!”

“How do you know what I am—deep down?”

Lars shrugged. “What did you two do in New York the other night?”

“Oh, we took in a show.”

“What show?”

“I don't remember.”

Lars sighed and gave it up. “All right, pal, have it your way. But I'd like to be a fly on the wall at one of your sessions in Bulldog when that guy gets going on his plans for the future!”

“There's more to Chessy than is dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio.”

“Can it, Hamlet!”

Chip said no more, but he had to admit privately that Lars's apostrophe was just. For had not Hamlet awakened from the dream of his own guilt to confront a guilty world? Gertrude and Claudius were shabby folk, but were they any shabbier than the court over which they presided? At any rate, he would do things his way from now on.

C
HESSY
B
OGART
called me early on the morning after the Swimming Club dance where I had met his friend Chip Benedict. He seemed to have taken it for granted not only that I should be up, but that I should be expecting his call, for when Mummie rapped on my door she called in, “I told him you were asleep, but he insisted you weren't!” As I picked up the telephone, I looked out the window and saw that it was once again one of those perfect Bar Harbor days.

“If you want to come sailing with Chip and me, you'd better get down here.”

“Where's here?”

“I'm at Max's, getting things for the boat. It's only a step from the pier.”

I hurried out of the house, without bothering to answer Mummie's anxious inquiry. She was clad in a pink wrapper with coffee stains, and she was holding a half-eaten piece of toast. What had I to do with such a dowdy?

After parking my car behind the Star Theatre, I walked down the hill on Main Street, my heart aglow. The gulls wheeled and squawked above, and in a restaurant window even the doomed lobsters, cruelly piled one on top of another, failed to arouse my usual repulsion.

Chessy, immaculate in a white T-shirt and ducks, was waiting for me outside the store, holding the brown bag that contained his purchases. His smile was frankly insinuating.

“So you liked my friend,” he said as we started down to the pier.

“He seems very sure of himself.”

“He has a lot to be sure of.”

“As much as all that?”

“Well, he has all the things I want, anyway. The obvious things. It's why people hate him.”

“Do they hate him?”

“They envy him. It's the same thing.”

“Then you must hate him, too.”

“Ah, but you see I'm different. He and I are part of each other. You might put it that we've made a kind of blood compact.”

“Just you and he?”

“And the devil. Isn't he always the third?”

“You mean you've sold your souls?”

“Dear no. He didn't have to buy us. We were born his. Chip even aspires to be his first lieutenant.”

“To lead the armies of Satan against the citadel of God?”

“And don't kid yourself. We may yet prevail.”

It seemed to me that we were getting pretty silly, even for Bar Harbor. “What's so great about being wicked?”

“Wicked is a term of abuse used by Jehovah. The damned are no more wicked than the saved are good.”

“Meaning that yours is really a noble rebellion?”

“Against the tyranny of whatever is.”

“You speak of your friend as if he were your commanding officer. I always thought of you as independent, Chessy. Whatever happened to that Argentinian uncle?”

“He went bankrupt and blew his brains out.”

I glanced to see if he was kidding. “And left you nothing?”

Chessy formed a naught with his forefinger and thumb. “I depend entirely now upon my generous friend.”

“Then you really have sold your soul?”

“Oh, I think he'll get his money's worth.”

Before us now was Chip's gleaming white boat. Its master, dressed like his friend, was busy with the sails. He paused only briefly to wave at me. Chessy leaned over to place his brown bag on the deck and then handed me into the boat.

“Have a nice sail, you two.”

“Aren't you coming?” I asked in astonishment.

“And make a crowd? I know better.” And he walked down the pier, whistling, without once turning back.

Chip did not ask me to help him with the sails. He was too competent even to pretend that he could be assisted. He offered me a newspaper and a beer, both of which I declined. I simply sat on the fantail and watched him. It was amazing. He was even better-looking than I remembered. And his ignoring my presence helped to keep alive my heady sense of unreality.

At last we got under way. I took the tiller as he pulled up the sails. We did not exchange a word until we were clear of the harbor. Once we were settled on a course along the shoreline, with a mild breeze behind us, he slipped into the seat beside me and relieved me of my task.

“What do you want? You know I'm engaged.”

“Do you like Browning? ‘Your leave for one more last ride with me.' ”

“You mean you're going to take me for a ride?”

“You accept?”

“What else can I do now? Swim ashore?”

He laughed and quoted mockingly:

 

“‘The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side,
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
So, one day more am I deified.
   Who knows but the world may end tonight?'”

 

“Except that I'm not your mistress.”

“Neither was the lady in the poem. In that sense of the word. I only wanted to get you away for a bit. Out here on the ocean there's just us.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing. Except look at you.”

“Well, I guess that's safe enough. A cat can look at an engaged girl.”

“You keep coming back to your engagement.”

“Isn't it natural?”

“Not if you don't believe in it. And you don't.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Isn't it obvious? You wouldn't have come out with me if you did.”

“I didn't mean to come out with you. I meant to come out with Chessy.”

“You only came because you knew I'd be here.”

“You have a nerve!”

“Don't be vulgar, Alida. It doesn't become you.”

I found that I was willing to accept this, shaming as it was. “Very well. I did come because I wanted to see you. But I don't understand where it is going to get either of us. I have no idea of giving up Jonathan. And I certainly have no idea of having an affair with you before I marry him. That would be vulgar.”

“Agreed. But you say you have no idea of giving up Askew. Is there really anything to give up? Isn't he just a fantasy?”

“Of yours or mine?”

“Of both. Insofar as we let him stand between us.”

As at the dance, I felt his extraordinary effect on me. It was not simply sex appeal—unless that was what it simply was. No, it was more the intriguing sense of having no further decisions to make, of being folded up and packed into what I somehow imagined as the smart snakeskin traveling case of this grave and beautiful young man.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Tell me about yourself.”

“There's not much to tell. Except that my life began last spring. When I decided, belatedly, that I was going to live. I mean live my own life, not anyone else's.”

“And what made you come to this great decision?”

“I looked at my parents and suddenly saw them. That was all.”

“I gather you didn't much like what you saw.” I sighed in sympathy. “I saw mine at a somewhat earlier date.”

“What I really saw was that there was no point trying to oblige them.”

“Because you never could?”

“Exactly. Because I never could.”

“Is that what Chessy means when he says you're damned?”

“How like Chessy to put it that way.” But he did not answer the question.

“And what about me?” I went on. “Is there any point trying to oblige me?”

“I only want you to oblige yourself. We know we're attracted. I see no obstacle. I certainly don't consider Askew one.”

“Even though he's my fiance?”

“You don't care for him! You couldn't. He doesn't even exist where it's a question of you and me.”

“I think I want to go back now.” He did not reply and made no move to change course. After a few minutes of silence I asked sharply, “What are you going to do? Drown me?” When he still failed to respond, or even look at me, I said in a different tone, the sudden gravity of which surprised me, “All right. Go ahead!”

“Coming about,” he said gruffly, and we turned our bow back to Bar Harbor.

At the pier, when he had taken down the sails as I watched—expertly and speedily, of course—he said: “Chessy and I will be leaving tomorrow for Dark Harbor. After that I go back to Yale. I'll call you in New York in September. If you'll agree to have dinner with me, I'll take you to a place where no one will know you.”

And that was all. Feeling at once very flat and oddly exhilarated, I drove home alone. I found Jonathan on the porch, waiting for me. He asked sulkily where I had been.

“I've been for a sail.”

“With that callow blond fellow you were dancing with last night?”

“The same.”

“Alida, how could you?”

His tone was high and shrill. He ranted on about my obligations to him. Ultimately he burst into tears. I watched him coldly. He seemed a part of my life, even an undetachable part, but he was in the past—like Mummie and Daddy. He was me. He was awful.

“You needn't worry, Jonathan,” I said wearily. “Nothing is going to happen between me and that young man.”

“And how, pray, can I be sure of that?”

“Because he's damned.”

“He certainly will be if he doesn't let you alone!”

“I don't think I want to discuss him with you. If you insist, I shall have to break our engagement.”