Rodin's Debutante (12 page)

Gus thought often of Herman Melville, especially his last days in the customs house. He did not die a happy man. At the end of the working day Augustus Allprice retreated to his cottage and poured a glass of gin for himself and Anjelica and cursed the day he thought of schoolmaster as a profession. One glass led to another, and more often than not he and Anjelica would tumble into bed, rising only to prepare a late dinner or answer an insistent telephone call, one of the boys misbehaving, a fire in Marks dormitory or elsewhere on the campus. The Winston brat had beaten up a freshman. A girl had been discovered in a closet adjacent to the library. Would Anjelica have a word with her? Anjelica would not. Girl counseling was not in Anjelica's job description, and in fact her presence on campus was something of a scandal, though everyone agreed to look the other way. Augustus was feeling the wanderlust yet again and thought that this would be his last year at Ogden Hall. He wished to visit Patagonia and Anjelica was willing, indeed eager—anything to be quits with the school.

Augustus thought of Patagonia while formulating an answer to his director of admissions, a man much too old for his job. He, along with so many staff and faculty, had been recruited from an eastern school. Ted Weddle wished he were back there. He missed the village green and the movies on Saturday night and the Sunday matinee of the Boston Pops. His married children lived nearby. He missed the golden New England autumn. His wife hated the Illinois prairie, featureless and sullen, baking in summer and frigid in winter, not a hill for five hundred miles. Most of the faculty agreed. The students wished they were back east too, at Andover or Deerfield or one of the others. St. Paul's. In the East there were girls' schools nearby, Ethel Walker and Westover. Miss Porter's in Connecticut. They all thought they were too good for Ogden Hall and their parents agreed. Jesper, Illinois, for God's sake, to the back of beyond. But when a boy had been expelled from Choate, Groton, St. Mark's, and Middlesex the options were limited. Word got around, yet however far it reached it never quite got to Ogden Hall, the port in the storm. Many of the late-coming boys were from Chicago or the North Shore and their parents felt it was salutary that their sons be nearby, closely supervised by master mechanics. Refitted, the boy-vessel would be safely on its way, launched to a more acceptable climate, New Haven, for example, or Princeton. But first the boy had to graduate well. That was the reason for the investment in Ogden Hall—which, while not choosy, was not cheap, either. It did seem to Gus that everyone at the school wished he were somewhere else, New England or Europe or, as in his own case, Patagonia. A shame, really, because all these discontents resulted in a school that was nervously broken down.

Ted Weddle waited patiently for the headmaster to collect himself. He was often silent for minutes at a time, distracted by Herman Melville or the flamboyant Anjelica or his own anxiety. He was not a suitable headmaster, that was the truth of it. Gus Allprice's education was sporadic, some public high school in Maine followed by New York University and a transfer to Rutgers. He had published nothing. If he had a theory of education no one at Ogden Hall had ever heard it. He looked the part and that was that, six feet two and eyes of blue. One fact not generally known was that he was an orphan, a foundling. He had mentioned that one night when he was drunk. Ted believed that was the source of the headmaster's contempt for the parents he dealt with. Gus Allprice wished he had a father or mother who snapped fingers for him, making other people dance. No wonder he looked to Patagonia, one of the world's last frontiers.

He said at last, Perhaps not, Ted. Many do not buy what I'm selling. For the most part they don't care what I'm selling. They're buying a diploma and with the diploma matriculation into the Ivy League.

But Gus. Everyone's buying
something—

The headmaster shook his head, observing that the boys were spoiled, negligent, and self-possessed even by the standards of upper-class adolescents. Their folly has been without consequence. They have never been denied satisfaction of any whim that came to them, the more outrageous the better. Their daddies are rich and wish only that their sons graduate well so that they can enter the family firm, the idea all along. Strange thing is, many of the boys are highly intelligent. Intelligent enough to see behind our out-of-date second-rate façade. I'm afraid we have contributed to their cynicism and in that one sense, and that one sense only, their cynicism could be said to be earned. Still, they're awful little shits, most of them. They've never done a day's work in their sorry lives. Parental inheritance. The parents are worse because the parents should know better. And that's why I read them
Omoo.

This is not productive, Ted Weddle said. We're behind recruitment this year by thirty boys, that's a record at this time of the year. We need the little shits more than they need us, that's the truth of it. All of us here depend on Ogden Hall, Gus. Ogden Hall puts food on the table. In many ways we have a sweet deal here. Class size is what? Six, seven boys a class. Individual instruction, that's what we tell the parents. It would be a hell of a thing if we went broke.

We can't go broke, Ted. The Ogden millions.

We'll go broke if we don't have students.

No one will notice, the headmaster said, barking a laugh.

It's on your head, then.

Why did you come to Ogden Hall, Ted?

Oh, well, it's a long story—

I have time, the headmaster said.

I was old. My school, the one I had taught at for thirty-five years, wanted me out as director of admissions. They wanted a younger man who could relate to the students. The prospective students and the parents also. They used a word I had never heard before, at least in that context. They said I had the wrong image.

What did they mean by that?

Who knows? Wrong clothes, though my clothes were like everyone else's clothes, tweed jackets and flannel trousers. Striped tie. I think it was because I was old. I was sixty. Bald, as you can see. The students were young enough to be my grandchildren and that presented the wrong—image. Not the image of the school that they wanted, youth and vigor. They wanted something postwar.

Jesus, Gus said.

And I was careless. I had debts, not large in the scheme of things but more than I could handle. Millie had health problems, as you know. I didn't want retirement with debt on my mind. I needed to regroup so I came here, answered the ad in the
Bulletin.
That was three years ago and I'm no further ahead now than I was then. So this job means a lot to me, Gus.

Half our faculty has a similar story, the headmaster said. Had a falling-out with the administration. An incident with a student. An incident with a parent. Denied tenure, asked to move on with the promise of a glowing letter of recommendation to make things a little easier. They wanted to come to a new place, begin again. Everyone knows that Ogden Hall is flush with cash. So they arrive here with a bad attitude. It's not their first choice anyhow. Often it's not their second choice. They're like the ballplayer who's been sent to the minors; they believed it was only a question of time before they'd climb back to the Bigs. They'd be chairman of the English department at Exeter with an office of their own and a sabbatical every six years and the opportunity to pal around with a senator's kid. But they don't believe that anymore. Ogden Hall is the end of the line for them. We live in an atmosphere of disappointment and frustration. Resentment too, because everyone knows they've been dealt bad cards. Bad cards, bad luck, bad choices. The deck is stacked.
So
unfair.

Are you thinking about your message, Gus?

Not really, the headmaster said.

I wish you would.

Trouble is, we have no distinguished graduates. Not one we can point to and say, This is the face of Ogden Hall.

Give them time, Ted said. They're young. Too young to be chairmen.

You mean too young to appear on the cover of
Time
as the savior of American capitalism.

That's harsh, Gus.

Don't we have a ballplayer?

Young Flatley. Played a year with the Bears, got hurt.

Army general? Admiral? What about an actor?

None I know of. See, Gus. That's the advantage of the eastern schools, been around forever. At Andover when all else fails—the senators, the scientists, the ambassadors, the bankers and the writers and the Nobel Prize—winning economists—they haul out Humphrey Bogart. Who was expelled, by the way. And the school sent his parents a very friendly and consoling letter indicating that the young man, though perhaps not quite suitable for Andover, would do just fine in life.

I met him once, Gus said.

Bogart?

He's a brawler, the headmaster said.

That's not the point, Gus.

It would help if we had a gangster. Not Dillinger. Clyde Barrow, maybe.

What we have, Gus, is Tommy Ogden.

We're a young school, it's true.

Will you give your message some thought? It's a problem for me, Gus, because I'm the one catching the flak.

They were sitting in the headmaster's office, the former master bedroom the size of a squash court. Now Augustus Allprice stood and stepped to the window. The afternoon was dark, threatening rain. Clouds were boiling up in the west. Far in the distance he could see the railroad trestle. He stood in the window jiggling the coins in his pocket. He said nothing for a full minute, trying to imagine the Patagonian tundra as seen from a sailboat offshore, a springy thirty-eight-footer. Probably Herman Melville had visited Patagonia. He had been everywhere else, why not there? Gus thought he was probably miscast as a headmaster, as Melville was miscast as a customs inspector. Still, Melville did fine work in the later years of his life, living in New York and working at the customs house. And lost his audience because the later work was ambitious, complex and demanding. Gus watched a bright red Ford convertible motor up the drive, a pretty girl at the wheel. She stopped abruptly in a shower of gravel, tossed her head, alighted, and marched up the steps. She was someone's stepmother, what was the kid's name? Berry? Merry? He was one of the slugs with an IQ of 140 and an ambition of zero. A foul mouth and a bully in the bargain. The headmaster sighed, turning again to his director of admissions, waiting patiently.

The problem is Ogden Hall, Ted. The situation. The ambiance. The look of the place. The mansion, the gardens, the classrooms that look like bedrooms with their chandeliers and dressing rooms. After all these years you can still smell ladies' perfume. Ogden Hall doesn't look like a school. It never has. It looks like what it is, a huge country house converted to another use. It's a ship in dry dock. It has neither the look nor the feel of discipline or scholarship. Even the athletic fields look bogus. Parents and students come here for their first look and think that if they wait around long enough they'll hear a jazz band and a waiter will arrive with a tray of cocktails and a debutante will dance in from the wings. Listen hard enough and you can hear the thud of tennis balls on the clay court even though it's the middle of January, a foot of snow on the ground. God knows what thoughts the bedroom-classrooms inspire. We're shabby in these surroundings, faculty and students both, but mostly faculty because the students at least are wearing decent shoes. Things are out of place here and they always will be. Ogden Hall is misbegotten and that's the truth of it.

That's harsh, Gus.

My view, the headmaster said.

We have a beautiful facility. We're unique. All the parents admire Ogden Hall. The older ones even remember Tommy Ogden in his middle age. Tommy and Marie, a pair of scamps. Ogden Hall reminds them of their youth. You should hear the stories they tell, dinner dances in the garden, eight people at table. A full orchestra to entertain them, including the singer.

A tap on the door announced the headmaster's secretary, who looked in to say that Mrs. Berry was waiting. An urgent matter that requires your immediate attention, Gus.

Tell her ten minutes, the headmaster said.

She seems impatient—

Ten minutes, he repeated.

One last thing, Ted Weddle said. Anjelica was in the library yesterday looking for some book—

Balzac, the headmaster said.

She was wearing shorts again, Ted said.

It was warm yesterday. She often wears shorts.

And—what do you call those things?

Halter tops, the headmaster said.

Halter top, Ted said. Out of nowhere the library was suddenly crowded with boys. The little shits, all of them leering. It's not good, Gus. It just simply sends the wrong message. Anjelica is a very attractive young woman.

No kidding, the headmaster said.

The director of admissions flung up his hands in defeat. Can we continue this tomorrow? Same time?

The headmaster nodded in the direction of the portrait over the fireplace, Tommy Ogden in full hunting fig, camouflage forage cap pushed back on his head, canvas jacket, lace-up boots, a shotgun cradled in his arms. His face was tanned, his hair the color and texture of straw. An antlered stag lay at his feet, its pink tongue lolling and limp as an old sock. The headmaster said, They tell me that Tommy Ogden was an awful son of a bitch. Is, I suppose, since he's still alive somewhere. And I wonder all this time whether his live spirit haunts this school. Whether he floats from room to room, a kind of evil miasma whispering to the boys that it's perfectly all right to screw off your entire life. That life is better screwing off. That screwing off is as productive and rewarding an activity as any other. Screwing off, you need never take a backward glance and wonder what life's all about. Screwing off is its own reward. No one will care, and if they do care you can give them the finger.

Patagonia, the headmaster concluded, but by then the director of admissions was already easing himself out the door, promising to return the next afternoon. When he heard Gus murmur "Patagonia," Ted smiled gamely. Patagonia would not be the headmaster's solution. Patagonia was no one's solution, merely another wasteland at the nether end of a far continent, as pointless as an orchestra for eight people at table.