Free The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss by Louis Auchincloss Page A

want.”
    â€œI have to start with the old ladies,” he said. “I don’t know anyone else.”
    â€œAnd after the old ladies?”
    But he had thought this out.
    â€œThey all have daughters or granddaughters,” he explained. “Like Theodora. They’ll get used to me.”
    â€œAnd you’re ‘cute,’” I said meanly. “You’re a ‘dear.’ Yes, I see it. If it’s what you want.” I got up and started across the gravel to my car. He came after me.
    â€œI’m not going to hurt anyone, you know,” he said. “I only want to be a respected citizen.”
    In the car I leaned out to speak to him.
    â€œSuppose I tell them?”
    â€œAbout my plans?”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œDo. It won’t make any difference. You’ll see.”
    I started the motor and drove off without so much as nodding to him.

3
    Gregory was good to his word. Every ounce of energy in his small store was directed to the attainment of his clearly conceived goal. I had resolved in disgust to have no further dealings with him, and I adhered to my resolution, but curiosity and a sense of the tiny drama latent in his plans kept me during the rest of that summer and the following two with an ear always alert at the mention of his name for further details of his social clamber.
    Little by little Anchor Harbor began to take note of the emergence of this new personality. Greg had been right to start with the old ladies, though he had had, it was true, no alternative. The appearance of this bland young man with such innocent eyes and wide hips and such ridiculous blazers would have been followed by brusque repulse in any young or even middle-aged group of the summer colony, intent as they were on bridge, liquor, sport and sex. In the elderly circles, however, Greg had only to polish his bridge to the point of respectability, and he became a welcome addition at their dinner parties. His conversation, though certainly tepid, was soothing and enthusiastic, and he could listen, without interrupting, to the longest and most frequently repeated anecdote. He liked everybody and every dinner; he radiated an unobtrusive but gratifying satisfaction with life. Once he became known as a person who could be counted upon to accept, his evenings were gradually filled. The old in Anchor Harbor had an energy that put their descendants to shame. Dinner parties even in the septuagenarian group were apt to last till two in the morning, and in the bridge circles rubber would succeed rubber until the sun peeked in through the blinds to cast a weird light on the butt-filled ashtrays and the empty, sticky highball glasses. The old were still up when the young came in from their more hectic but less prolonged evenings of enjoyment, and Gregory came gradually, in the relaxed hours of the early morning, to meet the children and grandchildren of his hostesses. Friction, however, often ran high between the generations, even at such times, and he found his opportunity as peacemaker. He came to be noted for his skill in transmitting messages, with conciliatory amendments of his own, from mother to daughter, from aunt to niece. Everyone found him useful. He became in short a “character,” accepted by all ages, and in that valuable capacity immune from criticism. He was “dear old Greg,” “our lovable, ridiculous Greg.” One heard more and more such remarks as, “Where but in Anchor Harbor would you find a type like Greg?” and “You now, I
like
Greg.” And, I suppose, even had none of the foregoing been true, he would have succeeded as Theodora’s pet, her “discovery,” her lap dog, if you will, a comfortable, consoling eunuch in a world that had produced altogether too many men.
    That Mrs. Bakewell would have little enough enthusiasm for her son’s being taken to the hearts of Theodora and her set I was moderately sure, but the extent of