Free Manhattan Monologues by Louis Auchincloss Page A

incorrect in their judgment of me. I
do
use people. My only real resentment of my in-laws is that they expect to profit from the dirty water into which they decline to stick a finger. It is I who must handle the new rich with whom they don't care to associate. And, of course, I have learned how to do that. I am well aware of how social climbers make use of summer resorts, which represent the soft underbelly of the old guard. In their hometowns—Boston, New York, Philadelphia—the established families are more or less secure in their guarded citadels: the clubs, the private schools, the subscription dances, even some of the major charities. But at a watering place like Newport, Bar Harbor or Southampton the new tycoon (provided he is not too repellently vulgar, as a surprising number are) can attract the children of the old guard to play with his children by offering them the use of yachts, fast foreign cars, well-kept tennis courts and other luxuries, and once the younger generation has been lured in, the parents are almost bound to call, and the fortifications are breached. Marriages between the old and new soon guarantee total acceptance, and the battle is won.
    But there are pitfalls for those who, like myself, are bent on hastening the process. A member of the old guard must not surrender too quickly; it will be assumed that he or she is a phoney, not the real thing. And, secondly, the friendship "that you finally offer a newcomer must be sincere. After all, these people, even if they need polish, are not stupid. They wouldn't have made their millions if they were. And, like other people, they want to be loved. And this is not always impossible. Take Mrs. Oscar Gleason, my prize capture, widow of the rubber tycoon whose mammoth fortune was rumored to be derived in good part from contraceptives. I admired and respected this grave and regal dowager from the beginning and was genuinely amused, as were so many others, by her six handsome if rather madcap children. Indeed, I think I can say truly that I came to love that family.
    My own family (as opposed to my in-laws) proved useful allies. Good-natured and essentially democratic, my husband and son and daughter made friends easily with everyone on the island. In fact, I doubt that Grinnell made any distinction in his mind between the old stock and the new. His athletic prowess and easygoing manner shed a beam of light about him, and the business moguls could admire his muscle and enjoy his sometimes naive amiability without envying his brain. It rather fascinated them that he had never worked, and his explanation of this was much repeated at the swimming club. He had worked, he told them, for a year after his graduation from Harvard, as a customers' man in a Wall Street brokerage house, but when he discovered that he and his chauffeur had the same salary, he decided to drive himself and be free of toil. This, I may say, was typical of Grinnell. He never read a book, but he wrote one, a short collection of fishing stories, and had it privately and too expensively published, with the placating dedication "to Kate, my companion in the adventure of life." One could forgive him anything, even a bromide. And one always did.
    Elfrida was a lovely but passive young woman, perfectly content to be idle, except when painting her mild little pictures, and oddly indifferent to masculine attention. There was not much chance of lassoing a young heir for her, but I knew that if I got an heiress for Damon, he would always look after his twin. Damon was my ace of trumps. Everyone loved him. He was slight but beautifully built, with dark eyes and hair, romantically good-looking and a fine athlete, though nothing like his father. The few things that he consented to do he did well—tennis, golf and bridge—but he was regrettably lazy and spent hours in the summer stretched out on the porch, acquiring a perfect tan. He appeared to have no ambition and seemed perfectly happy to