Rodin's Debutante (13 page)

And one moment later Mrs. George V. Berry—given name Lucille, but Georgette to her friends—was in the room, offering a brisk handshake, settling onto the couch, arranging her legs, beginning to speak even as she settled. We have a problem with William, Augustus, or do you prefer Gus? William's father and I are not at all satisfied with his progress at Ogden Hall, or should I say lack of progress. Ogden Hall promises straightforwardness and individual attention but so far his father and I have received excuses and William one critical report after another, several of them incoherent. His grades are not as they should be and this is not the result we expect for our fifteen hundred dollars a year. The result we expect, and the result we will have, is an invitation for our son to join Yale's freshman class next year. Yale is the school my husband attended. It is his father's school as well, and that would make William the third generation. Matriculation at Yale is my husband's wish. It is my wish. And it should be your wish, Augustus. But we are not confident that anyone in your school is looking out for William, who is very, very bright, as we know from the Stanford-Binet. He is one of the brightest boys in your school and yet his grade average is miserable. And what I want to know is, what do you intend to do about it? Is there a plan? I have spoken to his instructors one by one and I must tell you I am not satisfied. His father is not satisfied. They do not seem to us to be committed teachers. I see no zeal in your faculty. I do not find a thirst to educate. As it happens, the boy's father and I have identified the problem. William is bored. He is bored because the work he is being asked to do is far, far below his level. The boys in his class are dull. They have routine minds. That's my husband's judgment and I agree with it. You have put a racehorse into a stable of mules. That's the crux of it.

The headmaster's telephone rang then and he raised his hand as he answered, spoke a few words, and replaced the receiver.

You were saying, Mrs. Berry.

We are wasting time, she said.

I would say so, yes.

So, if I may ask, now that you've been made aware of the situation. The mess you've made of things. What are your plans?

Georgette Berry had run out of gas. She had said everything her husband asked her to say. She had hit every note. But this headmaster had not responded, had not moved so much as an eyelid. She could not tell if he had been listening carefully. He was an attractive man but his blue eyes did have a faraway look, as if they were not closely focused. He was well tailored in the academic manner, wearing a blue button-down shirt and a soft tweed jacket, patches on the elbows. The quality was good. He had the bearing of a man who had been around. Someone had told her he had worked as a seaman and she could believe it. He had huge hands. The headmaster was rumored to have a woman living with him in his house on campus, a cause for concern surely, though she herself preferred to be broad-minded, unlike so many of the midwestern hausfraus she knew. Georgette had grown up in the West, Los Angeles, and had run with the movie crowd. Love life among the movie crowd was never a cause for concern unless the story made the tabloids, an unlikely event because the industry employed an army of press agents who could make almost any story go away. They had a different view of things in the Midwest, even her husband. They were strait-laced on the North Shore. Her husband was always talking about some friend who had zipper trouble. She had to ask him what that meant, and when he told her, she laughed, apparently not the thing to do because he was angry with her and said it wasn't a laughing matter, there were children involved, not to mention reputations. Also, he had the view that Los Angeles was a kind of Gomorrah, even though that was where they met, George advising an actor friend of hers on a real estate investment. At first he seemed to fit right in with his good looks, his charm. He was rich. He was ardent. He had a beautiful golf game. When he proposed she accepted at once, although it meant that she had to move to Illinois. George was a different man in Illinois, his clergy-gray three-piece suits and wingtip shoes, garters on his socks, a fedora hat. George was a provincial, that was the truth of it. Illinois lacked vivacity.

Her thoughts were drifting now and she hauled them back in order to concentrate on the important matter at hand. The headmaster had not responded as she believed he should. He seemed to be waiting for something more from her, a fresh demand or insight. The silence lengthened and at last he smiled, but slightly. She did not find it an encouraging smile, this ambiguous twist of his mouth, as much frown as smile. He really did have the most startling pale blue eyes. Georgette wondered if she should invite him to dinner, him and the girlfriend. The girlfriend was said to be quite pretty. Something small and informal, ten at table, drinks and dinner on the terrace if weather permitted. In an informal setting her husband could press his case, make this Gus understand the stakes. The headmaster remained silent so Georgette repeated herself, something she hated doing because it meant she had not been listened to.

What are your plans, Mr. Allprice?

Plans?

Yes, plans. To resolve the situation.

Patagonia, the headmaster said.

I beg your pardon?

You asked me what my plans were. I am going to Patagonia.

For good?

I imagine not. For a while.

You are abandoning your post?

I cannot run a school from Patagonia.

No, of course not.

And I will be living aboard ship.

In Patagonia?

Offshore, the headmaster said.

Have you listened to anything I've said?

Of course.

But then—what about William?

I don't know. I have no idea.

I've never heard such a thing, Georgette said. She did not know how to proceed. Talking to Augustus Allprice was like talking to a statue. There was something—she sought the proper word—
militant
about him, and yet his manner was correct, his twisted smile conveying a kind of sympathy. George should have come himself. She was not cut out for confrontations with schoolteachers. She agreed to it only because she wanted young William out of the house and in faraway New Haven.

Someone will take my place, the headmaster said. You can talk to him.

I am talking to you, she said.

You must excuse me now, Mrs. Berry. I have a meeting with the faculty.

She looked at him as he stood, towering above her.

My husband will be furious, she said.

Is he often furious?

When he feels thwarted he is furious.

Will he take out his fury on you?

He might, she said. He is unpredictable. He is a lawyer.

I see, the headmaster said.

I knew we made a mistake with Ogden Hall.

There are other schools, the headmaster said.

Georgette found herself unaccountably on the edge of tears. This simple mission had turned into a debacle. Her husband had told her that the headmaster would fold when made aware of the facts. It was his job to accommodate himself to reality, to give help when help was required. Lay it out for him, George had said. He'll get it, believe me. Now she found herself adrift. But William is a
senior,
she said. There's no time to find another place for him.

The headmaster handed her the box of tissues that was always on his desk. When the telephone rang he turned his back to her and spoke for a minute or more, a problem in the chemistry lab. Someone had broken a vial and fumes were everywhere. The instructor had evacuated the room but the fumes remained and they were dangerous. Not life-threatening but nausea-causing, and it might be a good idea to get a doctor in to examine the boys. Yes, the headmaster said, and do it at once.

When he hung up the telephone he stood quietly looking at the portrait of Tommy Ogden, wondering if it was a faithful likeness. If it was, then Tommy Ogden had a bull's face, a long nose and heavy ears. Everything about him was bull-like except for the straw-colored hair. Gus wondered what provoked the sportsman into founding a school for boys and pouring millions into it. He never visited. He never inquired into its affairs. Gus had never met him and didn't expect to. He decided that Tommy Ogden was misbegotten. He stood looking at the portrait another minute, having utterly forgotten Georgette Berry. When he remembered he turned abruptly and saw to his regret that she was no longer in the room. The room was not in focus. Gus felt the inevitable headache gathering at the base of his skull. He put his fingers on the desk and lowered himself into the chair and sat quietly, his eyes closed. This was his first attack in months, the inner ear's revenge. The answer to it was simple. Patagonia.

BEFORE THE ADVENT
of Augustus Allprice, Ogden Hall had suffered reversals, three headmasters in the first five years of its existence, four in the next fifteen. None of them were suitable. Two were alcoholic, one was a thief, another had falsified his CV. Two others had severe psychological problems, manic depression in one case, paranoia in the other. Bert Marks began to wonder if there was something pathological about schoolmasters, some gene that went haywire the moment a man assumed the title or aspired to one. They seemed perfectly reasonable men during the interview, in command of themselves and the material. Bert Marks looked on them as witnesses. Could they convince a jury? Did they make a good appearance generally, meaning well-spoken and well-groomed, decently tailored? Most important, did they go beyond their brief? Bert felt he had a musician's ear for the discordant statement, the one not entirely justified by the facts at hand. After the first two headmasters crashed and burned, Bert began to doubt his abilities. He had been hoodwinked as he had never been in his career as an attorney-at-law. He was not a trial lawyer but was often hired to be present at jury selection, so shrewd were his readings of character. These men seemed beyond reproach, solid citizens, men of achievement and integrity, yet they were charlatans. He had never hired a consultant in his life, and when a friend suggested he do so at once, Bert laughed in his face, it was ludicrous—and then he reconsidered. The first consultant turned out to be as addled as the candidate they were interviewing, a faux Englishman who claimed a background at Harrow and Cambridge and distant connections with the royal family. Easily checked, easily dismissed, along with the consultant, whose own credentials were not quite in order. Bert began to think he was dealing with a criminal subculture, nothing to do with the mafia but something altogether more sinister because it was so unexpected. He was interviewing schoolmasters, not second-story men or kneecap artists.

At last, admitting defeat, Bert Marks turned Ogden Hall over to his son and law partner, Bert Jr., with instructions to solve the headmaster problem once and for all. The need was urgent, for the school was on probation vis-à-vis its accreditation. Morale was low. Its reputation among other schools was rock bottom, a joke; the word Bert Jr. used was contamination. The North Shore boys set the tone—studied indifference, frequent references to the plebes among them, a mocking, supercilious attitude that spoke a kind of class warfare from the top down. Supercilious it certainly was, as Bert Jr. explained to his father, but also alluring. These boys were the canaries in the mineshaft of the modern world, the one that has brought Taft-Hartley and will bring Dewey. The North Shore and Chicago boys seemed much older in their three-button sports jackets and loafers—never was a shoe better named!—and a Lucky Strike in their mouths; the red and white bull's-eye logo had some mysterious erotic significance. Bert Jr. had the idea that the North Shore was a matriarchy, hence the boys' obsession with clothing—the shabbier the better during the day, but at night, out and about at roadhouses, they paid meticulous attention to what was on their backs. J. Press trumped Brooks Brothers and Tripp trumped both. They had strange relations with their parents, intimate with their mothers and distant from their fathers—unhealthy, Bert Jr. thought, a situation resembling some nineteenth-century Scandinavian melodrama. On weekends the boys drove to Chicago to listen to jazz music and drink cocktails, the fake draft cards certifying legal age supplied by an English instructor at fifty dollars a card.

That's one thing I've discovered, Bert Jr. said. And the other is that many of the instructors give private tutoring at seven dollars an hour. A boy isn't doing well because he's not completing his homework or is failing his examinations, usually both, and so he's tutored to bring himself up to snuff, and guess what, his mark at the end of the year is a respectable B-plus. Do you see the conflict of interest here? It's outrageous. I've stopped the fees. Not the tutoring. But do you know what? The instructors aren't tutoring anymore and this has caused hysteria among the parents because they are determined that their offspring receive any advantage on offer. Any conceivable advantage inside the rules or outside them. They'll force any issue. It's what they're brought up to do. Otherwise, what's the point of being rich? Ogden Hall is a bordello.

Bert Sr. was only dimly aware of class divisions. Class divisions were of no interest to him. He did wish his boy were a bit more worldly. All in all, Harvard was a mistake for any young man who wanted to make a living in Chicago. You had a client, and you served the client, and each case had its own ambiguities. No wonder they called law a practice. Bert Sr. did not think Bert Jr. an astute judge of human nature. If he was cut out for the law, it was as a judge, preferably on a supreme court somewhere, Illinois for example. You could tell in the wink of an eye how determined a client was. You could tell by his voice and his manner how far he was willing to go, and that, in turn, affected your advice to him. Class divisions didn't have anything to do with anything. It was idle chatter. He knew lawyers who lived on the North Shore and some were able and some were not. Very few of the North Shore lawyers were Jewish because of the wretched restrictive covenants concerning real estate, but that had nothing to do with class except in the broadest sense. It had to do with tribe. Fear was at the heart of prejudice, and fear was primal and not easily swept aside. It was hard for Bert Sr. to get his mind around the customs of the North Shore. Why would anyone want to live on the North Shore when you could live on the Near North Side? One train in the morning and another in the evening, a bored wife and arrogant children, golf scores.