Honorable Men by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online Page A

It’s just that I ... well ... maybe I envy them a little.”
    It had been risky, and for a couple of minutes his father said nothing. But when he spoke, his tone was mild enough. “I guess I don’t see why you should envy them, Chip.”
    â€œBecause no one expects anything of them!” Chip was suddenly excited by his own nerve. “Because anything they do that’s at all good is greeted with wild applause.”
    â€œMy boy, do you think we expect too much of
you
?”
    â€œOh, no, sir, not really, no.”
    But now he was in for it. Elihu could not let this pass. Kindly, slowly, patiently, he proceeded to review his and Matilda’s satisfaction with their son. It was evident that he had detected a leak in Chip’s moral plumbing, and there would be no more fishing that night, no sleeping even, until it had been carefully soldered. And there was never any way to answer the question that now began to haunt the recesses of the boy’s mind: Would this gaunt, strong man have loved his son had he really known him? He loved a fantasy—that was the gist of it.
    With Matilda it was different. She loved Chip, yes, but she gave every sign of suspecting that her love
was
a fantasy. She might still have loved him even had this been proven, but it would have been at a heavy cost to her own self-esteem. She seemed to suffer from agonies of apprehension, as shown on that night when she had barged into his bedroom. What made her so suspicious? Why was she, devoted partner of her husband in the business of re-creating the moral world in a Benedict image, so afraid of cracks in the fortifications and traitors in the very bosom of the family? Sometimes Chip’s heart went out to her; he fancied that he was the only person who comprehended the nagging anxiety lurking in the bland beam of those executive eyes. But if his mother secretly appreciated his sympathy, she never dared to betray it. It would have been to admit there was something to worry about. And again, also in that same summer of his fifteenth year, a horrible thing happened.
    Elihu Benedict had purchased a small island near their summer home in Camden, Maine, on which he proposed to build a summer camp as a retreat from the intensifying social pace of the summer community. He took his wife and four children to inspect it one beautiful July morning; they brought a picnic hamper, and Elihu drove the motor launch himself. After the family had inspected their new domain, they gathered on a large flat rock by the water to eat their lunch. Flossie, the oldest of the girls, suggested that they should swim first, but Elaine and Margaret shouted at once that they had no bathing suits. It had been thought that the ocean would be too cold.
    â€œIt’s no problem,” their father observed. “Chip and I will go around that little point, and you girls can bathe here.”
    Matilda now demonstrated an unexpected freedom from convention. “How perfectly foolish, my dear. Why should we be so artificial? We’re all one family. I can’t imagine why we should be ashamed of the bodies the good Lord gave us. Let us all go in the water together right off this fine rock. And anyway, it’s the only place on the island where you can get into the sea without walking on sharp stones.”
    The girls hooted with excitement at the prospect of such an adventure and started to peel off their clothes. Chip felt a cold band of terror tighten around his heart. It was not the prospect of seeing their pink backsides and boyish nipples that concerned him. He had peeked at these before. Nor was it even the vision of his father’s nudity; he had seen those long thin limbs, that bony behind and gray pubic hair on fishing trips. But his mother! Could eyes abide it?
    â€œI don’t feel like swimming. I think I’ll take a walk around the island.”
    â€œBut you’ve seen it all, darling,” his mother protested.