The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss by Louis Auchincloss Page B

exercise?”
    â€œI walk from Mother’s cottage to the club. It’s several hundred yards.”
    I rose to my feet.
    â€œTomorrow morning,” I said firmly, “I’ll pick you up here at nine-thirty. We’re going to climb a mountain.”
    He gaped at me in horror and amazement as I got up to leave him, but he was there when I came by the next morning, waiting for me, dressed exactly as he had been the day before except for a pair of spotless white sneakers and a towel, pointlessly but athletically draped around his neck. He was very grateful to me for inviting him and told me with spirit how he had always wanted to climb a mountain at Anchor Harbor. These “mountains” were none higher than a thousand feet and the trails were easy; nonetheless I decided to start him on the smallest.
    He did well enough, however. He perspired profusely and kept taking off garments as we went along, piling them on his arm, and he presented a sorry figure indeed as his long hair fell over his face and as the sweat poured down his white puffy back, but he kept up and bubbled over with talk. I asked him about his life, and he told me the dismal tale of a childhood spent under the cloud of a sickly constitution. He had been, of course, an only child, and his parents, though loving, had themselves enjoyed excellent health. He had never been to school or college; he had learned whatever it was that he did know from tutors. He had never left home, which for the Bakewells had been St. Louis until the death of Mr. Bakewell and was now St. Petersburg in Florida. Greg was thirty-five and presented to me in all his clumsy innocence a perfect
tabula rasa
. His mind was a piece of blank paper, of white, dead paper, on which, I supposed, one could write whatever message one chose. He appeared to have no prejudices or snobbishnesses; he was a guileless child who had long since ceased to fret, if indeed he ever had, at the confinements of his nursery. I could only look and gape, and yet at the same time feel the responsibility of writing the first line, for he seemed to enjoy an odd, easy content in his own placid life.
    We had passed beyond the tree line and were walking along the smoother rock of the summit, a sharp cool breeze blowing in our faces. It was a breathtaking view, and I turned to see what Greg’s reaction would be.
    â€œLook,” he said pointing to an ungainly shingle clock tower that protruded from the woods miles below us, “you can see the roof of Mrs. Stone’s house.”
    I exploded.
    â€œGod!” I said.
    â€œDon’t be angry with me,” he said mildly. “I was just pointing something out.”
    I could see that decisions had to be made and steps taken.
    â€œLook, Greg,” I said. “Don’t go to St. Petersburg this winter.”
    He stared.
    â€œBut what would Mother do?”
    I dismissed his mother with a gesture.
    â€œStay here. By yourself. Get to know the people who live here all the year round. Read. I’ll send you books.”
    He looked dumbfounded.
    â€œThen you won’t be here?”
    I laughed.
    â€œI’ve got a job, man. I’m writing a book. But you’re not. Give one winter to being away from your mother and Mrs. Stone and the Bishop, and learn to think. You won’t know yourself in a year.”
    He appeared to regard this as not entirely a happy prognostication.
    â€œBut Mrs. Stone and the Bishop don’t go to St. Petersburg,” he pointed out.
    â€œEven so,” I said.
    â€œI really don’t think I could leave Mother.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œYou honestly think I ought to do something?” he persisted.
    â€œI do.”
    â€œThat’s what Mother keeps telling me,” he said dubiously.
    â€œWell, she’s right.”
    He looked at me in dismay.
    â€œBut what’ll I do?”
    â€œI’ve made one suggestion. Now it’s your turn.”
    He sighed.
    â€œWell,