Her Infinite Variety by Louis Auchincloss, Louis S. Auchincloss Page A
Authors: Louis Auchincloss, Louis S. Auchincloss
Tags: General Fiction
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Trevor she's just perfect!"
Violet made no comment. She was sure that Charlotte was correct, and that this woman was the right match for her son: outwardly submissive, inwardly strong, and totally reconciled to every tenet of the Hoyt creed. But never mind. She had still been able to do something for Clara. She had doubled her income!
8
P OLLY MILTON , three years after the war ended, found herself at the age of thirty with a good job on
Style
but still unmarried. She had a steady beau, Stuart Madison, a very serious and dedicated young diplomat, a friend ever since the old Bar Harbor days when the Madisons and Miltons had been neighbors on the Shore Path, but he was
en poste
in the Republic of Panama and not due home for a year. Stuart fully intended to stay permanently with the foreign service, which he felt was the highest of careers; it had never even crossed his mind, for example, during the war, that he had any possible obligation to offer his young and healthy body to the armed services. Neither he nor Polly had more than a pittance of inherited money, but she thought she could make up for this in the skills she had learned on
Style
in cuisine and entertainment. Such things might retain their utility, even in a postwar world.
Her own loss of any share in the Milton fortune had done much to change her life and character. Just after her graduation from Vassar her parents had undergone a bitterly litigated divorce caused by her father's infatuation with a young secretary whom he had subsequently married. Polly, who had taken without hesitation the side of a mother who had seemed palpably wronged, had renounced all further contact with him. She had done this without a thought to the financial consequences to herself, taking it for granted that any girl of her parentage and background would be looked after by the family lawyers. But when her father died, leaving the secretary as his sole residuary legatee, and her mother's improvident second spouse had lost most of her divorce settlement, Polly had had to face the chilling prospect of depending on her own talents to support herself.
In some ways it had proved a boon. She had discovered capabilities in herself, working at
Style,
that were stronger than any she had supposed. She had found the friends and acquaintances of her old idle and snobbish existence precious assets, turning their gossip and doings into material for the magazine but always in such a way as not to arouse their antagonism or alarm. She had learned to see through people; she was even beginning to see some of the stuffiness and occasional pomposity of Stuart Madison. But she also saw that he was still what she needed. She fully intended to bring matters to a head on his next leave.
And certainly nobody received a closer reappraisal from her sharpened eyes than Mrs. Longcope Hoyt, as the assistant editor in chief of
Style
was denominated after her divorce. The Polly of Vassar days would have considered her old friend a mental case to have allowed such a husband as Trevor to slip his leash, but aware now of changing values and fully appreciative of Clara's new status in the world of fashion, she had come to regard her more as a role model than a maverick. The two had remained intimate, for the care that Polly had taken not to show the smallest jealousy at having been outdistanced by her old pal had almost resulted in her feeling none.
But if Polly was dazzled by Clara's success, her mind was not wholly free from a suspicion of the calculated planning that might well be concealed in its underpinning. Was Clara, in the office phrase, a "smart cookie," or was she simply as naive as she often seemed? One day at lunch Polly explored this question further. She was telling her friend about an article she was writing on divorce settlements.
"I have to start with the biggies. The first Mrs. Marshall Field is credited with the greatest haul since Eleanor of Aquitaine divorced Louis VII of France."
"I think
Violet made no comment. She was sure that Charlotte was correct, and that this woman was the right match for her son: outwardly submissive, inwardly strong, and totally reconciled to every tenet of the Hoyt creed. But never mind. She had still been able to do something for Clara. She had doubled her income!
8
P OLLY MILTON , three years after the war ended, found herself at the age of thirty with a good job on
Style
but still unmarried. She had a steady beau, Stuart Madison, a very serious and dedicated young diplomat, a friend ever since the old Bar Harbor days when the Madisons and Miltons had been neighbors on the Shore Path, but he was
en poste
in the Republic of Panama and not due home for a year. Stuart fully intended to stay permanently with the foreign service, which he felt was the highest of careers; it had never even crossed his mind, for example, during the war, that he had any possible obligation to offer his young and healthy body to the armed services. Neither he nor Polly had more than a pittance of inherited money, but she thought she could make up for this in the skills she had learned on
Style
in cuisine and entertainment. Such things might retain their utility, even in a postwar world.
Her own loss of any share in the Milton fortune had done much to change her life and character. Just after her graduation from Vassar her parents had undergone a bitterly litigated divorce caused by her father's infatuation with a young secretary whom he had subsequently married. Polly, who had taken without hesitation the side of a mother who had seemed palpably wronged, had renounced all further contact with him. She had done this without a thought to the financial consequences to herself, taking it for granted that any girl of her parentage and background would be looked after by the family lawyers. But when her father died, leaving the secretary as his sole residuary legatee, and her mother's improvident second spouse had lost most of her divorce settlement, Polly had had to face the chilling prospect of depending on her own talents to support herself.
In some ways it had proved a boon. She had discovered capabilities in herself, working at
Style,
that were stronger than any she had supposed. She had found the friends and acquaintances of her old idle and snobbish existence precious assets, turning their gossip and doings into material for the magazine but always in such a way as not to arouse their antagonism or alarm. She had learned to see through people; she was even beginning to see some of the stuffiness and occasional pomposity of Stuart Madison. But she also saw that he was still what she needed. She fully intended to bring matters to a head on his next leave.
And certainly nobody received a closer reappraisal from her sharpened eyes than Mrs. Longcope Hoyt, as the assistant editor in chief of
Style
was denominated after her divorce. The Polly of Vassar days would have considered her old friend a mental case to have allowed such a husband as Trevor to slip his leash, but aware now of changing values and fully appreciative of Clara's new status in the world of fashion, she had come to regard her more as a role model than a maverick. The two had remained intimate, for the care that Polly had taken not to show the smallest jealousy at having been outdistanced by her old pal had almost resulted in her feeling none.
But if Polly was dazzled by Clara's success, her mind was not wholly free from a suspicion of the calculated planning that might well be concealed in its underpinning. Was Clara, in the office phrase, a "smart cookie," or was she simply as naive as she often seemed? One day at lunch Polly explored this question further. She was telling her friend about an article she was writing on divorce settlements.
"I have to start with the biggies. The first Mrs. Marshall Field is credited with the greatest haul since Eleanor of Aquitaine divorced Louis VII of France."
"I think
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