Leaven of Malice

by Robertson Davies

  “That’s what I like to hear,” said Cobbler, and played an Amen on the piano. “That’s what’s wrong with my job, too, you know. Too much talk about the nobility of it, and how the public ought to get down on its knees before the artist simply because he has the infernal gall to say that he is an artist, and not enough honest admission that he does what he does because that is the way he is made. My life,” he declared, rolling his eyes at Miss Vyner, “is a headlong flight from respectability. If I tarted up in a nice new suit and a clean collar, I could spend hours and hours every week jawing to Rotary Clubs about what a fine thing music is and how I am just as good as they are. I’m not as good as they are, praise be to God! As a good citizen, I am not fit to black their boots. As a child of God, I sometimes think I have a considerable bulge on them, but I’m probably wrong. Sometimes I have a nightmare in which I dream that I have gone to heaven, and as I creep toward the Awful Throne I am blinded by the array of service-club buttons shining on the robe of the Ancient of Days. And then I know that my life has been wasted, and that I am in for an eternity of Social Disapproval. Wouldn’t it be an awful sell for a lot of us—all the artists, and jokers, and strivers-after-better-things—if God turned out to be the Prime Mover of capitalist respectability?”

  His eye was still upon Miss Vyner, who was uncomfortable. She never thought about God, herself, but she had a sleeping regard for Him, as a Being who thought very much as she herself did, though more potently. Dragging God into a conversation embarrassed her deeply. The organist continued.

  “Your story fascinates me. Particularly the part about Vambrace playing sleuth. That explains what he was doing out in the street when I came here, dolled up like a racetrack tout. It never struck me that he was avoiding notice. Quite the most eye-taking figure in town tonight, I would have said.”

  “It’s the engagement that interests me,” said Mrs. Fielding. “Of course I saw the piece in the paper; I never miss them. I thought it a splendid match. Solly needs a wife dreadfully, if only to get away from his mother, and Pearl is a dear child, and a great beauty as well.”

  This comment made Ridley and Fielding start.

  “A great what?” said her husband. “Why, the girl looks as if she had been dragged backward through a hedge.”

  “I haven’t seen her in some time,” said Ridley, “but it certainly never occurred to me that she had any looks.”

  “That’s because you are both getting a little old,” said Mrs. Fielding. “When a man doesn’t notice that a girl under thirty has any looks, just because she is a little rumpled and doesn’t know how to present herself, he is far gone in middle age. That’s why men like you take up with obvious, brassy little blondes, when you take up with anything at all. You can’t see real beauty any more. Give me Pearl Vambrace and five hundred dollars, for a week, and I will show you a beauty that will make even your eyes pop. She’s quite lovely.”

  “Elspeth and I never agree about looks,” said Mr. Fielding. “She’s always pretending to see beauty that I can’t see. Now my idea of a real beauty is Griselda Webster.”

  “Very nice, I grant you,” said Cobbler, “but I agree with your wife. The Vambrace girl has something very special. Mind you, I don’t mind ’em a bit tousled,” said he, and grinned raffishly at Miss Vyner, who was, above all things, clean and neat, though she tended to smell rather like a neglected ashtray, because of smoking so much. “This business of good grooming can be carried too far. For real attraction, a girl’s clothes should have that lived-in look.”

  “I suppose you really like them dirty,” said Miss Vyner.

  “That’s it. Dirty and full of divine mystery,” said Cobbler, rolling his eyes and kissing his fingers. “Sheer connoisseurship, I confess, but I’ve always preferred a bit of ripened cheese to a scientifically packaged breakfast food.”

  Miss Vyner found herself without a reply. She felt, though no socialist, that a man who talked like Cobbler ought to be taken over by the Government, and taught responsibility.

  “Unfortunately, there appears to be no question of this suitable match coming off, Elspeth,” said Ridley; “and meanwhile I am in very hot water, and I am not even sure that I can leave this house without having trouble with Vambrace. I had to run the last few yards in order to get here at all.”

  “I thought that was what you liked,” said Miss Vyner. “From what you said just now I thought you wanted to go back to the days when editors were horsewhipped by people they had injured.”

  “But as you doubtless overheard me saying to Elspeth, I have not injured the Professor. Somebody else has injured him, using my paper. If I am to be horsewhipped, I at least want to have my fun first.”

  “I have to go now,” said Cobbler. “I’ll lure the Professor away.”

  Ridley protested, for he did not like Cobbler, and certainly did not want to be under an obligation to him. The editor was ready to play the raffish journalist in order to annoy Miss Vyner, but the genuine raffishness of Humphrey Cobbler disturbed him. But it was impossible to shake the organist’s determination, and when at last he left the house even Miss Vyner joined the other three in peeping through the window curtains, to see what he would do.

  PROFESSOR VAMBRACE, cold and cross, was leaning against a tree in the park which was on the other side of the street from the Fieldings’ house. To be fair to him, he would not have been noticed by anyone who was not on the lookout for him. He saw Cobbler hurry down the walk, cross the street until he was standing at the edge of the park directly in line with himself. And then Cobbler began to dance, and to sing in a very loud voice:

  This is the way to the Zoo, the Zoo,

  The Zoo, the Zoo, the Zoo;

  The monkey cage is nearly full

  But I think there’s room for you;

  And I’ll be there on Saturday night

  With a bloody big bag o’ nuts—

  NUTS you bastard!

  NUTS you bastard!

  Bloody big bag o’ nuts!

  The Professor attempted to creep away unseen among the trees, but even he could not deceive himself that the song was not an aggressive act of derision, aimed at himself. And all his detective enthusiasm melted from him, leaving him naked to his own scorn. For the Professor, who was immoderate in self-esteem, was similarly immoderate in his condemnation of himself, and as he strode swiftly toward his home he hated himself as a buffoon who had spent an evening, ridiculously dressed, stumbling among garbage cans, skulking among trees, and spying on people who had, unquestionably, spent the whole evening comfortably indoors, laughing at him. Not only was it bitter to be mocked; it was worse still to feel that he was worthy of mockery.

  DUTCHY AND NORM were a little surprised that their party ended so soon. But immediately after refreshments had been served the guests showed a restless eagerness to leave, excepting Jimmy the dentist and one or two others whose thirst for organized Whee was not fully slaked. Solly and Pearl spoke in undertones over their coffee.

  “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  “You will not.”

  “Don’t argue. Get your things.”

  “Don’t speak to me like that. I’ll go by myself.”

  “And chance what Dutchy will have to say about it? You come with me. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Yes you do. Don’t be a fool. We’ve got to get together about this thing or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “I can’t go with you. I don’t want to see you, ever again.”

  “I know all that. But we’ve got to leave this place together. Please.”

  And so they left the party as quickly and unobtrusively as they could, and Solly helped Pearl into his tiny Morris quite as though they wanted to be together.

  “Now,” said Solly, when they had gone a short distance, “I suppose you don’t know anything about all this?”

  “Of course I don’t,” said Pearl. “How would I?”

  “I didn’t
suppose you did. But before I can do anything about it myself I have to be quite sure.”

  “Before you do anything about it?”

  “Yes. Didn’t it occur to you that I might want to contradict that notice?”

  “Surely I am the one to do any contradicting that is done.”

  “Why, precisely?”

  “Well—because I’m the one that’s been dragged into this mess.”

  “Why you more than me?”

  “Because—” Pearl was about to say “because I’m a girl,” but she felt that such a reason would not do for the twentieth century. There was a short silence.

  “I think that you had better get things straight,” said Solly. “You haven’t been dragged into the mess any more than I have. And I am every bit as anxious to contradict this story as you are.”

  Pearl was surprised to feel herself becoming angry. It is one thing not to want to marry a young man; it is quite another thing to find that the young man is offended that people should think he wants to marry you. She sat up very straight and breathed deeply through her nose.

  “There’s no sense snorting about it,” said Solly. “And you needn’t expect me to be gallant about it, either. This damned thing has put me in a very queer position, and God only knows what will be the upshot of it. It could very easily ruin everything for me.” He frowned over the wheel at the dark street.

  “You mean when Griselda Webster hears about it?” said Pearl, in a well-simulated tone of polite interest.

  “Yes. That’s what I mean,” said Solly. “Though what you know about it, or how it concerns you, I don’t understand.”

  “I only know what everybody knows. Which is that you have been hounding Griselda for the past three years; and that on her long list of suitors you rank about fifteenth; and that now she is in England you write to her all the time, and even take her little sister Freddy for drives to get the news of Griselda that she doesn’t trouble to write to you. And as for how it concerns me, well—I am sure Griselda will hear it from somebody, by air-mail, probably the day after tomorrow, and she will be glad because it will relieve her of the nuisance of thinking she has blighted your life. However, if it will relieve your mind, I will write to her myself, and tell her that you are still her faithful slave, and that contrary to public report, I haven’t stolen you away from her.”

  “You!” said Solly, with so much scorn and horror and—worst of all—amazement, that Pearl was goaded beyond bearing.

  “Yes—me!” she shouted.

  By this time they had reached the Vambrace home, and by unlucky chance Solly stopped his car just as the Professor was about to open his front gate. Her father heard Pearl’s indignant shout, and in an instant he had pulled open the door of the Morris and, bending more than double from his great height, thrust his head into it.

  “What does this mean?” he demanded.

  Solly was weary of feminine illogicality, and was delighted to see a fellow man, with whom he could argue in a reasonable manner.

  “Professor Vambrace,” said he, “I’ve been wanting to see you. Pearl seems to have some very queer ideas about this mix-up—you know, this newspaper nonsense—and I think we ought to get together and straighten matters out.”

  “Do you so!” roared the Professor, in such a voice that the whole body of the tiny car hummed with the sound. “Is it get together with you, you sneaking little cur? There’s been too much getting together with you, I see! Get out o’ that contraption!”

  This last remark was addressed to his daughter.

  “Daddy,” said she, “there’s been a mistake—”

  “Get out of it!” roared the Professor. “Get out of it or I’ll pick you out of it like a maggot out of a nut!” And with these words he brought his stick down on the roof of the Morris with such force that he dented it badly and smashed his treasured blackthorn to splinters.

  “Daddy,” said Pearl, “please try to understand and be a little bit quiet. Everybody will hear you.”

  “What do I care who hears me? I understand that you sneaked out of my house tonight, like a kitchen maid, to meet this whelp, to whom you have got yourself clandestinely engaged.”

  “We’re not engaged,” shouted Solly. He was badly frightened by the Professor, but a shout was the only possible tone in which this conversation could be carried on.

  “You’re coupled in the public mouth,” roared Vambrace.

  “We’re not coupled anywhere, and never intend to be!”

  “Do you dare to say that to my face?”

  “Yes, I do. And stop banging on my car.”

  The Professor was now quite beyond reason. “I’ll bang on what I choose,” cried he, and began a loud pummeling on the roof. Whereupon Solly, who was not without resource, leaned on the horn and delivered such a blast that even the Professor was startled. He seized Pearl by the shoulder.

  “Get out,” said he. And he pulled at her coat so sharply that she fell sideways out of the car on to the pavement. Solly leaned forward.

  “Have you hurt yourself?” said he. “Can I help you?”

  It was involuntary courtesy, but it was like gasoline on the flame of the Professor’s wrath. Gallantry before his very eyes! The product of who knew what shameless familiarity! He stooped and jerked Pearl to her feet.

  “You dirty little scut!” he cried. “Roaring drunk in the car of the one man you should be ashamed to see! God!”

  And he pushed Pearl toward the gate, and as she fumbled with the latch, he cuffed her shrewdly on the ear.

  The quietest, but most terrible sound in this hurly-burly was Pearl’s sobbing as she ran up the path. Solly started his car with a roar.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, the Professor sat in his study, white with anger. In the circumstances he should have been drinking whisky, but there was never any whisky in the house, and he had made himself some wretched cocoa, that being the only drink he could find. His thoughts were incoherent, but very painful. He had played the fool all night; he had been bested. Yet unquestionably he was right—the only person connected with this villainous business who was right. He hated Pearl who, he was now convinced, was no longer pure, perhaps—O torturing thought!—no longer a virgin; certainly no longer his little girl. He had struck her! Struck her, like any bog-trotting peasant beating his slut of a daughter. And it was all for love of her.

  The Professor was suddenly, noisily sick, and then, in the silence of his ugly house, he wept.

  SOLLY CREPT QUIETLY into his mother’s house, removed his shoes, and crept past his mother’s bedroom door to the attic where his living-room and bedroom were. Quickly he made himself ready for bed, and then, from inside a folio copy of Bacon’s Works, where he fondly hoped that his mother would never think of looking, he brought out his photograph of Griselda Webster. It was of her as she had appeared as Ariel in The Tempest. Stealthily he mixed himself a drink of rye and tap-water, and sat down in his armchair for his nightly act of worship. But as he gazed at Griselda, the sound of Pearl Vambrace, weeping, persisted in his ears. He thought it the ugliest sound he had ever heard, but none the less disturbing. He should have done something about that.

  PEARL WAS STILL WEEPING, but silently, when dawn came through her window. She felt herself to be utterly alone and forsaken, for she knew that she had lost her father, more certainly than if he had died that night.

  Four

  There are not many people now who keep up the custom of At Home days, but Mrs. Solomon Bridgetower had retained her First Thursdays from that period, just before the First World War, when she had been a bride. Without being wealthy, she had a solid fortune, and it had protected her against changing customs; this made her a captain among those forces in Salterton which sought to resist social change, and every First Thursday a few distinguished members of this brave rearguard were to be found in her drawing-room, taking tea. At half-past three on the First Thursday in November tea had not yet appeared, but Miss Pottinger and Mrs. Knapp, the Dean’s wife, were seated on
a little sofa at one side of the fire, and Mrs. Bridgetower, regally gowned in prune silk, with écru lace, sat in her armchair on the other. The atmosphere, though polite, was not easy.

  “It seems perfectly clear to me,” Miss Pottinger was saying, “that the two events are linked. Both happened on Hallowe’en, and both concern the Cathedral. Then why should we not assume that both spring from the same brain?”

  “But as we do not know what brain it was, what good can it do us to assume anything of the sort?” said Mrs. Bridgetower, who had been highly educated, and would undoubtedly have had a career of some kind if she had not relinquished it to be all in all to the late Professor; the consciousness of this education and this possible career led her, in all but the most intimate circumstances, to talk in a measured, ironical tone, as though her hearers were half-witted.

  “If everyone told everything they knew, we wouldn’t be in doubt for long,” said Miss Pottinger. This dark comment was directed at Mrs. Knapp, a small, rather tremulous lady who tried to follow her husband along the perilous tightrope of urbanity.