Leaven of Malice

by Robertson Davies

  “I’m quite sure you’re right,” said she, “and I am sure that the Dean would dearly love to know who put that false engagement notice in the paper. He was dreadfully angry about it. But he has never suggested that Mr. Cobbler had anything to do with it.”

  This was not pedantically true, for the Dean had said to her many times that he hoped to heaven Cobbler had nothing to do with it, for it would mean firing him, and the Dean wanted to keep his excellent organist as long as Cathedral opinion would permit. But Mrs. Knapp was on thin ice, and she knew it.

  “I happen to know that Mr. Snelgrove has told the Dean that he thinks it was Cobbler,” said Miss Pottinger sharply, for she thought it ill became a Dean’s wife to palter with the truth, and she suspected, quite rightly, that the Dean told his wife everything. Loyalty between husbands and wives appeared to Miss Pottinger only as a shabby betrayal of the female sex.

  “If Mr. Snelgrove has interested himself in the matter,” said Mrs. Bridgetower, “I am sure that we can leave it in his capable hands.”

  “You mean that you don’t intend to take any action yourself, Louisa,” said Miss Pottinger.

  “I have not yet decided what I shall do,” said Mrs. Bridgetower, with a reserved smile.

  “You don’t intend to take this lying down, I suppose?”

  “I think you know that it is not my way to pass over a slight, Puss dear.”

  “Well, it is now three days since that piece appeared, and your friends are wondering when you are going to declare yourself.”

  “My friends need not be concerned; my real friends know, I am sure, that I am not one to take hasty or ill-advised action in any matter. I have not the robust health which would permit me to scamper about the town, making useless mischief. Even if I had a temperament which took pleasure in it.”

  In Mrs. Bridgetower’s circle, this was tough talk, and Miss Pottinger ground her false teeth angrily. But Mrs. Knapp, who had known these ladies for a mere ten years or so, and was thus a virtual newcomer to Salterton society, interjected an unfortunate attempt to make peace.

  “Oh, I am quite certain dear Auntie Puss has no such desire,” said she. “We all know that her intentions are of the very best.” Then, catching the lightning from Miss Pottinger’s eye, she subsided with an exhalation which was meant to be a social laugh, and sounded like fright.

  “I suppose I am old-fashioned,” said Miss Pottinger, “but I still do not see why sacrilege and assaults on people’s good names should be passed over without a thing being done. You have a phlegmatic temperament, Louisa, and are perhaps too ill to care what goes on, but I would have thought that Solly would have had something to say for himself by this time.”

  “My son has faith in my judgment,” said Mrs. Bridgetower.

  “Of course, but a man with any real gimp in him would have done something before he had had time to talk to you.”

  This was insufferable! Mrs. Bridgetower moved into action, which, in her case meant that she relaxed in her chair, allowed her heavy lids to drop a little farther over her eyes, and smiled.

  “And what would he have done, Puss, pray? Would he have rushed to Mr. Cobbler, and struck him in the face? To have suspected Mr. Cobbler in this matter he would have had to take guidance from you, for you seem to be the one who wants to hang Mr. Cobbler’s hide on the fence, as the boys used to say when we were young. And I do not think that it has ever occurred to Solomon to consult you in any matter, particularly. And a certain gallantry which you, dear, might not appreciate, forbids a man to deny in the open market-place that he is engaged to a girl after such a report, without knowing precisely what he is doing. There are still gentlemen in the world, Puss, whatever our experience may have been.”

  This was dirty fighting indeed, and referred to the sudden disappearance, many years before, of a man who, without being actually engaged to Auntie Puss, had put that lady into a mood to accept him if asked. Pouring salt into wounds was a speciality of Mrs. Bridgetower’s, and the older the wound was the better she liked it.

  Auntie Puss took refuge in hurt feelings. Her chin quivered and she spoke in a tremulous voice. “If you don’t care, Louisa, that is all there is to be said about it. My concern was for you, and for the good name of the Cathedral. A soldier’s daughter probably sees these things differently from most people.”

  “I think that even a soldier’s daughter should know who the enemy is before she fires,” said Mrs. Bridgetower who, as a woman herself, set little store by wobbling chins and tearful voices in others. She might have gone on to demolish Auntie Puss completely if, at this moment, reinforcements had not arrived in the person of Mrs. Roger Warboys. Because of her connection with The Bellman it was impossible to say at once if she were friend or foe, and all the time which was occupied by bringing in the tea, and pouring it out, and passing thin bread and butter, was needed before it became perfectly clear that Mrs. Warboys had come expressly to talk about the great scandal, and that she was on the side of those whose privacy and inmost feelings had been so grossly violated.

  Mrs. Warboys’ position was a peculiar one, distinguished by many interesting shades of feeling, and she enjoyed it very much in a solemn, stricken way. She felt a family loyalty to The Bellman, of course. She thought a newspaper a powerful influence in a community and a great trust; she yearned to see The Bellman conducted according to the highest standards of journalism, as she conceived them. She had repeatedly impressed these views of hers upon her father-in-law, Mr. Clerebold Warboys, who—although she was the last one to say a word against the late Roger’s father—paid no attention to them. If she could, only for a month, have a free hand at The Bellman, it would be a very different paper thereafter. Some heads would roll, and although she named no names, certain powerful editorial influences would be removed. She was humiliated by the incident of the false engagement notice, and had come to Mrs. Bridgetower’s First Thursday most unsure of her welcome. She appreciated perfectly how she would feel herself, if she were in Mrs. Bridgetower’s position, but she did not wish to lose friends over a matter which she had been powerless to prevent, but which she might be able to amend.

  She permitted all of these admissions to be wormed out of her, as it were unwillingly, with Auntie Puss as chief inquisitor, and gained immense moral prestige by fouling her own nest, which was a situation especially congenial to her temperament. She might have been some nobleminded Russian who had, at immense personal risk, escaped to give aid to the democracies.

  As Mrs. Warboys was basking in her glory, the doorbell rang, and the elderly maid admitted Mrs. Swithin Shillito, who was accompanied by Mr. Bevill Higgin.

  “Dear Louisa,” said the old lady, “I hoped that I might introduce Mr. Higgin to you, for I know you have so much in common, and as he is still a stranger in Salterton—”

  “But of course,” said Mrs. Bridgetower. “It is rarely nowadays that I see gentlemen at my Thursdays, and so Mr. Higgins is doubly welcome.”

  “I am honoured,” said Mr. Higgin, bowing, “to meet a lady of whom I have heard so much. The name is Higgin, without the ‘s’. Yes.” And Mr. Higgin was introduced to everyone and was very much at ease, rather like an indifferent but experienced actor in a comedy by Pinero. At last he seated himself on a low pouffe next to his hostess, and looked rather like a pixie on a toadstool.

  “And where are you living in Salterton, Mr. Higgin?” said Mrs. Bridgetower, after some general conversation.

  “For the time being I have taken rooms, rather in the north of town,” said he.

  “With some people called Morphew,” said Mrs. Shillito.

  “I don’t know anyone called Morphew,” said Mrs. Bridgetower.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” said Mr. Higgin. “They are a very good sort of people in their way, and I am very comfortable there, but it is not the sort of place in which one would wish to stay indefinitely. But until I have acquired some pupils, and have had an opportunity to look round for a bachelor flat, with a studio, it wi
ll do very nicely.”

  And then, without much prompting, he told the company that he taught singing and elocution, and Mrs. Shillito said all the complimentary things about his abilities which he wanted said, but which he could not suitably say himself.

  “Connection is everything, of course, for an artist like Mr. Higgin,” said that lady, “but it takes time to meet the right people.”

  “Less so, perhaps, in a university town than elsewhere,” said Mr. Higgin, with a bow which included all the ladies. “And in a young country, so avid for culture as Canada I hope that it will not take me too long to make my way.”

  “I have been urging Mr. Higgin to seek some connection with the Cathedral,” said Mrs. Shillito. “Perhaps, Mrs. Knapp, you can tell us if there is any part of the musical service in which Mr. Higgin’s talents could be of use?”

  Mrs. Knapp said that Mr. Cobbler looked after everything of that kind.

  “Oh, my dear, you are too modest,” said Mrs. Shillito, who was a rosy, round little old lady, got up in grey and purple and, like her husband, English with the peculiar intensity of English people abroad. “We all know how musical Mr. Dean is, and I am sure that Mr. Cobbler does nothing except on his advice.”

  “I have been trying to see Mr. Cobbler,” said Higgin, “but he is a very elusive man.”

  “He may soon be downright missing, if I am any judge,” said Miss Pottinger, who had been seething for some time. Mrs. Bridgetower’s opposition to her conviction that Cobbler was at the root of the great scandal had served only to intensify her certainty of his guilt.

  This pregnant remark brought the conversation back to the great theme again, and as Mr. Higgin was acquainted with it, having heard much about it from the Shillitos, he was able to enter into it with some spirit, though modestly, as befitted a newcomer. He listened with wide-open blue eyes, and said “Oh!” and “Ah!” with the right amount of horror at the right places.

  “If I may venture to say so,” said he, smiling at all the ladies in turn, “I think that it will not be at all easy to get satisfaction from Mr. Ridley. I have only met him once, of course, but he seemed to me to be a very saturnine kind of man.” And he told the tale of his visit to Ridley, under the wing of Mr. Shillito; and, as he told it, it appeared that Ridley had shown a strongly Philistine attitude toward the cultural advancement of Canada, and the improvement of The Bellman. He told his story so well, and imitated Ridley so drolly, that it made the ladies laugh very much, and gave particular satisfaction to Mrs. Warboys.

  “When I think of him sitting there, without a word to say for himself, and snapping at the air with those scissors,” said Higgin, “I really can’t help smiling, though I assure you it was rather embarrassing at the time.”

  This led to further discussion of Ridley, whose eccentricities, habits of cooking, and single state were all thoroughly rehearsed.

  “Perhaps it is as well that he never married, if he is so disagreeable,” said gentle little Mrs. Knapp.

  “Is it widely believed that he is unmarried?” said Higgin, with a very knowing look.

  “Why, whatever do you mean by that, Mr. Higgin?” said Mrs. Knapp.

  “Perhaps I’d better say no more—at present,” said Higgin, leaving Mrs. Knapp most unsatisfied, and the other ladies even more incensed against Ridley for daring to have a secret, though they admired Mr. Higgin for his discretion in not explaining it, to the only one of their number who did not know it.

  “And that is the man,” said Auntie Puss, “to whom Waverley thinks of giving an honorary degree! Strange days we live in.”

  “Because of Swithin’s association with him—his strictly professional association, I should say—it would ill become me to comment on that matter,” said Mrs. Shillito. “But I would have thought that the University would have wanted its new course in journalism to be formed by those with a—shall I say?—more literary approach to the matter? Writing—the light touch—the formation of a style—you know the sort of thing I mean.”

  They all knew. It meant Mr. Shillito, and whimsical little essays about birdseed and toothpicks.

  “The degree has not been conferred yet, or even formally approved,” said Mrs. Warboys, in a marked manner. And as everyone present knew, or thought they knew, that she had several members of the University Board of Governors in her pocket, this was a great stroke, and brought forth a good deal of murmuring and head-nodding.

  The tea, and the thin bread and butter, and the little cakes, and the big cake, having been pretty well disposed of by this time, it was a pleasant diversion when Mrs. Shillito begged Mrs. Bridgetower, as a personal favour to herself, to permit Mr. Higgin to try her piano. This instrument, which was an aged Chickering, was a great ornament of the drawing-room, for its case was beautifully polished, and its top was covered with photographs in silver frames, and the late Professor Bridgetower’s military medals, exhibited on a piece of blue velvet. Mrs. Bridgetower graciously gave her consent.

  “I hope that an artist like yourself will not be too critical, Mr. Higgin,” said she. “I do not play so much now as once I did, and it may not be completely in tune.”

  With appropriate demurral, Mr. Higgin sat down at the piano and struck a chord. It was not so much out of tune as out of voice. The soundboard had split under the rigours of winter heating, and the old wires gave forth that nasal, twangling sound peculiar to senile pianos and Siamese cats. Some of the photographs jingled as well. But Mr. Higgin dashed off a few brilliant arpeggio passages, and smiled delight at his hostess.

  “May I give myself the pleasure?” said he. “Oh, do say that I may.” And without waiting for further permission he began to play and sing.

  It might be said of Mr. Higgin that he brought a great deal to the music he performed—so much, indeed, that some composers would have had trouble in recognizing their works as he performed them. He had a surprisingly large voice for a small man, and he phrased with immense grandeur and feeling, beginning each musical statement loudly, and tailing off at the end of it as though ecstasy had robbed him of consciousness. He enriched the English language with vowels of an Italian fruitiness, so that “hand” became “hond”, and “God” “Goad”. It was plain that he had had a lot of training, for nobody ever sang so by the light of Nature.

  His first song, which was Because by Guy d’Hardelot, he sang with his eyes opening and closing rapturously in the direction of Mrs. Bridgetower, in acknowledgment of her ownership of the piano. But when he was bidden to sing again he directed his beams at Auntie Puss.

  “I should like to sing a little thing of Roger Quilter’s,” said he, “some lines of Tennyson.” And he launched into Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. It is doubtful if, at any time in her life, anyone had sung directly at Miss Pottinger, and she was flustered in a region of her being from which she had had no messages for many years.

  So fold thyself, my dearest one, and slip—

  Slip into my bosom, and be lost in me.

  Thus sang Mr. Higgin, and in that instant Miss Pottinger knew that here was the man who must succeed Humphrey Cobbler on the organ bench at St. Nicholas’.

  “Sorry to be late, Mother,” said Solly, coming into the room. He caught sight of Mr. Higgin, who was still at the piano, and frowned.

  “My son, Mr. Higgin, my great, grown-up boy,” said Mrs. Bridgetower fondly.

  “We have had the pleasure before,” said Mr. Higgin, with what Solly thought an impudent grin.

  Solly was always late for his mother’s First Thursdays, and they kept up the pretence between them that it was pressure of university work which made him so. Very soon after his arrival the guests went home, well pleased with their afternoon’s work. For they all thought that Mrs. Warboys would see that the insufferable Gloster Ridley lost his job, and received no doctorate from Waverley. Miss Pottinger thought that she had done much to undermine Cobbler with Mrs. Knapp and thus with the Dean. Mrs. Knapp thought she had made it clear that the Dean exonerated Cobbler, and that this
would divert the wrath of Miss Pottinger. Mrs. Shillito thought that she had further ingratiated herself with Mrs. Warboys, thus securing her husband’s position. And they all felt that the matter of the great scandal had been brought somewhat nearer to the boil.

  WHEN HER GUESTS HAD GONE a dramatic change came over Mrs. Bridgetower. Solly had seen them to the door, and he returned to the drawing-room to find his mother, as he knew she would be, slumped from her splendidly relaxed but commanding position in her armchair, with her eyes closed, and her face sagging with fatigue.

  “Do you want to go upstairs at once, Mother?”

  “No, dearie, give me a moment. Perhaps I’d better have one of my white tablets.”

  As he climbed the stairs her voice reached him again faintly. “Bring me one of my little yellow pills too, from the table by my bed.”

  “Don’t you think it would be better to leave that until you are in bed? What about a dose of your medicine instead?”

  “If you think so, dearie.”

  In time Solly returned, and when the tablet and then the dose of medicine were taken with much histrionic disrelish, he took off his mother’s shoes and put on her slippers, and covered her knees with a small tartan rug. She opened her eyes and smiled fondly upon him.

  “Bad, bad little boy! Late again!”

  “I had a lot of papers to mark, Mother, and I simply had to get them done. Anyway, I knew you’d want to talk to your friends alone.”

  “Friends, dear? What are friends compared with you? And I so much need someone to help me now, passing things and so forth. I wonder how much longer I shall be able to keep up my First Thursdays. They take so much out of me now.”

  “No, no; you mustn’t give them up. You must see people, you know. The doctor said you must keep up your interests.”

  “You are my only real interest now, dear. If your father had lived—but it is useless to talk of what might have been. But I need you to help me. There was a gentleman here today. You should have been here to help entertain him.”