Tempest-Tost

by Robertson Davies

  INSTEAD OF LEADING HIM to her car Griselda took him by the arm and headed for the garden. “Let’s walk for a few minutes,” said she. “Your mother won’t really mind, will she?”

  Solly knew how very much his mother minded lateness, and how much more she would mind it if she suspected that he was walking in the moonlight with a girl who was, in her opinion, a regular Dolly Varden. But it is not easy for a young man to suggest to a girl that her charms do not outweigh his mother’s displeasure, and before Solly knew quite what was happening they were approaching the upper lawn, chosen as the scene of the play.

  Griselda said nothing as they walked, which alarmed Solly. The thought flashed through his mind that perhaps Griselda had been possessed by a sudden passion for him, and that she would demand something—possibly even what novelists occasionally referred to as All—from him here among the trees. Griselda was beautiful, and he was not lacking in the attributes of a man. But there is a time and a place for everything, and Solly felt that if there were to be any scenes of passion between himself and Griselda, he would like to stage manage them in his own way. The thought which was uppermost in his mind, when at last Griselda stopped and turned to him, was that his mother never went to sleep until he had come home and that her displeasure and concern, issuing from her rather as the haze of ectoplasm issues from a spiritualist medium, filled the house whenever he came home late.

  “Solly,” said Griselda, looking at him solemnly, “you said something when we were driving which worried me. You said that you wanted to take me out last week and didn’t because you were afraid that you couldn’t amuse me. Please, Solly, don’t do that again.”

  “Well, all right, I won’t. But what could we do?”

  “Do we have to do anything? You can come and drink Daddy’s whisky and talk, if you like. Or we can go out in my car. Really, Solly, it frightened me when you said that people thought I was a snob and didn’t dare ask me out unless they had lakhs of rupees and big emeralds clenched in their navels. I’ve been awfully lonely since I came home. I don’t know many people in Salterton.”

  “I wasn’t really being serious.”

  “I think you were.”

  “Well, all right then, I was. You see how it is, Griselda. People think you expect the very best of everything—”

  “Then people don’t know.”

  “Your father is a very rich man—”

  “For Salterton. I expect really rich people sneer at him and ask him to carry their bags.”

  “But it isn’t just money. You look as if you expected a great deal.”

  “Can I help the way I look?”

  “You’d be out of your mind if you wanted to. You know that you’re beautiful, don’t you?”

  “I’m beautiful about on the scale that Daddy’s rich—for Salterton.”

  “But it’s more than your looks. You have the air of one who wants rather special things, and special people.”

  “Of course I do. But I also want all sorts of things and all sorts of people.”

  “Me among them? Thanks.”

  “You’re very special.”

  “Oh? Well, thanks again.”

  “Don’t be difficult, Solly. I have to be myself. I suppose that by all the rules of what people expect I should be a loud-laughing, bug-eyed, silly little mutt at eighteen, but I’m not. I feel quite calm and collected most of the time. I’m an oddity, I suppose. Like you.”

  “What’s so odd about me?”

  “You don’t need to be told. It’s not just that you have brains. It’s that you seem to have a skin less than other people. People like Nellie Forrester abrade you. And when you snarl at them most people think it’s superiority, but I know that it’s because they sin against something you hold very dear. I’ve known you for years in a kind of way, Solly. I want to know you, really and truly. So promise me that if you feel like talking to me, you’ll say so?”

  “Of course I will, Griselda darling.” Solly was so touched by her understanding of him that he had quite forgotten about his mother. So touched indeed, that he took Griselda in his arms and kissed her, with an admirable mixture of friendliness and gallantry.

  It was at this moment that a thin and watery beam of light swept across the dewy grass and fell upon them, and Freddy’s voice was heard to say “Aha!” in melodramatic accents.

  “Freddy, go back to bed and stop Ahaing like Hawkshaw the Detective.”

  Freddy said “Aha!” again, with marked relish.

  “Freddy, you are behaving like the comic kid sister in a cheap farce,” cried Solly. He and Griselda, hand in hand, ran across the lawn and stood under Freddy’s window.

  “You keep your hooks out of Solly,” said Freddy, from above. “He’s for me, if I decide not to be a nun.”

  “You have entirely misunderstood the situation,” said Solly. “I was paying a compliment to your sister’s intellect and discernment, and not what you think.”

  “Boloney,” cried Freddy; “Gristle has a gob of pink goo where her brain should be, and you know it. I’m glad I had my big flashlight. You looked just like a love-scene in a cheap movie.”

  “Remind me when next we meet to lecture you on the proper use of coarseness in repartee,” said Solly. “And now, I really must go home.”

  Griselda drove him home, and he kissed her again before he got out of her car, and promised to see her often.

  HIS KEY SEEMED TO MAKE a shattering noise in the lock. And when he entered the hall, which was in darkness, maternal solicitude and pique embraced him like the smell of cooking cabbage. He crept upstairs and there, as he knew it would be, was the light coming from his mother’s half-open door. There was nothing else for it, so he braced himself to be a good son.

  “Still awake, mother?” he said, looking in.

  “Oh, there you are, lovey. I was beginning to worry. Come in.”

  With her teeth out and her hair in a pigtail his mother looked much older than she did in the daytime. On the counterpane lay The Asiatic Enigma. Solly sat at the end of the bed, noting as he did so that she had her maternal expression on, the one which was reserved for him alone. Gone was the formality and irony of the dining-table; this was Mother, alone with her Boy.

  “What kept you so long?”

  “It was a long meeting. We had a lot of details to clear up.”

  “At this hour? Surely not.”

  “Well, afterward a few of us went for a short drive to clear our heads.”

  “That must have been very pleasant. Who drove?”

  “Griselda Webster.”

  “I see. You weren’t going too fast, I hope?”

  “No, no; quite slowly.”

  “Who else was with you?”

  “Oh, Valentine Rich was one. She’s very nice.”

  “Yes, I’m sure all these girls you meet are very nice, but there’s always one at home, lovey, isn’t there—waiting till whatever time it may be.”

  “Yes, of course, mother; you’re the pick of the lot. But it’s only half-past twelve, you know.”

  “Really? It seemed later. But since I’ve been ill, I find the nights very long.”

  “Then you must go to sleep at once, dear.”

  Solly kissed his mother, and went to the door.

  “Lovey?”

  “Yes, mother?”

  “There’s something on your mouth, dear—something that tastes rather like scent. Something you have been eating, I suppose. Wash it off, dear.”

  HECTOR’S GOOD SENSE AND CAUTION prevented him from any premature rejoicing on the strength of his tactical victory at Nellie Forrester’s. He knew that Nellie and Vambrace and those who comprised the artistic element in the Little Theatre were not pleased that he should wish to act, although he was not aware how deep their opposition went or from what it sprang. There is always resentment when a beast of burden shows a desire to prance and paw the air in the company of horses trained in the haute école, and to Nellie and her friends Hector’s ambition seemed no le
ss pitiable than presumptuous. His superiority in the box office was freely admitted; his generalship in the annual drive to sell subscription tickets and memberships for the Little Theatre was the subject of a generously worded vote of thanks at every annual meeting; his insistence upon issuing a pink slip of authorization every time it was necessary to buy something for the plays was tolerated, because it saved a great deal of money and prevented Larry Pye from running up ruinous bills at lumber yards and electrical supply houses. He had the respect of the whole Little Theatre so long as he remained its business genius, and by applying some simple rules of business to an organization which was made up of unbusinesslike people he had achieved a reputation for fiscal wizardry. But when he expressed a desire to act, it suddenly appeared to those who admired him as a treasurer that he was a graceless dolt, intolerable in the world of high art in which they moved. Such sudden reverses of opinion are not uncommon when a man seeks to change his role in the world.

  Hector knew that his battle was not quite won. Nevertheless he allowed himself to say to his colleague Mr. Adams, the head of the English Department, when they met in the teachers’ common-room, “I hope you’ll be in town in late June?”

  “Yes, I will,” said Adams. “Why?”

  “The Little Theatre are going to do The Tempest; I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s very ambitious. Are they going to be able to get together a strong cast?”

  “Yes, I think so. Though perhaps I shouldn’t say that for it looks as though I might take a part myself. I hope I won’t be the weakest link in the chain.”

  “I’m sure you won’t,” said Adams, who was not really sure at all, and he went on his way reflecting that wonders would never cease, and that if Old Binomial was going to appear, he would certainly not miss the play for anything, as it was sure to yield a few good unintentional laughs. Mr. Adams had been an indifferent student of mathematics himself, and had a grudge against Hector because he gave too much homework to his pupils who might otherwise have been writing essays for Mr. Adams. But he quickly spread the news that Hector was about to blossom forth as an actor, and the following day the Principal referred to it facetiously when he met Hector in the corridor. And all of this Hector enjoyed greatly, as an old maid might enjoy being twitted about the possession of an admirer.

  But he knew very well that until he had successfully passed the test of the casting reading later in the week, where, if ever, his opponents would trip him up, the part of Gonzalo was not assured to him.

  HECTOR’S LIFE HAD NOT BEEN of the sort which usually brings forth actors,—even Little Theatre actors. Not, of course, that any particular circumstances can be relied upon to bring forth a particular sort of ability, but his life had been notably unfriendly toward the development of that taste for stimulating pretence which actors must possess. He had been born in a small Ontario village where his father was the Presbyterian minister. The Reverend John Mackilwraith was a failure. The reason for his insufficiency, if it could be discovered now, probably lay in his health. He never seemed to feel as well as other men, but as he had never known good health he had no standard of comparison, and accepted his lot, almost without complaint. That is to say, he never complained of feeling unwell, and he rarely complained in an open manner about anything else, but his whole way of life was a complaint and a reproach to those who came into contact with him. He was unsatisfactory to his congregation, because when they complained to him of misfortunes they were uncomfortably conscious that he had misfortunes of greater extent and longer duration. At funerals his mien of settled woe somehow robbed the chief mourners of their proper eminence. At weddings his appearance was likely to turn the nervous tears of a bride into a waterspout of genuine apprehension. Because the church which he served demands a high standard of scholarship in its clergy it is certain that at one time he must have known a reasonable amount of Hebrew and a good deal of Latin and Greek, but these classical attainments had not wrought their supposed magic of enrichment on his mind, and nothing that could be traced to them was ever to be discerned in his sermons, which were earnest, long and incomprehensible. He pursued his career, if such a spirited word may be applied to so dispirited a life, at a time when church-going was much more a social obligation than it is now, and in communities where any lapse from conventional conduct was soon noticed and sharply censured. But, even with these advantages, he quickly reduced his congregations to a determined and inveterate rump of faithful souls who felt that without Presbyterianism, even on this level, life was not worth living. When Hector was born he was in his last, and worst, charge.

  The Reverend John was no doubt to be pitied, but pity is an emotion which cannot be carried on for years. He was a gloomy and depressing parson. There are parsons who make gloom an instrument of their work. They are actively and challengingly gloomy; their gloom is from a banked-down fire of wrath against the villainies of mankind which threatens at any minute to burst into roaring flame. There are parsons who are gently melancholy, as though eternal longings had brought on a mild nausea. But John Mackilwraith’s gloom had none of this professional character. Ribald fellows in the village called him Misery Mackilwraith. And yet, who knows? Professional attention to his diet, injections of a few elements missing in his physical makeup, a surgical operation, or a few hours’ conversation with a psychiatrist might have made a different man of him. But none of these solutions ever occurred to him. Instead, he sent up long, miserable prayers to God, with no expectation that anything would come of them. He had grown accustomed to neglect in all quarters.

  Hector’s tender years were passed in an atmosphere which could not be properly described as religious, though religion played a greater part in his consciousness than would have been the case if he had been the son of a butcher or a grocer. There was no deep devotion, no consciousness of hidden sources of strength, not even a rigid puritanism in that household. But weddings and funerals, the drudgery of pastoral calls, the recurrent effort of Sunday and the consequent exhaustion of Monday were familiar to him as the accompaniments of his father’s profession. And he knew from his earliest days that he was a dedicated boy; he was expected to be an example not only to all Presbyterian boys in the district but a reproach to boys of lesser faiths. He knew that much was exacted of the cloth in both the spiritual and physical senses, for when his father’s black trousers were cut down into knickerbockers for him he was singled out not only by his solemnity of expression, but by the startling blackness and shininess of his lower parts. And because he had been born to this lot, he accepted it without question; as children always do, and as some adults continue to do, he invented reasons why he should be as he was, instead of seeking for means by which he might be delivered from his fate.

  His mother did nothing to relieve the misery of the household, though she could not justly have been said to increase it. She took colour from her husband, for she had no strong character of her own. The Reverend John had married her in the first year of his first charge. She had been a farm girl, living with an uncle and aunt, and she had thought that it would be a fine thing to be a minister’s wife. She knew nothing of men, and her suitor’s glumness and lack of energy appeared to her as the attributes of a being spiritually and intellectually superior to farm boys. The latter, she knew, “had thoughts” about girls; it was plain that the Reverend John had no thoughts of that kind about them at all. He wanted what he called “an helpmeet”. He nominated her for this position one evening at nine o’clock in the parlour of the farmhouse; she accepted the nomination at precisely one minute after nine, and by a quarter past nine the fortunate suitor was walking back to his boarding-house, having kissed his fiancée once on the brow. They married, and she discovered that being an helpmeet to a minister was not such hard work as helping around the farm. With the man she had chosen, however, it was not enspiriting, and by the time Hector was born, twelve years later, she was as miserable and as steeped in failure as he.

  She w
as a short, stout woman, shaped like a cottage loaf. A nubbin, with a twist of wispy hair on it, formed her head; a larger nubbin comprised her bust and upper reaches; the largest nubbin of all was formed by her spreading hips. She must have had legs, but her skirts concealed them. She had little to say, and it is doubtful if her mental processes could be called thought; they consisted of a series of dissolving views, mostly of possible disasters and misfortunes which might overtake her and her family. Because she was an unready speaker she was not able to dominate the women in the churches where her husband ministered, and because she could not dominate them she became their drudge. She always had more sewing, or baking, or money-collecting to do than any of the others, not because she did them well but because she was not alert enough to secure an organizing position whenever a bazaar or a “drive” for funds was projected.

  The birth of Hector brought to her life its one lasting passion. She loved him as dearly as her inexperienced heart would allow. He was a large and solemn baby, and he throve in spite of his mother’s care. Her physician assured her that he was a splendid child, and needed nothing but food and sleep for his well-being, but Mrs. Mackilwraith had lived too long with her husband to be able to believe any nonsense of that kind. She breast-fed him, and worried that he was not getting enough, or that if sufficient in quantity, her milk was deficient in quality; she could not trust herself to produce the right sustenance for her darling. She augmented his breast feedings, therefore, with patent foods, which she tried to make him drink from a cup when he was three weeks old, almost finishing him in the process. Because he was stuffed, he occasionally threw up, which convinced her that he had some malformation of his digestive fittings. She put too many frocks on him, which made him restless, and she starched them, which made him break out in rashes; she treated the restlessness by walking the floor with him, and the rashes by salves, which did no good. Kindly women tried to tell her what to do for her child, and her doctor grew almost abusive, but it was useless; she was determined that Hector was hard to raise, and with the ability to attract ill-fortune which she had caught from her husband, she made it so.