Tempest-Tost

by Robertson Davies

  What followed was a full-dress row, in which wounding and bitter things were said on both sides. The Professor nobly led the forces of Simplicity, without any very useful backing, for the economics lecturer carried few guns as an aesthetic disputant, and lost his temper when Solly made an unwise reference to disgruntled accountants. Solly was not much better off, for his followers were all young women of artistic aspirations, whose idea of argument was to huff and flounce, except for the mask-maker, who wept—the difficult, lemony tears of a handicrafter whose all has been scorned. It was a moment for generalship, and Valentine acquitted herself with brilliance. Both sides, she said, were right. She hoped that they would attach some weight to her judgment, for although she did not attempt to rival them in scholarship (this went down very well with Professor Vambrace) she had had a good deal of practical experience. What was to be sought in a Shakespearean production was a large, simple, overall plan; within that plan it was possible to elaborate many details, and to enrich anything that seemed to call for enrichment. The establishment of the basic simple plan she felt that they might safely leave to her; working with men of the intellectual stamp of Professor Vambrace she was certain that she would not go far astray. She was grateful to Solly and his assistants for the care which they had lavished upon the appurtenances of the play; such attention to detail in the professional theatre would only be obtained by spending very large sums of money. She begged them all to work together for the good of the Salterton Little Theatre. In unity there was strength. People of talent were bound to have these clashes of temperament. She had no misgivings about the production. And so on, in a gentle, but firm voice until the forces of Simplicity and the forces of Superfluity each received, in some mysterious fashion, an impression that they had slightly gotten the better of the other.

  Particularly noteworthy in this instance was Valentine’s use of the magical word “temperament”. This is a quality which many people pretend to despise, but which they rather like to have attributed to themselves in a kindly fashion. Even the economist, hearing it, was mysteriously soothed; he felt that he was a good deal more high-strung than anyone supposed, and as Valentine had cleverly discovered this secret of his, he would gladly wear a lion’s head mask and carry anything at all, for her sake.

  The only breast which was not calmed was that of Miss Wildfang. Arriving a little late for the quarrel, and not fully understanding it, she knew only that Professor Vambrace’s intellectual, moral and aesthetic authority had been challenged. She did not reopen the issue at once, but for a day or two afterward she went from group to group at rehearsal, spreading the Vambrace theory of utter simplicity. Finally the Professor himself had to ask her to desist. Theatrical people, he suggested, must be allowed their theatrical love of finery and display. A thrice-refined soul like her own needed no gaudy trappings to help it to the appreciation of a masterwork, but there were other, lesser creatures whose needs must be considered. Miss Wildfang assented, and was plunged into an even more pitiful state of mental concubinage toward Professor Vambrace than before.

  It must not be supposed that rehearsals moved forward in an atmosphere of quarreling, or that Valentine’s method was always that of the oil-can. Her action in the matter of the swords was brisk. It was Roger Tasset who asked her if, when he first entered on the scene in Prospero’s enchanted island, he should wear a sword. Valentine, who had not thought about the matter, said that she supposed he must, as it was wanted in the action. But then there arose a clamour among the other actors who played courtiers; they all wanted swords, and broke up the rehearsal in order to demonstrate their ideas of what they should do with them. It would be very pleasant and authentic, they thought, if they frequently drew their swords and saluted each other with them. They then began to haggle about the proper method of saluting with a sword, and Larry Pye, who was working near at hand, walked good-naturedly upon the stage and said that whatever might have been the method in the old days, this was the way it was done now. Soon half a dozen actors were stamping, frowning and brandishing imaginary swords. Valentine announced abruptly that there would be no swords in the play which were not specifically called for in the action, and that she wanted no manners from the modern parade ground; she would demonstrate the use of the swords herself.

  This gave offence to Roger. He felt that some slight had been made upon the profession of soldiering. He was also heard to say that he did not think that he needed to learn anything about the use of a sword from a woman. All of which was illogical and silly, but Roger’s strongly masculine personality made up in emotion for anything which his words might lack in good sense.

  Roger’s conduct at rehearsals was unsatisfactory. An engineer by profession, he had not long been able to resist a project of Larry Pye’s to put a public address system in the grounds at St. Agnes’. Valentine had expressly forbidden Larry to wire the stage for sound, and to hide microphones in the bushes, which was what he wanted to do. She would make herself responsible for the audibility of the actors without any such doubtful aids, she had said. Larry had found it difficult at first to take this seriously; after all, he said, a P.A. system was part of the modern set-up and if it were not in evidence the audience would think that the Little Theatre was doing the thing on the cheap. But when he found that she meant what she said, he agreed to compromise on what he named a calling-system. This was an apparatus which enabled the actors who were not wanted on the stage to linger in The Shed, where a large amplifier was installed; the Stage Manager, behind the scenes, would have a microphone by means of which he might summon them to him in plenty of time for their cues. In addition, Larry said that he would rig up a talk-back between himself, in his pit in the front of the stage, the Stage Manager and Humphrey Cobbler’s musicians. This arrangement, which sounded comparatively innocent to Valentine, proved to mean a great deal of wiring, which Larry chose to do during rehearsal time. Roger elected to help him, which meant that he was not often ready when his cues came, that he appeared on the stage with the patronizing manner of a man who has left important work for lesser employment, and that he was sometimes to be found during scenes in which he was not concerned, crawling about the stage with a coil of wire, with the air of a man who believes himself to be invisible. It was when confronted with such situations as this that Valentine realized, more sharply than Nellie ever knew, that Salterton was not New York.

  A worse thorn in her flesh than Roger, however, was Mr. Shortreed. George, or as he preferred to be called, Geordie Shortreed, was a steward in the government liquor store and in that capacity was acquainted with all the gentle and simple of Salterton. He knew who drank wine, who drank imported Scotch, who drank the cheaper liquors, and who bought good stuff for themselves and what he called belly-vengeance for their guests. He had a large bass voice and a monkey-like physique which had persuaded Valentine to cast him as Caliban. Because Caliban is a large and important part, and one which was coveted by several other actors in the Little Theatre, it was thought that in casting a man who was, in essence, a bartender for it the Little Theatre had behaved in a commendably democratic way. Canadians are, of course, naturally democratic, but when they give some signal evidence of this quality in their social life they like to get full marks for it. Everybody had, therefore, been a little nicer to Geordie than was strictly required, nicer, that is to say, than they would have been to someone who was an unquestioned social equal. Geordie, however, refused to play this game according to the rules. Instead of being quietly grateful for the friendliness of professors and business men who always bought the best Scotch, he was rather noisily familiar with them, and revealed himself as a practical joker. A great patron of joke-shops, he had a large collection of ice-cubes in which a fly was imprisoned, of cigarette-cases with springing surprises in them, of rubber snakes, of cameras which squirted when they were supposed to be taking pictures. He proved to be the kind of actor whose delight it was to discompose those who were on the stage with him; to make them laugh, if possible. Valen
tine rebuked him for this twice and each time he allowed his great voice to drop to a rumbling whisper as he said: “I know, Miss Rich; I oughtn’t to do it, and that’s a fact; don’t imagine I don’t realize what a privilege it is for the bunch and I to work with a real artist of the theatre like yourself; I guess it’s just that it’s so wonderful that makes me carry on like that; but it won’t happen again, I assure you.” But it did happen again.

  It could not be denied that Mr. Shortreed’s knowledge of the text of the play was richer and more curious than that of anyone else. Like Professor Vambrace, he knew it by heart from start to finish. But whereas the Professor showed off his knowledge only by prompting a little ahead of the official prompter, Geordie delighted in perverting lines to unexpected uses in private conversation. Like many great wits of the past, be planned his effects carefully at home, and then sprang them as impromptus at rehearsals. He was the kind of actor, too, who loved to address people offstage by the name of the character which they played on. Thus he never approached Hector Mackilwraith without roaring “Holy Gonzalo, honourable man!” except on the day when Hector, hoping to show himself youthful in the eyes of Griselda, appeared in a new and too gay sports shirt, when Geordie struck his brow and cried “What a pied ninny’s this!”

  Hector did not like this last sally, but upon the whole he admired Shortreed’s wit and envied it, for it often raised a laugh. If only he could be distinguished in that way! Something deep inside him told him that Shortreed’s jokes were stupid and overstrained, but his new craving to be a social success was silencing that inner voice which had kept him, for forty years, from making the more obvious kind of fool of himself. He too studied his text of the play in private, seeking lines which he might twist into a retort upon Shortreed, but his mind was ill-suited to such work, and he found little. He had to content himself with pretending to shrink from Shortreed, saying, “Don’t you come near me; you’re a demi-devil,” but he knew that this was pitiful. Indeed, he became conscious for the first time of a certain thinness in his intellectual equipment which he had not noticed before.

  Hector had a certain reputation as a wit, among the students of the Salterton Collegiate Institute and Vocational School. This was founded upon his occasional sarcasms and upon one joke, which he had brought to birth eight years before, and which had become a tradition in the institution. It had happened thus: one warm June afternoon Hector was supervising a gymnasium filled with students who were writing an examination; a boy had raised his hand, and said, in an offhand voice, “Sir, do you know the time?”; Hector, with his dark smile, took out his watch, looked at it, returned it to his pocket and said, “Yes.” What a shout of laughter there had been! And how the tale flew around the school! Young Porson, you see, had asked Mackilwraith if he knew the time; not if he’d tell him the time, you see; just if he knew it. And Mackilwraith had just said Yes, you see, with a perfectly straight face, because he did, you see, but he didn’t say what the time was, because that wasn’t what he’d been asked, you see?

  In the great days of the Italian Comedy certain gifted actors prepared and polished special monologues, or acrobatic feats, or passages of mime, which became peculiarly their own, and these specialties were called lazzi. This witty interchange about the time became Hector’s lazzo, and at least once a year some boy would play straight man, or stooge, to him, in order that this masterstroke of wit should be demonstrated anew. Time did not appear to wither, nor custom stale it. Thus when Hector found himself pitted against a man like Shortreed, whose jokes changed from day to day, he found himself at an unexpected disadvantage.

  Geordie’s career as a humorist, though meteoric, was shortlived. Like many another man before him, his fall was brought about by the sheer, inexplicable malignancy of fate.

  There lived at St. Agnes’, under Tom’s special care, an ancient horse called Old Bill, whose work it was to pull the large lawn-mower. Both Tom and Mr. Webster were agreed that motor-mowers were instruments of Satan, designed to chew up and deface fine turf; the lawns, therefore, were mowed by a simple but very sharp mechanism which Old Bill dragged slowly behind him; for this work Old Bill wore a straw hat to protect his head from the sun, and curious leathern goloshes over his steel shoes, so that he would not cut the lawns. Dressed for work Old Bill was a venerable and endearing sight, and during rehearsals he became a favourite with the cast. They petted him and brought him sugar.

  One afternoon Tom was cutting grass at some distance from the stage, when he became dissatisfied with the edge on one of the blades of the mower, and decided to touch it up. He left Old Bill under a tree and went off to The Shed for a file. Mr. Shortreed, observing this, had a really great comic inspiration; he had a cue coming soon, and he would enter on Old Bill. Miss Rich wouldn’t like it, of course, but surely when she saw what a laugh the bunch got out of it she wouldn’t mind too much. Anyway, he hadn’t time to worry about that, and he would chance his luck. Yes, there was old Vambrace yelling out his cue—

  Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

  Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

  With a roar he leapt upon Old Bill, kicked the startled animal in the belly, and headed for the stage. Bill, who had never been used so in his life, bolted, and as he ran two of his leather shoes dropped off, so that he was steel-shod. As he burst through the bushes, bearing Geordie on his back, the effect was all a humorist could desire. Women shrieked; men roared; Professor Vambrace and Pearl, who were in the middle of the stage, took to their heels. It was Geordie’s instant of utter triumph, the apotheosis of a practical joker. Then, bewilderingly, Old Bill gave a frightful scream, reared upon his hind legs, and dropped upon the ground. There he lay, screaming piteously for perhaps ten seconds; then he was still, his teeth bared, his eyes bulging.

  Tom arrived on the run. “Dead as a nit,” said he.

  The cause of death was established by Larry Pye. “He’s gouged up the ground with his hooves, you see,” he explained. “Here’s the main cable not three inches down, in this steel conduit; Tom just put the sod over that this morning. Here’s a poor join in the conduit, and he’s hit the cable with his shoe. That’s what did for him. Wouldn’t happen once in a million years. But it happened this time. Thanks to you, you god-damned stupid bastard,” he said, regarding Geordie with an officer’s eye. Geordie walked away and was noisily and copiously sick under a bush, but nobody pitied him.

  Old Bill, venerable and loveable in life, was a disagreeable sight in death. His belly swelled shockingly, within a few minutes, which caused him to move a little from time to time, and to creak as though in an uneasy slumber. The actors did not want to look at him, but they could not take their eyes off him. At last Mr. Leakey, moved by who can say what motives of delicacy, fetched a tweed jacket (it happened to be Larry Pye’s) and draped it over Old Bill’s face.

  “We shan’t rehearse any more this afternoon,” said Valentine. “But I should like to see the committee for a few moments.”

  It is enough to say that Mr. Webster refused to allow the Little Theatre to replace Old Bill, saying without much real conviction that he supposed accidents would happen. Valentine had a frank talk with Geordie, in which she permitted herself to forget that Salterton was not New York; she was seconded by Major Larry Pye, who spoke with great restraint, all things considered. Geordie wrote a letter to Mr. Webster in which the shrieking figure of Apology was hounded through a labyrinth of agonized syntax. Old Bill was hauled away to the knacker’s, sincerely mourned by Tom and Freddy.

  In the production of every play there comes a low point of rehearsal, after which the piece climbs to whatever climax it is destined to reach. There could be no doubt about it, the day Geordie killed the horse marked that point for The Tempest, as produced by the Salterton Little Theatre.

  LEONARDO DA VINCI ASSERTED that the human eye not only received, but gave forth rays of light; Hector’s eye, at any time before he fell in love with Griselda, might have served as a proof of this theory. B
ut now it was dulled. In the late springtime, when he should have been deep in that exhaustive revision of the year’s work which was so much a feature of his teaching, he would spend as long as five minutes at a time staring out of the window, twiddling the cord of the blind, while his pupils wondered what had come over him. His particular brand of classroom humour no longer held any charm for him. There had been a time when, during such a spring revision, he had sent two or three of the more backward pupils to the blackboard every day, to work out problems under his direct gaze; as they blundered, he had goaded them, not angrily, with a mingling of humour, pity and a little contempt. If it is true, as is so often asserted, that the greatest humour is near to pathos, Hector qualified on these occasions as a great humorist: although few of the stupid ones learned much about mathematics during these ordeals, some of them learned lessons of fortitude which were invaluable to them in later life. But this spring all the ardour of the born teacher was gone from him. He was like a sick man, but his pupils did not guess the cause of his sickness.

  Spring had been his chief season for detentions. Every afternoon he had collected a group of boys and girls in his classroom after school was over, in order to make sure that they finished the work which they had not done during the lesson period. But this spring he was noticeably ill at ease for the last hour of the school day, and left as soon as the last bell had rung. He made his way at once to St. Agnes’ and if no rehearsal was called he would do little jobs for Larry Pye, or measure the area which had been set aside for seats, or do something to make it decent for him to linger there. Rehearsals usually began at five o’clock and ended at eight, when the light began to fail; Hector was the first to come and the last to go.