Tempest-Tost

by Robertson Davies

  “You certainly ought to know. You look as though you had controlled yourself, I must say.”

  “Certainly. In my profession anything else would be unthinkable.”

  “The unthinkable has always been rather in my line. You don’t appear to have controlled yourself at the table, by the way. Quite a lad with the knife and fork, aren’t you?”

  “That is different. It harms nobody.”

  “I see. You don’t think this control business can be overdone, do you?”

  “How could it be?”

  “Well, you know what Galen says: If natural seed be overlong kept, it turns to poison.”

  “Who was Galen?”

  “Never heard of Galen? Claudius Galen? The father of medical practice?”

  “Is he dead?”

  “A small matter of seventeen hundred years.”

  “Ah. Well I dare say his opinion has been contradicted since then. Medical opinion is always changing. Do you see The Reader’s Digest?”

  “Galen wasn’t just a pill-roller. He was a first-rate psychologist. The remark I have quoted to you is really a philosophical opinion phrased as a medical maxim.”

  “But it is out-dated.”

  “Damn it, wisdom is never out-dated.”

  “But how can the opinions of a doctor who died so long ago be any good today? In religion, of course, age is a good thing. But not in medicine.”

  “All right, Mackilwraith, you win. I feel myself to be an angel, beating my ineffectual wings in vain against the granite fortress of your obtuse self-righteousness.”

  “You’re not an angel. I think you’re rather silly. Why do you clutter your mind with what a dead doctor said?”

  “Galen isn’t just a dead doctor, man; he was a great spirit. Probably a lot of his ideas are fantastic now. But he had flashes of insight which we can’t discount. That’s what makes a man great; his flashes of insight, when he pierces through the nonsense of his time, and gets at something that really matters.”

  “You are a lucky man to have room to spare in your head for truck of that sort.”

  “Truck?”

  “Most of us find it hard enough to keep track of the things that we really need to know.”

  “Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.”

  “Certainly.”

  “You say that a man’s first job is to earn a living, and that the first task of education is to equip him for that job?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order, shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.”

  “As a mathematician I can hardly agree with you that disorder is preferable to order.”

  “Mathematician my foot! Do you know anything about linear algebra? How are you on diophantine equations? Could you tell me, in a few words, what Bertrand Russell has added to modern mathematical concepts? You are a mathematician in the way that a teacher of beginners on the piano is a musician!”

  “I know what I know,” said Hector, “and it is sufficient for my needs.”

  “But you don’t begin to realize how much you don’t know,” said Humphrey, “and I shrewdly suspect that that is the source of your remarkable strength of character. For you are strong, you know; you talk like a fool, but you have amazing personal impact.”

  It was at this moment that Roger returned, and sat heavily down in his chair.

  “How’s the tongue?” asked Humphrey.

  “Thwobs,” said Roger.

  “Aha. Swollen too, eh?”

  Roger nodded. There was a gloomy silence. Humphrey slipped down into his chair and closed his eyes.

  Hector looked at Roger long and closely. It was his duty, he knew, to speak to him about Griselda. He ought to tell this man to stop annoying Griselda with his dishonourable attentions. But how could he do so? It was not that he lacked moral authority; he knew what was right, and he knew what he should do about it. But how could he rebuke Roger without giving away the fact that he, Hector, loved Griselda? The shock of finding that he had two young rivals had shaken him severely. He thought deeply, and the longer he thought the harder it was to speak. But at last he found a form of words which seemed to him to meet the needs of the occasion, and he spoke, so hollowly that Roger started a little in his chair.

  “Do you consider yourself a suitor for the hand of Miss Webster?”

  “Eh!”

  “Do you want to marry Miss Griselda Webster?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far.”

  “Then you ought to leave her alone.”

  Roger regarded him with surprise. He was not a sensitive young man, and Hector’s earnest, flushed face held no message for him.

  “Listen, Mackintosh, how would it be if you mind your own business?” he said, at last.

  Hector could not think of a suitable reply, and silence fell again.

  AT LAST SOLLY RETURNED; his face was white and drawn, except for his swollen nose and a lump on his jaw. When Hector said that it would be well for them to leave he insisted that they stay.

  “No, no,” said he; “I’ve given Mother a sedative, and soon she will be in a deep sleep. But if you go downstairs now you may waken her. And I’d like you to stay. I need company.”

  “Listen, Bridgetower,” said Roger, “I’m sorry about this. About disturbing your mother, I mean. And I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.”

  “Quite all right,” said Solly.

  “You’re not a type I like, if you know what I mean. But as your type goes, you’re not too bad.”

  “I understand you,” said Solly. “As a matter of fact, I don’t like your kind, either. Judged by any decent standard you are a pismire, an emmet, but it shouldn’t be impossible for us to get along.”

  “Yes, it takes all kinds to make a world, as they say. Shake hands?”

  “Certainly.”

  Humphrey stirred in his chair, and then started up, wide awake.

  “ ‘Deeply have I slept, as one who hath gone down into the springs of his existence, and there bathed,’ ” said he. “Bit of useless knowledge for you, Mackilwraith; a poet you’ve never heard of and wouldn’t like.”

  “Beddoes,” said Solly.

  “Neatly spotted,” said Humphrey. “Full marks to Master Bridgetower for identifying the quotation. A great man, Beddoes and, like Purcell, still unmauled by the mob. Did I see you fellows shaking hands? Ah, the manly press of flesh! What a wonderful device it is for bringing insoluble quarrels to an apparent end! I take it that you’ve slipped Mum a Mickey Finn? How wise; sedatives to the sedate. Well, well, who’s got the bottle?”

  “No more for me,” said Hector.

  “Nonsense. You haven’t got any way of providing us with some hot water, have you, Bridgetower?”

  “There’s an electric kettle downstairs.”

  “Fetch it, like a good fellow, will you? And you might as well bring a lemon and some sugar when you come.”

  When Solly had returned with the necessaries Humphrey quickly prepared four strong hot toddies.

  “Now,” said he, “while you were otherwise engaged, Mackilwraith drew it to my attention that he and I, as older men, should help you two to straighten out your affairs. This fighting over Griselda Webster won’t do. If you want my frank opinion, the girl isn’t worth it. A pretty little voice, but nothing out of the way. Take my advice: marry a woman with a good big mezzo range, plenty of power, and perfect pitch. Besides, neither of you really cares much about her; you just imagine that you do. ‘Esteem and quiet friendship oft bear love’s semblance for a while.’ Beddoes again, Mackilwr
aith. Esteem and quiet friendship; that’s what you feel for Griselda. So no rough stuff, with her or with each other. Agreed?”

  “I’m taking her to the Ball,” said Roger.

  “I shall see you there,” said Solly, who had not until that moment had any intention of going to the Ball.

  AN HOUR LATER TWO FURTHER ROUNDS of toddy had made a great difference to Solly’s party. On the floor below Mrs. Bridgetower was in such a sleep as only one of her white tablets, washed down with hot milk, could give her. Upstairs in the attic sitting-room three of the four men were talking animatedly and Humphrey Cobbler was holding forth to Hector on education.

  “Of formal education,” said he, “I have had but little. When I was a lad I was sent to a choir school. I had, if I may be permitted to say so, an exceptional soprano voice. They needed me, Mackilwraith; they needed me. And if there is one thing which utterly destroys a boy’s character, it is to be needed. Boys are unendurable unless they are wholly expendable.”

  “Funny thing, when you flushed your closet just now,” said Roger to Solly, “it put me in mind of a wonderful Dominion Day celebration we put on a couple of years ago when I was stationed out on the West Coast.”

  “All celebrations should be wonderful,” said Solly, putting more sugar in his drink. “And that is one of the big troubles with Canada; we have very little ceremonial sense. What have we to compare with the Mardi Gras, or the Battle of Flowers? Nothing. Not a bloody thing.”

  “Because I was needed, I was impossible. I never worked at my school lessons, but I worked like a black at my music. And whenever I had to sing in Service, I put on a superb show. Well—what could they do? The Dean was headmaster of the school; was he going to boot his best soprano boy out into a cold world because he didn’t do his sums? You see the situation?”

  “Well, now, we had to parade on Dominion Day of course, and it was a hot day and we were all pretty well browned off. And we were worse than browned off—in fact you could pretty well say we were completely cheesed off—when an order came round that the O.C. wanted all the junior officers to remain in barracks that night—Dominion Day night, you see—because some bigwig from Ottawa wanted to have a look around, you see?”

  “Our national dislike for doing things on a really big and spectacular scale, shows up in this play You heard that row a couple of weeks ago when old Vambrace and Eva Wildfang were carrying on about the beauty of simplicity? They think Shakespeare can be run entirely under his own steam. He can’t. You’ve got to have as much lavishness in costume and setting as you can, or your play will be a flop. The day of Shakespeare in cheesecloth costumes and a few tatty drapes is done.”

  “Of course I knew that I had the Dean right where I wanted him. Well, suddenly some American impresario got a notion that he wanted to take part of our choir to the States for a tour. The Dean said that only boys who had achieved a scholarly record of such-and-such could go. But ha! The impresario had been to Service. ‘Of course I’ve got to have that solo boy,’ says he. ‘That boy isn’t eligible to go,’ says the Dean. ‘Then I’ll have to think again,’ says the impresario. You know, I’ve always thought that fellow must have been a bit of a pansy. I was good, but I couldn’t have been that good.”

  “There we were, you understand, cooped up in barracks, on a holiday, after a heavy afternoon in the sun. I suppose they thought we gave the damn place a lived-in look, or something. So we thought up a scheme. Or really—give the devil his due—it was a fellow named O’Carroll worked it out and when the evening came we were ready.”

  “Taste is at the bottom of everything. Given taste, you can go to any lengths. For instance, you remember the row about those costumes that old Ma Crundale designed? The ones with no fronts in them? They were tossed out because the girls couldn’t wear them. But given enough taste, it could be done, and it would be a knockout! In fact, if I were given a completely free hand, I think I could work a completely naked Ariel painted gold into The Tempest and there wouldn’t be a word of complaint. Just breathless admiration! But it would all be done with taste, you see?”

  “The upshot was that the Dean gave way; he didn’t want to lose the publicity or the big fee, either. So away we went to the States for six months. You should have seen us, Mackilwraith! For the first part of the programme we wore our blue cassocks and our ruffs, and sang Byrd and Tallis and all that. Then for the secular stuff in Part Two we switched into evening dress, with Eton suits for us boys. Ah, Mackilwraith, if you could but once have seen me in a bumfreezer and a clean collar, singing ‘Love was once a little boy’, it would have made a better man of you!”

  “As soon as dinner was over we made our excuses and got out of the mess as fast as we could. It was easy, because the O.C. was dining with the bigwig. We got over to the men’s quarters, which were empty; everybody was out on the town. Some of us who were engineers arranged wires on the handles of all the water closets on each floor. Then we did the same in every other building where there were any. Then we established a central control in the administration building in the dark, and waited.”

  “Given taste, you can then go as far as you like with your big stage effects. Hundreds of people milling about if you like. Fill the stage with horses and dogs. Pageantry in a big way. Make it complex! Let it fill the eye! Let it be enriched, bejewelled, Byzantine! The parrot-cry that simplicity is one with good taste comes from people who cannot trust their taste in anything which is not simple. Shakespeare demands all the opulence that we can give him!”

  “The man who had charge of us boys was one of the counter-tenors, a dear little chap named Thickpenny—Roland Thickpenny. You know what a counter-tenor is? No, I thought not. You’ve lived a dreadfully meagre life, Mackilwraith. A counter-tenor is a male alto. He is a tenor who has trained and enriched his falsetto register so that he can sing in a lovely, clear voice, and fill in the alto part in the male choir in a cathedral. You cant have women in Church choirs; they sour the Communion wine, or something. They’re damned nuisances, anyhow. Well, Thickpenny was a dear—a chubby, red-faced little fellow, with a lovely voice. Women in the States went wild over him. Wanted to see what made him sing like that. Thought he was a eunuch, or something. Dear old Thickers was always being chased by some orgulous hag. But he was true to Mrs. Thickpenny and all the little Thickpennies at home.”

  “At last the great moment came. The O.C. walked out into the barrack yard with the bigwig. Every window in every building was open. We pulled all the wire controls. There was a perfect Niagara of flushing closets. We did it again. And again. It was a feu de joie of w.c.’s. The O.C. and the bigwig scampered inside again. We never heard a word about it. That taught him to keep us in on Dominion Day.”

  “Tassel, I’m going to make a life’s work out of it! If it kills me I’m going to squelch this notion that there is anything meritorious about simplicity on the stage. I proclaim the Baroque, Tasset! I laud the daedal!”

  “But if Thickpenny was a man of iron, Mackilwraith, I was not. For you must know that I, too, had my following. ‘That dear little boy,’ ladies would exclaim, and want to kiss me. Now, Mackilwraith, it was in a place in Montana called Butte, that a very beautiful woman, a superb creature of about thirty-five, I suppose, caught me at a party and kissed me to such purpose that my voice broke on the voyage home. And that is why I refuse to get stewed up about any woman’s honour. What about my honour, such as it was at the age of eleven? Worse still, what about my voice? For once it was gone the Dean made my life a perfect misery. But you cant say my American tour wasn’t educative.”

  CATCH AS CATCH CAN, and every man for himself, the conversation spun on through the night. Only Hector was silent, nodding from time to time and allowing his glass to be filled almost without protest. At five o’clock they went home, Roger to appear at a lecture at nine, Humphrey to sleep till noon, and Hector to greet a class which found him pale, inattentive and apt to desert them while he sought the drinking fountain.

  6

&nbs
p; Eight days before the first night of The Tempest the following advertisement appeared in the Salterton evening paper for the last of five successive publications:

  AUCTION

  The complete Household Effects of the late Dr. Adam Savage will be sold at auction at his former residence, 33 King Street, on Friday, June 8, beginning at 10 o’clock a.m.

  All furnishings, ornaments, china and glass, carpets, bed linen, etc. will positively be sold to the highest bidder under the conditions posted on the door. No catalogue. View day Thursday, June 7.

  Do not miss this sale which is the most Important to be held in Salterton so far this year.

  And for this fifth appearance the following note was appended to the advertisement:

  We are directed by Miss Valentine Rich, executor of the late Dr. Savage, to announce that his splendid library, comprising more than 4300 volumes of Philosophy, Theology, Travel, Superior Fiction and Miscellaneous will be open to the clergy of all denominations from 10 o’clock Wednesday, June 6, and they may have gratis any volumes they choose. This is done in accordance with the wish of the late Dr. Savage. Clergy must remove books personally.

  ELLIOT & MAYBEE

  Auctioneers and Valuers

  This addition to the auction notice was printed in no larger type than the rest of the advertisement, but it caught a surprising number of eyes on the Tuesday when it appeared. Anything which concerns a subject dear to us seems to leap from a large page of print. Freddy Webster, who was no careful reader of newspapers, saw it, and snorted like a young warhorse.

  “Giving away books!” said she. “But only to preachers! Damn!”

  Later that evening she met Solly, who was in the garden wondering, as all directors of outdoor performances of The Tempest must, whether the arrangements for the storm-tossed ship in the first scene of the play would provoke the audience to such derisive laughter that they would rise in a body and demand the return of their money at the gate.

  “Yes, I saw it,” he said in answer to her question. “Pretty rotten, confining it to the clergy. Not that I care about Philosophy, or Theology, or even Superior Fiction. But there might just be something tucked away in Miscellaneous which would be lost on the gentlemen of the cloth.”