Tempest-Tost

by Robertson Davies

  “I am glad to do whatever I can,” said Auntie Puss, who had been shivering a little in the night air. “And I advise you to remember, Mr. Cobbler, that I can do more.” She rattled off toward the house, her head erect.

  “My respect for Mackilwraith was never very high, and it is dropping every minute,” said Solly, as they went into The Shed. “Can you imagine a man of any gumption at all thinking that he could hang himself with a rotten old rope like that? I’ll bet it’s fifty years old. What a boob.”

  “I don’t suppose he thought about it very clearly,” said Valentine.

  “Oh yes he did,” said Cobbler. “He probably imagined he was wrapped up in his sorrows, but we all have keener perception than we know. The superficial Mackilwraith, the despairing lover, thought the rope would do, but the true, essential, deep-down Mackilwraith knew damn well that it wouldn’t. You don’t play safe for forty years and then cut loose. Our Hector was looking for pity, not death.”

  “Why do you call him the despairing lover?” asked Valentine, who had thought that this was a secret between herself and Auntie Puss.

  “Because it’s obvious that’s why he did it. He’s been mooning after the Impatient Griselda for weeks. Surely you noticed? Anyway, he told me so—or as good as admitted it—at that awful brawl of yours, Bridgetower. I had a notion that he’d do something silly, though I never thought it would be anything as silly as this.”

  “Well, do keep it quiet, won’t you, Humphrey,” said Valentine. “We don’t want to make trouble for him—more trouble than he has now, that’s to say.”

  “I don’t know why everybody imagines that I am going to run around town blatting everything I know. That old poll-parrot at the door said exactly the same thing to me, though much less nicely. I’m not going to blab. On the honour of a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. But I don’t see why I can’t discuss it with you two; you know all about it anyway.”

  “It would be rather hard on Griselda. People might think she had driven him to it.”

  “That would merely enhance her reputation as a charmer. But really I don’t suppose she had anything to do with it.”

  “What, then?” asked Solly.

  “She was just a hook on which Mackilwraith hung a middle-aged man’s nerve-storm. Do you know what I think ails Mackilwraith? Male menopause. This is his last fling at romance before he goes out of business entirely as a male creature.”

  “He can’t be much over forty,” said Valentine.

  “Spiritually—if one may use the word of Hector—he’s been seventy for years. No, it’s the male climacteric. The last gutterings of the candle—the gurgle of the last pint of suds in the drain.”

  “Well, I don’t agree,” said Solly. “I think it’s the logical outcome of his education and the sort of life he has led. He’s vulgar. I don’t mean just that he wears awful suits and probably eats awful food: I mean that he has a crass soul. He thinks that when his belly is full and his job safe, he’s got the world by the tail. He has never found out anything about himself, so how can he ever know anything about other people? The condition of a vulgarian is that he never expects anything good or bad that happens to him to be the result of his own personality; he always thinks it’s Fate, especially if it’s bad. The only people who make any sense in the world are those who know that whatever happens to them has its roots in what they are.”

  “I think you are both hard on him,” said Valentine. “When I found him he was really very touching. You’re both away off the track.”

  “Dear Val,” said Solly; “if I were in a mess like that I would pray to be found by somebody like you. Somebody that pities, and doesn’t natter and theorize.”

  “I’m happy to theorize,” said Cobbler; “I keep my feelings for musical purposes.”

  “I’m going to see if I can get Griselda to talk to him for a little,” said Valentine.

  “That’s brilliant,” said Solly; “maybe that will put him on his feet.”

  “A wonderful idea, but do you think they should be alone together?” said Cobbler. “I mean, there ought to be somebody there, just to see that he doesn’t get maudlin and embarrass the girl. I’d be happy to do it, if nobody else wants to.”

  “You’re aching to snoop,” said Valentine.

  “Of course I am. Curiosity is the mainspring of my life. If I weren’t curious I’d probably be an egocentric pinhead like Mackilwraith.”

  The door of The Shed opened, and Freddy came in, dressed in slacks and a shirt, followed by Tom.

  “We came to clean up,” said Freddy. “I suppose you’ll want this room again tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” said Valentine. “Hadn’t you heard that we are doing a special matinee for school children?”

  “A brutish auditory, at half-price, but we artists must bear it in the sacred name of education,” interjected Cobbler.

  “No; I hadn’t heard a thing about it,” said Freddy.

  “Heavens, I thought I had told all the cast. It was a last-minute decision of Nellie’s; it appears that a few hundred kids are still confined to school, and they can all be roped in at fifty cents a head. I must go at once and make sure everybody knows,” said Valentine, and ran out of The Shed.

  “We’ll help you clear things away,” said Solly.

  “Oh don’t bother. Daddy’s giving drinks to a few favoured souls in the library. I’m sure you would count as favoured souls if you went along.”

  “We’ll go when we’ve helped you,” said Cobbler. “I’m anxious to know what this stuff is that Mackilwraith knocked over. It has a vinous smell. In fact, Roscoe told me that Mackilwraith smelt like a big pickle as he was hoisting him up your stairs.”

  “That’s my champagne cider,” said Freddy, sadly. “Tom hid it away so nicely. It looks as though the old fool had contrived to break every bottle, and even at that he couldn’t finish himself off.”

  “Not every bottle,” said Cobbler. “Here are a couple with the corks in under this table. Shall we try it?”

  “Please do,” said Freddy. “There’s not much point in keeping two. But we’ll have to drink out of the necks, turn about.” Two corks popped merrily, and they sat down to sample Freddy’s vintage.

  “Not bad,” said Tom.

  “Thanks, Tom, you’re a big encouragement to me,” said Freddy. “You know, Tom and I have figured out why Mackilwraith tried to kill himself.”

  “How did you learn that?”

  “Oh, everybody knows it, except Nellie and Walter Vambrace and a few of the stupider sort.”

  “Well, why did he do it?” said Cobbler.

  “Cheap religion,” said Freddy.

  “The way we see it, sir,” said Tom, after taking a second long draught of the champagne cider, “is like this. Too many people today are like this fellow Mackilwraith. They don’t believe, and they haven’t got the strength of mind to disbelieve. They won’t get rid of religion, and they won’t go after a religion that means anything. They just mess with religion. Now if this fellow Mackilwraith had been a believer—and I don’t mind saying that I’m thinking of the C. of E.—he would have known that suicide is a sin, and his belief would have held him up in his trouble. And if he’d been an unbeliever he’d either have had too much guts to do it, or guts enough to finish it off proper. See?”

  “If he’d been a strong believer or a strong unbeliever he wouldn’t have been pushed off his trolley just because he couldn’t get to first base with Gristle,” said Freddy. “Do you know, Tom, this isn’t bad at all; just as soon as the apples come in, I’m going to get busy on a bigger and better batch.”

  “Not bad,” said Cobbler, “but not champagne. Just good cider with ideas above its station.”

  “I know,” said Freddy, a little sadly, “but you can’t make something wonderful unless you start with the right stuff.”

  “Like making a romantic lover out of Hector Mackilwraith,” said Solly.

  The second bottle clutched in his h
and, Cobbler launched into a lecture on religion, speaking as one who had been in the service of Holy Church since his ninth year.

  HECTOR WAS NOT QUITE ASLEEP. He lay happily in the bed, the softest he had ever known, with a hot-water bottle at his feet, and a cup of beef-tea and brandy working magically in his stomach. He had no thoughts beyond the moment, and a general thankfulness that he was not dead.

  Outside the door someone seemed to be moving, very quietly, as though standing first upon one foot and then the other. The room was wonderfully peaceful in the light of a single lamp, and Hector could not summon up enough interest even to wonder who it might be. But at last the door opened, and Griselda came in, wearing her dressing gown.

  “Are you asleep?”

  “No.”

  “Valentine said she thought I’d better come and say goodnight.”

  She stood by the foot of the bed, saying nothing, looking lovelier than Hector had ever seen her. Now, mysteriously, he was no longer afraid of her.

  “I’m glad you came.”

  “Thanks. Sorry you’re feeling mouldy.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “The doctor says you can’t go home tonight, of course.”

  “I hope I’m not putting anyone out of this bed.”

  “Oh that’s all right; I can sleep in one of the other rooms.”

  It’s yours:

  A dark flush spread over Hector’s face. He was in Griselda’s bed! But he was too tired, too blissfully at rest, to be deeply embarrassed. Griselda seemed to be trying to say something; she was blushing, and dug into the carpet with one foot. For the first time Hector saw that she was not much more than a child. At last she spoke.

  “You shouldn’t have done it, you know.”

  “No, I shouldn’t.”

  “You must promise not to do it again.”

  I won’t.

  Another pause, and Griselda was now very red. She suddenly sat down on the bed and took his hand.

  “I’d feel dreadful if you did, you know. Because of me.”

  So she knew. Well, he didn’t care. He was too happy.

  “What made you think it would help?”

  “I can’t really remember, now.”

  She said no more. He felt that he must say something.

  “Griselda.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re too good for Tasset. Don’t let him spoil you.”

  “I don’t care for him at all. Did you think I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it was because of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never knew that you cared about me at all.”

  “I did.”

  “But you don’t any more?”

  “Not the same way; now that I know you’re safe.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going away from Salterton. I’ve had an offer of a job in the Department. A very good job, really; quite a step up.”

  “How wonderful.”

  Another pause. At last Griselda spoke.

  “I’d better go now. But I don’t want you to think I don’t know what a lot of trouble I’ve made for you.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “But I couldn’t know, you see.”

  “Of course not. You couldn’t know.”

  “And it wouldn’t really have done, would it?”

  “No: I see that now. It wouldn’t have done at all.”

  “Well, good-night, Mr. Mackilwraith.”

  Hector looked up into her serious face, and for the first time in weeks, he laughed. After a puzzled moment, Griselda smiled.

  “Good-night, Hector.”

  She leaned forward as she had done in that first dream, and kissed him. Then she turned out the lamp, and closed the door behind her.

  Hector slept.