What’s Bred in the Bone tct-2

by Robertson Davies

  What do you make of that fine thing? God only knows, at present, but I mean to make it my business to know, because it’s saying something, just as my great-aunt’s awful, skilful pictures of Cardinals joking and boozing say something. Those are saying that the Church is powerful and classy, but Bronzino says—something about a very different world, and a world I want to learn about. Nobody is going to tell me it’s just an arrangement of form and colour. It’s what my great-aunt calls A Good Lesson.

  I am learning fast. I have already caught on that Bouguereau wasn’t really a great painter, though he was an astonishing technician. Bought another drawing yesterday, just some scratches of the Virgin and Child, with a scribble that might be one of the Magi. Cost me twenty-five pounds and I shall not be eating at the Café Royal tonight I assure you. But I’m sure it’s a Tiepolo. Maybe School Of.

  Off on the boat-train in the morning. It was wonderful to see you. Shall write again soon.

  Yr. affct. godson

  Frank

  Not bad for a lad of nineteen, thought Colonel John Copplestone, as he tucked the letter into a newly opened file.

  By the time Francis had completed four years at the College of Saint John and the Holy Ghost (irreverently called Spook by all students and by faculty members when they were not obliged to be on their best behaviour) in the University of Toronto, the file in Colonel John Copplestone’s study was a fat one, and there was an additional file, not so fat, in which the Colonel’s old friend and an honoured member of the profession who simply signed himself J.B. reported now and then on things which Francis might not have told his godfather. J.B. was officially the Warden of the Students’ Union at the University of Toronto, but he was a great letter-writer, and although most of his letters were simply dutiful communications with his aged mother in Canterbury, quite a few of them went to Colonel Copplestone, and some of these went farther still, to the Chaps Who Knew. Even in a trusted, if not beloved, Dominion, things may happen about which inside information is welcome to the Secret Service of the mother country, and J.B. supplied a good deal of it.

  His comments on Francis, boiled down, would not have seemed particularly significant unless one happened to be recruiting for the profession. Francis was fairly well liked, but was not one of the most popular undergraduates; nothing of the Big Man on Campus about him. He seemed not to have much to do with girls, although he was not indifferent to them. On the other hand, his friendships with young men were not intense. Francis had made one or two attempts to appear in productions at the University Theatre, and was a wooden, disastrous actor, his black hair and green eyes making him look odd under theatre circumstances. Outside his studies he did not cut much of a figure, but he was a surprisingly useful member of the Union Pictures Committee; he could spot a good thing, and urge that it be bought, when the other undergraduates who worked with J.B. simply didn’t know their Picassos from a hole in the ground. Francis was already buying Canadian pictures for himself in the twenty-five to hundred-dollar range. Though he came of a rich family he didn’t have a lot of money to throw around, and once J.B. had asked him why he was wearing no overcoat on a sub-zero day, to be told that Francis had hocked his coat to buy a Lawren Harris that he couldn’t resist. He hoarded what money he had in order to buy pictures. Spent none of it on himself, and had the reputation of being “close” with money, which probably accounted for his lack of contact with girls, who are great eaters and drinkers. He drew a good deal, and had decided talent as a caricaturist, but for some reason didn’t choose to exploit it; nevertheless the caricaturist’s gleam was often seen in his green eye, when he thought nobody was looking. Did pretty well in his studies, and astonished everybody when at the end of his fourth year he took the Chancellor’s Prize in Classics, even though Classics wasn’t in vogue. This would give him a good push forward at Oxford, and J.B., who had drag at Oxford, would see that it did not go unheeded.

  A candidate for the profession? Possibly. The Oxford days would tell, thought Colonel Copplestone. After all, the boy was still only twenty-three.

  During the summer before his departure for Oxford, Francis paid a visit to Blairlogie. He might not have thought of doing so if his mother had not urged him to make the effort. The people there are getting old, she said; you see Grand-père now and then, but Grand’mère and Aunt have not seen you for—oh, more than ten years. It’s the least you can do, darling. So, in hot August weather, off he went.

  The journey, once he had left the main line and taken the train which struck northward toward Blairlogie, seemed to be almost violent in its reversal of time. From the excellent modern train in which, because his parents had paid for his ticket, he travelled in the chair-car, which had radio earphones at every seat, he changed to a primitive affair in which an ancient, puffing engine pulled a baggage coach and one passenger coach at a stately twenty miles an hour through the hinterland. The passenger coach was old without being venerable; it had a great deal of fretwork ornamentation in wood that had once been glossy, but the green plush seats were mangy and slick, the floor was poorly swept, and it stank of coal-dust and long use. Because of the heat the windows that would still open were opened, and grit and smoke from the engine occasionally swept through the car. There were stops at tiny stations in the middle of nowhere, usually in order that some small piece of freight might be unloaded. There were other stops in order that the journal-boxes might cool; the train was prone to that plague of old running-stock, the hot-box.

  At noon the train halted in the midst of rocky scrubland where there was not a roof in sight. “If any of yez haven’t brought yer lunch, yez can get dinner up on the hill at th’ old lady’s. Costs a quarter,” said the conductor, and himself led a small procession up the hill where, in the old lady’s kitchen, chunks of fat bacon and fried potatoes were ready on the back of the wood-stove; on top of each plate of meat was laid a slab of rhubarb pie. The etiquette, Francis saw, was to remove the pie delicately (so as not to break it) and lay it on the pine table beside the plate, until the latter had been cleared and wiped with a chunk of bread; then the pie was lifted back to the plate to be devoured with the well-sucked fork, and washed down with the old lady’s coffee, which was boiling hot, but not strong. Fifteen minutes were allowed for this repast, and when the conductor rose everybody rose, and put a quarter into the hand of the unsmiling, unspeaking old lady. The conductor, it seemed, did not pay; he led his pilgrims in single file down the hill to the waiting train. The engine-driver and the fireman (who doubled as brakeman) had eaten thriftily from lunch-boxes by the side of the line. They clambered back into the cab, belching enjoyably, and the train resumed its sleepy, stately course.

  Late in the afternoon the conductor tramped importantly through the car, shouting, “Blairlogie! End of the line! Blairlogie!”, as if some passengers could possibly have been in doubt about the matter. Then the conductor hastened to be first off the train and was well away up the street toward his home before Francis could get his suitcase down from the overhead rack, and set foot once again in the place of his birth.

  Blairlogie had changed, if the old train had not. Few horses were to be seen on the streets, and some of the streets themselves had been paved. Shops bore different names, and the Ladies’ Emporium, where Grand’mère had always bought her hats (because the Misses Sim, though Protestants, had undoubtedly the best taste, and the deftest hands with artificial cherries and roses, in town), had vanished altogether, and weeds grew where it had stood. There was a movie-house, too, which seemed to mean that a gaudy front had been stuck on a failed grocery-store. The McRory Opera House, farther up the street, was closed, and had an offended, snubbed look. Trees were taller but buildings were smaller. Donoghue’s blacksmith-shop was not to be seen and, most significant change of all, a motor truck laden with cut timber was making its way up the street, and the name on its side was not his grandfather’s name.

  But when he got away from the business street and up the hill, St. Kilda looked as it always
had looked, and when he rang the bell it was undoubtedly Anna Lemenchick, though broader and seemingly shorter, who answered. She said nothing—she never did say anything when she answered the door—but there was a scampering upstairs, and Aunt Mary-Ben came rattling down, rather dangerously on the polished hardwood, and threw herself at him. She was so tiny; had he really grown so much?

  “Francis! Dear, dear boy! How big you are! Oh, and so handsome! Oh, Mother of God, isn’t this a happy day! Did you take the taxi? We’d have sent, only there’s nobody to send just now—Zadok in hospital and all. Oh, what will Grand’mère say when she sees you! Come, come right away and see her, Frankie, my own dear. It’ll do her more good than anything!”

  Grand’mère was in bed, a mountain of flesh, but yellow and sour-smelling. Conversation with her was in French, because she found English an effort now. She was considerably younger than the Senator—who was, as usual, away in Ottawa, or in Montreal, or in Toronto, on some business or other—but chronology had nothing to do with what ailed her, and she might have been ten years older than her real age, which was sixty-eight.

  “Dr. J.A. is reserved about dear Marie-Louise,” said Aunt Mary-Ben, as she and Francis ate the bad dinner that evening. “We fear what’s wrong, of course, but he won’t be plain about it. You remember how he always was. You can’t undo nearly seventy years of overeating, he says. But could hearty eating really bring on that? I pray for her, of course, but Dr. J.A. says the age of miracles is past. Oh, Frankie, Frankie, it’s a dreadful thing, but we must all go in the end, mustn’t we, and your dear Grand’mère has led such a good life—not a thing to reproach herself with—so though it’s hard for us, we must bow to His will.”

  The ruling passion, it appeared, was still strong. That night Francis played for three hours with Aunt and Grand’mère, who could summon up spirit for the game. It was euchre. The deck of thirty-two cards was ready when they went upstairs, and on and on, remorselessly and almost without speaking, they played hand after hand. Francis, as the least experienced, was euchred again and again, and he could not but notice that frequently his grandmother’s hand would disappear beneath the covers, presumably to press some aching part or to ease her bedgown, and when it reappeared—could that have been the flash of a card that had not been there before? An unworthy thought, and he pushed it down, but not quite out of sight. Mary-Ben was willing enough to lose, but Francis had not come to the time of life when he understood that winning is not always a matter of taking the trick.

  As they parted at bedtime, he whispered to Aunt, “What’s the news of Madame Thibodeau?”

  “She doesn’t get out much now, Francis; she’s become so stout you see. But she’s wonderful. Stone deaf, but she plays cards three times a week. And wins! Oh dear me, yes; she wins! Eighty-seven, now.”

  Where was Victoria Cameron? Who was caring for the Looner?

  It appeared that Aunt had been forced to get rid of Victoria Cameron. She had kicked over the traces just once too often, and Aunt had turned her out lock, stock, and barrel. She had not been replaced as cook, but Anna Lemenchick did her best, helped out by old Mrs. August’s youngest girl, who was willing, though not very bright. Anna’s best was not good, but with poor Marie-Louise reduced to a diet of liquids, Aunt had no heart to look for another first-rate cook, in spite of her brother’s urging. It seemed heartless, didn’t it, to hire somebody to cook dishes poor Grand’mère could not hope to taste?

  Francis was still incapable of telling Aunt that he knew about the Looner, but on his first night at St. Kilda he crept upstairs while he knew Aunt would be busy on her prie-dieu. All the curtains that had deadened sound were gone. Nobody slept up there because Anna Lemenchick came by the day. He tried the door of the room which had once been hospital and madhouse and prison, but it was locked.

  In his childhood room, which seemed to have lost substance, like everything else at St. Kilda, Francis caught sight of himself as he undressed, in the long mirror before which he had once postured in a mockery of women’s attire. A young man, with hair on his chest and legs, black curls clustering about his privates; moved by an impulse he could have denied, but to which he yielded, he once again drew the bed cover about him and looked at what he saw—looked hungrily for the girl who should have been behind the mirror, but was not. Where was she? He had not found her in any of the girls with whom, at Spook, he had sought her. She must be somewhere, that girl from the world of myth, from the real Cornwall of his imagination. He would not believe it could be otherwise. But the consequence of his gazing brought on such arousal that he had to “choke the ghost”, which was school slang for masturbation. As always, the act brought relief and disgust, and he fell asleep in a bad temper. He didn’t want crushes and affairs and the student amusements he heard so much about at Spook. He wanted love. He was twenty-three, which he thought very old to be without love, and he wondered what could possibly be the matter with him, or with his fate, or whatever decreed such things. Hell!

  He had no trouble, the next morning, in finding Victoria Cameron. She was smack in the middle of the main street, in a small shop which said, over the door, CAMERON FANCY BAKED GOODS, and inside she stood behind the counter amid a profusion of her best work.

  “Well, you never thought leaving your grandfather’s house would be the ruin of me, did you, Frankie? It’s been the making of me. Dad and the boys baking the bread as always, and me making the fancy stuff here, we’re doing a land-office business, let me tell you. No, I’m not married, nor will I ever be, though it’s not for want of offers, let me tell you. I’ve better things to do than slaving for some man, and you can bet on that.”

  “Zadok? That’s a sad story. He wanted to marry me, but can you imagine that? I told him straight: Not as long as you do what you do at Devinney’s, I told him, and don’t give it up, because I wouldn’t marry you even if you gave it up. I’m too fond of my own way, I said. But it hurt him. You could see that. I don’t pretend that was all of it, but it may have been part of it.

  “I think it was that poor boy’s death that hit him hardest. You hadn’t heard about that? No, I don’t suppose there’d be anybody tell you. Zadok felt he’d done it, in a way.”

  A pause, during which a group of customers, who looked curiously at Francis, were accommodated with a half-dozen of lemon-curd tarts, another half-dozen of the raspberry tarts, two lemon pies promised for a wedding anniversary, and a big bag of cream puffs. Not to speak of two crusty white and two brown and two raisin loaves. When this press of business was completed, Victoria continued. “Zadok was always one for his beer, you remember. And after I told him flat there was nothing doing so far as I was concerned he took to bringing it up to that room on the top floor, to drink while he sang to Frankie—the other Frankie. You know, Francis, he loved that boy. You might almost have thought he was his own. Zadok had a heart in him, you’ve got to give him that. I didn’t like him bringing in the beer, but I couldn’t have stopped it without more trouble than it seemed to me to be worth. And I think there was some spite in it. Men are funny, you know, Francis. I think Zadok wanted to show me that if I wouldn’t have him, he’d go to the Devil, hoping maybe I’d change my mind to save him. But I wasn’t raised to think you can save people. If they can’t save themselves—that’s to say, as far as anybody can–nobody else can do it for them. We all have our fate to live out, and I knew it wasn’t my fate to save Zadok. So he’d drink a lot, and get silly, and drink healths to Frankie, and Frankie knew something cheerful and jolly was meant, and he’d laugh in that sort of lingo that was all he could manage. But I was firm on the one thing: I wouldn’t let Zadok give Frankie any of the beer.

  “Probably that’s what did it. Instead of beer, Frankie drank a lot of water. Harmless, wouldn’t you say? He’d just piss it into his diaper, and no harm done. But one night Zadok and I had a real knock-down row, because he was drinking more than usual and making too much noise, and at last I walked out on the two of them and told Zadok he could get Fran
kie ready for sleep by himself.

  “Of course I knew he couldn’t. The boy relied on me to get him ready for the night, and I wouldn’t fail him. So after an hour or so, when I knew Zadok had gone, I went in to settle Frankie down, and I did, but I thought he looked a little queer, and he was heavy to lift. In the morning he was dead.

  “Do you know what it was? Drownded! I had to get the old Aunt, and she sent for Dr. J.A., and after he looked at Frankie he said that was what it was. Drownded! You see, that poor boy wasn’t like other people. There was some gland right in the top of his head that wasn’t right, and when he went on that water toot with Zadok he must have drunk about—I don’t know—gallons maybe, and it was more than he could stand. The doctor said some of it must have got into his blood, and then into his lungs, and he drownded. The doctor called it pulmonary oedema. I’ve remembered it, because—well, you wouldn’t expect me to forget it, would you? So there had to be another funeral at night, though there was no priest this time, and now there really is a Frankie under that stone that was a fake for so long.

  “No, they didn’t tell your parents. In fact, your mother never knew what was up there in the attic all those years. But your grandfather knew, of course, and he and Dr. J.A.—well, it’d be hard to say exactly what happened. They were both relieved, but it wouldn’t have done to let that show. I knew some money changed hands, to make sure Zadok kept his mouth shut. And in an awful way I suppose it was gratitude.