High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories

by Robertson Davies

  The noise mounted to a climax and I heard cheers from within. The moment had come for which modern dancers wait in worshipping expectation; the percussion man was going to perform a solo. The banging, crashing and rattling he produced was sheer sound, unhampered by any suggestion of a tune or a tone. It was heaven-storming music, and I felt myself yielding to it. My nerves were fiercely alert.

  As I walked toward the College gate my glance rose, and at once I knew that something was amiss. Or, rather, was missing. Where was the great bull’s head which normally presides over the exit from the Quad? Not in its place? Impossible. It must be a delusion caused by the excellent supper at the dance. But—where was the Bull? “Bah! Humbug!” I said to myself as I stood looking out into Devonshire Place. The December wind that had been sweeping through it grew, in a matter of seconds, into a whirlwind. Dust, twigs, debris of all sorts was whirling in this tempest; some of it swept toward me and I became aware that a mass of newspaper was dashing itself against the gate, and might well blow through it. I like the quad to be tidy, and I pushed it away with my foot. To my amazement, it resisted, with a power that wind alone could not explain. I kicked at it and—how am I to tell you?—it seemed to give a cry, in an almost human voice. The sound of the percussion solo from the Hall became more demanding in its intensity, and I lost my self-possession. I kicked and pushed at the mass of newspaper with hands and feet, and the more I fought the fiercer it became, until at last it forced itself through the bars of the gate, and stood—yes, stood!—before me.

  “Thing of evil,” I cried—and even as I spoke I knew that I had once again slipped into the rhetorical manner of speech which these spectres always impose upon me—”Thing of evil, what would you here? Whence, and what are you?”

  The mass of newspaper appeared to be winded by our struggle, and its reply, though audible, was incomprehensible to me. But the tone was unmistakably that of a woman’s voice.

  “Speak up!” I demanded.

  The mass of newspaper raised one of its outlying rags of newsprint and pointed toward what would have been, in a human figure, its head.

  I leaned down for a closer look, because the figure was considerably shorter than I. At its top, which was twirled up into a sort of point, I was able to make out Toronto Star, February 1, 1972.

  “You are the Toronto Star?” said I, half in fear, half in derision, as academics usually speak when they are dealing with newspapers.

  The figure nodded its head, then pointed with what seemed to be its Homemakers’ Section toward a headline which was at the place where, if it had indeed been a woman, its bosom would have been found. I put on my reading spectacles and peeped delicately at its bosom. The words there were familiar and made me recoil. They read: The Ugly Spectre of Sexism Lurks at Massey College.

  I remembered that headline. It was on February 1, 1972, that the Toronto Star had printed a letter from a young woman who was aggrieved by what she considered the indefensible discrimination of this College against her sex. Not only was this place manifestly elitist, she said, but it was sexist as well, and in the modern world, this was not to be endured. I looked at the bundle of newspaper again; there was something feminine about its general outline, certainly, but what was it, and what did it mean?

  “Frankly, you don’t look like The Star—” I began. But the creature had found its voice and burst out in an excited squeak.

  “None of that!” it said. “I know you sexists. Next thing you’ll be telling me I’m too pretty to be a great national daily. I’ve come to do a colour story on the Ugly Spectre of Sexism that lurks at Massey College. Where do your spectres usually lurk? Point the way and then leave me alone, you old sexist.”

  “I resent being called a sexist,” I said, with dignity. “But you are a guest here, and I shall treat you with courtesy regardless of your rudeness to me. We have no spectres but I shall gladly offer you some spirits. I could do with a double Scotch, myself.”

  “That’ll be fine,” said the strange visitor, in a somewhat mollified tone. I was about to go to the bar for drinks, but something happened that made it clear that however ragged and rubbishy its appearance, I was in the presence of a supernatural being, and that the atmosphere was strangely fraught. Suddenly, from nowhere, two double Scotches were hovering in the air before us, and I gestured to my companion to accept one. She immediately proved that, ghost or not, she belonged to the newspaper world by taking that which my practised eye told me was slightly the bigger. After a hearty swig had disappeared into the folds of newspaper my strange companion spoke again, in a tone that betrayed a little self-doubt.

  “This is Massey College?” it squeaked.

  “You mean you’re not sure?” said I.

  “The editor wouldn’t give me money for a taxi,” it said, “so I came on the wind and I’ve had a rough journey. That’s why I’m late.”

  “Late for what?” I said.

  “For striking terror and dismay into your black heart,” said the creature. “Because you discriminate against women. Because you are a barnacle on the Ship of Progress. Because you are a miserable Neo-Piscean who is trying to halt the approach of the Age of Aquarius. Because you are a fascist-recidivist-elitist-chauvinist-pig. I am here to expose you. Then your nerve will break and the Junior Fellows will throw open the gates to women and hail a new dawn.”

  “You are even later than you think,” said I. “The new dawn of which you speak was hailed on May 11 of this year when it was decided by our senior fascist-recidivist-elitist-chauvinist-pigs, meeting in solemn council, and with the full concurrence of those of our Founders who are still living, that women should be admitted to this College under the same conditions as men, beginning next September.”

  “Aha! So we drove you to it,” said the figure.

  “Not in the least,” said I. “This college follows a star, but not the Toronto Star. You are too late.”

  The figure seemed to lose height. “You mean there’s no Ugly Spectre of Sexism,” it said, in a wistful, papery voice. I felt sorry for the frail little creature.

  “Why don’t you just take a quick look around, and then go back and say you didn’t find anything and it isn’t worth bothering about?” I said.

  Once again the figure became shrill. “None of your helpful suggestions,” it squeaked; “none of your masculine gallantry toward the defeated female. I’m onto your game; you want to disarm me with kindness, but you won’t do it!”

  “I must say you’re very hard to please,” said I. “And I can’t go on arguing with you unless I can call you something. What’s your name?”

  “You’d better call me Ms.” said the figure.

  “To me Ms. has always meant Manuscript,” I said, “and you’re not Manuscript, or even Typescript. You’re that most dismal form of letterpress, an out-of-date newspaper. I think I’ll call you Scrap, because you’re scrap paper and because you’re so scrappy.”

  To my surprise Scrap giggled. “Now you’re talking like a fellow-creature,” she said.

  “How about another Scotch?”

  Hardly had I formed the thought than two glasses were in the air between us, and again Scrap grAbbed the larger. I thought I saw a rude twinkle where her eye should have been. “Here’s my hand up your gown, Master,” Scrap said.

  I am not to be outdone in colloquialism. “Here’s thumbing through your Index,” said I. We drank. It was very good whisky, which is not perhaps surprising, as it obviously came from the spirit world. After her second drink Scrap was quite friendly.

  “I think I’ll take you up on that offer of a look around,” said she. I shall refer to her henceforward as ‘she’ because the more Scrap drank the more feminine she became. “Want to come?”

  I nodded. But I was concerned. Where was our Bull?

  “Mind you, it has to be understood that you’re following,” said Scrap. “There’s to be none of this chauvinist-pig nonsense of showing the little lady over the place. I don’t need a guide.”


  So off we went. We started with the carrel area, and Scrap was in a perfect ecstasy, dodging in and out among the partitions, disguising herself as the contents of a waste-paper basket, and popping out at me from what she hoped were unexpected places, with cheerful squeaks of “Boo!” It was rather like going for a walk with a mischievous dog. But as she dashed ahead of me I noticed that for all her Women’s Lib principles she was uncommonly feminine, and now and then, when she was out of sight, I heard that sound which had such a stimulating effect on our Victorian forefathers—the delicate rustle of skirts. It was clear that Scrap was not wanting in feminine arts, and if I had been younger, and not a philosopher, I suppose I would have ended up chasing her.

  She was delighted with the Chapel, and twitched aside the curtains behind the altar, as a likely place for the Ugly Spectre of Sexism to be lurking. She took a long look at our altar-piece, and said: “Who’s this woman, painted inside a star?”

  “That is a depiction of Divine Wisdom, always represented as a woman,” said I.

  “Right on!” said Scrap, approvingly.

  Then we climbed the stairs, and came to the door of the Round Room. This will stop her, I thought; a spectre might lurk in a place that is full of corners, but to lurk within a circle is an impossibility. And that shows how much I knew about it. Pride came before my fall.

  As we entered the Round Room the sense of being haunted descended upon me like a mist. The room was lit by an eerie, flickering blue light, which moved and stirred so restlessly that for a few seconds I could see nothing clearly. Therefore I was startled when a deep, authoritative voice, which was certainly not that of Scrap, said: “You’re late. Just like a woman. I’ve been expecting you. Sit down.”

  The speaker was a figure so astonishing and alarming that for a moment I thought that I might swoon. He—certainly it was a he—was tall of figure, huge of chest, slim of flank, and wore elegant evening dress. Not a dinner jacket, which is often seen here; a white tie, and a tail coat of the most distinguished tailoring. But it was his head that struck awe and terror into my heart. It was huge, and it was the head of a bull. And no common bull either, but the Bull from over our gate, and from its left ear hung a massive ornament of jet, within which a fleur-de-lis was outlined in diamonds.

  “The Massey Bull,” I shrieked.

  “Obviously,” said the creature.

  Scrap was dancing so wildly that she seemed to blow about the room on a breeze. “You said I wouldn’t find him, and I have! It’s the Ugly Spectre of Sexism that lurks at Massey College!”

  An expression passed over the face of the creature which I shall not attempt to describe, but it was enough to cause Scrap to crumple away in alarm. “I am the heraldic bull of Massey College,” it said, with great dignity. “I am, in a special and exalted sense, the totem-animal of this academic, all-male community. I stand, very properly, at the top of its coat-of-arms, and over its entrance. I am, as you may see, unmistakably masculine. I scorn to lurk. I pervade. And I demand to know what you, Master, and presumably this bundle of waste-paper here, mean by proposing to admit women under what I regard, with unchallenged right, as my roof?”

  What was I to say? Fortunately I didn’t have to say anything, because Scrap began to whirl in the air around the creature, squeaking: “Admit women, did you say? Just you try to keep them out! You’ll have me to reckon with. I’m Ms. let me tell you, and here I stay till this place is full of women. I’m going to make you all miserable till you acknowledge that the day of masculine supremacy is over, and you’d better get that through your big hairy head. Masculine indeed! You earring-wearer! The day of barnyard rule and barnyard ethics is done, and the glorious pennon of Unisex is being unfurled over every bastion of masculine privilege in the civilized world!”

  The bull lowered his great head and fixed Ms. with red eyes. He blew a snorting breath from his nostrils that could only mean trouble. I felt that I should say something, and as I didn’t know what to say of course I said something foolish.

  “Surely you young people can find some grounds of compromise,” said I. They both turned on me with such anger that I feared they would attack me. To be manhandled is unpleasant, but it is a far more dreadful thing to be ghost-handled; one’s metabolism is never the same afterward.

  “You sit down,” said the Bull; “we are going to debate this matter, Ms. and I, of the admission of women to Massey College. You shall be referee,” he said, and with a sharp side-wise hook of his dexter horn he tossed me into the red chair in which it is humorously supposed I preside in that room. There was nothing for it but to obey.

  “Ladies first,” said I, nodding toward Scrap.

  She was furious. “There you go,” she squeaked, “hoping to disarm me with old-world courtesy. I won’t go first. You won’t get a word out of me.” But then she rushed onward with an extraordinary torrent of speech in which I could only catch a few phrases like “minority group antagonism,” “insensitive to cultural mood,” “oppression as an institutionalized social function,” “dynamics of victimization,” and the like. Coming from one who was supposed not to be speaking at all it took rather a long time, and the Bull grew impatient, pawed the ground and tossed his great head. At last he was so angry that flame—yes, flame—burst from his nostrils. Scrap, so highly inflammable, was in serious danger.

  Seemingly, she knew no fear. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed what happened next. Scrap, with a furious gesture, tore from the area of her bosom a strip of newsprint, and held it in the flame, in which it was immediately consumed. But not before I saw what was printed on it. It was a lingerie advertisement, and it bore a nicely drawn depiction of a brassiere.

  “Defiance!” she shrieked. “That is the ultimate act of feminine defiance! Match it, if you can!”

  The Bull laughed a deep taurine laugh. “Typical feminine argument,” said he; “you refuse to be considered as a sexual object, and yet you underline your refusal with a flagrantly sexual gesture. Is that your muddle-headed way of saying that you place no value on your sex?”

  “I’ll tell you what the value of my sex is,” snarled Scrap. “Its value has been established by Xaviera Hollander, the Happy Hooker herself, and it’s five hundred dollars a shot.”

  I was dismayed by this indelicacy, and the ease with which she had fallen into the trap. The Bull sneered. He drew a paper from his breast pocket and laid it on the desk in front of me. “I offer this as evidence in contradiction,” said he; “this is the present male rate.” I looked at the card and blenched. It contained some intimate information about the erotic tariff of the celebrated racehorse Secretariat. I must say it made Xaviera Hollander look like cheap goods. But my sense of propriety was outraged.

  “I refuse to listen to argument on this coarse level,” said I. “Whatever arrangements you two wish to make in privacy, as Consenting Spectres, is nobody’s business but your own, but I will have no part in it. This argument must continue, if at all, on a level of decency.”

  “Very well,” said the Bull. “Allow me to remind everyone present that only a month ago a Princess of the Realm, surely an example to all young women, took a public vow to OBEY the man who became her husband. And several young men in this College got up at five o’clock in the morning to hear her do it.”

  This time it was Scrap who laughed, and it was immediately clear that laughter was something the Bull had not expected. He glared angrily, but he was confused, and Scrap took shrewd advantage of his confusion.

  “Are you so besotted with male vanity you don’t know what the Princess had in mind?” said she. “Must I show you what feminine obedience means?”

  From the mass of paper of which she was composed, Scrap produced a sheet printed entirely in red, and she began to trail it, slowly and provocatively in front of the Bull. I could hardly believe what followed. As if hypnotised, its great head began to roll to left and right, as it followed this transfixing red cloak, which gave out the characteristic feminin
e rustle that I had noticed before.

  “Let’s see who does the obeying now,” whispered Scrap.

  O for the pen of an Ernest Hemingway, that I might adequately describe for you the spectacle of art and brutality that followed! Scrap was all femininity as she glided, not rapidly but with splendid grace, around the ring of our Round Room. As she moved she murmured in a low, compelling, unbearably taunting voice, “Ah, toro, toro! Here—here to me, toro! Aha! Toro! Toro!” And the Bull, unable to help himself, responded to every word and gesture.

  Do you know our Round Room? There are twenty-two tall black chairs in it, and on the back of every chair is stamped, in gold, the head of a bull. As Scrap led her victim in his fated dance, I saw that the forty-four eyes of those bulls followed every move: their forty-four nostrils stirred with growing apprehension, and I thought I saw the frothy spittle of fear dripping from their twenty-two tongues.

  What was I to do? Where did my sympathies lie? I was, if you will pardon the bluntness of my speech, a quivering ganglion of irreconcilable emotions. I ought to stop the fight. I ought to help the Bull, who was as surely doomed as any bull I have ever seen in a ring. But the skill shown by Scrap thrilled me. Without knowing how it happened, I found myself standing on my desk cheering. I even snatched the rose from my buttonhole and threw it into the ring.

  The fight did not last long, but it was splendid while it lasted. More and more furiously the Bull responded to the taunts of Scrap, whose elegance as a matador was beautiful to behold. Her veronicas, her amontillados, her tournedos bonne femme were as fine as anything I have ever seen, in the great corridas of Madrid. But all the time I wondered: How is she going to finish him off? She has no weapon, except that which she had pretended to hold in contempt—her feminine fascination, her charm.

  As I have said, the light was ghost-light, and I have but mortal eyes. Suddenly there was a crash and the Bull was down; he had stepped on the rose I had thrown, slipped, and cracked his great head on the corner of one of our curved tables. I was cheering wildly.