A Mixture of Frailties
( The Salterton Trilogy - 3 )
Robertson Davies
People who do not know Salterton call it dreamy and old-world. They say it is the place where Anglican clergymen go when they die. The real Saltertons, however, know that there is nothing quaint about the place at all. With its two cathedrals, its one university, and its native sons and daughters busily scheming for their dreams, Salterton is very much in the real world.
Robertson Davies
A Mixture of Frailties
All characters in this story are imaginary, and no reference is intended to any living person. Readers who think that they can identify the creations of the author’s fancy among their own acquaintance are paying the author an extravagant compliment, which he acknowledges with gratitude.
Nothing softeneth the Arrogance of our Nature like a Mixture of some Frailties. It is by them that we are best told, that we must not strike too hard upon others because we ourselves do so often deserve blows. They pull our Rage by the sleeve and whisper Gentleness to us in our censures.
Halifax
One
1
It was appropriate that Mrs Bridgetower’s funeral fell on a Thursday, for that had always been her At Home day. As she had dominated her drawing-room, so she dominated St Nicholas’ Cathedral on this frosty 23rd of December. She had planned her funeral, as she had planned all her social duties and observances, with care.
Of course the Prayer Book sets the form of an Anglican funeral, and Mrs Bridgetower had no quarrel with that. Every social occasion has its framework; it is in enriching that framework with detail that the exceptional hostess rises above the mediocrity. Not two hours after her physician had pronounced her dead, her lawyer, Mr Matthew Snelgrove, had put a fat letter in the hands of her son Solomon, on the envelope of which was written in her firm, large hand, Directions for My Funeral.
Poor Solly, thought her daughter-in-law Veronica, what a time he has had! The most difficult job of all had been getting, at short notice, a coffin which was as nearly as possible a mate to that in which the late Professor Bridgetower had been buried sixteen years before. Mrs Bridgetower had supplied the number and specifications of that model, but styles in coffins change, so it was only by great exertions that a similar one had been found in time. And as Mrs Bridgetower had said that she did not wish to lie in a vault, and as the frost was already in the ground, arrangements had to be made to dig her grave with the aid of blow-torches and pneumatic drills. There had been no difficulty in persuading her oldest friend, Miss Laura Pottinger, to arrange the flowers in the church—”dear Puss has always had unexceptionable taste in such matters”—but Miss Pottinger had been so swollen with grief and self-importance that she had quarrelled with everyone and struck at an undertaker’s assistant with her walking-stick. Luckily Veronica had been able to spare Solly most of the dealings with Miss Puss. And Veronica had addressed the two hundred cards of invitation herself, for Mrs Bridgetower, while insisting on a private funeral, had left a long list of those whom she wished to be present at it. She had also specified the gown in which she was to be buried, and as it would no longer go over her great bulk at the time of her death, Veronica had personally altered it and put it on the corpse—a task which she had not relished. Veronica also had dressed Mrs Bridgetower’s hair and delicately painted her face, for the Directions had said that this should be done, but were firm that no male undertaker should do it; Miss Puss had stood at her elbow during that macabre hour, offering advice and fretful comment. Veronica had done everything possible to spare her husband, who now sat beside her, pale and worried, not with grief but with fear that something might yet go wrong.
It was not the service which was troubling him. That was under way and out of his hands. It was the funeral tea which was to follow the return from the graveyard which was on his mind. That was certain to be an ordeal, for all the funeral guests were bidden, and most of them were certain to come. He had attempted, that morning, to remove his mother’s accustomed chair from the drawing-room, fearing that the sight of it might distress some of her old friends. But the oldest of these, Miss Puss Pottinger, had caught him in the act, and berated him for heartlessness. Louisa’s chair, she said through angry tears, must stay where it had always been; she, Miss Puss, would not permit this relic of a great and fragrant spirit to be banished to an upstairs room on the very day of the funeral. And to make sure that no one committed unwitting sacrilege by sitting in it, she would herself lay one of the funeral wreaths—the cushion of white roses from the Imperial Order, Daughters of the Empire—on the seat. So the chair remained, a shrine and, for Solly, a portent of the ordeal which was yet to come.
The service was running according to schedule. A full choir had been specified in the Directions, and as full a choir as could be mustered on a weekday was present. Because the schools had closed for the Christmas holidays, eighteen of the Cathedral’s twenty boys had been secured; eight of the singing-men had been able to come. Forty dollars for the men and thirty-six for the boys; well, Mother had wanted it. They had sung Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s Man That Is Born and had followed it with Purcell’s Thou Knowest, Lord. Luckily in these two selections Mother’s taste had agreed with that of the Cathedral organist, Humphrey Cobbler. The hazard was yet to come.
This hazard was Mrs Bridgetower’s personal contribution to the funeral service. She had attended many funerals in her time, and had been unfavourably impressed by the fact that what the Prayer Book had to say about death seemed to apply chiefly to men. A feminist of a dignified sort all her life, she felt that the funeral service lacked the feminine touch, and she had arranged for this to be supplied at her own burial. She had specified that a certain piece of music be sung, and that it be sung by a female voice. She admired, she said in her last letter to her son, the fine choir of men and boys which Mr Cobbler had made so great an adornment of St Nicholas’, but at her funeral she wanted a woman to sing My Task, E. L. Ashford’s lovely setting of Maude Louise Ray’s dear and inspiring poem.
The Dean had not liked the idea, but he did not go so far as to forbid it. He knew that he would have to brave Miss Puss if he did so. But Humphrey Cobbler had hooted. Cobbler was a personal friend of Solly’s and he had spoken with great freedom. “Music is like wine, Bridgetower,” he had said; “the less people know about it, the sweeter they like it. You can’t have that sickening musical bonbon at your Mum’s funeral. It’ll disgrace us all.” But after prolonged argument he had succumbed. He had even undertaken to find a woman to sing.
She was about to sing now. The Dean, rather sneakily in Solly’s opinion, was uttering a disclaimer.
“At this point,” he said, “there will be sung some verses which were dear to our deceased sister, and which she specifically requested should be given utterance at this service.” Then he seated himself in his stall, looking as much as possible as if he were someone else, somewhere else, and deaf.
It’s not really the poem that’s biting him, thought Solly, angrily. It’s the idea of the poem applied to Mother. Well, she wanted it, and here it is. To hell with them all.
The singer was by the organ console, with Cobbler, and thus could not be seen by the mourners in the nave. Pure, sweet and clear, her voice made itself heard.
To love someone more dearly ev’ry day;
To help a wand’ring child to find his way;
To ponder o’er a noble thought, and pray;
And smile when ev’ning falls—
This is my task.
That was how she thought of herself, mused Veronica. Probably it didn’t seem as sticky to her as it does to us. And Oh, that last six months! Was that what she called sm
iling when evening falls? But I tried; I really did try. I slaved for her as I never slaved for my own mother. I did all I could to make her feel our marriage was a good thing for Solly. Did I ever pierce through to her heart? I hope so. I pray so. I want to think kindly of her.
A very little wintry sun struck through one of the Cathedral windows. The calm, silvery voice, somewhat hollow and echoing under the dome, continued.
To follow truth as blind men long for light—
Veronica cast a sidelong glance at her husband. Silently, he was weeping. He truly loved his mother, in spite of everything, she thought. How I wish I thought that his mother had loved him.
2
The funeral tea was even more of an ordeal than Solly had foreseen. Such a function is not easily managed, and his mother’s two old servants had been quick to declare that they were unable to attempt it. They were too broken up, they said. They were not so broken up, however, that they were incapable of giving a lot of trouble to the caterer who had been engaged for the work. They thought poorly of his suggestion that three kinds of sandwiches and three kinds of little cakes, supplemented by fruitcake, would be enough. The relatives from Montreal, the Hansens, would expect cold meat, they said; and as it was so near Christmas ordinary fruitcake would not suffice; Christmas cake would be looked for. Madam had never been one to skimp. When old Ethel, the cook, remembered that Thursday had always been Madam’s At Home day, she had a fresh bout of grief, and declared that she would, after all, prepare the funeral tea herself, if it killed her. Solly had been unable to meet this situation and it was Veronica who, at last, made an uneasy peace between Ethel the cook, Doris the housemaid, and the caterer.
The caterer had his own, highly professional attitude toward funeral teas. What about drinks? he said. Sherry would be wanted for the women who never drank anything except at funerals, and there were always a few Old Country people who expected port—especially if there was cold meat. But most of the mourners would want hard liquor, and they would want it as soon as they got into the house.
These winter funerals were murder; everybody was half perished by the time they got back from the graveyard. Solly would have to get the liquor himself; the caterer’s banquet licence did not cover funerals. He would, of course, supply all the glasses and mixings. He advised Solly to get a good friend to act as barman; it wouldn’t do to have a professional barman at such an affair. Looked too calculated. Similarly, the icing which said Merry Christmas would have to be removed from the tops of the fruitcakes. Looked too cheerful.
Obediently, Solly procured and hauled a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of assorted liquors from the Government purveyor on the day before the funeral. But his acquaintance among skilled mixers of drinks was small, and in the end he had to ask the Cathedral organist, Humphrey Cobbler, to help him.
Was Solly grieving for his mother, when he wept during the singing of My Task? Yes, he was. But he was also grieving because Veronica had had such a rotten time of it during the past three days. He was worrying that there would not be enough to eat at the funeral tea. He was worrying for fear there would be too much to eat, and that the funeral baked-meats would coldly furnish forth his own table for days to come. He was worrying that Cobbler, triumphant behind the drinks-table, would fail to behave himself. He was worrying for fear the Hansen relatives would hang around all evening, discussing family affairs, as is the custom of families at funerals, instead of decently taking the seven o’clock train back to Montreal. He was hoping that he could live through the next few hours, get one decent drink for himself, and go to bed.
3
Solly and Veronica rode to the graveyard in an undertaker’s limousine with Uncle George Hansen, Mrs Bridgetower’s brother, and Uncle George’s American wife. But as soon as the burial was over they hurried to where Solly had left their small car earlier in the day, and rushed with irreverent haste back to the house, to be on hand to greet the mourners when they came ravening for liquor, food and warm fires.
“Do you think they’ll all come?” said Veronica, as they rounded the graveyard gate.
“Very likely. Did you ever see such a mob? I didn’t think more than a hundred would go to the cemetery, but it looks as if they all went. Have we got enough stuff, do you suppose?”
“I can’t tell. I’ve never had anything to do with one of these things before.”
“Nor have I. Ronny, in case I go out of my head before this tea thing is over, I want to tell you now that you’ve been wonderful about it all. In a week or so we’ll go for a holiday, and forget about it.”
4
When they entered the house it looked cheerful, even festive. Fires burned in the drawing-room, dining-room and in the library, where Cobbler stood ready behind an improvised bar. There was some giggling and scurrying as Solly and his wife came in, and Ethel and Doris were seen making for the kitchen.
“Just been putting the girls right with a strong sherry-and-gin,” said Cobbler. “They’re badly shaken up. Needed bracing. Now, what can I give you?”
“Small ryes,” said Solly. “And for heaven’s sake use discretion, Humphrey.”
“You know me,” said Cobbler, slopping out the rye with a generous hand.
“I do,” said Solly. “That’s why I’m worried. Don’t play the fool for the next couple of hours. That’s all I ask.”
“You wound me,” said the organist, and made an attempt to look dignified. But his blue suit was too small, his collar was frayed, and his tie was working toward his left ear. His curly black hair stood out from his head in a mop, and his black eyes gleamed unnervingly. “You suggest that I lack a sense of propriety. I make no protest; I desire only to be left to My Task.” He winked raffishly at Veronica.
He’s our oldest friend as a married couple, thought she, and a heart of gold. If only he were not so utterly impossible! She smiled at him. “Please, Humphrey,” said she.
He winked again, tossed a lump of sugar in the air and caught it in his mouth.”Trust me,” he said.
What else can we do? thought Veronica.
The mourners had begun to arrive, and Solly went to greet them. There was congestion at the door, for most of the guests paused to take off their overshoes and rubbers, and those who had none were scraping the graveyard clay from their feet. It was half an hour before the last had climbed the stairs, left wraps, taken a turn at the water-closet, descended the stairs and received a drink from Cobbler. They had the air, festive but subdued, which is common to funeral teas. The grim business at the graveside done, they were prepared to make new, tentative contact with life. They greeted Solly with half-smiles, inviting him to smile in return. Beyond his orbit conversation buzzed, and there was a little subdued laughter. They had all, in some measure, admired or even liked his mother, but her death at seventy-one had surprised nobody, and such grief as they felt for her had already been satisfied at the funeral. Dean Jevon Knapp, of St Nicholas’, bustled up to Solly; he had left his cassock and surplice upstairs, and had put on the warm dry shoes which Mrs Knapp always took to funerals for him, in a special bag; he had his gaiters on, and was holding a large Scotch and soda.
“I have always thought this one of the loveliest rooms in Salterton,” said he.
But Solly was not allowed to answer. Miss Puss Pottinger, great friend and unappeased mourner of the deceased, popped up beside him.
“It is as dear Louisa would have wished it to be,” she said, in an aggressive but unsteady voice. “Thursday was always her At Home day, you know, Mr Dean.”
“First Thursdays, I thought,” said the Dean; “this is a third Thursday.”
“Be it what it may,” said Miss Puss, losing control of face and voice, “I shall think of this as dear Louisa’s—last—At Home.”
“I’m very sorry,” said the Dean. “I had not meant to distress you. Will you accept a sip—?” He held out his glass.
Miss Pottinger wrestled with herself, and spoke in a whisper. “No,” said she. “Sherry. I think I co
uld take a little sherry.”
The Dean bore her away, and she was shortly seen sipping a glass of dark brown sherry in which Cobbler, unseen, had put a generous dollop of brandy.
Solly was at once engaged in conversation by his Uncle George Hansen and Uncle George’s wife. This lady was an American, and as she had lived in Canada a mere thirty-five years, still found the local customs curious, and never failed to say so.
“This seems to me more like England than at home,” she said now.
“Mother was very conservative,” said Solly.
“The whole of Salterton is very conservative,” said Uncle George; “I just met old Puss Pottinger mumbling about At Homes; thought she was dead years ago. This must.be one of the last places in the British Empire where anybody has an At Home day.”
“Mother was certainly one of the last in Salterton to have one,” said Solly.
“Aha? Well, this is a nice old house. You and your wife going to keep it up?”
“I haven’t had time to think about that yet.”
“No, I suppose not. But of course you’ll be pretty well fixed, now?”
“I really don’t know, sir.”
“Sure to be. Your mother was a rich woman. You’ll get everything. She certainly won’t leave anything to me; I know that. Ha ha! She was a wonder with money, even as a girl. ‘Louie, you’re tighter than the bark to a tree,’ I used to say to her. Did your father leave much?”
“He died very suddenly, you know, sir. His will was an old one, made before I was born. Everything went to mother, of course.”
“Aha? Well, it all comes to the same thing now, eh?”
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