A Mixture of Frailties tst-3

by Robertson Davies

  “Well, Rossini used to knock one off in three weeks, when he was in form. It can also take any number of years. The one sure thing is that you have to live and eat while you’re doing it. If I’m to do this, I must give up all teaching—not that it brings in much—I’d have to give up everything else—bits of film work, editing, the lot. I’m a fairly rapid worker, but an opera is a back-breaker—worse than a symphony in lots of ways. And the costs can be staggering; copying the parts can eat up a packet. The Association is long on prestige, short on cash. I can’t expect help from them.”

  “Would your mother help?”

  “I’ve asked her, and she has sent me fifty pounds and a lecture, saying that there will be no more, and couldn’t I find a professorship in a conservatoire, or something. The worst of it is, Raikes are getting rough about the Lantern bill and I had to give them the fifty to keep them quiet.”

  “Giles, with this on hand, you’ll have to give up Lantern.”

  “That is what I positively refuse to do. Nothing would please Aspinwall better. He wants to kill Lantern, and I am not going to oblige him.”

  “Giles, listen to me. Do you really think Lantern is so good? Why must you sacrifice to it? Because it is a sacrifice. People I know say it’s—only one of a lot of small magazines, and not the best, except for your things; everyone agrees they’re wonderful. Why can’t you give it up?”

  “Because it is a personal mouthpiece which I value. I know that a lot of the stuff in it is tripe; do you suppose I really thrill to the off-key twanglings of Bridget Tooley’s lyre? Or even to Tuke’s tosh? You can’t tell me anything about Lantern that I don’t know. But I have said my say in it for four long years and I want to go on. I might have dropped it if Aspinwall had not so clearly revealed that he wants me to do so, but I shall keep it on to spite him, even if the opera goes up the flue in the process. No, if I write The Golden Asse, it must be done with Lantern still in existence.”

  “The Golden Asse? Is that what it’s called? You have a story?”

  “I have one of the oldest and best stories in the world; it is The Golden Asse, by Lucius Apuleius. I have been haunted by it since boyhood, and any operatic jottings I have done, have been done with it in mind.”

  They talked long and eagerly, for Giles was off his guard as Monica had never known him to be. He was enthusiastic; he forgot to play the genius; he was—she was ashamed of herself for admitting the phrase, even mentally—almost human. But talk as they might, the ground never changed. He wanted to write his opera: he must somehow get money to live while doing so, and to pay the heavy costs involved: he would not give up Lantern because he was convinced that somewhere in London a malignant demon named Stanhope Aspinwall was consumed with the desire that he should do so.

  “But it’s lunatic,” cried Monica, in exasperation; “I don’t suppose Aspinwall really gives a damn.”

  “I know what I’m talking about,” said Revelstoke, and as he seemed about to close himself up in his unapproachable character again, she let that matter drop.

  Of course this conversation led at last to the pokey bedroom, where Monica, for the first time in her life, really enjoyed what passed—enjoyed it not because it gave pleasure to Giles, or because it was a sign that she held some place in his life, or because it was a proof of her freedom, but because it gave pleasure to herself, and because it was herself, and not Persis, to whom he had confided his great news. It was plain enough that Giles needed her.

  He should need her more. Monica conceived a great plan. She would find the money which should make possible the writing of The Golden Asse.

  9

  Her first proposal was that she should go to Sir Benedict, and ask him to lend Giles enough money to keep him going for a year. Giles vetoed this plan at once; his attitude toward Domdaniel was an unpredictable mingling of admiration for his great gifts as a conductor, and contempt for his success. “I’m not going to give it to him to say that he made it possible for me to write anything,” said he; “if I’m to have a patron it won’t be Brummagem Benny.” And from this position he would not budge. It was pride, and Monica admired him for it, though she could not have analysed it.

  Nevertheless, if she could not go to Domdaniel, Monica’s list of possible patrons was at an end. She knew no moneyed people. She confided her trouble to Bun Eccles, as they sat in The Willing Horse.

  “Why don’t you finance it yourself?” he asked.

  “Me?” said Monica, incredulous.

  “Well, Monny, you know your own affairs best, but you look to me like a pretty flush type.”

  “Oh, Bun, I’m a church mouse. I’ve always been poor. I mean, Dad had to leave school at sixteen, and we’ve always just managed, you know. All I’ve got now is this scholarship thing.”

  “It seems to amount to a good deal. You’ve got some pretty expensive clothes, Monny, and all kinds of costly junk in that flat at Ma Merry’s. Are you sure you’re really poor, or are you just one of those people who assume that they’re poor? Have you ever gone without a meal? Ever had less than two pair of shoes? I have, often, but I don’t consider myself poor. I mean, I’m not telling you what you should do. I’m just asking. But the menagerie thinks you’re rolling.”

  It took Monica a full two days to comprehend this, but in the end she was forced to admit to herself that she was not really poor—was, indeed, very well situated. She had all her bills paid; she could buy things on tick; she got five hundred a year, now, as pin-money. The idea was breath-taking; she did not want to be well-off—that was something one said of people against whom one felt an honest working man’s grudge. People who had more than enough money (with a few splendid exceptions like Domdaniel) were for that very reason morally suspect. But at last she accepted the reality of her situation.

  Once again she sought Eccles’ advice, and then began such a complication of chicanery as Monica had never dreamed possible. Eccles had a genius for the finance of desperation, and assuming that she wanted as much money as possible, he gave himself a free hand. Within a week he had sold her expensive radiogramophone and her collection of records. (“They are going to Mr Revelstoke’s for a time,” she explained to Mrs Merry, and the landlady was impressed.) He sold some of her personal luggage, including the fitted case which she had been given by the Thirteeners; it was gone before she realized what was happening. He persuaded her to dispose of quite a large part of her wardrobe. He even got ninepence for War and Peace, which had been unopened for fifteen months. All this was done in an ecstasy of haggling and what he called “flogging”.

  “This clothes caper is absolutely endless, Monny,” he explained. “We can go on and on. You buy a few smart things every month, charge ‘em, wear ‘em once and turn ‘em over to me. I flog ‘em. Good for eight or ten quid. These lawyers aren’t going to snoop through your cupboard. Go right ahead till they squawk.”

  Well, thought Monica, Sir Benedict said they wanted me to spend more money.

  She had a few pounds in hand, left from the money she had received for her visit to Paris. Eccles pounced on it.

  “You can save a lot on food,” said he, “and you’d better let me have a look at your gas-meter. Those things eat shillings. There’s a little jigger inside that controls how much you get for a bob; I’ll just bring over a tool I have, and put yours right. I don’t doubt Ma Merry’s been swindling you; the only fair thing is to make an adjustment right now. Pity you don’t have your own electric light meter; I’ve a sweet little trick with a magnet that does wonders with one of those. Still, can’t be helped. Oh, you’d be amazed what money you can raise when you know how!”

  Monica was indeed amazed, and the uneasiness she felt was shouted down by her pleasure in being able to put a substantial sum of money—nearly two hundred pounds—in Giles Revelstoke’s hand. He was delighted.

  “You’re keeping me!” he shouted.

  “No, no; it’s a loan, or an investment, or something like that. You mustn’t mind.”

 
; “But I don’t mind. I love it. I’ve never been kept by a woman before.”

  The situation seemed to gratify something perverse to him. He knew how Monica came by the money, and he delighted in calling it “her immoral earnings”. But she very soon discovered that it had been a mistake to give him the money, for he had no idea of how to keep it, or use it sparingly. He did not want things for himself, particularly, but he gave Raikes Bros, another fifty pounds on the Lantern account, and he gave a party for the menagerie, to whom he confided, as the best joke in the world, that he was now Monica’s kept man. Monica was so torn between shame and exultation that, for the first time in her life, her digestion troubled her. All the better, said Bun Eccles; she’d want less to eat.

  The menagerie thought it all wonderful, and Tuke and Tooley courted Monica embarrassingly, seeing in her the saviour of Lantern. It was true that Miss Tooley, who kept Tuke (but in a sublimated, disciple-like way), made a few veiled references to the iniquity of diverting trust funds: and it was also true that Tuke, who was deeply hurt because he was not to make the libretto of The Golden Asse (which Giles was adapting himself) was a little bitter about artists who sold themselves for money. Persis was jealous, because she could not afford to keep Giles; it would have been such a sell for her straight-laced parents if they had discovered that she kept a man. But she shut up when Eccles suggested to her that she might try her luck on Piccadilly, and put her earnings into the general fund. Though there were under-currents, it was accepted among them that Monica was a heroine.

  Eccles had no money, but he gave his talent to the acquirement and husbanding of anything that Monica could lay her hands on. There was only one source of income which he ruled out.

  Odingsels approached Monica one evening, and sitting beside her, so that his unpleasant head was very close to hers, said: “If you really want money, I can always pay you for work—though I can’t afford to contribute anything for nothing. But I do figure studies—the nude, you know—oh, nothing unpleasant and very well thought of by judges; the right models are always a problem, and it so happens that you have an excellent figure, of just the sort I require. You know me, Monica, and I am sure you have no silly ideas about such things. I could run to ten guineas a sitting, and I could make use of you quite often.”

  Monica was willing; after all, if Persis could take off her clothes for Odingsels, so could she. But Eccles was firm.

  “No you don’t,” said he.

  “But he says it’s not dirty pictures. And it’s ten guineas a time. I don’t mind. Why, Bun, you know you employ models yourself. What’s the fuss?”

  “Monny, some day that fellow is going to be in very bad trouble. And when he is, you don’t even want to know about him, see? Now don’t argue. You’re not going to do it.”

  And although Monica was rebellious, she obeyed.

  The fact was that the small engagements and sources of income which Giles gave up to work on his opera—some examination of manuscripts for a music publisher, some arranging of music for the BBC, scores for documentary films, and some occasional critical writing outside Lantern—might have brought him twenty pounds or so a month. Monica was providing him with about twice that sum, but it all vanished without anybody seeming to be better off. The same hand-to-mouth methods of finance continued; for Monica, who understood the management of money best, was not asked to take charge of it. Nor did it ever seriously occur to her that it should be so.

  Monica never thought of herself as keeping Giles; she thought of it as financing the creation of The Golden Asse, which went swimmingly. Giles worked very hard, and during the time when he should have been teaching her (and he was still sending his bills to Domdaniel for her lessons) she kept up her work for Lantern, and provided him with food, comfort and companionship in bed. But other people thought of the situation quite differently, as she discovered within a few weeks.

  Ripon had written to her soon after their meeting in Oxford, to ask her to go with him to the Vic-Wells Ball; he had been asked to go with a party, and wanted a partner. She grudged the money for the costume-hire, but when Ripon called for her, not very happily disguised as a toreador, she was ready in an outfit which included a large panniered skirt and a tricorne hat, which the costumier called a Venetian Domino.

  The ball was held in the Albert Hall, not very far from Courtfield Gardens, and when they arrived the floor was well filled with those characters inseparable from such occasions. There were soldiers and sailors of all sorts, whole tribes of gypsies, Harlequins and Columbines in all shades, and platoons of Pierrots; there were fifteen or twenty head of Mephistopheleses, and quite as many Gretchens; Cavaliers and Roundheads abounded. These were the staples, the bread-and-butter, of disguise. In addition there were the lazy people who had come as monks, or simply as robed figures, and the over-zealous people who had come in costumes so ingenious and original that they could neither sit down nor dance, but wandered the floor smirking self-consciously, and hoping to be admired. The saddest of these was a gentleman whose costume consisted of a clever arrangement of Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells programmes; people kept stopping him to read the fine print, and to debate about what it said, quite as if he were not inside it. There were homosexuals in pairs and singly, their eyes—they hoped—speaking volumes to understanding hearts. A few Lesbians swaggered menacingly in very masculine costumes, smacking their riding-boots with whips. A pitiful little man, dressed with loving care to resemble Nijinsky in L’Après Midi d’un Faune, crept about in a contorted posture, meant to remind the beholder of the best-known picture of the great dancer in that part; but it was pathetically apparent that he had a crooked spine. Like all costume balls, it was a fascinating study in self-doubt, self-assurance, thwarted ambition, self-misprision, well-meaning ineptitude and, very occasionally, imagination or beauty.

  Monica found it dull. A year ago she would have exulted in such an affair, but tonight she thought it rather silly, and was annoyed that Ripon had to wear his spectacles with his costume if he were not to trip over things and tumble on the stairs.

  When he had gone to fetch drinks, she stood in one of the upper corridors, wondering how soon it would be before she could decently ask to be taken home. She was conscious that the door of a box near her had been opening and shutting indecisively, but she was taken unawares when a stumpy Mephistopheles burst from it, seized her arm, and dragged her inside. They were at the back of the box, which was otherwise unoccupied, and at a little distance, over the railing, the full rampaging splendour of The Veleta was to be seen. The Mephistopheles snorted within his mask for a moment, then seized Monica and kissed her.

  She was too surprised to resist, conscious chiefly of the hot-buckram-and-glue smell of the mask, and when the Mephistopheles clutched at her again, she stumbled backward into a chair, bearing him down with her.

  “It’s about time,” snorted the figure, in a Cork accent which could only belong to one person known to Monica.

  “Mr Molloy!” she cried.

  “You’d better call me Murtagh,” said the Mephistopheles, tearing off his mask, and showing a very red face. “We’ve some business together, my girl, that’s waited long enough.” He made another dart forward and thrust his hand deep into the bosom of the Venetian Domino. It was an inexpert move, too vigorous; the hooks on the back of her gown burst, and his hand stopped not far from Monica’s stomach. She seized his arm and removed it.

  “Whatever is wrong,” said she. “Are you ill?”

  “B’God I’m not ill, but I’m fed up,” said Molloy. “Seein’ you day after day, growin’ lovelier and lovelier and—oh hell! Monica, you’ve got to be good to me; that fella’ll ruin you, and never think the toss of a button about it. I could love you—I could teach you—God, there’s nothing I’d not do for you! You’ll say I’m old, but it’s not the truth. I could be young for you, my darlin’, I could! Be kind to me; I’m begging you!”

  He looked almost ill, as he squirmed on his knees on the floor in front o
f her, and he seemed to be in a torment of passion that was partly physical desire, for at one point he seized Monica’s right leg beneath her skirt and kneaded it painfully. He smelled of drink, but it was not drink that ailed him.

  “Mr Molloy, what can I do for you? You mustn’t go on like that. Tell me what’s the matter. No! Stop that, or I’ll have to go away.”

  He raised a terrible, tear-swollen face to her, and groaned. “I want you,” he said. “I love you.”

  “But—you mustn’t; it won’t do.”

  “Oh, it won’t do, won’t it? Well, if you don’t want to be decent, b’God we’ll be indecent! And no surprise to you, either. It won’t be the first time for you, nor the tenth, nor the hundredth, so shut up and keep still!”

  So this is rape, thought Monica, strangely cool, as she was dragged down upon the fusty carpet of the box. The Venetian Domino outfit included a large lace fan, mounted on heavy sticks, a formidable bludgeon; she cracked Molloy smartly over the skull with it, as he snuffled and puffed above her. His face grew small with pain; all its features seemed to draw together; she gave him a shove and he rolled over on the floor, still too hurt to utter.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” said Monica, in what she felt to be a schoolmistressy way. But what was there to say? “What ever made you do such a beastly thing?”

  But Molloy could not answer. She wriggled over the floor, impeded by her large panniered skirt, to a point where she could hold his head in her lap and nurse it. After a time he was able to open his eyes. And again she asked him: “What made you do such a thing?”

  “I love you,” he sobbed, with tears of pain and despair running down his cheeks. “Oh.God, you can’t know what I’ve been through, with the thought of you and that fella.—And now they say you’re keepin’ him; your fancy-man.—Shouldn’t I have known what was goin’ on, the way your lower octave kept gettin’ stronger and richer?—If you’re meat for him, why the hell aren’t you meat for me? I could do miracles for you. I could make you famous. I wouldn’t drag you down and ruin you.—But I’m just an old fella to you—an old fool. Aw God, that’s the hell of it.”