Leaven of Malice

by Robertson Davies

  “When I was a girl I always hated the kissing games at parties,” said she, “and until tonight I thought that they had gone out of fashion.” Her tone was low, but a surprising number of the guests heard her, and the dissatisfied faction gained heart. So much so, indeed, that Dutchy sensed a change of atmosphere, and decided that she would not continue with her programme as she had planned it. Dutchy was not stupid, but she had not had much previous experience with people whom she could not dominate—who did not, indeed, welcome domination. She passed the purple drink, and became conciliatory. She asked her guests what game they would like to play next.

  It is as dangerous, in its way, to ask a group of people associated with a university to choose their own games as it is to leave the choice in the hands of a trained director of recreation, like Dutchy. The secretary to the registrar immediately set out to explain a kind of charades which she called The Braingame; it was, she declared, a barrel of fun.

  “It’s just like the old kind of charades we played as children,” said she, “except that a letter must be dropped from each syllable as it is guessed, in order to get the right answer, and when the group acts out the full word, it must express both the full word, and the word which is left when the superfluous letters are dropped. Is that clear?”

  It was not clear.

  “Let me give you an example. Suppose, for instance, that your real word—the word the others must guess—is “landscape”. Well, the word which the group acts is “bland-scrape”. They pretend to be eating a pudding, and putting more salt in it; that gives the word, “bland”. Then “scrape” is easy; you simply act somebody in a scrape.”

  “As it were, crawling backward over a complete stranger?” asked a masculine young woman from the Dean’s office, who had had to do this not long before with a young man from the classics department, who had playfully pinched her bottom. The registrar’s secretary laughed lightly, and went on.

  “Now, recall that your word was “landscape”; you must now act the whole word, or rather, both words. So you act “blandscrape”. One of the group is being given a smooth shave, while the others peer admiringly at an imaginary view. You see? Blandscrape and landscape at once. Of course after a round or two we can have some really hard ones.”

  The party seemed depressed by this notion. The masculine young woman seized her chance to make the cunning suggestion that they play a game in which they could all sit down. This was greeted with such eagerness that she launched at once into an explanation.

  “Simple as ABC. Just Twenty Questions, really, but with knobs on. Somebody’s It. They go outside and make up their minds that they are somebody—movie star, games champ, person in history—anybody at all. Then they sit in the middle of the room and we ask them questions to find out who they are. But—this is what makes it fun—if we ask them who they are we do it indirectly or by definition only, and they must show they know what we’re talking about, or they’re out of the game. I mean, I’m It. You question me. You find out I’m a famous literary woman who lived long ago. So you say, ‘Did you live on the Isle of Lesbos?’ And I say, ‘No, I’m not Sappho’—”

  “And we all laugh,” said the registrar’s secretary in a voice which was not quite low enough.

  Dutchy had not met with tensions of quite this kind in her career of recreation planning. But she was learning rapidly the arts of a faculty wife, and she intervened at this juncture in time to prevent a lively exchange between the two ladies, who were enemies of several years’ standing. Such games, she said, would be wonderful for the clever university people, but there were a few dopes like herself and Jimmy present, whose minds did not work that way. Therefore they would play The Game.

  As always, there were a few people present who did not know what The Game was, but they were told that it was a form of accelerated charades, and after sides had been chosen they played it quite peaceably and even with enjoyment.

  Pearl and Solly were on the same side, and although she could act quite well, and make her ideas clear to the others, he was without skill in this direction. He became confused when it was his turn to act; he scowled and beat his brow; he pawed the air meaninglessly with his hands. He could not remember the rule that everything must be done in silence, and made despairing and inarticulate sounds. Pearl watched him with contempt; it was to this idiot that an unknown practical joker had linked her. She understood better what her father meant when he raved about the insult of it.

  If there is anyone who has not played The Game, it may be explained that two teams are chosen, and that each team gets its chance to present the other team with a number of pieces of paper, upon which proverbs, quotations, catch-words and the like are written; each player is given one of these, and his task is to convey its meaning to his team by means of pantomime. If they guess what he is trying to tell them, they score a point. The other team, knowing the secret, watch the struggle with enjoyment.

  In the fifth round of The Game, Solly was handed his paper by Norm, as captain of the opposing team, and when he read it he moaned, and muttered “O God!” and gave every sign of despair. Norm and his team were delighted. Solly turned toward his own team in misery, and stood with his mouth hanging open, sweating visibly.

  “How many words?” asked the Registrar’s secretary, who had a very businesslike approach to The Game.

  With his fingers Solly indicated that there were thirty-five words.

  There was a roar of dismay from his team. Protests were made that this was impossible. Norm’s team merely laughed in mockery.

  “Is it a verse?” demanded the Registrar’s secretary.

  Solly shook his head.

  “A saying?”

  Solly looked confused, nodded, shook his head, and nodded again. Then he contorted himself violently to signify his despair.

  “A quotation?” went on the Registrar’s secretary, who had the phlegm of a Scotland Yard detective.

  Solly nodded violently.

  “Quotation from a writer?”

  Solly thought for a moment, made a few meaningless gestures, then took up a rhetorical stance, and pointed toward the wall. Becoming frantic, he walked toward the Registrar’s secretary and waved his hands before her face; he repeated this manoeuvre with a man, then seemed to lose heart, and stood once more at a loss, shaking his head.

  Pearl’s voice was heard, low and calm: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

  There was an instant of silence, and then a roar from the opposing team. Solly gaped, and, forgetting that he was now privileged to speak, pantomimed extravagant delight.

  “Is that right?” demanded the Registrar’s secretary.

  “Sure it’s right,” said Norm; “how did you guess it, Pearlie?”

  Pearl was abashed. “I don’t know,” said she; “but he somehow looked a little bit like Lincoln, and then he pointed south, toward the States, and I just said it.”

  This brilliant stroke won the game, and it was time for refreshments. Consequently the company had plenty of time to talk about what Pearl had done. Although such uncanny guesses are by no means uncommon in The Game they always arouse excitement when they happen. Solly, upon being questioned, said that he did not know that the saying was attributed to Lincoln, nor had he been aware that he was pointing south; he had merely tried to behave like a man who was fooling some of the people some of the time—obviously a politician. This made Pearl’s feat even more remarkable. It was Norm who, as a psychologist, offered the explanation which the company liked best.

  “When people are very close, they often have the power of communicating without words,” said he. “For instance, sometimes in the morning when I don’t want an egg for breakfast, it will occur to me while I’m shaving, and then, when I get to the table, I’ll find that Dutchy hasn’t cooked me an egg; maybe it will turn out that there isn’t even an egg in the house. It doesn’t always
work, of course. But obviously there’s a Thing between Pearlie and Solly right now—at this stage of their relationship, I mean. It certainly looks as if they were made for each other.”

  This remark naturally brought inquiry, for only Norm and Dutchy, and their friend Jimmy, appeared to have read of their engagement. Professor Vambrace would undoubtedly have been astonished that ten of the people present were utterly ignorant of the shame and insult which had been forced upon him. But when Norm had finished his explanation they knew all about it, and offered their congratulations in the shy and affectedly casual manner in which people felicitate acquaintances. Dutchy, however, insisted that a toast be drunk in the purple fluid, and hurried about, filling glasses.

  “Oh no, please don’t!” cried Pearl.

  “Oh, don’t be so modest,” shouted Dutchy.

  “I’d really much rather you didn’t!”

  “Now Pearlie, you’ve got to conquer that shyness,” said Norm, in a fatherly manner.

  Pearl turned a look of desperate appeal upon Solly, but he was sitting with his head down, in a condition of abjection. She was furious with him. What a fool! Oh, Daddy was so right! What a nincompoop!

  Norm rose to his feet, his glass held at eye-level in that curious gesture which people never use except when they are about to propose toasts.

  “Friends,” said he, making his voice full and thrilling, “let’s drink to Pearlie and Solly. Dutchy and I can’t claim to be old friends of either of them, but we know what married happiness is, and I think that gives us a kind of claim to speak now. Pearlie we know a good deal better than Solly. I do, that is to say, because we’ve had some talks. I guess you all know that Pearlie is one hell of a swell kid, but life hasn’t been much fun for her. A shy kid, brainy, not the aggressive type, she’s had the idea that she’s a failure in life—that she isn’t attractive. A religious problem, too, which I won’t touch on now, but I guess all of us who have a sincere but modern and scientific Faith know that it’s pretty lonely if you haven’t got that and are wandering around in the dark, so to speak. I don’t want to introduce a solemn note now but as a psychologist and as a professional in guidance I know what can happen in a life which lacks what I call the Faith Focus, and there’s nobody more pleased than I—and I know here that I speak for Dutchy too—that Pearlie has found herself, and that all those doubts and fears and misgivings are sublimated in that vast Power the happiness of which is something upon which Dutchy and I feel ourselves peculiarly qualified to speak. I mean getting engaged, of course. So I ask you to drink to Pearlie and Solly, and if I can remember it I’ll just recite a little verse that seems to fit the occasion. Now let’s see—ah. ‘Hurrah for the little god with wings’—no, that’s not it. Oh, yes—

  Hurrah for the little god of Love,

  May he never moult a feather,

  When his big boots and her little shoes

  Are under the bed together.”

  This speech was granted a mixed reception. Some of the guests appeared to be stunned. Others took it in the spirit in which it was offered, and, led by Jimmy, broke feebly into “For they are jolly good fellows”. Pearl was miserable, but angry enough to keep back her tears; Solly looked very weary. When the song died down, he said “Thanks”, and his tone was such that even Norm and Dutchy did not press him for more.

  THE FIELDINGS’ comfortable drawing-room rang with the brilliant arpeggio passages of The Mink Schottische, which Humphrey Cobbler was playing on the piano. As far as possible from the instrument, Gloster Ridley sat with Mrs. Fielding on a sofa. He disliked music, and wished that the noise would stop. In a nearby chair sat Miss Vyner, Mrs. Fielding’s sister; she was a soldierly lady, at the last of youth but not yet begun upon middle age, and she was working her way through a box of fifty cigarettes, helped by occasional swigs at a whisky-and-soda. She too disliked music, and thought Cobbler a bore and a fool; these were the only two opinions she shared with Ridley, and as neither had given voice to them, this agreement could do nothing to lessen the hatred which had sprung up between them on sight. Mr. Fielding, however, was enjoying himself greatly, and as he sat in his deep chair he wagged one finger, bobbed one foot, and occasionally made little noises in his throat, appreciative of the music. His wife, also, appeared to be perfectly content, which maddened Ridley, for he wanted to talk to her.

  It could not be said of Ridley that he coveted his neighbour’s wife. He was more than happy that Richard Fielding should live with Elspeth Fielding, sleep with her, be the father of her children and be first in her heart so long as he, Gloster Ridley, was free to call on her whenever he pleased, talk to her, confide in her, and enjoy the solace of her presence. He kissed her on her birthday, on Christmas, and on New Year’s Eve, and was never ambitious to do more. Yet he loved her more truly than many men love their wives, and she and her husband both knew it. He loved her because she was beautiful, wise and kind; he also loved her because she was married, safe and would never want him to do anything about it. Such affairs are by no means uncommon nor, whatever the young may think, are they despicable.

  “Wonderful stuff, Humphrey, wonderful!” said Mr. Fielding, as the schottische came to a rousing finish. “You ought to make a collection of things like that.”

  “Nobody wants them,” said Cobbler. “Music is a serious business. You may publish collections of literary oddities, but nobody wants musical oddities.”

  “Then why not a concert? That’s the idea! You could tour, playing a programme of forgotten Victorian music.”

  “Not enough people want to hear it. And rightly so, I suppose. It’s trash, though fascinating trash. It’s the trashy art of an age which gives us its real flavour, far more than its handful of masterpieces. Don’t you agree?” He turned his black eyes suddenly on Miss Vyner.

  “Haven’t a clue,” said that lady, morosely.

  “But this is authentic Canadiana,” said Cobbler, “A suite of dances, composed in this very city in 1879 and dedicated to the Marchioness of Lorne. Title: The Fur Suite. I’ve played the Mink Schottische. I can give you the Beaver Mazurka, the Lynx Lancers, the Chinchilla Polka or the Ermine Redowa. Every one of them re-creates the loyal gaiety of Victorian Canada. You name it; I’ve got it. What’ll it be?”

  Miss Vyner said nothing, but gave him the look of bleak, uncomprehending boredom which the unmusical wear when they are trapped among musicians. Mr. Fielding elected for the Ermine Redowa, and quickly its solemn but scarcely sensuous strains filled the room. Ridley sighed audibly.

  “Why don’t you talk, if you want to?” said Mrs. Fielding.

  Ridley muttered and made a gesture toward the piano.

  “Oh, that’s not the kind of music you have to be quiet for. Dick and Humphrey will be at it all night. What’s bothering you?”

  “I was followed here tonight by Professor Vambrace. I really think he’s off his head. He was lurking near my door, pretending to be a solicitor for the Salvation Army,” said Ridley. And at some length, and with the sort of anguished exaggeration which he could use when talking to Mrs. Fielding, but which was denied him otherwise, he told the story of his afternoon. Mrs. Fielding was sympathetic, asked a great many questions, and they became so absorbed in their talk that they did not notice that the Ermine Redowa had finished, and that they had the full attention of the others until Miss Vyner spoke.

  “Well, I suppose you have to expect that kind of thing with newspapers,” said she. “I’m not a socialist, thank God, but I’d like to see the newspapers taken over by the Government. Or a strong control put on them, anyhow. They need some responsibility knocked into them.”

  Miss Vyner was looking for a fight. She was a lady with a large stock of discontent and disapproval always on hand, which she could apply to any question which presented itself. She had been a guest in the Fieldings’ house for three days, and its atmosphere of easy-going happiness grated on her. She knew that Ridley was a special friend of her sister and brother-in-law and she felt that for the good of ev
eryone she should insult him. But Ridley was not in a mood for further insult that day.

  “Quite possibly you are right,” said he. “But what you would get then would not be newspapers free of error, or newspapers edited according to some splendid principle, but gazettes of fact, probably no better authenticated than the facts in newspapers at present. You see, newspapers are written and edited by journalists, and journalists are rather special people. Drive them out of the newspaper offices, and send in civil servants to replace them, and I do not think you would like the result.”

  “I haven’t noticed anything very special about the journalists I’ve met,” said Miss Vyner.

  “Perhaps not, but why should you? Nevertheless, a journalist is not something which just happens. Like poets, they are born. They are marked by a kind of altruistic nosiness.”

  “That’s what I don’t like about them,” said Miss Vyner. “They’re always poking their noses into what doesn’t concern them.”

  “Certainly. But they also poke their noses into what concerns everybody. This nose-poking isn’t something you can turn on and off like electricity. If you want the benefit of what journalists do, you must put up with some of the annoyance of what they do, as well.”

  “Of course you have to stick up for them, I suppose. That’s how you get your bread-and-butter.”

  “Yes, and I like getting my bread-and-butter that way. I like being a journalist and a nose-poker. I like it not only because I am made that way, but because journalism is one of the few jobs which has been able to retain most of its original honesty about itself.”

  “Don’t let Pat bother you,” said Mrs. Fielding, who thought that her sister was being surly. “We all know that journalism is a very honourable profession.”

  “Excuse me, Elspeth,” said Ridley, “but I don’t like to hear it called a profession. That word has been worked to death. There are people in the newspaper business who like to call it a profession, but in general we try not to cant about ourselves. We try not to join the modern rush to ennoble our ordinary, necessary work. We see too much of that in our job. Banking and insurance have managed to raise themselves almost to the level of religions; medicine and the law are priesthoods, against which no whisper must be heard; teachers insist that they do their jobs for the good of mankind, without any thought of getting a living. And all this self-praise, all this dense fog of respectability which has been created around ordinary, necessary work, is choking our honesty about ourselves. It is the dash of old-time roguery which is still found in journalism—the slightly raffish, déclassé air of it—which is its fascination. We still live by our wits. We haven’t bullied and public-relations-agented the public to the point where they think that we are gods walking the earth, and beyond all criticism. We are among the last people who are not completely, utterly and damnably respectable. There is a little of the Old Adam even in the dullest of us, and it keeps us young.”