A Mixture of Frailties tst-3

by Robertson Davies

  “Shut up, Humphrey,” said Molly, his wife. She was a large, beautiful, untidy woman, always calm and at ease. She threw a grape at her husband to silence him, but it missed his head and set an epergne jingling on the built-in sideboard.

  “No offence meant,” said Cobbler, “and none taken, I’m sure. I merely wished to convey to our young friends here, who have been studiedly avoiding the subject of Mum’s Will all through this excellent dinner, that we are privy to their dread secret, and sympathize with them in their fallen state. I was about to do so through the agency of divine poesy, thereby showing a delicacy which I could hardly expect you, my thick-witted consort, to appreciate.”

  Raising his glass, he declaimed again:

  It was Christmas Day in the Workhouse;

  The maddest, merriest day;

  And all the paupers had gathered then

  To make high holiday.

  Then in strode the Workhouse Master

  As they cringed by the grimy walls;

  “I wish you a Merry Christmas,” said he;

  The paupers answered—

  “What have you been hearing?” said Solly. “You aren’t going to tell me that people are chattering about it already?”

  “Not precisely chattering,” said Cobbler; “more a kind of awed whispering. Rumours reached me this morning, just before we celebrated the birthday of the Prince of Peace with a first-rate choral service, that your Mum’s Will was in the nature of a grisly practical joke, and that you are left without a nickel.”

  “I thought it wouldn’t take long to get around,” said Solly. “Who was talking? There are only three people who know; they might have had the decency to keep quiet for a few days, at least. Who was it?”

  “Calm yourself, my dear fellow,” said Cobbler. “You are—let’s see, what is it—twenty-seven. You really ought to have more worldly wisdom than to say that only three people know about your Mum’s Will. You and Veronica know, and the Dean and unquestionably the Dean’s wife; Puss Pottinger knows, and she is a mighty hinter; Snelgrove knows, and certainly his wife, and his partner Ronny Fitzalan, and probably at least two girls in his office who made copies of the will for the executory. Your excellent Ethel and Doris, who have hopes of legacies, have undoubtedly picked up a few things by listening at doors or hiding under your bed. That’s twelve people already. What I know I was told this morning by one of my tenors whom you don’t know, but who knows you. He heard it last night when he was carol-singing at the hospital. Your late Mum was notoriously a rich woman; everybody wants to know who gets the lolly.”

  “I certainly didn’t know she was a rich woman,” said Solly.

  “That sounds silly, but I believe it,” said Cobbler. “One never thinks of one’s parents with any realism. She was always pretty tight with money when you wanted it; probably she told you she hadn’t much, and you believed her, like a good boy. She came the penniless widow. You didn’t use your eyes. You didn’t look at this big house, full of hideous but expensive stuff; you didn’t reflect that your Mum lived in considerable state, with two servants, in an age when most people have none; you didn’t think that she had all this without doing any work for it. You didn’t think that it costs a lot of money to continue the habits of the Edwardian era into the middle of the twentieth century. Nothing is so expensive as living in the past. No; you believed what you were told. You accepted all this as a normal, poverty-ridden hovel. But everybody else in Salterton knew that your Mum was a very warm proposition, and they were all crazy to know how she would cut up when she was gone.”

  “What business was it of theirs?”

  “Don’t be stupid; people who mind their own business die of boredom at thirty. Don’t you suppose the hospitals hoped for a chunk? Your father was a professor at Waverley University for years; do you think Waverley didn’t have its hand out? The Cathedral wanted a slice, too. But nothing doing. And they say you don’t get a red cent. Where is it all going? I don’t mean to pry, you understand. I’m just aching to know.”

  “All you have heard is that none of the places that expected a legacy got anything, and that I am not the heir?”

  “Precisely. Are you going to give us the real story, or do you want Molly and me to feel that we aren’t trusted, now that you are poor like us?”

  “I suppose it’ll all come out in a few days. You might as well know.” And so Solly told the Cobblers the conditions of his mother’s will. They opened their eyes very wide, and Cobbler gave a long whistle, but it was his wife who spoke.

  “That’s what you can really call laying the Dead Hand on the living, isn’t it,” said Molly. “I suppose it’s something to be proud of, in a way; not many people have the guts to make a really revengeful will. They’re too anxious to leave a fragrant memory, and few things are so fragrant as a million dollars. I suppose it’s well over a million?”

  “Haven’t any idea,” said Solly. “But I’m sure you’re wrong about revenge. I mean, Mother was capricious, and very strong-minded, but revenge—it doesn’t seem like her.”

  “Seems very much like what I knew of her,” said Cobbler. “You really must grow up, you know. Your Mum told you that she loved you, and you believed her. She made your life a hell of dependency, and you put up with it because she played the invalid, and tyrannized over you with her weak heart. She beat off any girls you liked, until you got up enough gumption to marry Veronica—or Veronica got enough gumption to marry you; I never quite knew which it was. That was only a bit more than a year ago. What peace have you known since? She made you come here and live with her, and like a couple of chumps you did it. She let it be known as widely as possible that your marriage grieved her.”

  “Look here, you’re talking about my Mother, who was buried the day before yesterday. I don’t expect you to behave like other people, but you must show some decency. I know better than anybody how difficult she was, but she had very good reasons for everything she did. Of course they’re not easily understandable, from an outsider’s viewpoint. I’ve read and re-read her will today; it’s very full, and very personal. She says that she has left the money away from me to prove me—to test what I can do absolutely on my own. She says she knows it will be hard, and advises me to take my father as an example. I know—it sounds very odd by modern notions of such things, but it is quite obvious that she meant it kindly.”

  This was greeted with a studied silence by the others.

  “Well, look at it from her point of view,” said Solly, when the silence had begun to wear on him. “She always knew I was rather a feeble chap; it was her last try to put some backbone into me.”

  “You’re not a bit feeble,” said his wife, laying her hand on his.

  “Yes; yes, I am. I don’t pretend that this will isn’t a shock, and I won’t pretend to think it’s really fair. But I see what she meant by it. And your suggestion that it was because of our marriage is sheer nasty spite, Humphrey. I won’t say Mother liked Veronica, but I know she respected her. And certainly Ronny was as good as any daughter could have been to her during the past six months. You didn’t marry me for money, did you?” said he, smiling at his wife.

  “I don’t think that is what Humphrey meant,” said Veronica.

  “Well, what else is there?”

  “Darling, if you haven’t thought of it, I won’t find it very easy to explain. Your mother leaves you her money—or the income from it, which is the same thing—if we have a son. Well? Must we set to work, cold-bloodedly, to beget a child, hoping it will be a son? If it is a daughter—try, try again. You know what people are. They’ll be ready to make the worst of it, whatever happens. They’ll have a splendid, prurient snigger at us for years. Don’t you see?”

  “Oh I’m sure Mother never meant anything like that,” said Solly.

  “Then why did she make such a will?” said Molly. “You’ve got to consider the generation your mother belonged to. She wasn’t a big friend of sex, you know. She undoubtedly thought it would dry up the organs
of increase in you both. Very pretty. Sweetly maternal.”

  “I wish you people would get it into your heads that you are talking about my Mother,” said Solly, with some anger.

  “Now look, Solly,” said Cobbler, “talk sense. Ever since I first met you your main topic whenever you were depressed was what a hell of a time your mother was giving you. I’ve heard you talk about her in a way which surprised even me—and I specialize in speaking the unspeakable. You can’t make a saint of her now simply because she is dead.”

  “Shut up,” said his wife. “Solly needs time to get used to the fact that his mother is dead. You know how you carried on when your mother died. Roared like a bull for days, though you rarely gave her a civil word the last few times you met.”

  “Those were quarrels about music,” said Cobbler. “We disagreed on artistic principles. Just showed how really compatible we were that we could talk about them at all. I bet Solly never talked to his mother about such things.”

  “The terms of her will showed that she cared a great deal about artistic principles. Or about education, anyhow,” said Solly.

  “I have not forgotten that she requested that My Task be sung at her funeral,” said Cobbler. “The bill for that caper is outstanding, by the way. I only got a girl to do it at the last moment.”

  “She sang it very nicely,” said Veronica.

  “Good voice. A girl called Monica Gall. And it will be ten dollars.”

  “Include it in the bill you send to Snelgrove,” said Solly, “along with the charges for the choir, and yourself.”

  “I played gratis.”

  “Well, don’t. Send Snelgrove a bill. I don’t wish to think that my Mother was obliged to you for anything.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake don’t turn nasty, just because I spoke my mind. If you want friends who echo everything you say and defer to all your pinhead notions, count me out.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” said Molly. “You’re carrying on like a couple of children. But listen to me, Solly. You and Veronica may have some hard days ahead of you, and you’ve got to make up your minds now to stick together, or this idiotic will can make trouble between you. And the fact that you have no money will make it all the easier.”

  “We have just as much money as we ever had,” said Solly. “I still have my job, you know.”

  “A junior lecturer, and quite good for your age. A miserable salary, considering that you are expected to live the life of a man of education and some position on it. Still, Humphrey and I are living very happily on less. But if I understand the conditions of the will, you have to live in this house, and keep it up, and keep Ethel and Doris on that money, and go on having children until you have a son. They say that clever men tend to have daughters, Solly, and I suppose you qualify as a clever man, in spite of the way you are behaving at present.” Molly’s affectionate tone took the sting out of her words. “But I think you should recognize that your mother has laid the Dead Hand on you and Veronica in the biggest possible way, and the sooner you see that the better you will be able to deal with it.”

  “And you’d better not begin by holding a grudge against me,” said Cobbler. “You are going to want all your friends, now that you have joined the ranks of the struggling poor. You are going to feel some very sharp pangs, you know, when you see all that lovely money, which might have been yours, going to support dear little Miss God-knows-who, while she studies flower arrangement in the Japanese Imperial Greenhouses, at the expense of your Mum’s estate. So stop snapping me up on every word. I had nothing personal against your Mum. It is just that she symbolized all the forces that have been standing on my neck ever since I was old enough to have a mind of my own. And to prove my goodwill, I give you a toast to her memory.”

  Amity was restored, and they drank the toast. Perhaps only Molly and Veronica heard Cobbler murmur, as he raised his glass, “Toujours gai, le diable est mort.”

  Two

  1

  Mrs Bridgetower’s will would not, under ordinary circumstances, have become a matter of public interest until the probate was completed but, as Cobbler pointed out, there were institutions in Salterton which hoped for a legacy. Chief among these was Waverley University, and the rumour that it was to have nothing aroused some waspishness in the Bursar’s office. Universities are, in a high-minded way, unceasingly avaricious. The thought that the wealthy widow of a former professor—a member of the family, so to speak—had not remembered the Alma Mater in her will (particularly when her son and presumed heir was also of the faculty) was unbearable. The rumour was that a trust had been set up, and moreover a trust with an educational purpose; if this were true, it was a slap in the face for Waverley. But was it true?

  It is not a university’s function to pry into private affairs. That is the job of a newspaper. Thus it was that, acting on a discreet tip from the Bursar’s office, the Salterton Evening Bellman sought information from the three executors in turn. From Miss Puss it received the sharpest of rebuffs; the Dean temporized, and said that he was not free to speak until he had consulted the others; it was Solly who said that a trust was to be established, and that details should be sought from Mr Snelgrove. The lawyer, who loved secrecy, called the executors together to urge them to say nothing to anyone; nobody had any right to know anything about Mrs Bridgetower’s estate until after probate. It was Solly who pointed out that this was impossible.

  A detailed knowledge of law and ordinary common sense are not always found together, and it was Solly who had to explain the situation to Mr Snelgrove, as tactfully as possible. According to the will, the girl who was to benefit from Mrs Bridgetower’s money must be chosen and launched on her course of study within a year of her benefactress’ death: Mr Snelgrove was also to have the probate completed by that time, or else suffer the humiliation of seeing this juicy plum pass into the hands of another lawyer. Therefore, whether the trust was legally in existence before the probate or not, the girl must be chosen within a year, and that could not be done unless some knowledge of the impending trust were available to at least a few people. It took a surprisingly long time to get this through Mr Snelgrove’s head, though he had drawn Mrs Bridgetower’s will and ought to have foreseen it. His was the perplexity of the man who understands his situation intellectually but has not comprehended it emotionally, and he continued to say “Yes” and “I see” when it was amply clear that he did not see at all.

  Though Solly was willing that something should be known of the trust, he was not willing that it should be publicly known that his mother had used him shabbily. His state of mind was by no means an uncommon one: his mother had been the bane of his life, but after her death he was determined that no one should think ill of her. So, after consultation with Veronica, he paid a visit to Mr Gloster Ridley, the editor of The Bellman, explained the situation to him, and asked for his help in putting the best face on the matter. This stroke of diplomacy, undertaken without the knowledge of the other executors or of Snelgrove, had excellent result. The Bellman published a reasonable amount of information about the trust and its purpose, made it clear that nothing would happen for some time, said kind things about the late Mrs Bridgetower’s lifelong enthusiasm for the education of women, and gave no hint that the lady’s son had been left a mere token bequest, or that there were any curious conditions attaching to the trust. Thus an agreeable version of the truth was made public, and the murmurs at Waverley were, for the moment, stilled.

  Mr Snelgrove and Miss Puss were displeased, however. They both possessed that type of mind which gets deep satisfaction out of withholding information. If Miss Puss could have bought shoes without confiding her size to the salesman, she would have done it. So another meeting was called, and Solly was raked over the coals for talking to the press. Already he was learning useful lessons from his experience as an executor, and he let Snelgrove and Miss Puss talk until they were tired. Then he covered all his previous arguments once again, and pointed out that the effect of the newspape
r article had been good, and that it had substituted a body of carefully chosen fact for spiteful rumour. He received unexpected support from Dean Knapp. It would be too much to say that Miss Puss and the lawyer were mollified, but they were temporarily subdued. Solly had a pleasant feeling that he was becoming the guiding spirit of the executors.

  It was his idea, for instance, that the executors should always meet in the Bridgetower house. Snelgrove had read the will there, to satisfy his sense of drama; Solly contrived that the executors should meet there, arguing that, as the house was the property of the trust, the trustees should make use of it for their official deliberations. This gave him a certain advantage, for while it was true that the house was part of the trust, it was also his dwelling, and he played the role of host there. Miss Puss was first to recognize the implications of this, and she took her revenge at that second meeting, when she and Snelgrove were angry with Solly about the newspaper account of Mrs Bridgetower’s will.

  Veronica had met her at the door, and welcomed her. “I think, dear, that it would be better if you were not present at the trustees’ meetings,” said Miss Puss.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of coming into the meeting,” said Veronica; “If just wanted to help you with your coat.”

  “I am sure you mean everything that is kind, dear,” said Miss Puss, “but we must avoid any appearance of impropriety. I say this both as an executor and a friend. I am sure you hear everything in good time, as it is.” Veronica retired to another room with a red face, and a sense that she had been presumptuous in a house which was now, apparently, even less her home than when her mother-in-law had been alive.

  Solly had overheard this exchange, and he was angry. He had not much spirit when it came to fighting for himself, but he was ready to fight anyone for Veronica. Therefore he took it out of Miss Puss rather more than was necessary, in a quiet way, and stored up a considerable quantity of resentment against her, to be worked off at his future convenience. If his mother had truly meant her will to make a man of him, it was working rapidly to make him a hard and bitter man. Laura Pottinger was his mother’s oldest friend, and as such she had domineered over him from boyhood. But he was strongly conscious of the fact that as he had grown up, she had grown old, and he meant to put her in her place over and over again, if that should be necessary, until she learned what her place was.