A Mixture of Frailties tst-3

by Robertson Davies

  Alone; yes, she would have been alone in the sense that one is alone in a familiar, comfortable garment. She, frightened, there? She had Solly and Veronica in her pocket, and well she knew it. They had lived with her. How, they asked each other, could they refuse?

  I have never had a home of my own, thought Veronica, as she lay beside the sleeping Solly. The January wind roared around the house, making the storm-window outside the bedroom rattle fiercely, as though to rebuke this rebellion against Fate. Though of course I’ve been terribly lucky, she added, hastily placating whatever, or whoever, might be listening to her thoughts.

  Lucky? Oh, yes, for was she not the daughter of Professor Walter Vambrace, who had written a book on the Enneads of Plotinus? And was it not a privilege to grow up in the atmosphere of strenuous thought which that austere scholar created? And to realize that Father was a cousin of the Marquis of Mourne and Derry, and if eight people had died young and childless Father would have had the title? It was true that Father and Mother never quite got on together, chiefly because he was such an aggressive free-thinker, whereas Mother was a devout Catholic. But Mother had always been so sweet, so abstracted, so truly kind. It was sad that since her marriage she saw her parents so seldom, though they lived not much more than a mile away.

  But then, her marriage with Solly had been so beset with difficulties on both sides. And although the Vambraces and Mrs Bridgetower had made the best of it when it was plain that it could not be prevented, there had been clear indications that they were doing precisely that—making the best of it. Solly had tried to keep it secret from her that his Mother thought their marriage a great mistake. How like him it was to try to spare her! But of course she knew. How could anyone who lived with Mrs Bridgetower help knowing? Her mother-in-law’s opinions were as palpable in that house as was the smell of heavy upholstery.

  It could not be pretended that she had been made at home in Mrs Bridgetower’s house. She had learned all the rules—what chairs not to sit in, what doors to close and which to leave open, what books and papers might be read, and when, and her mother-in-law’s long rosary of pills, which had to be worked through every day—but she had never learned the spirit of the house, because it was Mrs Bridgetower’s spirit. She had tried with uttermost patience and submission to be a good daughter-in-law. She had even dressed Mrs Bridgetower’s body for burial, arranged her hair and painted her face—Ah, there it was again, the thought that would not down! Years ago, at a children’s party, Veronica had been blindfolded and asked to identify a group of objects on a tray; one of these was a kid glove which had been stuffed with paper, and thoroughly soaked; she had dropped the chill, damp object with a shudder, and only the self-control which her father had instilled in her had kept her from weeping with fright. Painting the face of her dead mother-in-law had revived and hideously prolonged that sensation, and she had not wept on that occasion, either. She had done her best to be a good daughter-in-law because it was part of being a good wife, part of her love for Solly. Why, then, would his mother not leave her alone, even after death?

  Mrs Bridgetower was everywhere in this house. Across the hall was the room in which she had died. Below, in the drawing-room, was her chair. Everywhere, all was as she had left it, and her watch-dog, Miss Laura Pottinger, took care to see that nothing was changed. This was not Veronica’s house, and her husband’s; it was the property of the Bridgetower Trust, and they lived in it simply as caretakers—caretakers who paid the big coal bills and tried to keep it clean.

  Why could they not go elsewhere? But she had never even asked Solly why, and she would never do so now. For it was Veronica’s terrible secret that Mrs Bridgetower owned her husband, as well as everything else in the house. He, who had been high-spirited and amusing in his ironic, undergraduate way before their marriage, had become more and more like his Mother since his Mother’s death. A severity, a watchfulness had grown on him, and all the more quickly since the birth of the child.

  She had never seen the child, but the nurse had told her, against doctor’s orders, that it had been a fine boy. It was the boy which might have broken the Trust, might have given them Mrs Bridgetower’s fortune, might have enabled them to sell this hateful, haunted house, might have delivered them from this bondage. But the boy had been born with his navel-cord tight around his neck, strangling as he moved toward the light.

  Had that been Mrs Bridgetower’s work, also? If she had drawn the spiteful will, if she still possessed this house, might she not also be capable of that?

  Solly had wept with her, had taken her away for as long a holiday as they could afford, and then—had promised that there would be more children. He had meant to be kind and courageous, but Veronica feared the thought of more children. The doctor said that there was not the slightest reason for fear. But the doctor was not Mrs Bridgetower’s daughter-in-law; she could not tell him that she feared the vengeance of a dead woman whose son she had stolen.

  Solly had become grimmer, and they had grown poorer, trying to keep up the house, and old Ethel, on his modest university lecturer’s salary. It was not that they seriously lacked money; it was, rather, that all the appurtenances of an income far greater than their own, and all the habits which went with money and a large house, hung around them, and they were both poor managers. Their poverty was illusory, but it was perhaps the more destructive and humiliating for that. And here she lay, fearing the future—fearing, more than she dared admit to herself, the man whom she so much loved, who was passing more and more into the possession of the woman who had so much hated her.

  Still, was this not better than that year which had followed Mrs Bridgetower’s death—the year when Solly had hoped that they might have a son, and halt the whole business of forming the Trust? She had borne patiently with his first flogging of himself to beget a child; they had pretended to each other that it was a joke—but they knew in their hearts that it was no joke. And as time passed, and nothing happened, Solly grew frightened and suddenly could make love no longer. He sought medical advice; the doctor said that there was nothing wrong with him, and suggested in the easy way of doctors that he must relax. Yes, relax. Rest would work a cure.

  That rest-cure had been a troubled time. If a man is trying to recover from impotence, when is he to assume that he has refrained long enough? The deceptions and mockeries of Solly’s body distressed them both, for Veronica longed for him, and could not always dissemble her longing. Both felt the Dead Hand of Mrs Bridgetower; its chill had frozen the very fountain of their passion, brought winter to the garden of their love.

  Then, as the doctor had said he would, Solly recovered, and with a new determination and greater caution they sought an heir—no, a son. And, after the months of pregnancy, with the chances that it would be a daughter at least evenly weighed against them, the stillborn son had come to mock their hopes. Veronica had endured it all, and could endure anything the future and—if it were indeed a fact—the posthumous malignancy of her mother-in-law might bring, if only she did not lose Solly. But so often now it seemed that he was possessed by the spirit of his mother at least as much as by the nature which she so much loved, and it was this that brought her, in such nights as this, a terror which was desolating and bleak.

  More children! Sometimes, when Solly made love to her, she could have wept, could have shrieked with misery. For in the very climax of love he might have been struggling with the spirit of his Mother, so oblivious did he seem of Veronica. And did he want a child, or was it rather vengeance on his tormentor, and the recovery of her money, which he sought to plant in his wife’s body?

  Who could say that Louisa Hansen Bridgetower was dead? Freed from the cumbrous, ailing body, freed from any obligation to counterfeit the ordinary goodwill of mortal life, her spirit walked abroad, working out its ends and asserting its mastery through a love which was hate, a hatred which was love.

  –Suddenly Solly started up in the bed, his eyes staring, muttering hoarsely. He often had bad dreams now
. Quickly she woke him. He smiled, looked very young, kissed her and laughed at himself.

  “Let’s go and get something to eat,” he said.

  In the large kitchen, in expiation of her gloomy and almost disloyal thoughts, Veronica made toast and scrambled eggs. They liked to eat in the middle of the night, childishly defying old Ethel and the solemn spirit of the house.

  “The Gall girl’s been home almost a week now,” said Solly, as they ate.

  “What do you hear about her mother?”

  “Improving, apparently. Knapp has been keeping in touch. He’s very kind about such things.”

  “What ailed her?”

  “Gall, appropriately enough. A really bad go of gallstones. She’s more frightened than hurt, I gather. They’ll operate and she’ll be all right in a few weeks. People are extraordinary; apparently they were all convinced that she would never pull through; she’s never been seriously ill before. Getting Monica home has brought her round.”

  “Good. It’ll be a load off Monica’s mind.”

  “Yes. Old Puss is beginning to hound her about giving a recital here before she goes back. To show what’s been done with our money, presumably. Well, it’d better be good.”

  4

  Dr James Cobbett was widely considered in Salterton to be a promising young man, but he was still at that delicate stage of his career when people called him “young Dr Cobbett”; however, this meant that when he wanted advice he could readily turn to his father, “old Dr Cobbett”. He did so in the case of Mrs Gall.

  “She ought to be in hospital, but they’re all scared to death of hospitals,” said he: “fantastic to run into such prejudice nowadays. She ought to have a cholecystotomy as soon as possible, but they won’t hear of it. The family have no regular doctor, though this woman has been having what she calls bilious attacks for at least a couple of years; I’m sorry they got hold of me. They seem to think if I can “tide her over” as they call it, she’ll be able to manage. She’s sworn she’ll diet, live on slops—anything. The old man even asked me if there wasn’t some way of melting gall-stones by taking medicine. They’re just scared of the knife.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Usual thing. Got two nurses on. The daughters and the husband sit with her at night. Morphia—though I can’t do too much with that, because I suspect fatty degeneration of the heart—she’s probably twice her optimum weight. She’s in the static stage now, but it can’t last long. They’re kidding themselves that she’s getting better, but of course she isn’t.”

  “No, no; of course not.”

  “Well, what do I do?”

  “I don’t see that there is anything more that you can do. What do you think is the real trouble? Have they some kind of religious scruple about surgery?”

  “No. They’re Thirteeners, whatever that means. But the preacher was at the house the other day when I called—a fellow named Beamis—and when I explained the situation to him he was perfectly reasonable. Tried to persuade her to go to hospital. Did everything he could, really. But the old girl kept sobbing and moaning ‘Don’t let ‘em take me; please don’t let ‘em take me’. I felt like a fool.”

  “There’s no need for you to feel like that, Jimmy. You’ve given the best advice—the only advice, really. If they don’t take it, you can throw up the case, but I wouldn’t, if I were you. If people are determined to commit suicide by the long and painful course of going against medical opinion, it’s hard to watch, but I don’t think you want to be known as the kind of doctor who throws up cases.”

  “I had a little hope until this week. The younger daughter is home, now. You’ve heard of her; she’s the girl that’s being educated with old Mrs Bridgetower’s money. They insisted on putting off a final decision till she came. She’s far above the rest of them, and she’s certainly not scared. I’ve talked to her very frankly; she knows exactly what’ll happen. I got her to the point of saying that her mother should go to hospital. ‘I’ll tell her myself’, she said, and we went into the room together. But the old lady must be a mind-reader. She snatched the girl’s hand, and began to scream. ‘Monny, don’t let ‘em take me; Monny, don’t let ‘em get me in that place’, she shrieked, over and over again. The girl looked dreadful; I was really sorry for her. Her mother made her swear, then and there, with a Bible in her hand, that she should not be taken to hospital. ‘You see how it is’, she said to me, and I suppose I do, in a way. But she said a funny thing to me, as I was leaving. ‘You realize that your decision may be bringing about your mother’s death?’ I said—”

  “Now Jimmy, that was a mistake.”

  “Yes, I know it was, but I was mad. It’s all so senseless! But she looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘My decision may do so, Dr Cobbett, but your decision would do so beyond any doubt. My mother lives by the spirit as well as by the flesh; if I kill the spirit by delivering her, frightened and forsaken, into your hands, what makes you think that you can save the flesh?’ Now what do you make of that? A layman ever dare talk to you in that way?”

  “Speaking after more than thirty years of practice, I think the girl is right. Under stress, you know, Jimmy, people sometimes speak wiser than they know. I suppose if the girl had said yes, you could have doped the mother enough to get her to hospital and operate on her. But it would have been a serious risk. And—I don’t know—if the whole cast of her mind, and her level of intelligence, and everything about her is against having her life saved by science, I question if we’ve any cast-iron moral right to save it.”

  “The job of the profession is to preserve life, under all possible circumstances.”

  “Oh, I know. I was taught that, too. And as long as you never learn any thing but medicine, you’ll probably continue to think so.”

  “I’m sorry you take it like that, Father.”

  “Don’t be hurt, Jimmy. I’m sorry you’ve got such a miserable case. But they do turn up, from time to time. Hang on; it’s your duty, and it can’t last long.”

  5

  Mrs Gall’s illness had already lasted for two weeks and two days when Monica came home. The first violent onset had utterly demoralized Mr Gall, who fully believed his wife’s agonized protests that she was dying. He had no experience of illness, except for occasional coughs and colds, and the Galls had no physician, now that old Doctor Wander, who had attended to the children, had died. He had called Alice, and Alice had called young Dr Cobbett. But she did not call him until morning, heeding the widespread complaint of doctors about night calls, and had been scolded by Dr Cobbett when he arrived, for not calling him sooner. By that time Mrs Gall had discovered that if she lay very still, with her knees up, and breathed as shallowly and as slowly as possible, her pain was less. But she was deeply frightened.

  She was only a little less frightened when the doctor disposed of her fear that she had cancer. This was her secret dread, which she had hugged to herself for years. But if it were not cancer, what was it? Dr Cobbett talked in big, unfamiliar words, but it emerged that he did not know what it was, either. Myocardial infarction; what could that be? Acute pancreatitis; an obstructive neoplasm; volvulus of the small intestine? Young Dr Cobbett was kindly and able, but he was not above astonishing the simple. When Mrs Gall, feebly supported by her husband, showed strong resistance to going to the hospital, he astonished them even more, in the hope of breaking down their determination. But it was useless, and as he could not put Mrs Gall in hospital by force, he had to leave her at home, and get Nurses Gourlay and Heffernan to take care of her. The nurses were as much affronted as he by the Galls’ refusal to accommodate themselves to the needs of medical science, and they let their displeasure be felt. Nurse Gourlay, indeed, made no secret of the fact that if she had her way, there would be a law to compel people to do what the doctor said was best for them.

  Mrs Gall was down, but she was not out. Pain and fright lent her courage, and she gave Nurse Gourlay a piece of her mind; for Nurse Heffernan, a softer sort of woman al
together, she reserved her fears that she might die, and her dread that her ailment might yet turn out to be cancer. Nurse Heffernan seized the chance to say that if only Mrs Gall would go to hospital, like a good girl, they’d have her leppin’ like a goat in a couple of weeks. But Mrs Gall was firm: no hospital.

  Her resolution was strengthened by morphia, which Dr Cobbett ordered in doses sufficient to control her pain. But in her morphia dreams there detached itself from some submerged mass of fear and floated upward into Mrs Gall’s consciousness a notion that she was being held against her will in a bawdy-house, which was also a hospital, and where the wildest indecencies were demanded of her. She had too much cunning to confide these dreams to Nurse Heffernan, who would certainly have derided them, because of her professional stake in hospitals; she told them instead to her daughter Alice, during the eight hours of the night when neither nurse was on duty.

  It was Alice who insisted that Monica should be sent for. She was not a bad or unkind daughter, but she took her duties as Charles Proby’s wife heavily, and she was impatient of what she considered “nonsense”. Not to go to the hospital was nonsense. To have delusions of being in a bawdy-house was nonsense. There were times when Alice was very close to thinking that being ill, which involved claims upon the time and charity of busy, ambitious young matrons, was nonsense. Nonsense had to be stopped. And why should she carry the weight of all this nonsense when Monica was living abroad, free of all care, thinking of nobody but herself?