A Mixture of Frailties tst-3

by Robertson Davies

  “Every tub must stand on its own bottom,” said Alice, and went to see Mr Snelgrove. It was on the sixteenth day of Mrs Gall’s illness that Monica arrived home, and was greeted by her father with his pathetic cry of fear that Mrs Gall might die.

  Dr Cobbett and the nurses seized upon Monica as a new ally. By this time Dr Cobbett was virtually certain that Mrs Gall had acute cholecystitis and might die even if she were now moved to the hospital. But it was his task to do everything in his power to save her, and he would have risked an operation at an even later date: it must also be admitted that he loved to have his own way, and wanted to beat down this insurrection against the righteous forces of Hygeia.

  Monica would not be bustled. She was a strange figure now in the stuffy little house. Her manner of speech, her clothes, her demeanour were all at odds with it. Nurse Gourlay did not dare to bully her; Nurse Heffernan, who had a feudal streak in her, accepted Monica as the mistress, to be heeded right or wrong. Monica took on the night nursing.

  “Monny, are you there?”

  “Yes, Ma, right here.”

  “Monny, you won’t let ‘em take me to that place?”

  “No, Ma; don’t worry.”

  “I’ve been there. I was there this afternoon. But I run away. I run away in my night-gown. A couple o’ fellas in the hall seen me, and they tried to grab me. Was it bad?—Monny, was it bad?”

  “Was what bad, Ma?”

  “Was it bad they seen me in only my night-gown?”

  “No, no; not bad. It was only a dream.”

  “It wasn’t a dream. I was there. Monny, when they get you in there they make you do awful things. It’s a bad-house. There was girls there I used to know. Kate Dempster was there, flirtin’ her tail just like she used when we was girls. Kate’s a bad girl. Am I a bad girl, Monny?”

  “No, Ma, you’re a good girl.”

  “Are you a good girl, Monny?”

  “Yes, Ma, I’m a good girl.”

  “Then why do you talk so funny? You’re talkin’ all the time waw-waw-waw so I can’t make you out. You ain’t Monny!”

  “Yes, yes dear, I’m Monny. You mustn’t upset yourself. I’m Monny and I’m right here.”

  “No you ain’t. Monny don’t talk like that. You’ve sent Monny away! And I’m a bad girl, and they’ll put me in the bad-house!”

  “Quiet, dear. Let me give you a sip of this. Just a sip.”

  “I’m a bad girl.—Monny, will I die?”

  “No, dear, of course not. You had a very good day today.”

  But it was not a good day. It was what Dr Cobbett called “a remission”.

  The period of remission lasted for seven days. To the nurses the vomiting, the bloating, the wasting away of flesh, the groaning and the recurrence of pain were the accustomed circumstances of serious illness. To Alfred Gall, who had never seen his wife in such straits, it was an agony for which he could find no expression. Morning and night he would go to the door of her room, look at the inert form in the bed and listen to its heavy breathing, after which he would creep away, his face marked with fear and loss. Only his sister Ellen had power to raise any hope in him. Alice was impatient of his spiritlessness; it was her temperament to talk about troubles, and to find relief in talk; she had no understanding of her father’s stricken silence. Monica was gentle with him, but her energies were saved for the long vigils at her mother’s bed-side.

  Not all of their talks in the night were coloured by Mrs Gall’s semi-delirium. True, most of what was said was in the pattern of fear and delusion, countered by love and reassurance. But for Monica her mother’s rational spells were more exhausting than her wanderings, for in them it was emphasized and re-emphasized that to her mother she was now in part a stranger. Her manner of speech had changed, and Mrs Gall could not be comforted easily in the new, clear, warm speech which Monica had been at such pains to learn; but she could not undo it, could not go back to the speech of her home, for the new speech had become the instrument of the best that was in her mind, and heart. It seemed to her cruel and shameful that it should be so, but she was forced to admit the fact; it was so. To speak as Ma wanted her to speak was not only difficult, but it was a betrayal of Revelstoke, of Domdaniel, of Molloy and all the poets and musicians who stood behind them in time. Did she love these things more than her own mother? She put the question to herself, in those words, many times, but never dared to give either of the possible answers. Loyalty demanded that she give love, and she gave it as fully as she was able.

  Loyalty demanded truth. But Mrs Gall, fearing death, returned again and again to incidents in her own life, at which she could only bring herself to hint, though in delirium their nature was revealed a little more clearly. She was convinced that she had sinned unforgivably, and that her sins were sexual in their nature. She named no names, spoke of no incidents; perhaps there had been none. But during her lifetime the only morality to which she had ever given a moment of serious thought, or to which she had ever paid solemn tribute, was a morality of sexual prohibition; she felt now that she had not been true to it, yet she could not confess her transgression or give clear expression to her remorse. Instead, she accused herself vaguely, and suffered in the tormented images of her morphia dreams.

  She was specific in her demands and exhortations to Monica, however. Was Monica a good girl? The question came again and again when she was partly conscious, and thus phrased, from Mrs Gall, it could have only one meaning. Monica had no intention of saying that, in her mother’s terms, she was not a good girl. But she had to meet the question in her own mind. Was she? To say yes was disloyal to home, to the woman who was in such distress at her side. But there were seven of these weary nights, and before the last Monica was sure of her answer. She was a good girl. Chastity is to have the body in the soul’s keeping; Domdaniel had said it, and everything in her own experience supported it. And this decision, more than anything else, divided Monica from her mother when her mother most needed her. Her mother’s idea of good and bad would not do for her.

  If these ideas were invalid for her, what else that was valid had her mother to give her? Nothing, thought Monica; not with any sense of freedom, of breaking a lifelong bondage, but sadly and with pity for her mother and herself. But on the sixth night, after a brief period of sleep, Mrs Gall opened her eyes, and looked at her daughter more clearly than she had done since her homecoming.

  “I been asleep.”

  “Yes, Ma. Do you feel a little rested?”

  “Was I talkin’ foolish a while ago?”

  “The hypodermics make you dream, dear.”

  “And I guess I go on pretty wild, eh?”

  Monica was about to deny it, but she looked into her mother’s eye, and saw a twinkle there. Mrs Gall laughed, feebly but unmistakably.

  “Yes, you were pretty wild, Ma.”

  “You bet I was. I’ve got quite an imagination. That’s where you’re like me, Monny. Always remember that. You got that from me.”

  Tears came into Monica’s eyes; they were tears of happiness, for at last she shared something with her mother. She wept, and laughed a little, as she said—

  “Yes Ma, I got that from you. We’re very alike, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, I guess we are.”

  The period of remission ended, unmistakably, a few hours later, on the morning of the seventh day, and Dr Cobbett said that peritonitis, which would certainly be fatal, had come, as he had expected it would under the circumstances. The family last saw Mrs Gall, leaden grey, with eyes partly closed and seemingly already dead, though the doctor called it “shock”. She died at four o’clock the following morning. Only Monica was with her then.

  6

  “I think it is my duty to emphasize once again that this need not have happened,” said young Dr Cobbett as he prepared to fill out the certificate of death.

  “My mother was always used to having her own way,” said Monica, “and there is no point in discussing that now. The decision was mine, made
according to her wishes, and if you feel that this matter should be carried any further, I shall be ready to answer any official questions.”

  Dr Cobbett did not want to pursue the matter. All he wanted was an admission that he had been in the right, and he saw that he was not going to get it. So he continued.

  “How old was your mother?”

  Monica did not know. It had always been understood that it was “bold” to want to know the ages of one’s parents; it was like uncovering their nakedness, in the Bible. When Aunt Ellen was consulted, Monica was surprised to learn that her mother was fifty-six. Then when Monica was born, Mrs Gall had been thirty-three—ten years older than her own age, attained last December. Mrs Gall, fat and toothless, her hair streaked with grey, had somehow seemed to be without age—a mother.

  “I guess living with Dad wasn’t much incentive to her to keep herself up,” said Alice.

  After her first outburst of grief, Alice was unpleasantly practical. Mr Gall could not be sent off to work on such a day, but neither could he be endured in the house, which must be made ready for the funeral. It was Alice who packed him off to her house, with complicated instructions about what he was to do for little Donald. Aunt Ellen, too, stayed away from her work, and it was Alice who put her at the job of calling and telegraphing the necessary relatives, from her own home. This, Alice explained to Monica, was more convenient and meant also that Aunt Ellen would pay for the telegrams; it could be her share of the funeral expenses.

  At nine o’clock on the morning of their mother’s death, Alice prepared coffee for herself and Monica, and sat down to make plans.

  “The funeral can be from Queen Street United,” she said; “I’ll get Reverend Calder on the phone right away.”

  “But why?” said Monica. “Why not from the Tabernacle? Mother never had anything to do with Queen Street United.”

  “Monny, let’s face it. Do we want Ma’s funeral to be a Thirteener circus, with Beamis spreading himself all over the place? You remember old Mrs Delahaye’s funeral?—Well?”

  “But that was her church, Alice. That’s what she’d want.”

  “What makes you so sure? I’ve heard her say things about Beamis that certainly didn’t sound as if she had much use for him.”

  “But wouldn’t it seem odd?”

  “Not half as odd as a Thirteener funeral. Chuck and I go to Queen Street United. We could arrange it.”

  “I don’t see it that way, Alice.”

  “What’s it matter to you? You’re independent. You’ll be away out of this as soon as you can get. But I’ve got to live here. Listen Monny—Chuck’s boss will probably be attending this funeral. I don’t want him coming to the Thirteener Tabernacle, and getting the idea that those are the people we associate with.”

  “Alice, you’re a snob!”

  “Who’s talking? Lady Haw-haw-haw; even when she was out of her head Ma used to make fun of you, right up till the last. Snob? Listen, I’ve got my own way to make. I’m not being carried by anybody else’s money. And I’ll tell you another thing, just while we’re speaking our minds: I think Ma ought to have been put in the hospital, so there.”

  “Then why didn’t you put her in yourself, before I came home?”

  “Because Dad insisted on waiting for you. You’ve always been the Big Mucky-Muck around here, and now you’ve got this Trust behind you, Dad and Ma were scared of you. It had to be Monny’s decision. Well, you decided, and a fine mess you made of it. If you’d used common sense Ma would be well and strong now, and not dead upstairs. If you want my straight opinion, you killed Ma.”

  “Alice, you’re over-excited. I did what I did out of kindness; I swear it.”

  “I never said you didn’t. But Ma won’t be the first one that’s been killed by kindness.”

  But the final arrangement was for a funeral at the Thirteener Tabernacle. It was not a complete victory for Monica. Pastor Beamis, who knew nothing of Alice’s desire to displace him as spiritual adviser to the family, took his position for granted, and began to plan a service; he wanted Monica to sing a solo, and preferably two; he wanted to get the Heart and Hope Quartet together again, to make a special re-appearance at the graveside; it would draw a record crowd, he said, and what a comfort that would be to Brother Gall. Monica did not refuse without consideration; she fought with herself for the greater part of a day, but in the end she refused. Her reason was that she did not feel that she could control her voice well enough to sing upon such an occasion. But the inner voice, increasingly powerful in her thoughts, said: Don’t be a hypocrite; you’re ashamed of them.

  The inner voice was cruel. So often it put the worst construction on everything, and in that respect it was like a conscience. But it spoke no morality which Monica could associate with a conscience—unless, somewhere, she were developing a new conscience, suited to her new needs. But if that were the case, why was the voice so often cruel? Sometimes it spoke with the unmistakable tones of her Mother, but in this instance it used the voice of Giles Revelstoke.

  The three days before the funeral were tiring, after the long trial of Mrs Gall’s illness. Ineffectual as he was, decency demanded that Mr Gall be consulted about the more important arrangements, and it was his wish that the funeral be held partly at the house and partly at the Tabernacle. Alice wanted it to be at the undertaker’s chapel which, she pointed out, was so undenominational that you could imagine yourself anywhere. But in this last bid for social advancement she was defeated.

  She and Monica bickered all the time, and quarrelled at least once a day. Their worst encounter was at the undertaker’s, when they were choosing a coffin.

  “Can you show us anything in oak?” said Alice.

  The undertaker could show them something in oak; he mentioned the price.

  “I don’t think we want anything as expensive as that,” said Monica.

  “Who’s we?” said Alice; “I think it’s very nice.”

  “It’s too expensive. Dad shouldn’t be burdened with that on top of every thing else.”

  “Who said Dad’s going to be burdened? Who do you think is paying for this?”

  “We all are, I suppose; we’ll have to arrange some system of shares.”

  “Listen, Monny, we’re all paying according to what we have. Aunt Ellen has done telegrams. Chuck and I are looking after flowers at the house and the church. Dad’ll have all he can manage settling up for the doctor and nurses, even with his insurance. That means that this is your share. See?”

  “You mean I’m paying for the funeral?”

  “None of the rest of us have got a sugar-daddy.”

  “But Alice—the Trust money isn’t for private expenses. Mr Snelgrove would never allow it. I had no idea you were thinking like this!”

  “If you don’t know how to get money without saying what it’s for by this time, you’d better learn. Chuck’ll tell you, if you want; he’s a banker and he knows how these things are done. Now get this through your head; you’re not going to bury Ma on the cheap. You’re the rich one; well, you can just spend some of it on Ma. It’ll be the last thing you can do for her and you’d better just make up your mind to do it right. It’ll be sure to get around if you don’t: you can depend on that.”

  Monica protested, but she could not do so with much vigour. If she could rob the Trust for Revelstoke, why not for Ma? There was no answer to that question—not even such an answer as the uncomfortable inner voice could give. But it was a bitter blow to her to discover, as she did very soon, that not only Alice, but Dad and Aunt Ellen, were looking to her to pay all the heavier costs of this occasion. It was not wholly that they wanted money; it was that her supposed possession of money made her, in their eyes, the head of the family. Not moral authority, or age, but hard cash was what decided the matter. She could never again be a child in her father’s house, because she had more money than he.

  The funeral came, and passed. Eleven relatives from out of town arrived, and were fed; seven of them wer
e given overnight lodging at the Gall house and at Aunt Ellen’s. They were all Gunleys, relatives of Mrs Gall, and like her they tended to be fat and sardonic. The night before the funeral they assembled for a family pow-pow, and Mr Gall and Alice, between them, gave a dramatic account of Mrs Gall’s last illness. Alice tried to weight the story a little by emphasizing the doctor’s assertion that Mrs Gall need not have died, and that Monica’s decision that she should not go to the hospital was the deciding factor. But she got nowhere with the Gunleys.

  “Ada always liked her own way,” said Aunt Bessie Gunley; “stubborn as they come.”

  “Yep; independent as a hog on ice,” agreed Noble Gunley, a second cousin in the hardware business.

  They appeared to glory in Mrs Gall’s defiance of the entrenched powers of the medical world; she had died as she lived, a Gunley through and through.

  Pastor Beamis did not extend himself at the funeral as much as he could have wished, but he respected the desire, put to him strongly by Alice and Monica in their different ways, for conservatism. He was conservative, by his lights. He prayed for the family, in turn and by name, and managed to give Almighty God an excellent capsule account of Monica’s high associations abroad. He spoke eloquently of the late Mrs Gall, informing a somewhat surprised group of listeners that she had been open-handed, devout, courageous, a lifelong lover of all that was beautiful (this tied in neatly with his prayerful reference to Monica) and a constant source of inspiration to himself in his pastoral work. Accompanied by Mrs Beamis on the piano, and his son Wesley on the vibraphone, he sang Swinging Through the Gates of the New Jerusalem. But by comparison with some of his more unbuttoned efforts, it was conservative.

  Chuck Proby’s boss did not come, after all. He sent the head accountant, as the most suitable person to represent the august entity of The Bank at the funeral of the mother-in-law of a promising, but still junior, employee. The Bridgetower Trust was represented by Dean Knapp, who declined Pastor Beamis’ pressing invitation to sit on the platform, but who behaved himself beautifully, even when his sensibilities were most outraged, and spoke with real Christian kindness to the Gall family afterward.