A Mixture of Frailties tst-3

by Robertson Davies

  Not that Alfred Gall noticed who spoke to him. The light which, however it may have appeared to the outside world, had been sufficient to fill his life, had gone out, and he was in darkness. All through the funeral he sat like a man carved in wood.

  Alice wept copiously. She had a valuable talent for allowing her grief free play when it was most wanted, and suppressing it at need. But, certainly in her own estimation, at least, she wept in the same spirit as Dean Knapp prayed at her mother’s funeral—sincerely, but not as a Thirteener.

  Monica lacked Alice’s ability to present her feelings suitably. She had wept for her mother at the time of her death. At the funeral she found herself lifted up by a wave of emotion which she knew to be optimistic, and which at first she thought was relief that the long ordeal was over at last. But as Beamis prayed, she heard the inner voice, speaking this time not as her mother or as Giles, but in a voice which might have been her own, and it said: You are free. You did your best for her, and now you are free. You will never have to worry about what you can tell her, or what would hurt her, again.

  7

  The day after the funeral Monica found herself in a disordered and neglected house which she was apparently expected to put in order, and keep indefinitely for her widowed father. It was plain that Alice meant to do nothing, and Aunt Ellen had her job. She made a beginning, and quickly tired of it. Doing domestic work for Revelstoke was one thing; this was a very different matter. Should she call in a cleaning-woman? No, that would be unwise on several counts. It would encourage the family to think that she had cash in hand, and in reality she was very short; she had left all she could spare with Revelstoke. It would also defer the time when some permanent arrangement was made for Mr Gall, and that was pressing; she wanted to get back to London as soon as she could. She must be diplomatic.

  Her new position in the family, that of the moneyed daughter, made diplomacy easier than she had foreseen. It was so easy, indeed, to persuade her father to fall in with her suggestions that she was a little ashamed of herself, and of him. At a family council she made it clear that she must return to London; much depended on it, she said. She meant The Golden Asse, but did not say so. The family, assuming as people without money are wont to do, that all the affairs of moneyed people concern money, agreed. How was Dad going to manage? To everyone’s surprise, Dad himself had a plan; Alice and Chuck and little Donald should move in with him. Alice was quick to quash that proposal.

  “Three generations in one house never works,” said she. “You see it everywhere. I think it’ll be far better if every tub stands on its own bottom.”

  After much beating about the bush it was finally agreed that Miss Gall should give up her pretty little house, and move in with her brother. That was what Monica wanted; that was, indeed, what she had decided to arrange. But it hurt her, nevertheless, that Miss Gall had to be the sacrifice. Aunt Ellen was the only one of them who was not toadying to her because of her supposed riches; that good woman was simply and extravagantly proud of Monica because she was gaining a place in the world as a singer, and she would have laid her head on the executioner’s block without complaint, if thereby she could have advanced her niece’s career.

  Still, now that Ma was dead, it was possible to confide more fully in Aunt Ellen, and Monica spent many nights in the pretty, crowded sitting-room of her aunt’s house, where she had learned her first lessons in music. She sang for Miss Gall; she sang Revelstoke’s songs to her, which Aunt Ellen did not really like, but which filled her with pride none the less. She sang the folk-songs and the songs in an older musical idiom which she had learned from Molloy, and these delighted the little woman. She said, quite truly, that she had never heard anything so fine before. And when Monica asked Aunt Ellen’s advice about her programme for the Bridgetower Recital, her cup was full and brimming over. This, at last, was the real musical life!

  For there was to be a Bridgetower Recital. The members of the Trust had advanced the idea very delicately, fearing that Monica might be too prostrated with grief at the death of her mother to sing for some months. They were surprised, but gratified, by the resilience of her spirits. Yes, she said, she would be happy to sing for any audience they chose to assemble. Yes, she thought that Fallen Hall, at Waverley University, would be an excellent place for a recital. No, she was not in the least dubious about filling it with her voice; she had sung in the Sheldonian Theatre, and at Wigmore Hall, and size did not alarm her. Certainly, she would plan a programme in the course of a few days. The question of mourning? Well, would it not be possible to include in her programme a short group of songs of a devotional nature? She would like to do so, as a form of memorial to her mother. The Trust thought this most suitable and proper, and were delighted with her for thinking of it.

  Miss Puss was particularly pleased by the whole notion of the recital. Indeed, she revealed a romantic strain in her character which the others had not suspected, but which came out clearly at a meeting held, with Monica present, to discuss all the details of the great affair.

  “There is a point which I wish to raise,” said Miss Puss, positively blushing, “which may seem—I hardly know how to phrase it—fanciful to you gentlemen, and which may at first seem strange to our protégée, Miss Gall. It has long been the custom of singers, when embarking upon their careers, to choose a name for professional use—a nom de guerre. The instances of Melba and Nordica arise at once to mind; Melba was Helen Mitchell—an honourable but scarcely inspiring title—and Nordica was Lillian Norton. Nor must we forget our own dear Marie Lajeunesse, which we shall certainly not do if we think of her as Madame Albani. They chose names, you see, which were remarkable for euphony, and ease of recollection. Mind you, I do not say that a name with a certain, well, asperity about it is a barrier to success. Who has forgotten Minnie Hauk? Well—I put it to you, Minnie Hauk! But the exception in this case strengthens the rule. Consider the great Yendik—born Kidney! Well, you will have gathered by now what I am driving at. Our dear Monica—(Monica’s eyes opened to their uttermost to learn that she was dear to Miss Puss, but she was becoming inured to surprises)—has a lovely Christian name. But Gall? A name honoured in Ireland, certainly, but is it quite the thing for the concert platform? Can one imagine it on posters, programmes? Can we be of assistance in finding something more suitable—more euphonious and easily memorable? I confess that I have pondered over this matter a good deal during the past few days, and what I want to suggest”—and here Miss Puss positively glowed—”is that the forthcoming recital would be a most suitable place for the assumption of a new name. And the name I propose—a name compounded of parts of Monica and Gall, a sort of anagram—is Gallica.”

  Up from the depths of Monica’s memory floated the name of Monique Gallo; how long ago that was—more than two years! How she had changed.

  “It is wonderfully kind of you, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” said she, “but I think, all things considered, I had better keep my own name. You see, I have sung twice for the B B C as Monica Gall, and I have sung at Wigmore Hall in a recital of new work by Giles Revelstoke, which attracted a good deal of attention. I have sung for Sir Benedict under my own name, as well; so perhaps it would be a mistake to change it now, just when it is beginning to be known.”

  How oily I am getting, she thought. That sounded just like Giles imitating somebody he despised.

  Aunt Puss was quick to swallow her words.

  “I had no desire to seem arbitrary or intrusive,” said she; “I only wished to draw attention to a recognized professional custom.”

  “I think it is a custom which is falling into disuse,” said Solly.

  “That may not be entirely a good thing,” said the Dean. “A career in art must often mean great changes in personality—much abandoned in the past, and much learned. I’ve sometimes thought we might all be the better for taking new names when we discover our vocations.” He looked kindly at Miss Puss, who was flustered and cast down. One
of the few flashes of romance in her life had been quenched.

  Poor old chook, thought Monica. She wants to make something; she wants to create, and Gallica would be in some measure her creation. She would be particularly nice to Miss Puss when the meeting was over, to salve the wound.

  It was at this meeting that Monica was told of the substantial sum of money which the Trust had on hand, and which was legally hers. It was Mr Snelgrove who explained it to her, and when he reached the point where he had to say that she could have it and do as she pleased with it he could hardly bring the words to his lips. As a lawyer he knew what the position was, and in that capacity he had been urging the Trust to get the money off its hands; but Mr Snelgrove was also a man—a dry, conservative, stuffily prudent, snobbish old man—and the thought of turning over so much money to a girl of very common background, who might commit the Lord only knew what follies with it, deeply shocked him. Nor was he without heart; the sight of young Solomon Bridgetower sitting in what ought to be his own house, looking as though he had bitten a lemon, while this strange girl was given money which might have been his, hurt Mr Snelgrove’s sense of justice—which a life devoted to the practice of the law had not wholly eroded away. But at last Mr Snelgrove was done with his humming and hawing, and his meaning was clear.

  “Of course I am very much surprised,” said Monica, “and more than ever grateful to the late Mrs Bridgetower. You need have no fear that the money will be wasted, or frittered away in trivial spending. Indeed, I can tell you now that I should not dream of using it for purely personal benefit. With your approval, I should like to use a small part of it—a few hundred dollars—to settle my mother’s funeral expenses. I shall pay it back as soon as I am able, out of my own earnings. The remainder will be used exclusively for musical purposes of which I shall give you a full account when the time comes.”

  She spoke soberly, but her heart was singing. From the minute she understood the drift of Mr Snelgrove’s harangue, she knew precisely what she was going to do with that money. It would be more than enough to close the gap between what the Association for English Opera could afford to spend in producing The Golden Asse, and what was necessary to do the job properly, and with a decent margin for unexpected needs. She would now be able to make it possible for Giles to take a giant step in his career, and she could do it decently, without robbery, padding of expenses, and selling second-hand clothes. Like many people when they suddenly get their own way, she saw the hand of God in it. But she was not so lost to discretion as to talk of her plan to the Trust, until she actually had the money.

  The Trustees were somewhat surprised, and the Dean at least was relieved, that she did not take the news of her windfall in a frivolous or greedy spirit. They badly wanted to know what she was going to do, but pride forbade them to ask. So they passed on to a discussion of the invitations to the Bridgetower Recital. For of course it was to be an invitation affair, and they meant to get the utmost possible glory out of it for themselves. Glory was all that they stood to get from the Bridgetower Trust, and having parted, though vicariously, with $45,000 they badly felt the need of something in return.

  8

  The period during which Monica was preparing herself for the recital was enlivened for the whole British Commonwealth, and several millions of interested people in the USA, by what was known as the Odingsels Obscenity Scandal. Odo Odingsels, described to Monica’s astonishment and private amusement as “a fashionable Mayfair photographer”, was arrested on charges of selling, at very high prices and to a small but constant clientele, indecent photographs of men and women highly placed in society and politics. The nature of these photographs, the newspapers said, was of an obscenity to astonish the most hardened libertine, for not merely were they filthy in themselves but they brought into disrepute people for whom the whole world had the utmost respect and affection. The man Odingsels was plainly a criminal lunatic of horrifying depravity; employing models sufficiently like his subjects (though as a usual thing younger and more pleasingly formed) he put the heads of the victims on them by brilliant photographic trickery, employing photographs purchased from news agencies and portrait photographers. The newspapers dwelt with well-simulated horror on the lifelike and astonishing effects which this perverse combination of artistry and technique produced. The Old Bailey had been cleared while the jury examined the monster’s work, and the Judge had admonished them to secrecy. Nevertheless, it was said on sufficient authority that European Royalty, British Royalty, the White House—nay, the very Vatican itself—were spattered.

  Ransacking its recollection for some yardstick of enormity to apply, the press came up, not very appositely, with the Oscar Wilde case, and a bright young journalist, remembering that Wilde had once lived in Tite Street, made great play with the fact that Odingsels frequently “resorted” there, to the editorial offices of a publication called Lantern, run by a Chelsea group which was made out to be as unsavoury as the laws of libel would permit. Another point of similarity with the Wilde affair was that Odingsels showed no proper dismay in the dock, but grinned and sometimes laughed outright when evidence was given that he had received as much as one hundred guineas for a single exclusive print.

  Odo’s counsel, a celebrated silk, attempted to defend him on the ground that many of his ingenious photographs, representing celebrated figures in world affairs, were essentially political in subject, and satiric in intent. They were, he said, the modern counterparts of the vigorous, sometimes savage, and often suggestive political caricatures of Rowlandson and Gilray. He created a sensation in court when he produced a list of Odingsels’ clients and began to read it; extraordinary as it seemed, some of the photographer’s victims were themselves purchasers of obscene portraits of other eminent people. The Judge did not permit the reading of the list to go far, but read it himself, declared it to be, for the present, irrelevant, and no more was heard of it. But the eminent silk had read enough to set the newspapers buzzing; it was, Fleet Street agreed, the liveliest thing since the great hue and cry after homosexuals a few months before. Leaders appeared under such headings as “Curiosa In High Places”. Much was made of the fact that the learned Judge, after looking through a portfolio of Odingsels’ work, said, “These things would make a vulture gag.” He also said that the models who lent themselves to the production of such filth should be discovered and dealt with appropriately.

  “Thank God for Bun Eccles,” said Monica, drinking this in with her breakfast coffee, “or I might have to stay here for a few months. I wonder if they’ll get Perse? A girl with as many moles as she has oughtn’t to be hard to identify—but the slops can’t strip every tart in London, matching up shapes.”—From which it may be seen that Monica did not phrase her private thoughts as elegantly as she did her speeches to the Bridgetower Trustees.—”I wonder who I would have been the body of, if I’d gone to him? I always knew he was no good. I just hope Giles has enough sense not to try to go to his rescue by appearing as a character witness, or something.” For five days the wonder raged, and at last a shuddering smudge appeared in the newspapers which was described as a radio-photograph of Odo Odingsels being escorted from the Central Criminal Court by twelve police, while a crowd of five hundred angry women tried to slaughter him with umbrellas and rotten vegetables. His offence was such a strange one, and the law relating to it so various and confused, that the best the Judge was able to do for him was to send him to prison for five years, three of which were to be spent in hard labour.

  Much was made during the trial of the unsavouriness of Odingsels’ appearance; the Judge and the newspapers were at one in agreeing that his outward form was the true mirror of his soul. Monica and everyone else learned that the type of mange from which he suffered was called alopecia areata, and everywhere harmless, afflicted citizens wrote to the papers protesting that this ailment was not a mark of turpitude. But the Odingsels Obscenity Scandal vanished as suddenly as it came.

  There were two days when the name of Lantern
was prominent in the news, and when people who had never seen a copy were writing of it as a scabrous and scruffy publication, when she had to be very firm with herself, to keep from sending a cable of warning advice to Giles. But she knew how furiously he would resent such interference; three or four weeks in Canada, domineering over her relatives, had awakened her considerable talent for bossiness, but she must not use it on Giles. Of late his touchiness had reached new heights; hard work on The Golden Asse raised his spirits, but drove him to new excesses of freakishness. And so much of it was directed against Stanhope Aspinwall! The critic had been favourable but pernickety in his judgement of Kubla Khan when it was broadcast; Monica was inclined to think well of him because he had written of her singing in terms of warm praise… “an artist still somewhat tentative in her approach but plainly possessed of uncommon abilities… combines vocal qualities usually considered to be mutually exclusive… extreme agility and brilliance in the upper register with a warm and expressive tone… a purity of English pronunciation and delicate interpretation of poetic nuance which recalls the late Kathleen Ferrier”. Monica had suggested to Giles that, as he had taught her all she knew, this praise was for him, but he would not hear of it. “All these old critics go ga-ga about a new girl if she isn’t a positive gargoyle,” he had said, and had raged on about Aspinwall’s criticism of the piano part of the cantata as unduly elaborated. And when, a few weeks later, Giles had given a recital of his work at Wigmore Hall, and Aspinwall had once again praised her warmly, and found some faults in the music, Giles became quite impossible.

  He had procured a picture of Aspinwall (through Odingsels, it was now unpleasant to remember), had framed it and hung it in the water-closet which was one flight downstairs from his own apartment. He made a point of using the paper for which Aspinwall wrote in order to wrap his garbage; he bought several copies every week, cut out Aspinwall’s signed articles, and hung them in the water-closet, as a substitute for the toilet roll, though Mrs Klein and the other lodgers objected strongly. On one embarrassing occasion he took Monica to a concert and, finding that they were sitting behind Aspinwall (which he swore he had not arranged) he badgered the critic by tapping on the back of his seat, and making insulting remarks, just loud enough to be heard, in the intervals. He even began to write obscenely abusive letters to Aspinwall, but Monica and Bun Eccles intercepted them, and so far as they could judge, none had escaped their watch.