The Merry Muse

by Eric Linklater

  It was not until she woke next morning that Jane gave a thought to the envelope she had stolen from Hector’s flat. She no longer had it, and she could not remember where she had lost it. Somewhere at the Gargoyle, that was certain. But where? At the bar, where anyone could have picked it up, or in the dining-room, where, probably, the head waiter would have found it? One of the young men in Simon’s regiment had driven her home: she had not left it in his car, she was sure of that. His friend had taken Hester home, and what had happened to him? Had she involved him — that nice, simple, honest young man — in a lamentable and humiliating affair? And had she lost beyond recovery a mysterious book that might be worth £10,000, that she had stolen from Hector in the flush of intemperate anger? A book that belonged, not to Hector, but to her father — and even her father only held it in trust for someone else.

  That morning, Jane could not face the family breakfast-table, but lay long in her bed and tormented herself with a recital, forty times repeated, of all her misdeeds. She was, in essence, a good girl, and therefore her misdeeds loomed enormous, like the destructive clouds of a hurricane, on the horizon of her consciousness. She remembered her confirmation and her marriage vows, and saw her adultery as a mountainous sin, impending from a vast and ominous sky — and simultaneously perceived, as an equal sin, her failure to comfort the storm-tossed mind of Yacky Doo. But worse than these, because it could bring immediate punishment, was her insensate folly in stealing, and then losing, that abominable book. Why, oh why, had she done it?

  Sleepless, and turning feverishly from side to side, she lay in her bed till morning had gone — afraid to get up and face a world that she herself had made intolerable — and when at last she rose, it was in a mood of exhausted fatalism. In the romantic illusion that despair can induce, she saw herself as the plaything of destiny, and in the expectation of disaster went to the Gargoyle, a little after noon, to ask if a square manila envelope, that she had left there the night before, could be restored to her.

  She was, she thought, prepared to hear that it hadn’t been found. But what she was told astounded her, and changed despair to fury. For Fred the barman said that, only half an hour before, Mrs Moberley had come in, to ask for the envelope — there was a book in it, she explained, that belonged to her — and he had given it to her.

  VI

  On Wednesday, exactly half an hour after noon, a party of some twenty people moved from the drawing-room in Max Arbuthnot’s house, where they had been drinking sherry, to the dining-room, where a buffet-luncheon of cold salmon, cold grouse and trifle awaited them. Mrs Arbuthnot had argued that so lavish a meal was inappropriate to the occasion, but Max had replied, ‘If they’ve got to come and eat here — and it was you who said I had to accept some responsibility — then they’re going to eat well. And this is Scotland, remember that! And in Scotland we’ve always enjoyed a funeral more than a wedding, because there’s no fear of having to buy a christening-mug nine months later. So they’ll drink Traminer with the salmon and Nuits St Georges with the grouse, and then we’ll be in a proper mood to face the open sea.’

  The mortal remains of old Charlie Youghal had been duly cremated — his ashes lay in a small urn that Max, a little impatient of his burden, had left in the downstairs lavatory — and some of the assembled mourners were thinking, uneasily, of the voyage that would conclude the obsequies. In obedience to old Charlie’s wishes, and his widow’s determination to respect them, Max had arranged that one of the tug-boats under charter to his shipping-firm should be free, that afternoon, for a short trip to sea. At the port of Leith the tug lay ready, and in Leith, as on Corstorphine Hill, there were those who lifted a questioning eye to the south-east, and listened with a calculating ear to the wind. The morning had been fair, but now the wind was rising.

  Mrs Arbuthnot had insisted on there being some of Max’s own friends at the funeral: that was the proper way, she had said, in which to show respect for his sister, and sympathy with her in her loss. So Max had asked Tom and Mona Murdoch, with whom he had lately been stalking, and their friend Hugh Burnett, whose name his daughter Jane had failed to remember when they met at the Gargoyle Restaurant. They, with Max, enjoyed a substantial luncheon, but some of the widowed Jessie’s friends from Peebles thought the richness of their entertainment out of place, and showed their displeasure by refusing to eat anything but some bread and-butter and the smallest possible helping of salmon. The cold grouse, and the burgundy, they refused with quiet indignation, as being wholly unsuited to the occasion.

  Jessie herself was an impressive picture in her small and shrivelled dignity. She was in full control of her feelings, and even Mrs Arbuthnot spoke to her with a visible deference, while Max avoided her in barely hidden fear of the authority in which sorrow had dressed her. Her sister Annie, though wearing mourning as deep as Jessie’s, was less responsive to the funerary mood. After she had drunk a glass of Traminer, Annie began to show signs of enjoying herself, and among her friends from Peebles there were those who — unlike the disapproving minority — saw no reason in the death of an old man, whom death had shouldered for some years, for refusing good food and drink. There was the doctor who had attended Charlie Youghal, and the banker who had guided him in his small investments; there was the secretary of a bowling club, and the secretary of a golf club; there was a retired inspector of schools — and they, who rarely drank burgundy at lunch-time, took sensible advantage of an unusual pleasure. They encouraged Annie to drink a little more, and were loudly amused by the freedom with which she discussed their neighbours.

  By half-past one the party had split into three separate groups. Jessie and Mrs Arbuthnot, with those who disliked a festive air at funerals, had retired to the drawing-room; and with them were Jane, who was feeling dutiful, and the Rev. Mr Myrtle, the very young vicar of St Mungo’s in Peebles. Max and his friends had joined Annie and the heartier guests from Peebles, and Max was expounding the virtues of the great canvas, painted by William Etty, that hung on the west wall. The women who so proudly showed their glowing nakedness within its frame were indeed the creation of a brush that could almost put the pulse of life into painted flesh, and for that reason the picture may well have been a salutary assertion of life’s indomitable will, even in the presence of death. But the third group of mourners did not see it in so favourable a light. They thought it shocking, but they accepted it as a necessary part of the outing to which they had committed themselves.

  This small group consisted of four of Jessie’s female friends from Peebles. They had told each other, with some repetition, that it was by no means their habit to attend funerals — that, as they well knew, was a masculine function — but this was so unusual an occasion that they had felt they could not miss it. It was not every day that an old acquaintance enjoyed the dignity of being buried at sea, and it was a privilege, not to be spurned, to attend him at the last rites. But now they felt isolated, and increasingly uncomfortable. They had not wanted to leave the party with those who disapproved of it, but they found it impossible to join the hearty group that was admiring the luscious quality of Etty’s painting — and they listened, nervously, to the sound of the rising wind.

  Then Mrs Arbuthnot came to say it was time to go, and at once a silence fell upon the party as all remembered the solemn circumstances of their presence at it. They turned away from Etty and his nudes, and went to find their coats and tall black hats; and Max, retrieving the ashes from the downstairs lavatory, took his seat beside Jessie in the first of the several motor-cars that waited for them.

  At a smooth decorous pace they drove along Ravelston Dykes, by Orchard Road and Comely Bank to Fettes Avenue, past park and playing-fields into the long length of Ferry Road and the assertive, commercial earnestness of Leith. At the dock gates a policeman saluted Max, who gravely acknowledged the courtesy, and a young man, employed by his firm, got in beside the driver to guide the cortège to the waiting tug. Leaning forward in his seat, Max surveyed with a proprietary interes
t the grey and busy roads, a glimpse of water in steep-sided basins, the funnels of ships from Hamburg or Copenhagen, and told Jessie which was which: for this (or some small part of this) was his domain, and it was time to make Jessie aware of his knowledge and importance: throughout the long drive she had been talking, with a drably egotistical insistence, of nothing but her own affairs. — Behind them, in the motor-cars that followed, their fellow-mourners, though well-fed and comfortably carried, were thinking, not that they were important, but vulnerable. They looked out and saw flags flying stiffly, smoke flowing flatly, and realized that the wind was blowing strongly.

  The tug-boat lay near the entrance to the Victoria Dock, and her captain, clad smartly in dark blue, waited at the shoreward end of the gangway. He shook hands with Max, he was introduced to Jessie, and while the others gathered uncertainly behind them — none eager to assert precedence — Jessie was escorted to the captain’s cabin, followed by Max, who, with an air of some distaste, carried the ashes.

  The moorings were cast off, and the tug steamed slowly past the long West Pier into the Firth of Forth. Ahead lay Inchkeith, and then, as they turned to the east, the broadening gulf that led to the rough North Sea. And not until they reached the open sea could old Charlie’s ashes be committed to the deep. Such had been his wish, and by Jessie’s insistence his wish would be respected.

  The wind was from the south-east, and from Leith to the light on Fidra they were in shelter of the land. But the land was not a shelter so near as to prevent the sea from dancing a little, and those who were nervous from the start soon became physically unhappy and lost the brightness of their cheeks. Indifferent to her surroundings, Jessie sat in the captain’s cabin, still and silent; while beside her, on a cushioned settee, the Rev. Mr Myrtle pursed his lips, tried to think of nothing but the service he must soon conduct, and wiped a little perspiration from his forehead. Mrs Arbuthnot sat on a swivel-chair and read The Times.

  On the deck outside, Annie, well wrapped up, was excited by her trip to sea, and talked with great animation, now to Hugh Burnett and Tom Murdoch, now to her friends the banker and the doctor from Peebles.

  She pointed to a grey blur of buildings on the shore, over which blew a canopy of smoke, and archly enquired, ‘Now where is that? Who can tell me where we are now?’

  ‘Portobello,’ she was told — and brightly she exclaimed, ‘But I’ve been there! I used to go and swim there, when I was just a girl. I was very good at duck-diving. They have a splendid swimming-pool in Portobello — I know it well! Oh, what a pity poor Charlie isn’t with us! Well, in a way he is, of course, but not so as to enjoy it. He would like to see all this.’

  Three of the mourners sat in the mate’s cabin, two in the engineer’s; while half a dozen, in a very small saloon, felt the air grow oppressive and wondered how long the voyage would last.

  Jane stood in a corner of the bridge and talked quietly to the captain. Neither of them spoke to Max, who, in the other corner, sat on a tall stool and proclaimed by his attitude and his glum expression that his thoughts were private and profound. Enisled in solitude he contemplated his responsibility, and death.

  The ship in which they sailed was his — or temporarily his, by right of charter — and old Charlie’s ashes had become his care. Old Charlie, for the last time, was his guest, and now he let himself feel sorry for that grey atomy of a man, who had lived so thinly, who had held so small a parcel of life within his veiny, greyish hands. And therefore, like the very poor who cherish their few possessions, had held fiercely to all he owned, and struggled bitterly with death.

  How would he face it, thought Max, when his own time came? — But no, it was futile to speculate on that. True, he had memorized a brace of resounding epigrams, so that he might leave some good ‘last words’ if he retained his consciousness till near the end; but apart from that one could plan neither strategy nor tactics against death. Better not to think of it.

  Think of his youth instead: and how bitter was that loss! He was still strong enough, in wind and limb, in mind and desire, to fall sometimes into a rage of sorrow when he remembered the fleetness of his legs and the tireless energy of forty years ago. Unlike old Charlie, he had taken his fun and drunk its aftermath of bitterness — but less, far less than he could have swallowed! If only he had his time again!

  He looked at a long, pale scar on the palm of his left hand. That was the memento of an escapade in his last year at school, when he and another boy, both at Corstorphine College, had been given leave to spend Sunday afternoon at home. But they had not gone home. They had gone to a small and discreet brothel which, in those days, catered for unruly appetites a little way down Leith Walk. It was their first visit — the other boy’s older brother had recommended it — and, arriving before the normal hours of business, they had found the young ladies — there were five of them — unprepared for customers. But the good woman who kept the house had saved the boys from embarrassment. She had not complained of their ill manners or ignorance in coming so early but, turning to her girls in a great pretence of wrath — ‘What!’ she exclaimed, ‘Fower o’clock on a Saabbath efter-noon, and nae a hoor painted! Oh, think shame on yourselves!’

  She had given them tea, good woman — boiled eggs and toast — and it was late when they returned to school. The college gates were locked, but in the darkness of a February evening they thought it possible to climb them unobserved. They might have done, if Max had not slipped and torn his hand on one of the sharp iron spikes that topped the gates.

  They had, until then, both been prefects, but now they were stript of rank, and for the rest of the term Max was unable to play Rugby football. Worse than that, his parents were told of his accident, and though he lied stoutly to cover his failure to spend the afternoon with them, they did not believe his excuses. This was one of several family quarrels that disturbed his youth.

  The most serious occurred in the Easter vacation after his second term at Cambridge; but the start of it was laid in the Christmas holidays. His parents had lived more modestly than he — though his father, when the pound sterling was still worth almost as much as it pretended, had left £60,000 — but they kept a cook and two maids, and that Christmas there had been a new maid, a young and very pretty girl, with whom Max had fallen rashly in love. To exchange endearments, they found it convenient to meet in a sort of large cupboard immediately behind the baize-covered door that divided the front of the house from the kitchen quarters. The cupboard held brooms and pails, and so strict was old Mrs Arbuthnot’s discipline — so orderly her housekeeping — that it was never entered after nine in the morning, when work of that sort was finished. Though small and stuffy, it was ideal for clandestine meeting, and in Max’s remembrance it had become a grotto dedicated to romance, or the Grecian cave where Juan woke to find young Haidée bent above him.

  But for the Easter vacation he came home, frightened and ashamed, to a house of wrath. His father was a mild and gentle man, but now, as though an innocent and familiar hill were to surprise its neighbours by erupting like Vesuvius, from his father’s leniency there broke such a flame of anger that Max stood before him tremulous and tearful, and for a month lived quiet and docile

  His father’s anger lasted a few days only, but his mother’s pervasive sorrow endured longer. She was a woman of great strength of character, and she could make her sorrow felt. The house of wrath, of initial wrath, became for most of the vacation a house of mourning: of mourning for Max’s lost virtue. The poor girl, of course, had gone before he returned and for the rest of his time at Cambridge — so his father had told him — a pound a week would be deducted from his allowance to pay for her keep. But this deprivation was the least of his punishment.

  On his last day at home when he thought recrimination had come to an end — when his mother’s sorrow had worn itself out, he supposed, as had his father’s anger — she said to him, at the breakfast-table, ‘I want you to come for a walk with me, Max. I have something to say to you.
’

  It was a fine morning under a bright sky on which small clouds marched briskly to the south. She took him uphill from India Street, where they lived, along Heriot Row by the gardens and into Hanover Street. They went up the Mound, climbing still, to the Castle; and on its heights beside the great gun called Mons Meg she halted and looked down across the city, sprouting its many spires.

  ‘You have been guilty of a great sin,’ she said, ‘but if you truly repent it may be forgiven you. For you’re young yet, and you’ve time to atone for it. But there’s something even worse than what you and that bad girl did together — and that’s back-sliding! You haven’t been going to church, Max, and that will never be forgiven you, and you’ll never succeed in your profession. There’s a rich heritage waiting for you, and you can make it richer still — but only if you go to church, go regularly, and take Communion. You’ll never be a success without that. But if you’re a good church member, and take Communion, success will be added unto you.’

  At that time the Arbuthnots worshipped in the Presbyterian mode. A few years later, when they moved from India Street to Randolph Crescent, old Mrs Arbuthnot found it more agreeable to attend the Church of St John, and having, with stubborn importunity, persuaded her husband to go with her, had little trouble in transferring the allegiance of her children to the episcopal rites. She pretended to have found that God’s authority rested more securely on Bishops than on Elders — for how could an absolute Divinity live happily in the noisy democracy of a synod? — and her new belief may have been genuine; though most of her friends asserted bitterly that Bishops and it were both born of mere snobbery.