Leaven of Malice Read online

  It was a bad moment to approach Solly with such a scheme. He was conscious that he left much to be desired as a teacher of English; this point had just been rubbed into him by one of his own students who had—a final insult—meant it with sincere kindness. It was obvious that Higgin had approached him because he was the most junior member of the English staff, and thus, presumably, the easiest mark. He had sulked, and said that the thing was impossible.

  And then, to his astonishment, Higgin had said, very confidentially, that he was on the lookout for pupils, and that if he drew any pupils from Solly’s classes, he would be willing to remit to Solly one-half of their first month’s payment for lessons.

  Of course, Solly knew now, he should not have done what he did. But, in a mysterious way, the man offended his sense of propriety. It was not the offer of the kick-back on lessons—no, no, it was something that he had felt before Higgin got that far. It was, he supposed, a snobbish feeling. The little man was such a second-rater, such a squirt, such a base little creature. And so he had risen, and pushed Higgin toward the door, not hard or roughly, but just a good firm, directing push. He had said, he remembered, “No soap!” which was a sadly unacademic remark, but the best that he could think of at the moment. And when Higgin was in the corridor he had slammed the door.

  Undignified. Silly. But he was too disgusted with himself to think of what he was doing, and since that time he had thought little about the incident. But when he had met Higgin at Mother’s At Home, there was no mistaking the look of malicious triumph on Higgin’s face.

  Solly tried to banish thoughts of Higgin by further work. Not intimate communion with the finer thoughts of First Year Science, but with his Grand Project, his Passport to Academic Preferment. From a shelf above his desk he took down a book bound in dingy brown cloth, upon the front of which, inside a border of ornamental stamping, was printed the title, Saul. Inside, on the title page was:

  SAUL

  A DRAMA

  IN THREE PARTS

  Montreal

  Henry Rose, Great St. James Street

  MDCCCLVII

  This was it, the principal work of Canada’s earliest, and in the opinion of many people, greatest dramatist, Charles Heavysege. Had not Longfellow, moved by we know not what impulse, declared that Heavysege was the greatest dramatist since Shakespeare?

  Solly had not been drawn toward Heavysege by any kinship of spirit. Heavysege had been given to him, with overwhelming academic generosity, by the head of the English Faculty, Dr. Darcy Sengreen. He remembered the occasion vividly when, a few months before, Dr. Sengreen had asked him to lunch. And, when they had eaten, and were sitting at the table from which everything had been removed but a bouquet of paper roses, Dr. Sengreen had said: “Now, Bridgetower, you’ve got to get down to work. What are you going to do?”

  Solly had muttered something about having a lot to learn about lecturing and the preparation of his courses.

  “Ah, yes,” Dr. Sengreen had said, “but that isn’t enough, you know. You’ve got to get to work on something that will make your name known in scholastic circles. You’ve got to publish. Unless you publish, you’ll never be heard of. You’ve nothing in mind?”

  Solly had nothing in mind save apprehension as to what Dr. Sengreen might say next.

  “Well, if I were a young fellow in your position, I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant. I’d jump right into Amcan.”

  Solly knew that Dr. Sengreen meant the scholarly disemboweling of whatever seemed durable in American-Canadian literature.

  “Amcan’s the coming thing, and particularly the Canadian end of it. But there isn’t much to be done, and the field is being filled up very quickly. Now, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you Heavysege.”

  And half an hour later Solly had left Dr. Sengreen’s house carrying first editions of the two plays, the three long narrative poems, and the single novel of Charles Heavysege, which Dr. Sengreen had let him have at the prices which they had cost him. And, within a week, he had written to several learned papers asking for information about Heavysege, to be used in connection with a critical edition of that author upon which he was at work. Not, of course, that he expected any information, but this was a recognized way of warning other eager delvers in the dustheaps of Amcan that he had put his brand on Heavysege, had staked out a claim on him, so to speak, and that anybody trespassing on his property was committing an offence against the powerful, though unwritten, rules of academic research.

  And here he was, landed with Heavysege. Within a year at most Dr. Sengreen would expect a learned and provocative article on Heavysege, from his pen, in some journal or quarterly of recognized academic standing.

  Amcan. A new field in literary study, particularly the Can half. In twenty years they would be saying, “Dr. Bridgetower? The big man in the Heavysege field; yes, the collected edition is pretty much all his own work, you know, though he let X and Y do the bibliography, and Z did a lot of the digging on Heavysege’s newspaper writings; yes, a monument in Canadian scholarship; wonderful tribute to old Darcy Sengreen in the general introduction, but the dedication is ‘To my Mother, who first taught me to love Amcan, Si Monumentem requiris, circumspice’; yes, one of the very biggest things in Canadian literary studies.” Holding the brown book in his hand, a sudden nausea swept over Solly, and he gagged.

  Why do countries have to have literatures? Why does a country like Canada, so late upon the international scene, feel that it must rapidly acquire the trappings of older countries—music of its own, pictures of its own, books of its own—and why does it fuss and stew, and storm the heavens with its outcries when it does not have them? Solly pondered bitterly upon these problems, knowing full well how firmly he was caught in the strong, close mesh of his country’s cultural ambitions. Already he was being asked for advice by hopeful creators of culture. Who was that fellow, that reporter on The Bellman, who had been at him only a few days ago? Bumble, was that his name? No; Rumball; that was it. Poor Rumball, toiling every spare minute of his time at what he was certain would be the great Canadian prose epic, The Plain That Broke the Plough.

  Rumball had approached him with great humility, explaining that he had no education, and wanted to find out a few things about epics. Solly, capriciously, had said that he had more education than he could comfortably hold, and he was damned if he could write an epic. He had advised Rumball to model himself on Homer, who had no education either. He had expressed admiration for Rumball’s theme. God knows it had sounded dreary enough, but Solly felt humble in the presence of Rumball. Here, at least, was a man who was trying to create something, to spin something out of his own guts and his own experience. He was not a scholarly werewolf, digging up the corpse of poor Charles Heavysege, hoping to make a few meals on the putrefying flesh of the dead poet.

  But this was not getting anything done. He looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. He put Saul back on the shelf, removed his shoes and crept downstairs with them in his hand. Outside his mother’s door he listened; though the light was still on, thin, tremulous snores assured him that she was asleep and would probably remain so for many hours. He stole down to the ground floor, shut himself into the telephone cupboard and dialed a number.

  “Yes?”

  “Is that you, Molly? It’s Solly. Is Humphrey at home?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I come over? I need you.”

  “Righto, ducks.”

  IN THE DIMNESS of The Bellman’s news room a cone of light shone from above Henry Rumball’s desk, illuminating his typewriter; Rumball, balancing on the back legs of his chair, gazed fixedly into the works of his machine, as though seeking inspiration. He was alone, having returned early from an entertainment given by a class of backward boys before a Home and School Club. He should have been thinking about the backward boys, but he was thinking about The Plain That Broke the Plough.

  It was an epic, there could be no doubt about that. It seemed to become more epic ev
ery day. It swept on and on, including more and more aspects of life in the great Canadian West, until he was thoroughly astonished by it. He had read about this business of books getting away from their writers, taking their own heads, so to speak, but he was astonished to experience it himself. He was happily amazed at the willfulness of his own creative mind; this ability to go on and on, without much effort or conscious control, certainly made him feel that he was, well, in the grip of a power greater than himself. It was humbling to feel so.… Now, about those backward boys—

  But at this moment the footsteps and the rumblings of which he had been conscious at the back of his mind became fully audible, demanding attention, and Mr. Shillito walked into the news room.

  “Ah, good evening,” said he. “Just out for a breather and thought I’d look in to see if anything was doing.”

  He went to the city desk, rummaged among the papers on it, and looked at one or two copy-hooks, and then walked over to Rumball’s desk and sat down familiarly on one corner of it.

  “Knocking out your stint, I see,” he said. “Good. Good. Always write your story while it’s fresh in your mind; never leave it till tomorrow. What is it?”

  “Backward boys, gym and handicraft display,” said Rumball.

  “Hmph, yes; even that—do it while it’s hot. Well, well; I’ll push on. Always walk a mile or two every evening. Find some of my best ideas come to me then. I still carry a notebook, you know,” said Mr. Shillito, with the arch manner of one confiding a surprising secret. “A good phrase comes into my head while I’m walking, out comes the notebook, under a street lamp, and I pop it down. Then, in the morning, I look at the book and sometimes I find something already written in my head, ready to pop out when the right phrase calls it up. Strange how the writer’s mind works.”

  Rumball grunted. He did not like to think that Mr. Shillito’s mind worked along lines so closely resembling his own.

  “Yes, it’s all part of the romance of the craft. You’re young in the craft, and I’m old in it—the greatest game in the world.” Mr. Shillito’s voice trembled with emotion. Then his mood became conspiratorial. “Nothing new about the great mystery, I suppose?”

  “Nothing that I’ve heard.”

  “Wish that could be cleared up. It isn’t good to have a thing like that hanging over a paper.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’ll all come out in the wash.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, lad. No, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Sure. A libel threat isn’t anything. The lawyers will probably fix it up between them.”

  “You think so?”

  “Even suppose they don’t, it couldn’t cost the paper much. It’s not serious libel, if it’s libel at all. No court would give much in the way of damages on a thing like that.”

  “It isn’t the public result I’m thinking of. It’s the secondary results. Here in the office, for instance. Some pretty big apples could be shaken from some pretty high branches.”

  “You mean Boney?”

  “Don’t say I said so.”

  “No, of course not. But Gee, Mr. Shillito, what would bring it to that?”

  “Towns like this, my boy, are very close-knit—at the heart, I mean. You may tread on some people’s toes, and nothing will happen to you. But if you trouble the waters in the wrong quarter, you wish you hadn’t. Divide families, turn father against daughter—that kind of thing—no good comes of it.”

  “Father against daughter? You mean Vambrace and his daughter?”

  “I shouldn’t speak of it. Still—I saw what I saw. I’m an old man, and I’ve seen a good deal of life, but I’m still shocked, thank God, when I see a woman beaten.”

  “Beaten! You mean Vambrace has been lighting into Pearl?”

  “Did I say so? Well—off the record, mind—he was dragging, positively dragging her into the house. I was out in the garden calling Blue Mist, our Persian, and I saw most of it. And when I went out into the street, do you know what I found, Rumball?”

  “What?”

  “A blackthorn stick, broken right across. Right across, mind you. When you bring a white man to that pass, Rumball, you’ve got to answer for it.”

  With his usual dramatic sense Mr. Shillito rose from the desk, and went to the door, thoughtfully sweeping aside his ramshorn moustaches. Before leaving he fixed Rumball with a stern glance, and flourished his walking stick at him.

  “Off the record, mind you,” he said, and was gone.

  Once again Rumball was alone, peering into his typewriter. Was it up to him to do anything? He knew Pearl. Indeed, he admired her. He had first met her when he sought some information for TPTBTP (which was the cabalistic way in which he thought of his book) in the Waverley Library. She had been very helpful and nice, and he had told her about the book. She had seemed interested. Lonely as he was, he had two or three times asked her if she would like to have a meal with him at the Snak Shak, and talk about TPTBTP, but she had always refused, though nicely. And so he had put her out of his mind. After all, he had to save himself for the book. But—beaten with a blackthorn stick! Should he do anything? And if so, what? Should he go to her in the morning, and offer himself for any service she might command? Pearl, in distress, seemed much more desirable and important than before.

  But then, what about his duty to TPTBTP?

  Professor Bridgetower ought to be considered, too. He was involved in the mess. And he was the first professor who had ever been human to Rumball. Usually, when Rumball was on the University beat, he called on a few professors who said “Nothing today” as soon as he approached them. But when he had wanted to talk to Bridgetower about his novel, Bridgetower had asked him to sit down, and had taken him seriously. A nice fellow. For his sake, as well as for Pearl’s, something ought to be done. But what?

  Much troubled, Rumball began to type: “An audience which almost filled the gallery of the gymnasium of Queen Elizabeth School witnessed the annual display by the Opportunity Class on Thursday evening.…”

  NORM AND DUTCHY YARROW lay happily in bed. Her head was snuggled on his breast, and his left arm held her close to him. A bedside lamp with a pink shade threw a rosy glow over the scene. They were deeply content, and almost asleep, until Dutchy spoke.

  “Gee, it’s wonderful to be so happy.”

  “That’s right, honey-bunch.”

  “It just makes you sorry for everybody in the world that isn’t as happy as we are.”

  “That’s a sweet thought, sugar.”

  “It just breaks my heart, thinking about those two poor kids.”

  “Certainly is tough for them.”

  “D’you s’pose they’ll ever have anything like this? D’you s’pose they’ll ever be as happy and as close as we are, right this minute?”

  Norm thought about it. He tried to imagine Pearl, lying beside Solly in the connubial bliss which enfolded Dutchy and himself. Somehow the vision did not seem quite right. Happy lovers very often feel the generous wish that others may be as happy as they, but it is only human to think that one has gone a little farther in this sort of happiness than others are likely to follow.

  “Well, I don’t know, sweetie. Happiness is a kind of a talent. And the physical relationship is a talent, too. Solly and Pearlie are both kind of nervous. I don’t think their background is right for it. I mean, they could be happy, but as for being as happy as we are—well, that’s expecting a lot.”

  “I’ll say so. I don’t suppose anybody was ever as happy as I am right this minute.”

  Far down in the bed, Norm tickled her with his toes. She tickled him with hers. They scuffled and giggled and kissed.

  “See?” said Dutchy. “Can you imagine Solly and Pearlie playing toesies? I just can’t.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Norm. “There’s a touch of the gammon in Pearlie.”

  “The what?”

  “The gammon; it’s a French expression for a delinquent girl. Still, you can’t tell. There are people,” said
Norm portentously, “who never get any fun out of sex at all.”

  “Oh sure, I know. Case histories. But you don’t think they’ll end up as a couple of case histories, do you?”

  “Could happen. I mean, if it’s true about Pearlie and her father.”

  “Oh, Norm, don’t you think there’s been some mistake about that?”

  “You ought to know. It was you that Jimmy phoned about it.”

  “Yes. I just hate to believe it, but he phoned just as soon as Mrs. Shillito was out of his office. She’s the Vambrace’s next-door neighbour, and she practically saw everything. And Jimmy told it to me just as she told it to him. She was in getting her lower plate tightened up a little bit, so she was able to talk all the time he was working on it. And she swears it’s true.”

  “She actually saw Vambrace break the stick over Pearlie’s head?”

  “Not over her head, her back.”

  “Ah, well, psychologically that makes all the difference. I mean, even where on her back makes a difference. I mean, if he hit her over the shoulders it might have been just rage, but if he hit her over the fanny it was definitely sex.”

  “You mean there’s sex between Pearlie and her father?”

  “Honey, you’re a trained recreationist; you know that there’s a lot of sex everywhere.”

  “Oh, Norm, how awful. I mean, imagine!”

  “Jimmy said Mrs. Shillito actually saw it, did he?”

  “No, her husband saw it. At least, he heard an awful noise, and went to his front door, and there was Vambrace walloping Pearlie with the stick. And a car was dashing away which must have been Solly’s car, because he drove her home from here, remember? And old Mr. Shillito ran out and found the stick, and it was one of those blackthorn sticks, smashed in two over Pearl’s body. And you know what awful thorns those sticks have, and she was wearing just a thin dress and a short coat, so the lacerations must be something awful.”

  “It makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, right here in Salterton, among university people—that kind of thing, that you only associate with case histories.”