Robertson Davies
The Lyre of Orpheus
The lyre of Orpheus opens the door of the underworld.
I
1
Arthur, who had a masterly way with meetings, was gathering this one together for a conclusion.
“Are we agreed that the proposal is crack-brained, absurd, could prove incalculably expensive, ad violates every dictate of financial prudence? We have all said in our different ways that nobody in his right mind would want anything to do with it. Considering the principles to which the Cornish Foundation is committed, are these not all excellent reasons why we should accept the proposal, and the extension of it we have been discussing, an8d go ahead?”
He really has musical flair, thought Darcourt. He treats every meeting symphonically. The theme is announced, developed in major and minor, pulled about, teased, chased up and down dark alleys, and then, when we are getting tired of it, he whips us up into a lively finale and with a few crashing chords brings us to a vote.
There are people who cannot bear to come to an end. Hollier wanted more discussion.
“Even if, by a wild chance, it succeeded, what would be the good of it?” he said.
“You have missed my point,” said Arthur. “I am simply speaking as a responsible member of the Cornish Foundation.”
“But my dear Clem, I am urging you to speak as a member of a special sort of foundation with unusual aims. I am asking you to use your imagination, which is not what foundations like to do. I am asking you to take a flyer at an extreme outside chance, with the possibility of unusual gains. You don’t have to pretend to be a business man. Be what you are—a daring professor of history.”
“I suppose if you put it like that—”
“I do put it like that.”
“But I still think my question is a good one. Why should we present the world with another opera? There are lots of operas already, and people busily writing them in every square mile of the civilized world.”
“Because this would be a very special opera.”
“Why? Because the composer died before he had gone very far with it? Because this girl Schnak-whatever-it-is wants to get a doctorate in music by completing it? I don’t see what’s special about that.”
“That’s reducing the whole plan to the obvious.”
“That’s leaving out the heart of it. That’s forgetting our proposal to mount the finished opera and offer it to the public,” said Geraint Powell, a theatre man with a career to make, who already looked on himself as the person to get the opera on the stage.
“I think we should bear in mind the very high opinion of Miss Schnakenburg that is expressed by all her supporters. They hint at genius and we are looking for genius, aren’t we?” said Darcourt.
“Yes, but do we want to get into show business?” said Hollier.
“Why not?” said Arthur. “Let me say it again: we have set up the Cornish Foundation with money left by a man who was a great connoisseur, who took all kinds of chances, and we have to decide what sort of foundation it is to be. And we’ve done that. It’s a foundation for the promotion of the arts and humane scholarship, and this plan is both art and scholarship. But haven’t we agreed that we don’t want another foundation that gives money to good, safe projects, and then stands aside, hoping for good, safe results? Caution and non-intervention are the arthritis of patronage. Let’s back our choices and stir the pot and raise some hell. We’ve already made our obeisance to safety; we’ve established our good, dull credentials by getting Simon here to write a biography of our founder and benefactor—”
“Thank you, Arthur. Oh, many, many thanks. This estimate of my work is more encouragement than I can accept without blushes.” Simon Darcourt knew too well that the biographical job was not as easy as Arthur seemed to think, and strongly aware also that he had not so far asked for or received a penny for the work he had done. Simon, like many literary men, was no stranger to feelings of grievance.
“Sorry, Simon, but you know what I mean.”
“I know what you think you mean,” said Darcourt, “but the book may not be quite such a dud as you imagine.”
“I hope not. But what I am getting at is that the book may cost a few thousands, and, without being by any means the richest foundation in the country, we have quite a lot of money to dispose of. I want to do something with a bit of flash.”
“It’s your money,” said Hollier, still determined to be the voice of caution, “and I suppose you can do as you please.”
“No, no, no, and again no. It isn’t my money; it’s Foundation money and we are all directors of the Foundation—you Clem, and you Simon, and you Geraint, and, of course, Maria. I am simply the chairman, first among equals, because we have to have a chairman. Can’t I persuade you? Do you really want to be safe and dull? Who votes for safety and dullness? Let’s have a show of hands.”
There were no votes for safety and dullness. But Hollier had a sense of having been pushed aside by totally unfair rhetoric. Geraint Powell didn’t like meetings and wished this one to be over. Darcourt felt he had been snubbed. Maria knew well how right Hollier was and that the money was really Arthur’s money, in spite of all legal fictions. She knew that it most certainly wasn’t her money, even though, as Arthur’s wife, she might be supposed to have some extra pull.
She had not been married very long, and she loved Arthur dearly, but she knew that Arthur could be a great bully when he wanted something, and he wanted passionately to be a vaunting, imaginative, daring patron. He is a bully just as I suppose King Arthur was a bully when he insisted to the Knights of the Round Table that he was no more than the first among equals, she thought.
“Are we agreed, then?” said Arthur. “Simon, would you draw up a resolution? It doesn’t have to be in final form; we can tidy it up later. Have you all got drinks? Isn’t anybody going to eat anything? Help yourselves from the Platter of Plenty.”
The Platter of Plenty was a joke, and, as jokes will, it had become a little too familiar. It was a large silver epergne that stood in the middle of the round table at which they sat. From a central, richly ornamented pedestal it extended curving arms at the end of which were little plates of dried fruits and nuts and sweets. A hideous object, thought Maria, unjustly, for it was a fine thing of its kind. It had been a wedding gift to Arthur and herself from Darcourt and Hollier and she hated it because she knew it must have cost them a great deal more than she supposed they could afford. She hated it because it seemed to her to embody much of what she disliked about her marriage—needless luxury, an assumption of a superiority based on wealth, a sort of grandiose uselessness. Her passionate desire, after making Arthur happy, was to gain a reputation for herself as a scholar, and big money and big scholarship still seemed to her to be irreconcilable. But she was Arthur’s wife, and as nobody else took anything from the epergne she took a couple of nuts, for the look of the thing.
As Darcourt worked over the resolution, the directors chatted, not altogether amicably. Arthur was flushed, and Maria was aware that he was speaking rather thickly. It couldn’t be that he had drunk too much. He never did that. He had taken a chocolate from the Platter of Plenty, but it seemed to have a bad taste, and he spat it into his handkerchief.
“Will this do?” said Darcourt. “ ‘It was resolved that the meeting should comply with the request made jointly by the Graduate Department of the Faculty of Music and Miss Hulda Schnakenburg for support to enable Miss Schnakenburg to flesh out and complete the manuscript notes now reposing in the Graduate Library (among the musical MSS left in the bequest of the late Francis Cornish) of an opera left incomplete at his death in 1822 by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, the work to be done in a manner congruous with the operatic conventions of Hoffmann’s day and for such an orchestra as he would have known; this to be done as a musicological exercise in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Miss Schnakenburg’s attainment of the degree of Doctor of Music. It was further resolved that if the work proved satisfactory the opera should be mounted and presented in public performance under Hoffmann’s title of Arthur of Britain. This part of the proposal has not yet been communicated to the Faculty of Music or Miss Schnakenburg.’ “