“It is an excellent Burgundy,” said Darcourt.
“Good. You may pour.”
“Of course he may pour,” said Powell. “What do you think this is? A restaurant? That’s the wine there is and that’s the wine you are going to get, so shut up.”
Dr. Dahl-Soot drew herself up in her chair. “Monsieur, vous êtes une personne grossière.”
“You bet your sweet ass I am, Gunny, so you mind your manners and be a good girl.”
There was a pause, during which Darcourt hovered over the Doctor’s wineglass. Unexpectedly she burst into loud laughter.
“I think I like you, Powell,” she said. “You may call me Nilla. But only you.” She cast an excluding eye over the rest of the table. Then she raised her glass of Burgundy toward Powell, smiled with an elegant sweetness, and drained it to the bottom.
“More,” she said, thrusting it at Darcourt, who now was attending to Penny Raven.
“You wait your turn, Nilla,” said Powell.
“You are teaching me manners?” said the Doctor. “Which manners? In my country the guest of honour is allowed certain freedoms. But I see how it is. You think you are a lion-tamer and probably a lady-killer. Let me tell you that I am a lion who has eaten many tamers, and you shall not kill me because I am not a lady.”
“Funny thing. That had just begun to pop into my mind,” said Penny Raven. “But if you are not a lady, how do you describe yourself?”
“Not long ago we spoke of the aristocracy of genius,” said the Doctor, whose glass Darcourt had hastened to fill, out of turn.
“Now Penny, no fighting,” said Maria. “It isn’t the custom for the lady to propose toasts, but as Arthur is busy carving this authentically Celtic piglet, I shall claim the privilege of a hlafdiga and propose the health of Dr. Gunilla Dahl-Soot; I declare her to be not less than a countess in the aristocracy of genius. May we enjoy the proof of her genius.”
The health was drunk, with enthusiasm by all but Penny Raven, who muttered something into her glass. The Doctor rose to her feet.
“My dear new friends,” she said; “you do me honour and I shall not fail you. Have I teased you just a little bit? Perhaps I have. It is my way. I am a great joker, you should know. There often lurks behind my words some double entendre which you may not understand, perhaps until much later. Perhaps even in the night, you wake up laughing. Ah, the Doctor, you say. She is deep, deep, deep. You have drunk to my health. I shall drink back at you. You, reverend sir, with the wine—may I have something in my glass? Ah, thank you.—Though I am not sure about wine at this Arthurian feast. I am not sure that our hlafdiga is right in saying that Arthur had wine at his court. Surely it was that stuff they made with fermented honey—”
“Mead,” said Hollier. “You mean mead.”
“Just so. Mead. I have drunk it. And it is nasty, sweet, awful stuff, let me tell you. I casted up my stomach—”
“Not surprising, the way you go at it,” said Penny, with a smile which did not entirely rob her remark of offence.
“I can drink anybody here under the table,” said the Doctor, with grave belligerence. “Man, woman, or dog, I can drink him under the table. But I want no nasty words here. I want to drink to you all. Though as I say, I cannot believe that King Arthur had wine—”
“I’ve just thought of it,” said Hollier. “The Welsh did have wine in the ancient days. You remember the old cry—Gwin o eur–Wine from the gold! Not only did they have wine, but they drank it from golden vessels. Not out of cow-horns, like a road company doing the banquet in Macbeth. Gwin o eur!”
“Clem, you’re drunk!” said Penny. “And that’s a very dubious, ill-founded quotation.”
“And your Welsh is terrible!” said Powell.
“Is that so? If this were not a friendly gathering I’d let you have one right on the nose for that, Powell.”
“Would you, boy?” said Powell. “I dare you.”
“Yes. Right on the snot-box,” said Hollier. He half rose, as if to fight, but Penny pulled him back into his chair. “The Welsh are a despicable people,” he said in a murmur.
“That’s right. Real scum. Like Gypsies,” said Powell, winking at his hostess.
“Am I, or am I not, making a speech?” said the Doctor. “Am I returning thanks for this splendid dinner, so exquisitely chosen and so elegantly served under the lustrous eye of our hlafdiga?” She bowed deeply toward Maria. “Yes, I am. So I bid all you rowdies and learned hoggleboes keep silence, until I am finished. I love this country; it is, like my own land, a socialist monarchy and thus unites the best of the past and the present; I love my hosts, they are true patrons of art. I love you all; you are comrades in a great adventure, a Quest for something a man longed for but did not achieve. I drain my glass to you.” And she did so, and sat down, rather heavily.
It must have been the martinis, thought Darcourt. They all drank martinis before dinner as if they never expected to see drink again. The Doctor certainly had three, because I gave them to her myself. Now, following her speech of thanks and her toast to Maria, the Doctor was silent, and ate a large helping of roast pork.and apple sauce and a variety of vegetables—probably not Arthurian but nobody questioned them—in a mood that could only be called morose. The other guests murmured, more or less politely, to one another.
The Canadians—Arthur, Hollier, Penny Raven, and Darcourt—were abashed by what the Doctor had said; they closed up at any imputation of high motives, of splendid intention, of association with what might be great, and therefore dangerous. They were not wholly of the grey majority of their people; they lived in a larger world than that, but they wore the greyness as a protective outer garment. They did not murmur the national prayer: “O God, grant me mediocrity and comfort; protect me from the radiance of Thy light.” Nevertheless, they knew how difficult and disquieting too bold a spirit might be. They settled to their plates, and made small talk.
In the hearts of the two who were not Canadians, Maria and Powell, the Doctor’s toast struck fire. Powell was possessed by ambition, but not the ambition that puts the reward and the success before the excellence of the achievement. He meant to use his colleagues, and the Cornish Foundation, for his own purposes, but he thought the purposes good, and would provide ample reward and acclaim for anyone associated with them. He would ply the whip, and drive everyone to the last inch of their abilities, in order to get what he wanted. He knew he was dealing with a group who were primarily academics, and that the horses must amble before they could be made to gallop. But he would have his way, and in the Doctor he sensed an ally.
As for Maria, she felt, for the first time since her marriage, a stirring of real adventure. Oh, it was wonderful to be Mrs. Arthur Cornish, and to share the thoughts and ambitions of a man of fine—yes, noble, she would say noble—spirit. There was nothing she could want in a man that she did not find in Arthur. And yet—was it the northern nature, or the Canadian greyness—there was just the least hint of chill about her marriage. They loved. They trusted. Their sexual life was a warm manifestation of love and trust. But, if only for a moment, there might be some hint of the improbable, of a relaxation of control. Maybe this opera would bring that. It was risky. It was a long time since she had sniffed the sharp, acrid smell of risk. Not since the time of Parlabane, over a year ago. Who would have thought of regretting Parlabane? And yet—he had brought something rare and pungent into her life.
What her place might be in this opera adventure she did not know. She was not a musician, though she was musical. She would not be allowed to work on the libretto; Penny and Simon had that marked off for themselves. Was she to do no more than write cheques, as an official of the Cornish Foundation? Money, as a host of grant-seekers assured her, was seminal. But it was not true seed of her seed.