Robertson Davies

Tempest Tost

One

“It’s going to be a great nuisance for both of us,” said Freddy. “Couldn’t you make a fuss about it, Tom?”

“If your father said they could use the place, it’s no good for me to make a fuss,” said Tom.

“Yes, but Daddy just said that they could use the place in a large, general way. He didn’t specially say that they could use this shed. Anyway he only said it because Griselda is probably going to have a big part. It seems to me that I remember him saying that he didn’t want them in the house.”

“Now Miss Freddy, you’d better be sure about that. You’ve got a way of remembering your Dad said just whatever you wanted him to say.”

When Tom called her Miss Freddy she knew that he had temporarily ceased to be a friend and had become that incalculable, treacherous thing, an adult. At fourteen she had no defence against such sudden shifts. People treated her as a child or an equal, whichever suited them at the moment. But she had thought that she could rely on Tom. Still, had Daddy really said that he didn’t want the Little Theatre people trampling through his house? She could hear the words spoken in his voice, quite clearly, but had he really said them? Solly had once told her that she interpreted Daddy as priests interpret their gods, for her own ends. This was a moment for discretion. She would achieve little without Tom’s help.

“I didn’t mean that you should refuse to let them in here, or anything silly like that. I just meant that you could make it rather difficult. You don’t want them snooping around in here, poking into all your drawers and using your tools, and getting everything all mixed up. That’s just what Larry Pye will do. There won’t be a thing left in its place by the time he gets through. You know that, Tom.”

Tom’s expression showed that he knew it very well. He didn’t want strangers in his workshop, messing about, dulling all his carefully sharpened edges, snarling his tidy coils of twine, using his pruning shears for cutting wire, as like as not. What might not happen if they began nosing into his special pride, the cabinet where all his seeds were kept, labelled and tucked away in tidy brown envelopes? Be just like them, to go rooting into what was none of their business. In his heart he was on Freddy’s side, but he wanted to enjoy the luxury of being persuaded. Anyway, he shouldn’t give way to a child too easily. Bad for the child’s character.

“Maybe I don’t want ‘em,” he said, slyly; “but you want ‘em even less. I’ve got my things to keep neat. But I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“It’s beneath you to say a mean thing like that, Tom,” said Freddy.

“Bad enough if they get larkin’ around with my seed, but suppose they get hold of those bottles of yours? I don’t want anybody poisoned in here, and police on the job, and you put away for anything up to forty years.” Tom guffawed, relishing his flight of fancy.

“Oh, Tom!” Freddy was disgusted. How stupid adults could be! Even a nice man like Tom.

“They’d let you off easy for murdering Larry Pye. But bootlegging! That’s where they’d get you. Brewing and distilling, and thereby cheating the Government out of its taxes on alcoholic liquors! That’s real crime, Freddy.”

“Tom, I’m not a bootlegger! I’m a scientist, really. I’m only a bootlegger if I offer it for sale. And I give it away. As you certainly ought to know, for I gave you a bottle of my blackberry wine last Christmas, and you drank it and said it was good.”

“And so it was good. But you put quite a bit of your Dad’s brandy in that blackberry before you put it down to mature.”

“Of course. All those dessert wines have to be fortified. But it wasn’t just the brandy that made it good; it was good wine, and I made it with the greatest care, and I think it’s downright miserable of you to make fun of it.”

“I was just coddin’ you, Freddy. It was real good wine. But I don’t know what your father would say if he knew how much stuff like that you’ve got hidden away in here.”

“You’ll know what he says in a few weeks. His birthday is coming, and I’ve got a dozen—a whole beautiful dozen—of champagne cider to give him. It’s wonderful stuff, Tom. A year old—just right—and if he likes it, I’m going to ask him to let me study in France, and learn everything about wine, and then come back here and revolutionize the wine industry in Canada. He’s got a lot of stock in a winery, and he could ask them to give me a job. Just think, Tom, maybe I’ll end up as the Veuve Cliquot of Canada!”

“Can’t say that I know what that is.”

“It’s the name of a woman. ‘Veuve’ means widow. Madame Cliquot’s champagne is one of the most famous in the world. She’s dead, of course, but her name lives.”

“Well, anything can happen,” said Tom, considering. “Widow Webster’s Wines; that’s what yours would have to be called. Sounds like something you’d take for your health. But that’s a long way off, Freddy. I’d give it a rest, now, if I was you.”

“I couldn’t be Widow Webster if I’d married,” said Freddy, practically; “I’d be Widow Something Else. Tom, you don’t understand how serious I am. I really mean it. I’m not just playing. I really have a very professional attitude about the whole thing. I’ve read books about wine chemistry, and books about vintages, and everything about wine I can get my hands on. I know I’m young, but I’m not being silly, really I’m not. And if you let me down I don’t know what I’ll do, for there isn’t another soul I can really trust. Griselda wouldn’t understand; she hasn’t any brains anyway, and when it comes to wine she simply hasn’t a clue. And Daddy will have to be shown. Please be a sport, Tom, and don’t go all grown-up on me.”

Tom was not the man to withstand such an appeal. He was fifty, he had an excellent wife, he had two sons in the Navy, he was the best gardener within fifty miles, he was a respected member of the Sergeant’s Club, and he was bass soloist—unpaid, but highly regarded—in the choir of St Clement’s; but age and honours could not change the fact that Freddy—Miss Fredegonde Webster, his employer’s younger daughter—was a very special friend of his. As he often said to the wife, Freddy had no mother. But if he was to give in, he’d have to give some advice, as well. That was only fair; if a kid gets her way, she has to take some advice. That is part of the unwritten code which governs the dealings between generations.

“Well, Freddy,” he said, speaking her name on the low D which was so much admired at St Clement’s, “I know you’re serious, right enough, but you’ve got to remember that you’re only fourteen, and if most people knew what you was up to, they’d be shocked. They’d never believe that you could make it and not drink it. Now wait a minute; I know you just test it, because you’ve got to keep your palate sharp. I know you just gargle it and spit it out and smack your lips like the real wine-tasters. But they’d never believe it. They’d misunderstand. I’ve seen a good deal of life and a good deal of war, and I tell you, Freddy, it’s a shocker how people can be misunderstood. I’ll say nothing, but you be careful. You’ve got to keep your nose clean, as they say. If your Dad found out, and knew I knew, it’d be as good as my position is worth. And I don’t want to leave this garden because you’ve been found tight under a lilac and I’m an accomplice. See?”