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The Great Mervyn Blake

The large room rented by the Australian Society of Creative Writers for its bi-monthly meetings was comfortably filled on the afternoon of 7th November. The Society was fairly strong and quite influential, for many of its members had arrived in the local world of belles-lettres and its president was the well-known Mervyn Blake, novelist and critic.

He was the chief speaker this afternoon, and he spoke with the assurance of the successful. His speech began shortly after tea, which was served at half past three, and it finished at four minutes to five, being followed by polite hand-clapping. At five o’clock he left the building in company with Miss Nancy Chesterfield, the social editress of the Recorder.

Blake’s age was somewhere in the early fifties. He was large but not fat, florid of face but not flaccid of muscle, and his over-long hair still matched the colour of his dark-brown eyes. He carried his years exceptionally well, for Prosperity riding on one shoulder and Success on the other kept those shoulders well back.

“Glad you were able to make the grade this afternoon,” he said when he and Nancy Chesterfield were walking along Collins Street to the Hotel Australia. “Do we pick up your case at your office?”

“Yes, please, Mervyn. I left it with the commissionaire so there’ll be no need to go up for it. My compliments on your speech. But—”

“But what?”

“I wonder. Do you think if the modern novelist turned out his wares similar in length and scope and digression to, say, the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Thackeray, that they would be acceptable to modern publishers?”

“No, most certainly not. Modern publishers have to and do pander to the demands of the modern and now comparatively educated herd. Old time publishers took pride in their part of the production of fine literature. Nowadays they demand sensationalism slickly put across, for their shareholders must be given their pound of flesh. Anyway, it’s a heck of a dry argument, and at the moment I’m sick of telling the would-be great how to write novels. And I am sick of literary people—which is one reason why I had Janet to ask you out for the night.”

“Bored with your house party?” she asked when they came together again in the crowd on the footpath.

“The boredom even brandy won’t dispel.”

They did not speak again until they had relaxed in one of the lounges of the famous hotel. Then he ordered gin and vermouth for his companion and brandy and dry ginger ale for himself. She noted that he called for a double for himself.

“What were the other reasons you used to persuade Janet to invite me?” she asked. He drank the brandy as though it were a light beer and signalled to the waiter.

“The mirror in your bag will provide one of the reasons,” he said. “I wish I weren’t old. I wish I weren’t married. I wish I were your age and yet in possession of all the experiences and the success I have today. Dammit! No sooner do we reach the top than we are old and able to enjoy only—brandy. A double, please, waiter. The lady will miss out this time.”

“And the other reasons?” pressed Nancy Chesterfield. Dressed in a beautifully tailored black suit and pale green blouse with a fashionable black hat emphasizing the brilliance of her almost golden hair, she would have made any man proud to be her cavalier.

“Another is that I want you to give a full report of what I said this afternoon. Publicity is an author’s very breath of life,” he said with brutal candour made charming by the way he smiled. The second double brandy had been set before him and he drank it quickly, then said, “That’s better. Again, waiter, and another gin and vermouth. Been on the wagon, Nancy, since before lunch. A week-end party is quite all right, but one that goes on for a week becomes very wearing. I’m glad they didn’t want any encouragement to stay put. I didn’t want them with me. Marshall Ellis is a bore, and I am unable to understand why his face hasn’t been pushed in long ago. Wilcannia-Smythe gets under my skin at times. Lubers is a humourless iconoclast whom I find irritating, and Ella is exceedingly depressing after twenty-four hours. That leaves Twyford Arundal, who is really amusing when he’s properly drunk. Janet has been a little difficult, and I have been boozing too much.”

“Quite a tale of woe. Poor old Mervyn! Never mind. Janet likes having people about her, and the end of the house party is in sight, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Of course, I’m with Janet up to a point. One must mix. One must use people, especially influential people, and the lion of the moment is decidedly influential in London. Make no mistake, I use you, too, but then in my own fashion I’m fond of you. Your coming home with me will save my reason. Your glass is empty.”

They left the Australia at five minutes past six and proceeded to a car park for Blake’s car. Nancy Chesterfield suggested that she should drive, but that proposal he put aside. The evidence of his condition was not manifest in his gait, nor at first did it become manifest in his driving. His voice betrayed it to her. He spoke now very slowly and distinctly, with an accent he fondly thought was genuine Oxford.

Having called for her case, he drove with excessive caution till they were beyond the tram terminus, and then raised the speed so high that she had to remonstrate with him.

“My dear Nancy, we’re not driving in a T-model Ford. My nerves are steady. My eyes are wide open.”

“But my nerves are not particularly good today. I had a hectic morning with the Chief,” she told him.

“Indeed! You astonish me,” he said. “No one but creative writers are entitled to nerves. If this old dame in front doesn’t get clear in two seconds she is going to cop it, as the vulgar would say.”

However, thereafter he drove with moderate speed and care the remaining thirty odd miles to Yarrabo, again being exceedingly cautious when passing loaded timber trucks coming in from the distant mountains. Just after entering Yarrabo they left the highway for a branch road and then passed through a double gateway giving access to a spacious garden in which stood a spacious house.

In the hall they were welcomed by Mrs Blake and Mrs Ella Montrose.

“It’s so good of you to come, Nancy,” Janet Blake exclaimed, warmly. “Ella and I have become bored with each other, and even the men are getting tired of us. Come along! I am putting you in my room. Ella will bring you a cup of tea while you are dressing. There isn’t much time. Mervyn should have brought you hours ago.”

“We gossiped after the meeting,” Nancy Chesterfield explained, following her hostess from the hall. Behind her she heard Mrs Montrose tell Mervyn Blake that his evening milk had been taken to his writing-room, and she was aware that Blake always drank milk after a “heavy” afternoon that he could take a “heavy” evening the better.

The dinner was an informal affair. Everyone had long known each other excepting Marshall Ellis, the visitor from England. The Blakes were noted for their hospitality to literary folk, and at this time they were blessed with the services of an excellent cook and a maid with a personality. The room, the table appointments, and the efficient service made a combination altogether pleasing.

Eight people sat at the board, Mervyn Blake, well groomed, sober, and mentally alert, occupying the head of the table. On his right sat the guest of honour, Mr Marshall Ellis, one of London’s leading literary critics, Nancy Chesterfield did not like him, but forbore to condemn him merely for his imitation of G. K. Chesterton. The imitation proceeded no further than the paunch, the hair fashion and the pince-nez with its attachment of broad, black ribbon. The face was like that of a punch-drunk Liverpool Irishman, but the voice was the most melodious male voice she had ever heard.

Ella Montrose sat next to him. She was fifty, dark and tragic. When in her twenties she had produced two novels; since then she had spent her time reviewing books and writing pars for the literary journals. She might have done better had she reared a family—better that than delving into mystic cults from Odinism to Voodooism.

Next to Ella Montrose was Martin Lubers, short, dapper, alert and alive, with hazel eyes, clipped moustache, brown hair, and forty years behind him. Nancy wondered how he had managed to stay for a whole week, for he heaved grenades at those likely to differ from him.

She herself sat on Blake’s left, and beside her sat the cold, suave, white-haired Wilcannia-Smythe, reputed to have the most musical pen in Australia. He was slim and always elegant in dress, a rival and yet Mervyn’s firm friend for many years. Beyond him was Twyford Arundal, small, wispy, weak of eye and chin, but a poet of the top flight.

Last, but by no means least distinguished, was Janet Blake, who occupied the other end of the table. Who’s Who gave her age as forty-one, and people felt inclined to argue against that statement. Janet Blake was large but not thick, her eyes were dark and restless. Her mouth was generous and yet firm-lipped, and her chin was square and strong. She seldom smiled, and Nancy Chesterfield decided that the house party had “taken a lot out of her”.

All in all, the dinner was a happy affair. The host talked well about nothing and was supported by his friends. Marshall Ellis told of famous novelists with whom he was well acquainted, and, provided one closed one’s eyes, his voice was a delight to the ear.

Subsequently the party gathered in the lounge, where Mrs Blake served coffee. It was then nine o’clock, and at half past nine Mervyn Blake suggested drinks. From then on, no one but Wilcannia-Smythe was worried by an empty glass. Everyone except Marshall Ellis smoked cigarettes, and he smoked cigar after cigar so that the atmosphere became foggily dense, though every door and window was open.

The conversation veered to the subject of Mervyn Blake’s lecture at the literary meeting that afternoon—“The Structure of the Novel”—and then Martin Lubers had to throw one of his grenades, the temptation being too strong to be resisted.

“Which is preferable,” he asked, “an imperfectly constructed skeleton covered with healthy flesh and vitalized with good, red blood, or a perfectly constructed skeleton covered with parchment and pigment with watered ink?”

“Why be anatomical?” complained Twyford Arundal, who was fast reaching the point when his voice failed “Don’t be difficult, my dear Martin.”

Marshall Ellis eased himself in his chair, lit another cigar, belched, and opened his mouth. Everyone but Nancy Chesterfield knew what threatened, but the menace was averted by the iconoclastic Lubers, who, being a Director of Talks on the A.B.C., was not a person to be ruthlessly crushed.

“You have been discussing the structure of the novel as though the novel is an established science,” he said. “No art can be a science, like ballistics or material stresses. Not once have you mentioned the vital essentials of fiction, inspiration, and imagination, and the ability to believe in what is imagined. Without these essentials, the perfectly constructed novel is merely a thing of words.”

Marshall Ellis’s cheeks were being puffed out and drawn in. He grunted to command attention, and Wilcannia-Smythe took up the challenge in time to thwart him.

“If we may assume, Lubers, that your preference is for the crooked skeleton covered with bulging fat, give us examples,” he urged.

“Very well, I will,” assented Lubers. “You, Blake, were stressing the importance of deliberate analysis and the even progress of pure drama, the novelist’s imagination to be subservient to the language he employs. Life is not like that There is no such thing as pure drama, any more than in reality there are human characters who are all angel or all devil. A novel ought to be a slice of life, up in one chapter and down in another, its characters angels in the morning and devils in the evening. It’s the pictures painted by the words that count, not the words that paint the pictures. The story must be paramount, and in my opinion Clarence B. Bagshott can tell a story better than some of your lauded novelists.”

The room became quiet. It was as though Martin Lubers had praised the Decameron at a Methodist Conference. Then Blake spoke, slowly, giving exaggerated space between each word.

“My dear man, don’t be a complete ass,” he said. “We were discussing the novel and novelists, and you bring forward the atrocious efforts of a ‘whodunit’ writer.”

“All right, Blake, we’ll pass him by,” said the unabashed Lubers. “What of the novels of I. R. Watts? No one can say he does not turn out an excellent novel. He writes with astonishing vividness and achieves remarkable suspense.”

“Melodramatic trash,” averred Mervyn Blake, his eyes glinting.

“They sell, anyway,” Lubers argued. “And I’ve seen high praise of them in oversea journals. Watts gives an important something in addition to entertainment, and that addition is knowledge of history and of people.”

“But Lubers, Watts’s work lacks rhythm, and the writing is far from good.” Mervyn Blake’s lip lifted in a sneer, and he said, “It could never be claimed that I. R. Watts is a contributor to Australian literature—or any other. Our sole interest at the moment is Australian literature, and the influence we may exert upon its development.”

Nancy Chesterfield observed that Blake was becoming extremely angry. He emptied his glass and almost filled it with neat brandy, drank most of that and continued, apparently knowing he was the elected champion, his words falling like small hammers upon cement.

“Your taste in broadcast talks is excellent, Lubers,” he said, “but your judgment of literature is, shall we say, peculiar. You wireless people are like the film people. You cannot divest your minds of the idea that popularity spells artistic quality. There was never yet a best-seller that had any claims to being good literature, literature as understood by the cultured. We are interested, Lubers, in Literature with a capital L, not commercial fiction that receives the approval of the common herd.”

“Well, before I go up in smoke and flame, I’m firing my last shot,” Lubers growled. “The greatest best-seller of all time, you will agree, is the Bible, read by the cultured and the illiterate all over the world. The common herd can and does appreciate literature provided it says something worth hearing with the mind.”

Twyford Arundal opened and moved his mouth to mock but not the tiniest sound issued from it. Then he fell off his chair and his forehead came in contact with the edge of a stool. When he had been picked up and put back again, the powder for Blake’s next shot was drenched with the general sympathy for poor Twyford Arundal, who continued to work his mouth without result.

The unpleasantness had cleared by half past eleven, when Ella Montrose said she was going to bed. Everyone seemed ready to retire, and the party moved into the hall and broke up. There Blake asked Wilcannia-Smythe to lock the back door after he left the house for his writing-room.

“Be sure to go to bed, Mervyn,” Ella Montrose advised, and softly laughed. “Don’t go making love over the fence to the extraordinary Miss Pinkney.”

“I would much prefer, my dear Ella, to cut Miss Pinkney’s scrawny throat,” he countered.

Nancy Chesterfield slept soundly all through the night until half past seven the next morning when the maid brought her early tea. She was returning from the bathroom when she met Ella Montrose. Ella was whimpering like a child recovering from punishment. Nancy asked her why she was so upset, but could obtain no explanation, and she took the distraught woman to her own room, where she pacified her.

At last Ella managed to say between sobs, “Mervyn! The men went to call Mervyn to breakfast They say he’s dead. He’s lying just inside the door of his room. The door was shut, and he couldn’t get out. He tried to claw the door open, but—he—couldn’t get out.”