He had no misgivings about Gunilla. There was a woman who could see beyond the language of a creed to the essence of a creed. Gunilla was sound as a bell.

As for Arthur and Maria, the birth of the child seemed to have drawn them nearer than they had ever been before. The blessing that children bring is a cliché. It is as corny as the rhymes of Ella Wheeler Wilcox about art. But one of the most difficult tasks for the educated and sophisticated mind is to recognize that some clichés are also important truths.

It is a cliché that the birth of a child is a symbol of hope, however disappointed and distressed that hope may at last prove to be. The baptism is a ceremony in which that hope is announced, and Hope is one of the knightly virtues in a sense that the Cranes, for instance, had not understood, and might perhaps never understand. The hope embodied in the small body of Arthur David Nikolas as Darcourt took him in his arms and sained him, was, in part, the hope of the marriage of Arthur and Maria. The silver link, the silken tie.

It was after the blessing of the child, and the saining with water, that the slight accident occurred. Following an old custom, now revived by ritualists like Darcourt, he lighted three candles from the great candle that stood beside the font, and handed them to the godparents, saying, “Receive the light of Christ, to show that you have passed from darkness to light.”

Hollier and Gunilla, understanding that they did this on behalf of the child, took their candles with dignity, and Gunilla bowed her head in reverence.

Powell, startled, dropped his candle, spilling wax down his clothes, and scrambled for it on the floor, murmuring, unsuitably, “Oh, my God!” Maria giggled and the child, which had been an angel of propriety even when its head was wetted, gave a loud wail.

Darcourt took the candle from Powell, relighted it, and said, “Receive the light of Christ, in your astonishment of heart, to show that you have passed from darkness to light.”

“That was a bloody good ad lib of yours, Sim bach,” said Powell, at the party afterward. “I’ve never heard a better on the stage.”

“I think yours was even better, Geraint bach,” said Darcourt.

The artists and artificers who are assembled to put an opera on the stage make up a closed society, and no one who is not of the elect may hope to penetrate it. There is no ill-will in this; it is simply that people deep in an act of creation take their whole lives with them into that act, and the world outside becomes shadowy until the act is completed, the regular schedule of performances established, and the strength of association somewhat relaxed.

Those who are on the outside feel this keenly. As the last weeks of work on Arthur of Britain progressed, Arthur and Maria sensed the chill. Of course they were welcome everywhere—which is to say that nobody quite liked to ask them to go away. They were known to be the “angels”. They paid the bills, the salaries, all the multifarious costs of a complicated project, and therefore they had to be treated with courtesy; but it was cold courtesy. Even their intimate friend Powell whispered to their other intimate friend Darcourt, “I wish Arthur and Maria weren’t always bumming around while we’re working.”

Darcourt had his place in the adventure; he was the librettist, and however unlikely it was that any words would be changed at so late a point in the proceedings, he was free to come and go, and if Powell suddenly wanted him to explain a difficult passage to a singer, it was a nuisance if he were not at the rehearsal. Because of her shadowy association with the libretto, even Penny Raven appeared at rehearsals without any questioning looks. But not the angels.

“I feel as conspicuous and out of place as tan shoes on a pallbearer,” said Arthur, who was not given to simile in the ordinary way.

“But I want to see what they’re doing,” said Maria. “After all, we must have some rights. Have you looked at the bills lately?”

Perhaps they had expected lively doings, with Powell standing in front of a stage filled with singers, shouting and waving his arms like a policeman at a riot. Nothing of the sort. The rehearsals were quiet and orderly. The unpunctual Powell was always present half an hour before a rehearsal began, and he was stern with latecomers, though these were few, and always had reasonable excuses. The ebullient Powell was quiet and restrained; he never shouted, was never discourteous. He had absolute command and used it with easy authority. Was this artistic creation? Apparently it was, and Arthur and Maria were astonished at how quickly and surely the opera began to take shape.

Not that it seemed like an opera, as they conceived of an opera, in the first two weeks of rehearsal. These took place in Toronto in large, dirty rooms belonging to the Conservatory, and the Graduate School of Music, which had been hired for the work. In charge of these was Waldo Harris, the first assistant to Powell; he was a bland, large young man who never lost his calm in the midst of complexity, and he seemed to know everything. He had an assistant, Gwen Larking, who was called Stage Manager; she had two other girls to do her lightest bidding. Miss Larking occasionally and excusably showed some emotion, and the assistants, who were beginners, did run and fuss, and brandish their clip-boards until Miss Larking frowned at them, and even hissed at them to shut up. But these young women were serenity itself compared with the three students called gofers (because they were always being told to go for coffee, or go for sandwiches, or go for somebody who was wanted in a hurry). The gofers were the lowest, most inconsiderable form of theatrical life. At rehearsals these seven clustered around Powell like iron filings around a magnet, and talked in whispers. They all dealt very largely in paper, and took notes without cease. The provision of new, sharp pencils was part of the gofers’ job.

But these were all less than Mr. Watkin Bourke, who was called the répétiteur, or coach.

It was Watty’s job to see that the singers knew their music, and this meant everything from long hours at the piano with the principals who knew their music but wanted advice about phrasing, to principals who read music with difficulty (though they never admitted this) and had to be taught their parts almost by rote. It was Watty’s job to train the Chorus, and this meant the ten gentlemen, apart from Giles Shippen, the tenor lead, and Gaetano Panisi, who played Modred, who made up King Arthur’s Knights, and the Ladies who were their vocal counterparts. The Chorus were all good musicians, but twenty-two good singers do not make a chorus, and they had to be gently persuaded to sing together, and not merely to sing in tune, but to sing in tune as a unity, and to vary their intonation subtly to agree with leading singers who might become the teeniest bit flat or sharp under dramatic stress. In all of this Watty, a small, hatchet-faced, intense man, and a brilliant pianist, was masterly.

Watty, like Powell, never shouted or lost his temper, though from time to time a great weariness might be seen to pass over his small, intelligent face. Such weariness, for instance, as was brought about by his encounter with Mr. Nutcombe Puckler, a bass baritone entrusted with the role of Sir Dagonet.

“I quite understand that Mr. Powell wants us to have individuality, as Knights of the Round Table,” he said. “Now, the other chaps are all pretty straightforward, aren’t they? Knights, you see. Just brave chaps. But Sir Dagonet is described as Arthur’s Fool, and of course that’s why I have been cast for it. Because I’m not a chorus singer or a small-parts man—not at all; I’m a comprimario with quite a big reputation as a comic. My Frosch, in Die Fledermaus, is known all over the operatic world. So presumably I’m cast as Sir Dagonet to get some comedy into the opera. But how? I haven’t a single comic bit to sing. So something has to be introduced, you see, Watty? Some comic relief? I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I’ve found just the place. Finale of Act One, when Arthur is haranguing the Knights about the wonders of Knighthood. It’s heavy. Lovely music, of course, but heavy. So—that’s surely where we bring in the comic relief. Now what’s it to be—my Blurt or my Sneeze?”