The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck by James Branch Cabell

First published: 1915

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social satire

Time of work: 1896-1927

Locale: Litchfield, not to be found on the map of Virginia

Principal Characters:

• Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, a Southern gentleman
• Miss Agatha Musgrave, his sister
• Patricia Stapylton Musgrave, his wife
• John Charteris, a novelist
• Anne Charteris, his wife
• Mrs. Clarice Pendomer, Charteris’ former mistress

The Story

Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, family head of the Musgraves of Matocton in Litchfield, was forty years old in 1896. He was a consummate Southern gentleman: an aristocrat, a scholar, a lover, and an indifferent businessman. A bachelor, he lived with his sister Miss Agatha, who let nothing interfere with his comfort. His small income from his position as librarian of the Litchfield Historical Society was augmented by his genealogical research for people who were trying to establish a pedigree. The brother and sister lived quite comfortably on his earnings.

Both, however, had inherited Musgrave weaknesses. She tippled, and he fell in love with many women. The Colonel had a streak of chivalry in his nature which prompted him to make gallant gestures of renunciation for the sake of the lady in question. His most recent act of chivalry, which had provided Litchfield with amusing gossip, occurred when he had been overheard by Anne Charteris—whom he had loved and lost to the selfish novelist, John Charteris—while he was reprimanding her husband for getting Mrs. Pendomer pregnant. Anne, who blindly worshipped her husband, had misunderstood the situation, and she had supposed that Musgrave was the guilty party. Musgrave had accepted the blame in order to save Anne from learning that her husband was a philanderer. Privately, Musgrave delighted in the episode.

The Musgraves were visited by Patricia Stapylton, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of a second cousin once removed who had eloped with an overseer. Roger Stapylton, the overseer, had become wealthy in the North, and Patricia was engaged to marry Lord Pevensey. Although Musgrave tried to impress Patricia with his most formal manner, she was not at all awed by him and immediately punctured his reserve. He spent a good deal of time with her, however, and once he read to her “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep.”

Musgrave, acting according to his code of honor, fell in love with Patricia and tried to renounce her; but she saw through his performance and jilted the Englishman. During the dinner at which their engagement was to be announced, Musgrave discovered that Patricia had fallen in love with Joe Parkinson. Musgrave made his grand gesture by announcing her engagement to the younger man. Patricia jilted Parkinson, however, and she married Musgrave.

At first their marriage was very happy, even though Patricia was troubled by her husband’s reserve. Stapylton offered Musgrave a remunerative position in his business, but Musgrave refused it. Then Musgrave tried to make some quick money in the stock market but promptly lost all his savings. After that, they lived on Patricia’s allowance, which was rather small because Stapylton was displeased by their refusal to leave Litchfield.

Patricia had inherited a deformed pelvis from her mother, who died in childbirth. When Patricia became pregnant, the doctors gave her the choice between losing the child or her life. Without telling her husband anything about the matter, she decided to have the child because she knew how much Musgrave wanted a son. Though she survived the birth of her son, she was never completely well afterward and had to have a series of operations. The son was named Roger after her father, and Stapylton settled almost all his money on the child.

Tensions began to develop between the Musgraves. Miss Agatha and Patricia had never got along well together because the spinster resented Patricia’s role in Musgrave’s life. Patricia, still young and lively, found her husband’s formality increasingly annoying. Also, she was annoyed by his ineptness with money.

The crisis in their relationship came with the death of Miss Agatha. During one of her drinking spells, Miss Agatha had wandered out into a storm and had caught pneumonia. When she died, she was attended only by the black maid, Virginia, and Musgrave rebuked his wife for leaving the sick woman alone. Patricia said some bitter things about Miss Agatha and insisted that Virginia hated all the Musgraves because Musgrave’s uncle had fathered her son, who had been lynched by a mob for becoming involved with a white woman. Patricia declared that Virginia frequently was the only one present when a Musgrave died. Musgrave insisted that this claim was nonsense. The quarrel ended bitterly, and their relationship was never quite the same afterward.

When their son was five, the Musgraves gave a house party at Matocton, the Musgrave ancestral estate. Among the guests were Anne and John Charteris. Patricia, finding Charteris a pleasing contrast to her husband, let him persuade her to run off with him. On his part, Charteris enjoyed the adoration of women and had been involved in many affairs. Though a successful novelist, he was not independently wealthy, and so he had always remained with Anne because she had a great deal of money. Now he was prepared to leave his wife because he thought he had found a richer woman.

Musgrave, discovering the plan, informed Charteris that Patricia had very little money of her own. Charteris then told Patricia that he could not take her away, giving her many hypocritical reasons for his change of heart.

Patricia was told by her doctor that her heart was weak and that she would not live long. Although she kept her own counsel, she was now determined to seek happiness with Charteris, and so she persuaded him to go through with their original plan. Charteris borrowed money from his wife to finance his desertion.

Musgrave, learning that Charteris and Patricia were going through with the elopement, attempted to dissuade Charteris by telling him that they were actually half brothers. According to Musgrave’s code of honor, no gentleman would steal his brother’s wife. Charteris was unmoved by the news. The next morning, Musgrave met the lovers as they were departing and struck Charteris. Patricia, realizing that Charteris was a coward, broke with him.

A few days later, Charteris was murdered by a jealous husband. On this occasion, for once, he was innocent. The newspaper story was brought to Patricia by Virginia, and Patricia died of a heart attack.

Anne Charteris, who had never seen through her husband, continued to adore him. Some five years after his death, she met Musgrave in the cemetery where Patricia and Charteris were buried. Musgrave had Mrs. Pendomer’s son with him. At first, Anne was outraged by Musgrave’s lack of taste in being seen in the company of his illegitimate child, but as she looked at the boy she realized that Charteris was the boy’s real father. Although Musgrave tried to maintain the deception, Anne finally realized that her husband had been a scoundrel. There was now nothing to stand between Anne and Musgrave; they recognized, however, that their loyalties to their dead mates were too strong to let them marry.

In 1927, Colonel Rudolph Musgrave died dreaming of his first meeting with Patricia.

Critical Evaluation:

THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER’S NECK, James Branch Cabell’s third novel and the fourteenth volume in the Storisende Edition of his works, deals with the American descendants of Count Manuel of Poictesme. Subtitled “A Comedy of Limitations,” the book satirizes the American South and its adherence to the code of chivalry. The title is taken from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep,” in which two porcelain figures who are in love attempt to escape after the shepherdess’ grandfather, a porcelain Chinese figure with a nodding head, promises her to a wooden satyr. The shepherdess is frightened by the outside world, and they return. The grandfather had been broken while pursuing them, and his neck was riveted so that he could no longer nod agreement to the satyr’s proposal. In the novel, Musgrave interprets this tale as an allegory about human limitations: everyone has a figurative rivet in his neck, and this signifies the action one cannot perform. Although the outmoded code by which Musgrave lives is satirized, the author also perceived that this code was not without grace and charm. The manner matches the matter. Cabell was an urbane stylist who seems closer to the English wits than to any American writer.

Cabell was a genteel Southern writer caught in the limbo between the crash of the old order following the Civil War and the rise of the Southern Literary Renaissance in the 1920’s. A pragmatic Realist, he was too hard-nosed to indulge in the luxury of Romantic deception and accordingly felt constrained to satirize fantasies and idealizations that delude individuals and mock reality. Cabell wrote social satire that wanted to be romance.

Here lies the conflict in THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER’S NECK. Cabell’s protagonist, Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, thinks of the rivet in the fairy tale as that which makes people what they are: it symbolizes the limitations of character. A Southern aristocrat and conscious of his traditions and requisite obligations, Musgrave carries off self-sacrificing acts in the finest chivalric manner. However, the consequences are often tragic, comic, or absurd. Cabell relishes in deflating pretensions and neatly lampoons not only the Colonel’s idealistic acts but also a wide range of pretensions, codes, and mannerisms characterizing the old South. Yet, Cabell also treats his material tenderly and fondly. He respects human dignity acting within human limitations, and is cautiously optimistic about man’s potential. His style, moreover, is never heavy-handed. A suave, facile, and mannered—at times almost mandarin—style hovers over the novel constantly, bemusedly assessing and reevaluating the narrative experience. If some of the characters, particularly Colonel Musgrave, are ultimately unconvincing, it is because Cabell, cherishing what they are while parodying their limitations, burdens them too heavily with mannerisms.

Cabell’s novel, which might seem to be a whimsical and elegant romance from aristocratic life, is also a pointed social satire. As much as the rivet in grandfather’s neck led to happiness for the fairy tale figurines, the novel offers comfort and dignity through adherence to the way people are.