GIBBON’S DECLINE AND FALL
“A provocative, devastating, enthralling, consciousness-raiser” by Sheri S. Tepper
“Tepper is a masterful storyteller … the passions that infuse and enliven her characters, her compelling use of prose, and the fast pace of her plots, usually keep a reader entranced … But what makes Tepper such a compelling and popular read in the SF community is her frequently expressed desire for people to think through the things they do and take responsibility for their actions … Tepper handles her points, and her plots, exquisitely well.”
—Locus
On sale wherever Bantam Books are sold.
FALL 1959
The campus sprawled rosy brick over a hundred acres and buzzed with a thousand new students making their way through room assignments and registration. Extracurricular activities were posted on the bulletin boards in front of Old Main. Drama-club meeting on Saturday morning. Orchestra tryouts for non-music majors, also on Saturday morning. Women’s-chorus tryouts, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.
Carolyn had an unencumbered hour on Tuesday, so she decided to sit in on the chorus tryouts. She sang some, and if the standard wasn’t too high, it might be fun to try out. She sat down next to a plainly dressed young woman with a strong, rather horsey face and offered her hand.
“Carolyn Crespin, from New York.”
“I’m Agnes McGann. I’m from Louisiana.”
An improbably perfect blond on the other side of Agnes leaned forward. “Hi, I’m Bettiann Bromlet, from Fort Worth.”
She smiled, rather shyly. Carolyn, looking at the careful grooming and wealth of tumbled curls, wondered what she had to be shy about.
“Sopranos,” called a woman in gray from the front of the room. “Please pick up a copy of the audition music from the table to your left. Contraltos, the table to your right, please. The accompanist’s music is clipped to yours. This is for reading ability, ladies—we’ll do you alphabetically. Be sure your name is on a sign-up card.”
“I’ll be near the front,” said Bettiann. “Just for once I wish they’d do it backward. It makes me nervous, being first.”
“Bound to be a few Adamses or Abrahams before you,” Agnes McGann muttered.
But there weren’t. Bettiann was called first. She handed the piano music to the person at the keyboard, went to the front of the dais, and sang competently. She read the music easily, and though her voice was small, it was true. Considering the shy smile, and the nervousness, Carolyn was surprised at the amount of personality she displayed, a bit too much pizzazz for Carolyn’s taste. If Bettiann Bromlet was the general standard, Carolyn herself might decide to try out.
“Very nice,” said the woman in gray. “Lily Chames?”
“You’ve done that before,” said Carolyn when Bettiann returned to her seat.
“Beauty contests,” Bettiann murmured, flushing hotly. “My mom was all the time entering me in these pageants. Last time around I won a scholarship.”
“Congratulations,” said Carolyn.
The blond shook her head. “It’s crazy that I won. I’m not that good-looking. It’s all pretending….”
Carolyn found this an interesting idea. She hadn’t thought before that one could pretend to beauty, though of course it made sense. Certainly Bettiann’s stage personality was not the same as that of the rather hesitant girl sitting beside her.
It was a while before they got to McGann. Carolyn asked her if she was nervous, but Agnes said no, not particularly. She’d had a good voice teacher at St. Monica’s. They’d had a choir they were proud of and paid a good deal of attention to.
“Catholic school?” Carolyn asked. “Me, too.”
“Really? I’ve been in boarding schools since I was six. My family was killed when a truck hit their car, and the settlement was put in trust for my education and keep. I’ve spent my life in Catholic school. Too long, Mother Elias says. She’s the abbess at the Sisters of St. Clare near New Orleans, where I’m going to be a nun. I wanted to enter right away, but she wants me to get through college and take an M.B.A. first.”
“An M.B.A.? For a nun?”
“They want to start an oyster farm, to make money for the abbey school, but there’s no one in the order with business training—”
“Agnes McGann?” called the woman in gray.
Agnes had a voice better than Bettiann’s, with a good deal more range. She, too, sang competently, though almost without emotion. Carolyn identified the style as churchy: angelic voices conveying as little human emotion as possible.
“Very nice,” said the woman in gray. By this time Carolyn had it figured out. “Very nice” meant you were in. “Thank you very much” meant you were out. Hmm, “thank you” meant “maybe.” When Agnes returned, the three of them went on sitting, curious about all the other putative singers.
“Faye Whittier,” the woman called at last. The final one.
Faye was colored—tall, graceful, with her hair cut very short. Agnes had never seen hair worn like that, just a cap of it, natural. She thought colored people straightened their hair. The maids at St. Monica’s had. The pianist tinkled through an introduction as Faye clasped her hands loosely in front of her, holding the music almost negligently. Either she knew this composition or she’d already memorized it.
The voice came like velvet, smooth throughout its register, organlike on a low note, whispering on a high one, easy, fluid, capable of infinite shading and power.
Carolyn decided she would skip trying out for chorus.
“Oh, God,” whispered Bettiann. “If that’s what they want! I’ll never make it. I shouldn’t even have tried….”
Agnes shook her head, put her hand firmly atop Bettiann’s hand and said, “No. You and I are fine for the chorus, but that girl will get all the solos.”
When Faye had finished, “Oh, my, yes,” said the woman in gray, conveying a fourth degree of judgment, one heretofore unexpressed.
Agnes, who was on the aisle, had a little fight with herself as Faye came from the dais. On the one hand, she was colored, and Agnes had no experience with colored people except for the maids and cooks at school. On the other
