by Iris Murdoch
‘If we don’t fight now, all we have left to hope and pray for is that an earthquake will come and swallow Ireland up, and our shame.’ These words of James Connolly expressed what Pat felt, what they all felt, in those amazed and disappointed hours. Pat went back to Blessington Street. He sent Cathal on ahead to tell his mother. He could not have endured her happy relieved face. He climbed to his room and shut the door and fell face downwards on his bed.
It seemed that life was over. He had only, ever, had but one purpose and now that had been quite suddenly twisted away from him. It was snatched, gone, quickly, meanly, quietly, and without remedy. Pat knew that what was lost here could not be retrieved. If they did not act at once they could not act at all. The impetus would be spent, the movement discredited, the moment missed. There was to have been martyred blood, but now everything would collapse into absurdity and those who had called them shirkers and dreamers would have been proved right. The English would disarm them. Pat, who had felt that he would surrender his weapons with his life, now felt that it no longer mattered whether he kept his gun or not. Everything had been betrayed.
He cursed the leaders, he cursed Pearse. He grieved unutterably for Casement. MacNeill ought to have been arrested days ago. Why could the Irish get nothing right? Such dunces deserved their slavery. But it was no use cursing and grieving. There was the rest of the day to be got through, there was the rest of his life to be got through, without a plan or purpose. He sat up and stared about him. He felt as if he had been pushed through a very small aperture into a completely other world. He felt giddy and unable to focus his eyes upon the little room which had become an entirely different place. He had nodded for a moment and awakened in prison. The rush of time in his ears had ceased and there was empty space and idleness and silence. Leaning his head forward in his hands Pat felt that he could hardly bear to go on being conscious. He wanted death.
How and when the idea of Millie came into his mind he was not sure. Somewhere in the flashing centre of his unfocused gaze her image had come to be, like a deity seen by a saint in an ellipse of light. The wretchedness of his body demanded violence, the whip, the brand. Thought, even consciousness, must be choked in feeling, drowned in pain. He recalled how Millie had offered herself, and the disgust he had felt for her, and yet also, as it seemed to him now, how in a totally horrible way she had attracted him. She was a slut, not exactly a woman, but a kind of degraded boy. He pictured her as dirty, sallow, dishevelled, stinking. She had said that she would be waiting for him in her bed, and he pictured her bed. Could he force himself to that?
He sat very quiet now. If this was despair it was a deeper pit than any he had ever dreamed of. And then it seemed to him almost like a duty to go there, to perform this, as it appeared quite final, act of will. There would be an action and an ending after all, not this well-lighted idleness but a swift rush into the dark. This would be the last triumph of his will over his fastidious mind, and over the foul animal of his body, for although he now desired Millie he knew that it was only by pure volition that he could so degrade himself. He went downstairs and found his bicycle.
Now that he had reached Rathblane, desire and cool intent had fused into a single thrust. He wanted Millie as an enemy, a victim, a quarry. What she had asked for she would get. He moved forward through the wet grass toward the steps, bringing out the key. It was fortunate that he had provided himself with a key to Rathblane. He did not want to be seen by the servants, not because of any discretion, he was far beyond discretion, but because he did not wish the momentum of his action to be checked. He edged the big key into the lock and the door gave quietly in front of him.
Pat was fairly familiar with the interior of Rathblane but he did not know which was Millie’s bedroom. He did not want any apparitions of screaming housemaids. He guessed that it would be safe to try the big bow-windowed room above the drawing-room. He began very cautiously to mount the stairs which creaked at every step. It was extremely dark and the darkness seemed to be getting inside his eyes and mouth. For a moment he felt stifled as if the black air were foul with soot. He paused on the landing trying hard to see and made out the window with difficulty. The moon must be obscured now, and there was a soft hissing sound of rain. Something white glimmered near by, and reaching out his hand Pat touched the cold smooth globe of an oil lamp. He struck a match and lit the lamp, still breathing hard, and turned it up slowly. Furniture, flowers, pictures and the half-curtained window with its rainy whisper, came into shadowy being about him.
He had no qualms about waking Millie suddenly. She was not the kind of woman who would scream. In fact, he was so dazed with his own purposes that he hardly conceived that he would surprise her. He moved across the landing carrying the lamp and very quietly opened a door. He leaned through, holding the light above him, and saw a small empty room, perhaps a dressing-room, with the low embers of a fire in the grate. There was a smell of turf and a slight smell of whiskey. Some clothes lay untidily upon a sofa beside the fire. At the far side of the room there was another door.
Pat closed the first door carefully behind him and crossed the room. He was gasping for breath as his hand touched the handle of the second door. As the door moved and the dark aperture widened before him he lifted the lamp high and tried to murmur Millie’s name. At once, in the sudden wavering light, he discovered a bed. And a second later he saw that there were two people in it. Millie was not alone.
* * * *
Pat closed the door abruptly and stepped back. He put the lamp down on a table. He covered his eyes and shook his head to and fro. He felt shocked, ashamed and stupid, and intensely hurt, though whether this was pain for damage he had received or damage he had done he was not sure. Stupidity had come upon him like a physical condition, like an ass’s head. He could have taken hold of Millie without a thought for her mind or her heart. But now he was suddenly related to her differently, shocked into some more childish puritanism. He thought, I have been made an utter fool of. He had not conceived of a rival, that a rival could exist. When Millie had said that she would be waiting for him he had believed her quite simply, quite naively. He had imagined her like a helpless quarry, like a victim tied to a post. Now in an instant he had been robbed of his active role, reduced to a gaping spectator, a shameful watcher. He had expected, he had wanted, violence and pain, not muddle.
He wondered if he should not just go away straight out of the house, and he pictured himself going, but his body stood there stiff and paralysed. Then as he still stood, almost at attention, and uncovered his eyes, the door of the bedroom opened and Millie came out, wearing a white frilled dressing-gown.
The appearance of Millie, the movement of the door, made Pat suddenly aware of his rival as an individual. Who was in there with her? But he could not feel angry. He felt humiliated and utterly, primitively, shocked. That another should do that was simply something horrible.
Millie, not looking at him, moved to the lamp and turned it up. The white scalloped frills of the silky gown dragged slowly upon the carpet. She leaned over the fire, thrust a long spill into the embers, and lit another lamp. Then she faced him.
Millie looked unfamiliar. Her hair, which he had never seen undone, fell in thin dark sheets about the shoulders of her gown and down on to her breast, making her look like a young girl, vulnerable, caught. Her plump face wore an expression of rueful, quizzical sadness. With the conscious dignity of a youthful princess facing her executioner, she seemed perfectly calm.
‘What a pity, what a very great pity. If I had known you might come I would have been more than ready. I despaired of you too soon.’ She spoke in a detached way, as if to herself, as if knowing the words could not have much significance for him.
Pat stared at her and then looked down at the floor. One bare foot, half emerged beneath the frilly hem, seemed to clutch the carpet like a clenching hand. He had no way of dealing with her now, he felt like a child. He was almost ready to say that he was sorry.
‘
How did you get in, Pat?’
‘I had a key of the place,’ he said in a hoarse low voice.
‘Ah well. I know this can never be mended or forgiven or even explained. But I think I regret it more than anything that has ever happened to me. I did not conceive that you might come. If you had given me the least hint I would have been eternally patient. I most bitterly regret not having been alone when you came, and I shall regret it forever.’ Millie spoke softly, but very slowly and clearly.
‘Sure I—’ Pat started. He could not face her. He could not feel angry. He felt the hurt confused ashamed resentment of a child who, without understanding, has spoilt some grown-up plan. He half turned as if to go.
‘I don’t want to act stupidly now,’ said Millie, speaking more quickly. ‘I know we can’t talk now. But your having come, it’s so important. If there was any satisfaction I could give you I would undergo anything. I suppose it’s hopeless, but I can’t help saying—’
‘Who’s that in there?’ said Pat. Even this question, which should have been brutal, was broken, hang-dog. He stared at the closed bedroom door.
Millie hesitated. Then she said, ‘Well, I’ll give you this, and remember that I gave it to you.’ She walked over to the door and opened it wide: ‘Come out, Andrew.’
Andrew Chase-White, clad in shirt and breeches, emerged from the bedroom and leaned against the jamb of the door. He was very pale and shuddering slightly. He too appeared entirely different. He stared Pat full in the face with a look of dazed bleak misery.
Millie said, ‘I’m sorry, Andrew. I’m sorry, Pat. There’s nothing more I can say.’ Then she added, ‘All the same, it’s quite an achievement, isn’t it,’ and gave a short laugh.
The two young men gazed at each other. Then Pat turned abruptly and left the room. He half fell down the stairs in the dark and found the front door and the moist night air. The rain had stopped and the moon shone clearly through a jagged gap in the clouds. The figure of a man materialized close in front of him upon the steps. Pat thrust the man violently aside and heard him fall with an exclamation into the long grass. Without looking back, Pat reached his bicycle where it stood against the wall. He now saw, revealed by the brighter moon, two other bicycles near it. He swung his left hand hard against the wall, and swung it again and then a third time, until the moonlight showed a dark stain upon the stone.
Chapter Twenty
CHRISTOPHER BELLMAN had suddenly decided that he absolutely must see Millie. After her wonderful ‘yes’ to him, he had felt happy and at peace and quite content not to see her for a while. He had felt her to be delightfully stored up and safe, a prize reserved and labelled, a perfume sealed, and he had returned to his work and felt more serene, he thought, than ever in his life. This serenity had been disturbed by two things. First, he had been extremely excited and upset by the news of the projected rebellion, which had been followed so soon by the news of its cancellation. This sudden glimpse of another Ireland, so close and yet so hidden, filled him with a distress which seemed like guilt. For a second he had felt the warm quick movement of Irish history risen out of books alive, alive-o. He was stirred, magnetized, then disappointed, relieved. The second thing was that Frances, later that afternoon, had told him that she was not going to marry Andrew. Then it became essential to see Millie.
He set off on his bicycle and would have arrived at Rathblane earlier in the evening, only just as he was beginning to get into the mountains he had a puncture. He left the bicycle and walked on, imagining that the distance was shorter than it was. Then it became dark and he missed his way. When, very tired and drenched with rain he at last reached Millie’s front door he was extremely startled at being jumped upon by a man suddenly issuing from the doorway. As he picked himself up it seemed that the man, who had now faded into the moonlight, was Pat Dumay. He went in through the open door.
The hall was very dark and as soon as he came in it seemed to him that someone who was standing in the darkness moved away, with a soundless displacement of air, into one of the rooms. Almost at once a moving light was seen up above and Millie appeared, wearing a white gown. She began to glide quickly down the stairs carrying the lamp, her gown flowing out behind her, her loose hair lifted. When she was halfway down the lamp light showed her Christopher and she stopped abruptly.
‘Millie, what on earth’s happening? Somebody rushed out at me. I thought it was—’
‘Hello, Christopher’, said Millie. ‘Good evening.’ She put the lamp down on the stairs and sat down beside it. Then she began to laugh helplessly. She rocked quietly to and fro moaning with laughter.
‘I’m sorry I’ve come so late,’ said Christopher. ‘I’d have got here much earlier only I got a puncture and had to walk the last bit. But, Millie, what—’
Millie stopped laughing. ‘Please, Christopher, would you go into the drawing-room and wait there? I’ll put on some clothes and join you in a few minutes.’ She went back up the stairs taking the lamp with her and leaving Christopher in darkness.
Christopher fumbled his way to the drawing-room door and fell through it, knocking his head on the big Chinese screen whose position just inside the door he had forgotten. There was no fire and the room smelt of damp textile and turf ash. He stood still until he could discern the squares of the windows and shuffled towards them. There was a sound of scuffling overhead and he thought he heard voices.
Christopher was feeling very confused. During his long walk along the dark mountain road he had been all the time anxious simply to arrive. He disliked walking. The mountains were frightening at night, there were sounds, presences. He had hurried on, looking forward to finding Millie up, a blazing fire, a welcoming glass of whiskey. But the uphill walk had taken such a long time. And now here he was, hustled away, left in the dark and the cold, not looked after in the least. And who was that person who had rushed out of the door and knocked him down? He realized that his arm was hurting from the fall and his head was aching from the encounter with the Chinese screen. Was it Pat Dumay? What was he doing bursting out of the house as if the devil was after him? And who was the mysterious moving figure in the hallway? And what was all that curious scuffling going on in the room above? Christopher felt very puzzled and very ill-used. He pawed several tables looking for matches but only succeeded in overturning something which fell on to the floor with a crash. It sounded as if it was broken. He began to feel his way back to the door.
Before he could reach it Millie came in with the lamp. She was wearing her plainest grey walking-dress with a red woollen shawl over her head. She put the lamp down, carefully pulled the curtains, and then lit another lamp.
‘Please sit down, Christopher.’
‘I’m so sorry, I’ve broken that vase. I was looking for the matches.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s only Ming or something. For God’s sake, Christopher, sit down.’
‘My dear Millie, I’m only too anxious to sit down once you’ve given me time to take off this extremely damp mackintosh. And I think you might give me some whiskey. I’ve had a very long walk.’
‘Oh yes, of course, whiskey, there’s some in the cupboard. Wait a moment. Here you are.’
‘Millie, is something funny going on here? Was that Pat Dumay? And is there somebody else in the house? I thought I saw someone in the hall as I came in.’
‘No, there’s no one here but me. The maids all sleep in the annexe.’
‘What was Pat doing here and why did he push me like that? I nearly broke my arm. I’m sorry I came so late, but as I told you I had a puncture and—’
‘I should think he pushed you like that because you were in his way when he wanted to go out of the door. I’m sorry about your arm and I’m sorry about your bicycle and I’m sorry—’
‘But what did he want?’
‘What did he want? He wanted me.’ Millie laughed. She kicked a piece of the broken vase across the floor and turned to stare at Christopher.
He now took in her elated, exc
ited face, flushed with an onset of laughter or tears. Her hair was plaited in a single plait which she had drawn forward over her shoulder and was convulsively clutching and tugging together with the folds of the red shawl.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘He came here to seduce me.’
‘Millie! Surely you hadn’t given him any reason to think—’
‘No, of course I hadn’t given him any reason to think. I sent him away with a flea in his ear.’
‘But he can hardly just have taken it into his head—’
‘Why shouldn’t he just have taken it into his head? Or do you think I’m not attractive enough?’
‘Of course I think you’re attractive enough—’
‘Then there’s nothing more to explain, is there?’
‘Millie, I’m very surprised indeed.’
‘Well, I can’t help that. Nothing happened. I just sent him off. That’s why he was in such a hurry. You do believe me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I believe you. But as I say—’
