The Unicorn

by Iris Murdoch

  Pip and Alice stopped chattering. “That’s Miss Taylor with Denis,’ said Alice. ‘I suppose I’d better ask her over to lunch or something, yes.’

  Pip hailed them. ‘Good morning, Denis!’

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  Pip seemed to have a positive fondness for Denis. Effingham was thinking, if a man had attacked my sister, when he began to notice the girl.

  Pretty she was not exactly, but she had a strong interesting face, with a long dog-like nose and smallish lively brown eyes and a compressed aggressive mouth. She was very present in her face, which was poised and grave as she looked at Effingham.

  Alice said, ‘Mr Cooper. My brother. Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘You’re new to this part of the world?’ said Effingham.

  ‘Yes. I’m rather overwhelmed by it. I hadn’t expected such an extreme landscape. It takes getting used to. Sublime rather than beautiful, isn’t it?’ She had a pleasant precise voice.

  Effingham was amused by her little desire to please him. He made some more conventional remarks and Alice joined in. By the end of these exchanges he had clearly apprehended Miss Taylor, for all her shy absurd self-consciousness, as a being of his own kind: a clever girl, a junior version of Elizabeth.

  A sudden diversion was created. Tadg, who had been exploring farther down the stream, had found Denis, who was standing a little apart from the group. The dog went mad. He rushed upon Denis with strangled excited barks and waddled round him, his tail wagging his whole body.

  ‘Tadg adores Denis,’ said Alice. ‘He never forgets him. Denis trained Tadg when he was a puppy, when Denis was over with us.’

  Denis was immediately absorbed into greeting Tadg. He sat down on the grass and let the dog climb on to him and lick his face. Effingham found this degree of informality thoroughly disrespectful. He glanced at the two women and saw that they were both watching the little scene with soft amused faces. He coughed disapprovingly. ‘I must be getting along.’

  ‘You’re going to Gaze?’ said Miss Taylor. ‘I think Mrs Crean-Smith is expecting you.’ She could not conceal her expression of interest as she looked at Effingham.

  Effingham had a moment’s uneasiness. The girl was not a nonentity, she might be something to be reckoned with. But he could not see this pleasant young creature as an enemy. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

  Pip, who had been talking to Denis about Tadg’s prowess earlier that morning, joined them. This is where I turn back. I’ve been up since five. It’s nice to have met you. Miss Taylor. I believe you are coming to see us at Riders?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘We must fix it, yes,’ said Alice vaguely.

  Miss Taylor was staring at Pip’s glossy-feathered trophies. ‘Poor birds!’

  ‘Are you a vegetarian?’ said Alice.

  Effingham looked quickly at the girl. The malice in the remark had not escaped her, nor, it was immediately clear to him, was she ignorant of its cause. Someone must have talked to her about poor Alice. He felt both annoyed with his old friend and anxious to protect her.

  Miss Taylor flushed slightly and smiled. ‘No, indeed! I don’t practise what I seem to preach. One is so spoilt in a town. I’m sure I would be a vegetarian if 1 had to kill the creatures myself.’

  ‘Good morning all!’

  The loud voice just behind him made Effingham jump. They all turned.

  Gerald Scottow and Jamesie Evercreech had approached from lower down the valley and come right up to the absorbed little group, their footsteps covered by the sound of the falling stream.

  ‘Good morning,’ they said, Alice stiffly, Effingham politely, Pip jauntily, Denis not at all, and Miss Taylor with a just perceptible emotion of some kind. Effingham noticed the emotion and glanced quickly at Scottow. Then he saw Jamesie winking at Miss Taylor. There doubtless was her informant concerning the condition of Alice. Effingham bristled with dislikes.

  Scottow and Jamesie were also both armed with shotguns and two pairs of brown furry ears protruded from Jamesie’s game bag. Two of the mad hares would caper no more.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Scottow, ‘how nice to meet you all together. We aren’t usually so lucky. Mr Cooper, coming to see us, I trust? Good! We’ve missed you, you know. You’ve been neglecting us. Had a good morning, Mr Lejour? I see you have two of Mrs Crean-Smith’s fine birds there.’

  Pip smiled. He turned towards Denis, and Denis, as at a prearranged signal, stood before him. He handed over the pheasants, and then began to walk away without haste in the direction of Riders. The little incident had the slow ease of a well-rehearsed ceremony, or something out of a ballet.

  Scottow looked after him with a face of comical distress. ‘Oh, Miss Lejour, I hope I haven’t offended your brother. I was only jesting. Do tell him I was only jesting.’

  ‘I must be getting along,’ said Effingham again. The presence of the guns disturbed him. The encounter had seemed like the shadow of a real battle with real blood flowing.

  Denis had already set off with the pheasants in the direction of Gaze. Miss Taylor was visibly hesitating.

  Scottow said pleasantly, ‘Well, Jamesie and I must continue our slaughtering activities. I can see Miss Taylor doesn’t like this bit - but she won’t refuse the jugged hare, I’ll be bound 1 Come along, Jamesie.’

  The big square figure and the slighter boy went on up the hill and began to cross the stream, their military silhouettes emerging now against the blue sky. The other three began to walk on in the direction of the castle.

  The incident and the sense of shared but ineffable knowledge drew them for a moment together in a complicity of silence. Effingham walked between the two women. Miss Taylor glanced at her companions and then looked ahead frowning. Apprehending that determined frown out of the corner of his eye, Effingham reflected that this uncorrupted young woman was indeed a new feature in the situation and might conceivably prove an active one. It was disconcerting, as was too his spontaneous vision of her as uncorrupted. Were the rest of them corrupted, then?

  To distract himself, Effingham began to question Miss Taylor about what she had been doing before she came to Gaze, and about her university career and the time she had spent in Paris. He talked to her with a great naturalness, as if she were a young student, and he again a don, and he noticed now her increasing ease with him. The aggressive self-conscious air had gone. Alice was conspicuously silent. They reached the castle gates.

  ‘I hear Mr Lejour is a Greek scholar,’ Miss Taylor was saying, to bring Alice into the conversation. T do wish I knew Greek. I managed to learn German by myself, but I’ve never quite had the guts to tackle Greek.’

  ‘I’ll teach you Greek,’ said Effingham.

  Alice made a slight movement, throwing her head back. God, what a fool I am, thought Effingham. It was too late to recall the words. Miss Taylor was blushing. She looked at Alice, who was looking away, and then at Effingham. In a second a great deal of communication passed between them. Oh, I am a very great fool, thought Effingham. ‘If you’d like to, that is,’ he said hurriedly, to efface the sharpness of the impression. ‘I could give you a couple of lessons maybe just to start you off.’

  Miss Taylor said, ‘How kind of you. I’ll see if I have time, shall I?’

  She’s quick, he thought.

  ‘Where’s Tadg?’ said Alice. ‘He didn’t go back with Pip. I thought he was with us.’

  ‘Is that the dog?’ said Miss Taylor. ‘He went in with Denis just now.’

  ‘Oh, damn!’ said Alice. ‘Now I’ll have to go in and fetch him. Once he’s with Denis he’ll never come back of his own accord.’

  ‘Shall I get him?’ said Miss Taylor.

  ‘No, no. He wouldn’t come with you anyway. Let’s walk on together, shall we, at a brisk pace? We’ll leave Effie to dream along, behind. He doesn’t want us.’ Alice took the girl’s arm and urged her ahead.

  Effingham watched them draw away. The image of Hannah grew in fr
ont of him like a great placid golden idol, the two small hurrying figures in the foreground.

  Chapter Eleven

  He held her in his arms. Effingham in these moments experienced a joy so intense that he could not imagine how he could ever have gone away; or rather he could not imagine that he had ever gone away, lifted, shot into a blinding timeless beatitude. She was the only one, the great phoenix, his truth, his home, his He felt a thrilling humble gratitude to her for being the cause of so great a love.

  ‘Oh Lord, Effie, I have missed you. Bless you for coming back.’

  ‘You should be cursing me for going away. I don’t look after you properly.’

  There now. You look after me beautifully. No, don’t go down on the floor. Kiss me, Effie.’

  He led her to the sofa and they sat down holding hands. Effingham looked about the room. Everything was blessedly the same: the whiskey bottles, the mess of papers, the little sleepy fire, the pampas grass and the honesty a little flimsier than last time. He returned his gaze to Hannah.

  ‘Are you all right? Nothing awful’s happened? Nothing you couldn’t mention in a letter?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Everything’s as usual.’

  ‘Not everything. There’s that girl, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Oh yes, Marian. But that’s a good thing. I did tell you, didn’t I. I’m so happy to have her. I wake up every morning knowing there’s something nice, and it’s her.’

  ‘And now me too! I’m jealous.’

  ‘And now you too, dear. Have some whiskey, Effingham, and give me some. I just want to sit and feel pleased to see you.’

  Effingham went to the whiskey. He was touched by what she’d said about the girl. But how long would she be allowed to keep the girl? How long indeed would the girl want to stay in this quiet little madhouse? Hannah was so evidently pleased to see him. But would he not soon go away again, would he not this time next month be sitting in an expensive restaurant listening to Elizabeth’s jokes about la princesse lointaine?

  He began to pour out the whiskey. The smell of that particular brand of whiskey, familiar and disturbing, seized him by the throat. Some half-remembered accumulation of passionate experience, suddenly present, packed together mysteriously as in a dream, nearly choked him and he stopped pouring. Everything was the same. Yet what was he doing here, why was he lending himself to this macabre pageant at all?

  He returned to stand in front of Hannah, who was looking up at him. Her crest of reddish-golden hair was combed straight back over her head to reveal the big pale brow. She became, it seemed to him, lovelier each year. But certainly no younger. Something was written on that brow, something about suffering: only he could not read the characters. Her uncannily tranquil golden-brown eyes regarded him with concern. It sometimes seemed to him that she behaved to him with the exaggerated quietness of a psychiatrist dealing with a patient. Yet was she not the patient? Which of them was sick in mind? He put his hand to his head.

  ‘Effie, you’re looking tired. Are you -?’

  ‘Stop it, Hannah -‘ He fell down beside the sofa and pawed at the stuff of her dress. She was wearing a short dress of dark green linen. He pawed at her knees. ‘Stop it -‘

  ‘Stop what? What’s the matter, Effingham? Here I am. Here you are. Everything is the same -‘

  That’s just it. Here I am. Here you are. And everything is the same. But it oughtn’t to be the same.’

  ‘Why not? And do bring me some whiskey, I’m dying for it, and if you’re going to be so wild I shall need it!’

  He got up awkwardly, straightening his tie, and handed her the glass of whiskey. She had tucked her feet under her now, girlishly, compact and removed, her broad severe face lifted to his. She patted the cushion to invite him to sit. It was suddenly like being at a party. Effingham still grasped at his moment of frenzy: there was surely a truth in it.

  ‘Hannah, we can’t go on like this. It’s all mad somehow. Well, isn’t it?’

  Her face was very still now, not frozen, but still like a hovering bird. ‘You mean you’d rather not go on coming?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ said Effingham. ‘I mean we must do something, you and I, do something, even if it’s only going to bed together.’

  ‘Sssh. If you did feel - and why shouldn’t you feel - that all the sense has gone out of this strange incomplete love of ours -well, you know I would be sorry. But you know too that it would be better then to stop coming to see me. I could bear that, Effingham. And it might be a great relief to you. I know you worry about me. I wish I could stop you.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Effingham desperately. He clasped her hand between his own in a wild prayer. ‘I love you, Hannah. And I want you, and that’s no joke either. But that’s not the point. I feel we must do something, anything, to break this spell. For it is a spell, a spell on all of us, we’re all walking round and round in our sleep. And it’s a bad unhealthy spell. By this endless quietness we’re just killing something -‘

  ‘Perhaps we are.’ She released her hand and captured his, lightly stroking him across the knuckles. ‘Perhaps we’re killing something that has no right to live anyhow. Never mind. I know it’s harder on everyone else than it is on me. Another person’s illness is often harder to bear than one’s own. The other is all imagined suffering; with one’s own, one knows its ways and its limits. Are you sure, Effie, that you aren’t just, simply, wanting to go away and stay away? I can imagine how a sort of repulsion might suddenly come over you. You must be truthful with me here. Come, Effingham, the truth.’

  He could hardly bear her calm commanding tone. He wanted to see her tears, to hear her cries. He needed her frenzied need of him. He began to stammer and then stopped himself. He must be cool here, as with an enemy.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m not wanting to go away, you know that. I’m wanting to do something sensible and natural at last. I’m wanting to take you away from here, to take you back into ordinary life. Hannah, let me take you away.’ He had not, when he arrived, intended to say this. Had she somehow made him say it?

  ‘Don’t talk too loudly, Effie. I’m sorry to have put this burden upon you. I know it’s a burden and I know it all seems to you, sometimes anyway, unnatural, unhealthy. You were something - quite unexpected, something I hadn’t allowed for - and I’ve often felt that I ought to have sent you away then, at the very start. If it were now I think I would send you away, I would not let such a story begin at all.’

  ‘Good Lord, you’re not going to banish me now!’ cried Effingham.

  ‘No. Sssh. You have such a loud voice. Of course not, if you really want to go on. But it is difficult, Effingham, it’s very difficult. I’m to blame in a way for not, from the very start, putting it in front of you as something almost impossible.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Effingham, miserably. ‘I’ve just offered to take you away. Would you come? I mean, will you come?’

  ‘No, of course not. And you would regret your offer the next moment, you are regretting it already. We just haven’t got that sort of life to live, that sort of love to live. We have run out of life, at least I have. I’m doing something quite different - and perhaps I ought to have made you do it too, or else have made you leave me altogether.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing,’ said Effingham, ‘but I’m jolly certain I can’t do it, and I’m not sure if you ought to do it.’

  She laughed. ‘Give yourself a drink, dear. You know I hate drinking alone. When I say make you do it too, of course it wouldn’t be the same thing, it couldn’t be. But I ought to have made you, in a way, suffer more.’