by Iris Murdoch
'There's something strangely timeless about one's affection for people.
'I know — said Mildred. She took his hand in a firm clasp and held it, stroking it a little with one of her fingers. 'Dear Hugh —’ she said. She felt happy, surprised, excited, very moved.
'I hope I won't upset or annoy you by speaking frankly, he said. 'I didn't mean, when you came, to talk to you like this. But I'm surely old and foolish enough now to be able to talk when I want to and dispense with the dignity of silence.
'Talk, my dear, talk, breathed Mildred.
'I must have your advice, Mildred. It's about Emma Sands. Mildred let go of his hand abruptly. Hugh, who had apparently not noticed either her affectionate grip or its cessation, got up and began to pace about the room. His head passed and re-passed in front of the honey-coloured Tintoretto.
'I don't know whether you knew, said Hugh, 'but I was at one time very fond of Emma. He paused in the golden aura of the picture. 'Well, I may as well be frank with you, Mildred. I was dreadfully in love with Emma.
'Quite, said Mildred. She had not meant it to sound so dry.
'Ah, did you know? said Hugh. He looked at her eagerly, almost as if it would now give him pleasure to think that she had followed his adventures with interest.
'No, not really. I think I knew vaguely that you liked her.
Hugh seemed disappointed. 'Well, I was, he said, in a tone which was both aggrieved and complacent. He set off pacing again and as he did so a look of serenity settled on his face and he seemed for a while oblivious of Mildred. She could see his face rounded out, softened by the thoughts 'within, very much as her own face had been a moment since. His head seemed to grow larger and more radiant, as he said again, 'Yes, I was, I certainly was —’
He walked a little more and then stopped in front of her. 'I've never spoken of this to anyone. Well, Fanny knew, but I never talked about it. It's wonderful, it's remarkable, to talk about it now, to talk out aloud to someone, to utter her name. Bless you, Mildred, bless you, dear!
'You want to talk about — the past? said Mildred hopefully.
'Well, no, said Hugh. He had turned away from her again and lifted his face to the gold of the picture. 'I want to talk about — the present. Or rather — the future. Yes, he added with satisfaction, 'the future. It's rather miraculous to find that, even at my age, one has one!
Mildred felt that she had grown, in the big armchair, as dry and small as a nut. She said, 'You are young at heart, Hugh.
The conventional words seemed to give him pleasure. What a perfect fool he is, she thought, and she yearned over him.
'Perhaps I am after all, he said. 'But no one is more surprised than me. I told you Emma was at the funeral, didn't I?
'Yes.
'Ever since I saw her there, said Hugh, and his words had the resonance of a song, 'I have been able to think of nothing else. I've been in a haze of expectation like a boy, like a foolish boy. You would hardly credit it, would you, Mildred? He seemed to address the Tintoretto, and leaned forward to touch it very gently with his finger in a way that Mildred suddenly remembered from long ago. She was afraid — that if she tried to speak she might make some grotesque sound, so she remained silent.
'It's odd, he said, 'to keep love for someone stored up so long and then to find it fresh and alive at the end. I thought I had quite sealed up that tomb, but no — no.
'It's hard for me to imagine, said Mildred, trying out her voice briskly. 'But then I'm riddled with common sense. What are you going to do about it?
'Ah, well, said Hugh, and the exaltation faded and the old worried look came back, 'that's it. That's where I need your help, your advice. You know Emma. You know me. You must help me to be objective. I've really made myself thoroughly upset and anxious, worrying about this. I think it has even affected my health. I hope talking to you will have made a difference. Perhaps I shall find it has — and this Absurd state of mind will simply fade away. I wish it would. I looked forward to — some peace, just, well, holiday, after — I'm too old for this nonsense really, don't you think? Why should one make trouble for oneself when one's old?
'Heaven help us when we are too old to make trouble for ourselves, Mildred murmured.
'You must make up my mind for me, Mildred, said Hugh. 'Your asking me to come to India puts me, in a way, up against it. Should I go and see Emma or should I not? I haven't really any idea how she lives now. Whether there is — anyone else. Do you happen to know? He turned anxiously towards her.
'So far as I know there is — no one else. She retreated slowly back into the depths of the chair. The rain was beating down and it was quite dark in the room now except for the light from the picture which gilded half of Hugh's entreating face.
'But should I go, he said, 'or am I just being foolish — romantic, meddlesome, or worse? Why open an old wound? Only pain and chaos would follow if I went to see her. She wouldn't want, after all those years, to see me, would she? I was exaggerating of course just now. I'm not in love. I can't be, one isn't at my age. I can overcome this obsession — just by giving myself a good shake. You must help me, Mildred, you're so sensible. Why, you've no idea how much I rely on you! I think I feel better already. A long voyage would be just the thing, a long time away, travelling with you. Really, you must think me quite extraordinary, Mildred, a mild old fellow like me. You agree, don't you, it would be quite wrong to go and see her?
Mildred was right back now against the back of the chair, her forearms stretched stiffly out on the two Anns, as if she were pinned there. Once more in her mind's eye she saw dog-faced Emma, Emma in the short white tennis dress, defeated Emma talking to the boy Felix. She said, 'You want to go and see her, Hugh. You want to, you're longing to, you're dying to. Why deny that you're sort of, almost; ready to be, in love?
He let out a long sigh. He was silent a while. 'Yes. Then again, 'Yes. Yes.
Mildred relaxed slowly. 'Go then, she said. 'Go, go. Go and see her. You'll regret it forever if you don't.
'That's true, he said, nodding his head, 'that's quite true. I would regret it. His face turned again towards the Tintoretto and seemed to fill out once more. His lips parted, his eyes widened, and he threw his tonsured head back as his gaze moved up toward the face of the golden Susannah.
'Then you must go, Hugh, said Mildred. 'That's my advice. She rose awkwardly and began to grope for her things.
'Oh, you're not leaving? he said, coming to her and fumbling with her coat, crumpling it inconclusively in his hands and laying it back on the Ann of the chair.
Standing now, Mildred was very close to him. She could have reached up and put her hands on his shoulders in a way she had often imagined. 'Yes, I must be off.
'Please don't go, said Hugh, 'please have dinner with me.
'I can't. I've got to be somewhere else.
'Oh dear, he said. 'I've so much enjoyed talking to you, I've enjoyed every moment. I hope I haven't shocked or annoyed you, Mildred? I assure you I didn't intend all this to come out.
'That's all right, my dear, she said. She pulled her coat on. 'It was 'Very interesting.
'Well, at least let me get you a taxi'
'All right. Hugh, you will go and see Emma, won't you? You must have courage, you know.
'Bless you, Mildred, he said. 'You've given it to me. Yes. I'll go. Bless you.
Mildred smiled at him. 'You have quite a passionate nature, Hugh dear. I wouldn’t have suspected it.
'Have I? He seemed pleased, and pressed her hand with gratitude and cordiality.
Chapter Eleven
HUGH stood looking down the long corridor that led to Emma's door. He told himself, twenty-five years ago I was here. Only 'I' and 'here' refused to do their work. He put out one hand and touched the wall. The intermittent babble inside his head had this morning risen to a crescendo and he doubted his ability to hear anything that might be said. He also felt slightly giddy. He waited. He had, of course, arrived too early.
Hugh had b
een, he thought, when he saw Mildred, in two minds.
His condition of trouble about Emma had increased steadily and alarmingly. It really had the air of being a disease. It was not like thinking and coming to conclusions, thinking further and coming to more conclusions. What indeed it was that was increasing so was something which his mind could not at all confront. It was sometimes like a great cloud emanating from him and surrounding him, a new form of his being, something almost physical. It was not regret for the past, it was not even exactly yearning for Emma: these were far too like thoughts. Whereas what was the case was opaque, it had no reflective qualities. What it was indeed was just — somehow — Emma, and nothing else; and this nonsensical way was the only way he could put it.
All the same, he kept his head, and beside, or within, this great balloon that tugged him off the ground a sort of monologue went on, though in a rather high-pitched tone, as if the Voice of Reason had become slightly hysterical. He knew perfectly well that conditions such as the one he was in — he did not give it a name — were temporary. He could weary out the inflated thing that so pulled him About, he could weary it out just by keeping his feet firmly planted and directing his attention elsewhere. He could be sane in a week, if he really wanted to be, he told himself; and he reflected that his condition undoubtedly had more than he had at first realized to do with his simply being tired and overwrought. He had so much looked forward, had quite childishly looked forward, to having a holiday when poor Fanny was dead. It sounded a very callous way to put it, but there it was, and it was perfectly natural. He had, since his retirement from the Civil Service, had no opportunities for self-indulgence, since Fanny's illness had followed so soon after. He had promised himself many things, reading, painting, travel, the untrammelled conversation of friends: these things, like toys put away in a cupboard, awaited him still. His freedom awaited him still.
It would indeed be an act of gratuitous folly to, as he had put it to Mildred, make trouble for himself at this stage. He knew nothing of Emma's present arrangements or state of mind and shrank from any attempt to 'make inquiries' about her. To try to reestablish any sort of 'relationship' however vague with Emma would be likely to cause pain and confusion and nothing else. And of course he would make himself ridiculous: though this thought in fact troubled him comparatively little, and he had been sincere in saying to Mildred that at his age one outgrows certain considerations of dignity. He was well aware that: his selective memory retained for him, from that strange episode of the far past, only what was joyful and what was tragic. What it suppressed was that Emma was a tough and difficult customer and not by any means well adapted to get on with someone like himself. When, moreover, he reflected on the curious beauty which, after all, that memory retained, worked as it had been into a self-contained crystal sphere of intense experience, he felt at moments that it would be a pity to risk spoiling it: to risk spoiling it by a painful, embarrassing or irritating sequel, or worse still, by a boring one. For the most depressing thought was the thought that if he and Emma were to meet now the meeting might have no significance at all.
The trip to India was obviously a god-send. Two days out from Southampton and he would be in another universe: at times he thought, two hours out from Southampton. A long time away, packed with unforeseeable experiences which would compel thought and fancy, filling his mind with bright new images, would quite cleanse him of these weird cobwebs: he thus attempted to see his so improbably reviving feelings as the fabric of some dreadful reanimation, partaking of the unnatural, unnerving, almost evil. It was too soon after Fanny's death to be mad in this way. It was in any case, at any time, improper for an elderly man to be mad in this way. He would go, he thought, with Mildred, with solid, sensible, unemotional Mildred, to the ends of the earth: and there, at the ends of the earth, he would re-join his freedom. He set his mind upon this rendezvous, and relied upon Mildred to keep him to it. Only when Mildred had said, 'You want to go and see her', all that structure had dissolved. It had been but a dream structure in any case, raised up to mask the determination, the rapacious need, which he had had all along to see.
Emma again.
He looked at his watch. He was still more than ten minutes too early. He had made the arrangement by telephone. He had not spoken to Emma directly, but to her secretary who had said yes, Miss Sands would see Mr Peronett, and would he kindly come at five o'clock, and that he was not to knock at the door but to come straight into the drawing-room.
As Hugh raised his head to look again at the distant green door he saw to his extreme dismay that it was opening. No votary surprised by the real presence of the goddess had a more potent urge to fall senseless to the ground or preferably to sink through it. Hugh took a step back, wondering if he had time to get away round the comer of the corridor without being seen. Then a sense of the stupid undignified nature of such a flight made him reverse his movement, and he began to walk very slowly towards the door, hoping that it was not evident that he had only been set in motion by seeing it open.
Two figures issued from' the door and began to glide along the rather dark corridor towards him. As they grew larger he saw that one of them was a very handsome young woman and that the other was his son. The shock of seeing Randall in that context at that moment was considerable and Hugh's immediate feeling was one of sheer confusion, of having made some dreadful mistake. Of course he had not forgotten that Randall knew Emma. But in the picture of his own dealings with Emma, Randall had had no place, not deliberately excluded so much as automatically irrelevant and out of mind. Hugh was hurt by Randall's proximity to his own moment of truth. It was an intrusion.
Randall was now saying something to the girl, and they slightly quickened their pace as they. approached him. It was plain that there was going to be no introduction, and for a moment it looked as if the advancing pair were simply going to sweep him out of the way. How they did get past each other was not, in Hugh's memory of it afterwards, very clear. He must have stood aside. Randall and the girl, as if sucked violently through a tube, held their course. He had a rapid picture of his son's face turned towards him, perfectly bland, saying Good evening. He had an equally rapid but detailed picture of the girl's golden hair, and her also somewhat golden eyes regarding him with an expression of amused curiosity. Then they were gone and he was alone in the corridor some ten paces from Emma's door.
He stopped again and wondered if he ought now to wait till five 0 clock. But upset and even angered by the meeting with Randall, he felt that he could not put up with the triviality of hanging around for another five minutes. He drew a breath, long enough to apprehend that he was about to step from one world into another, and that he had no conception at all what the new world would contain. He passed through the green door, which had been left ajar, went straight ahead into the drawing-room and found himself in Emma's presence.
Chapter Twelve
EMMA sat in an armchair facing the door. She was hunched up and looked small and round, almost humped. She was wearing a voluminous dark green dress which seemed to reach the ground, and a long slim cane was leaning against her knees. She was watching the door intently as he entered. She was smaller than he remembered. Hugh looked down at her in silence. The sense of being at last in her presence the occurrence of something impossible, something contradictory, constituted a mystery so breath-taking that it forbade speech and almost with its intensity made him solitary again. Paralysed, he stared.
His imaginings beforehand of what this moment would be like had been hazy, yet they had seemed sufficiently lurid. He had pictured himself swept by irresistible emotion into her Anns. He had imagined loss of consciousness. He had imagined tears and nervous laughter and every form of grotesque embarrassment. But this terrible silent confrontation had a quality of the real which stripped him. It was not Emma related to him but Emma existing which was the shock which so almost threw him back into a greater solitude. It was more like the mapping of a cord than like a reunion.
; After a moment or two Emma uttered a sound which might have been 'Hugh', or perhaps it was 'you' or perhaps it was just a sigh. Hugh sat down. She was very much older. He had not, in the apparitions he had had of her, seen her ageing.
Emma drew herself back as if uncurling a little. Then she said in a low voice, as if not to break a spell which kept him from being wafted back out of the door again, 'Is your curiosity fed?
'Not — curiosity — Emma, said Hugh. He now with relief felt the rush of warm emotion, the reassuring desire to kneel, the possibility of trembling.
Emma was silent, scrutinizing him. She was neither smiling nor embarrassed nor solemn. She seemed distracted and morose. Then she said something.
'You'll have to speak up, I'm afraid, said Hugh. 'I've become very deaf'
'So have I, said Emma. 'I said you looked just the same, but of course you don't. It's just that I've got used to your face already.
'I hope it doesn't upset you, my coming like this.
, I don't see why it should upset me, said Emma slowly and irritably. 'I could have said no. But I suppose I was curious too. She added, 'It was a long time ago. Too long.
'Too long for what?
She just repeated 'Too long. Too long. Then, 'Would you like some tea?
'Yes, if it's no trouble.
'It is a trouble, said Emma, 'and anyway I think I'd rather have a drink. Could you get the gin and stuff out of that cupboard?
Hugh got up. It was odd to be moving about in this room. It was like moving about in a picture or beyond a looking glass and his body felt heavy with fatality. He looked around him at Emma's things. Generations of window-curtains must have come and gone since he was last here and he was vaguely aware of some notable improvements in Emma's taste; yet he thought he recognized a few objects, and he could scarcely believe that he was not visiting the past. He set the bottles and two glasses on the little table in front of her, beside her spectacles and an immense ash-tray and a blue packet of Gauloises; and as he came near to her he had an eerie apprehension of her whole body as older. It was as if her body and his sniffed each other like two old dogs while their owners looked on. Her hand rested on the Ann of the chair like a wary lizard. The dry wrinkled skin, dark brown with nicotine, had fallen between the bones. He had the impression that she was holding her breath.
