An Unofficial rose

by Iris Murdoch

  'And she?

  'She is — a. faithful wife. He added, 'She's a conventional person. He seemed dissatisfied with this and added, 'She's a good person.

  He seemed about to qualify this further, but Mildred said, 'Anyhow, the point is that there's no question of her actually throwing Randall out, however bloody he is.

  Hugh, frowned a little, perhaps at the adjective, perhaps just at Mildred's directness. She would never throw him out, never.

  'So unless he very positively goes he counts for her as not gone?

  'Yes, you may say so.

  Mildred did not want to seem too interested in Ann, so she said. Well, Randall is more the point. What about him? Will he stay or will he go?

  Hugh still paced, looking at the carpet, his floppy brown tonsure falling forward on each side of his temples. Then he cast a keen look at Mildred and said, 'He needs — a great deal of money — to go.

  'Money, said Mildred. For a wild moment she wondered if Hugh was going to ask her to contribute. 'But he hasn't any money has he?

  'No.

  'Not a bean, I suppose. Except for the nursery. Scarcely a bean. And of course Randall would want to do things in style.

  Hugh looked at her sharply. She must mind her tongue. She could not bear him to think that she mocked. So she murmured softly 'Dear Hugh, dear Hugh, go on.

  'He'll go if, and only if, he gets the money.

  'Well, will he get the money? Where from?

  Hugh turned and looked at the Tintoretto. For a moment Mildred thought he was waiting to speak. Then she realized that he had spoken; and she cried out of an immediate scandalized shock, 'No, no! Certainly not!

  'That's what I said, said Hugh. He spoke in a soft tired way. He sat down opposite to her on the sofa.

  'It would be utterly wicked, said Mildred. She spoke without calculation, with a sense of the monstrousness of the thing. 'No, Hugh, no.

  In the silence that followed Mildred drew out some of the implications of the matter and gasped at them.

  'Yet — it's complicated, said Hugh, in the same small voice. He added, 'Perhaps I'll have some whisky too.

  It was indeed complicated. No money, no departure. No departure, no Ann for Felix..

  Mildred pulled herself together. The strain of being objective here was like a physical pain. But she said firmly, 'Hugh, have some common sense. You can't sell your beloved Tintoretto so that Randall can have a caper with a girl which may last six months. It would be totally wrong. Tell Randall to pull his socks up. If he wants to leave Ann he can get half the value of the nursery and start himself up again. And can't the Rimmer girl work? By not treating them as ordinary mortals you'll do them nothing but harm.

  'I've thought of all this, said Hugh. 'I've thought of Ann. I've thought of Sarah. I've thought that if I sell the painting I ought to give the proceeds to Famine Relief. Everything.

  'Well, if you've thought of it, why aren't you convinced by it?

  'It's complicated, he repeated. He poured himself out some whisky.

  'Randall's thing is very serious. He's really in love — the way it only happens once or twice in a lifetime. And with someone like him the mature love is the one to trust. He sighed. 'I think it will last. She's awfully beautiful, by the way.

  'Hugh, don't be frivolous.

  'And without the money he won't go.

  'Well, let him not go! said Mildred, exasperated. She grieved for Felix, but she saw nothing here which was in the least unclear.

  'Well, you see, said Hugh. He paused as if wondering whether to go on. 'There's another — aspect to the matter.

  At that moment, with a sudden switch in her vision, Mildred saw the other aspect: and if the first picture had made her gasp, this second gestalt left her positively winded. Before she had time to recover, Hugh was going on.

  'There's no way of saying this, he said, 'which doesn't sound monstrous. And of course it is monstrous, and not anything which could possibly form part of a serious intention. It's a sort of nightmare, the waking nightmare that I've been having all night. And when I ring you up I was possessed by an urge to confess it to someone, to confess it to you. Just to get rid of it. Yes, to get rid of it. You'll think me mad when I tell you. And what you've been saying is quite right. And of course I can't possibly sell the picture. He stopped as if he had said everything.

  'But you haven't told me, said Mildred, when he was silent still. 'This — other thing. Is it to do with Emma?

  'Mildred —’ said Hugh. Then he suddenly covered his face with one hand, the fingers spread wide upon his bald forehead, while he gave a groaning sigh into the palm.

  'It's as bad as that, is it?

  'You're so quick and so sympathetic, said Hugh, removing his hand. 'You understand everything before I say it. You remember I asked you something a little while ago, about going to see her? Well, I did as you advised, I went to see her. I thought I might calm down then. But I didn't calm down. I haven't calmed down.

  'And you remember that I said you were ready to fall in love? You have fallen in love. Her voice trembled.

  'I have fallen in love, he repeated solemnly, absorbed in the majesty of his own fate.

  Mildred was so confused by the demands of her new insight and by the pure piercing pain of jealousy which had just passed through her like a spear, that she could think of nothing to say.

  Oblivious, Hugh went on in a moment, 'To someone as clever as you I needn't explain what my nightmare was. Emma and I — well, there are possibilities. But the fact is that Emma isn't alone. She's — entangled — somehow — with that Rimmer girl. Well, no, that's a misleading way to put it. They're very fond of each other, and terribly sort of domestic together. And with Lindsay there there's no place for me. And, well, there it is. He added, 'And that's that, in case she should misunderstand him.

  'But, said Mildred, 'if Randall could be enabled to buy Lindsay, you could move into the vacant place at the hearth. She instantly cursed herself for this bitter speech. She felt tears of vexation and defeat waiting behind her eyes.

  Hugh's face wrinkled at her sharp words and he bowed his head with an air of vexed humility. He said, 'Of course, you must understand that I've just been raving to you in order to clear my head of poisonous fumes. Now I expect I've shocked you. You're so honest and simple yourself, you probably don't realize what fantasies, and what duplicities can reside in the bosoms of — quite ordinary people. Perhaps I oughtn't to have troubled you. He closed his lips, biting them into a hard line. She had hurt him.

  While Mildred gained control of herself by taking some deep breaths and a mouthful of whisky he went on in a more conciliatory tone, 'You speak to me, as you always do, with the voice of reality. That's why I summoned you, I suppose. Of course, I never seriously thought I would sell the picture. It would be wickedly unfair to Ann and Sarah. And it would be very bad for Randall. That s the main point really. It would deprave Randall.

  Mildred got up and went to the window. She blinked at the pale hazy light and the lines of the rain. If only she could think. She said, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute.

  Before her own interests had come with such violence upon the scene she had seen things clearly. Now all was stirred up and confused. Almost laboriously she worked it out. If Hugh sold the picture Felix would get Ann. If Hugh did not sell the picture she would get Hugh. That was what it came to.

  Mildred was not the first to feel doubts of a good cause when she saw that it was also to her advantage. Or rather, when she saw this, she began to think more passionately about the advantages of others. And she was acutely and increasingly conscious of her power to silence Hugh and of Hugh's wish to be influenced. It was clear I that what had racked Hugh all night was an overwhelming desire to sell the picture. Yet at the same time he saw the moral obstacles as insuperable. And he saw justly.

  Mildred knew that whatever she said she must say it quickly and it had better be to the point. But where was the point? She didn't. want to make up Hugh's mind fo
r him now. She wanted to keep it in the balance, to keep it wavering, to give her time to reflect further. But he seemed already to have helped him to his decision. What was there, more subtly, to be said on the other side? She tried desperately to see the thing as Hugh saw it, to see Randall as Hugh saw him. She said, 'And yet as you said — it's complicated. I can well understand your desire to set Randall free, to give. him suddenly perfect freedom.

  'Well yes' said Hugh with alacrity, getting up from where he had been hunched in an attitude of rather sulky gloom. Yes. There's that in it too, I suppose.

  'And to do it with no ungenerous hand, said Mildred, 'to do it with a reckless hand.

  'Reckless, he said 'Yes. He joined her by the window and looked lip at the misty dome which hung before them like some southern cupola in a painting by Turner. His eye glowed at a hidden thought.

  I have touched the right place, thought Mildred. Let me think of a few more epithets. She felt by now a little reckless herself. 'I can see, she said, 'that, in a way, you want to do something extravagant and foolish for Randall. You want to help Randall to do something extravagant and foolish.

  'Yes, said Hugh. 'In a way. He added, 'I was never myself — extravagant and foolish.

  That's it, is it, thought Mildred. I should have seen it sooner. She meditated. And as she estimated the complex strength of Hugh's motives she thought with a passing wail of despair for herself: he will surely sell the picture.

  'You see, said Hugh, now, assisted by the wind which Mildred had puffed so heartily into his sails, getting going on the other tack, 'if one were to look at it from that side, it isn't as if the girls would be at all hardly done by, Ann and Sarah I mean. They'll get quite a lot anyway'.

  'And Ann might always marry again, I suppose, said Mildred.

  Then she thought this was incautious. She did not want to confuse Hugh's simple mind with hints of further complications.

  She need not have worried. Hugh said, shaking his head, 'Oh, I doubt it. Who would want to marry poor Ann?

  Mildred felt that by now she had had enough. She was confident that she had set the balance level. She was confident too that whatever she might decide as a result of her further reflections she could make Hugh decide too. She wanted to get away and reflect. She said abruptly, 'I must go'.

  She went back to pick up her gloves and bag which she had laid on the mantelpiece underneath the Tintoretto. She looked up at the gorgeous valuable trouble-making object. Hugh followed her saying, 'Mildred, I can't tell you how grateful —

  'But I haven't decided anything yet, said Mildred. 'I mean, you haven't decided anything. There are too many factors, Hugh. I saw the thing too simply at first. You were quite right to hesitate. It's a big decision. You don't have to make it in a hurry. You really must reflect further, don't you think?

  'Reflect further, well, yes, perhaps, said Hugh eagerly. 'But you'll help me reflect, won't you? You don't feel imposed upon, do you, Mildred? You've understood it all so quickly and so well. You help me marvellously to know what I think.

  'I'll help you if you want it, said Mildred. 'I'll always help you if you want it. She took her things.

  'Ah, my dear Mildred, said Hugh, suddenly rapt into a soft dream lid taking hold of the mantelpiece. 'If you only knew! To be at my age so foolishly in love!

  Mildred felt her tears coming now. There was no resisting them.

  She turned half about and saw that the rain had stopped and it was a little brighter outside. To conceal her filling eyes she reached up and switched out the light above the picture.

  Chapter Twenty

  'AND what will Hugh decide?

  'He'll decide what I tell him to decide. Felix was exceedingly upset by Mildred's story, and was upset too by her manner of telling it. Yet he could not help pausing, as he so often did at moments when he most apprehended her difference from himself, to admire his sister. She had presented the issues with a ruthless frankness which he respected though it made him shrink. She was in the more delicate affairs of life, positively military.

  They were in the drawing-room at Seton Blaise. The weather had reestablished itself and out of a sky sparsely scattered with small white clouds a fairly determined sun shone upon the mid-summer garden which, refreshed by recent rains and now dried by sunshine and a gentle west wind, combined a clean matutinal freshness with the luxuriance of a tropical forest.

  'Of course, said Felix, 'none of your predictions is certain. They have already been over the ground a number of times.

  'You want to know the future in detail, said Mildred. 'Perhaps soldiers always do. But the future isn't like that. She spoke in a tired way and sat down on the window-seat in the bow-window. The sunlight found the faded yellow in her untidy fluff of grey hair. Although it was evening she was still wearing the tweeds in which she had arrived post haste from London.

  'It is when it comes to it, said Felix gloomily. 'That's the trouble. Don't be metaphysical. One can only go by probabilities. She pulled a white foxglove out of the vase on the table and began switching it nervously about.

  Felix, who had been wandering about the room, paused by the window. Outside, Humphrey could be seen, remote on the far side of the stream, motionless, as if he had been put there by a painter, facing the house with head thrown back in the attitude of one expecting to be addressed at any moment by a cry or a shot. His white hair made a vivid highlight in the unbroken greenness of the scene.

  'What a trio weare! said Mildred, following his glance. 'All of us in love! And poor Humphrey always wanting not only the unmentionable but the unattainable! But at least Humpo tries. He deploys his resources.

  'Anyway the probabilities are not the point, said Felix. He set off gain, receding into the dimmer part of the room which was rich and hazy with summer light.

  'What else is the point, for heaven's sake? said Mildred. 'Haven't we agreed that you have more chance of Ann if Randall goes than I have of Hugh if Randall stays? She began to dismember the foxglove.

  Felix did not like this way of putting it. He did not like this degree of explicitness at all. And he was appalled as well as impressed by Mildred's grasp of the present issue simply as a conflict between her merits and his.

  'I mean, he said, 'we are not thinking about it in the right way . Isn't the main question one about Hugh and Randall? And isn't it plain that what Hugh proposes to do is something impossible, simply not done?

  'It'll be done if Hugh does it, said Mildred impatiently. 'And in a way he's dying to. The thing has caught his imagination. You neglect t he sense in which the act would be a good act. It's not just a matter of our ends and means. For Hugh it would be something splendid in itself, whatever its results: a vicarious violence, a symbolic redemption of me past.

  'I'm precisely objecting to your regarding it as just a matter of our ends and means! said Felix. 'And I don't see why we should take Hugh's romanticism as our standard eimer. The past is dear at sixty thousand pounds, and money won't buy spiritual goods anyway. But apart from that, what about Randall? It could hardly be other than bad for him.

  'You leave me gasping, said Mildred. She had pulled all me flowers off the foxglove and was arranging mem on the table. 'Money will buy spiritual goods, as a moment's reflection would show you. And is this really a moment for worrying about the moral character of your rival? Randall's character can surely look after itself by now. She added, 'I must say, I can't help rather admiring Randall. To be a cad on quite such a scale has something sublime about it.

  Felix's feelings about Randall were by now mixed up to the point of explosion. He could not help feeling guilty before Ann's husband. His sense of me purely proprietory rights of marriage was very strong; and although he had not even been tempted to break the seventh commandment, he had certainly broken the tenth. Jealousy, envy, contempt, anger, guilt, and a kind of pure amazement which was analogous to, though not exactly akin to, admiration strove confusedly together in his bosom.

  'So you see, Mildred went on, 'the
pattern does emerge pretty clearly. This talk with you has helped enormously. I can see it all now. And Hugh must be allowed his crime. Don't you think? She began to crush the foxglove flowers one by one between her fingers.

  'Nothing is clear to me, said Felix. He put his hand into his pocket, where it came into contact with Marie-Laure's unanswered letter. 'I hate anything of this importance being done by money.

  'It will be done, however it is done, by violence. And money is only one kind of violence. It's simply a matter of taste that one likes it less than screaming and shedding blood.

  'Don't try to confuse me, Mildred, said Felix. 'I just hate juxtaposing anything like this with — Ann. Whatever will Ann think of it?

  'Ann won't know, said Mildred composedly.

  'Oh, yes she will! I shall tell her, if no one else does.

  'You won't be in a position to tell her, dear, until after the deed is done.

  Felix knelt on the window-seat, looking out. The boards groaned under his weight. Humphrey could be seen sauntering away now, his hands in his pockets. He had the look of an idle discontented boy. Felix restrained himself from cursing aloud. He did not want things to happen in this way. Yet, as Mildred said, whatever way they happened would be an ugly way. Perhaps what he was so much disliking was being 'made to see the ugliness and to be, however remotely, a party to it. What was right here?

  Felix had grown used to his role of waiting, to his sense of everyyone being active except himself. There had been, in this attitude, he realized, a certain consoling fatalism. Events would proceed without his assistance upon their due course, and either he would quietly and inevitably get Ann — or he would not, in which case at least he would have nothing to reproach himself with. He would have much preferred whatever happened to happen under its own laws, far away from him, and for him to be able to stroll in when all had been completed. He had been all along, he realized, alarmed and repelled by the idea of anything approaching a public show-down between himself and Randall. He had been at every moment, afraid of not being secretive enough, fearful of somehow entangling himself to a point where something public would be unavoidable; and he could not help caring how he would look.