by Iris Murdoch
‘Let’s go to your office,’ said Julius, calming himself at last. ‘Exquisite, oh exquisite!’
In Simon’s tiny office Julius occupied the only chair. Simon sat on the desk.
‘Julius, it was awful to listen to that conversation, awful. It was a demon thing to do. How did you know about Rupert and Morgan and that they’d be meeting there? And what was it all about? Are they really in love with each other?’
Julius looked at his watch. ‘Give them another half hour!’ He began to laugh again, taking off his glasses and wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘Didn’t I promise you a capital puppet show? Aren’t you pleased?’
‘No,’ said Simon. ‘I’m not. I still don’t understand. Will you please explain?’
‘Tut, tut, dear boy. No one will be hurt. As I told you, it’s just a midsummer enchantment, with two asses!’
‘But how did you know?’
‘It was curiously convenient, wasn’t it? I just couldn’t resist hearing that conversation. Wasn’t it deliciously high-minded?’
‘But how did you—? Why did they—?’
‘Never mind the details, my pet. Call it magic if you like.’
‘But you can’t have arranged it.’
‘Oh I have done very little. They will do the rest.’
‘But they—I could see that they—but I couldn’t really understand what they were talking about.’
‘I don’t blame you! They didn’t understand what they were talking about themselves!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sssh, keep your voice down, you are getting quite shrill. You see, each of them imagines that he has inspired a grand passion in the other. Each thinks the other is madly in love! Thus each will take the initiative instead of drawing back. Each will chivalrously imagine that he protects and elevates the other! Thus chivalry and vanity will lead them deeper in!’
‘But why do they think that? How—?’
‘Quiet, quiet, my child. Scarcely a device at all, chance could have done it. And by the time they discover, if they ever do, they will be completely involved with each other. They are ripe, oh they are ripe!’
‘Julius, you haven’t explained, just what—’
‘Come, come. See how funny it is. There they were, pussyfooting round each other, full of tact and sympathy and consideration and unctuous nothings. “You are so wise” and “We must go through to a higher love” and so on! They will never talk straight to each other, they haven’t that kind of honesty, and they are both such gentlemen! Oh the refined and lofty muddle they will get themselves into!’
‘But they love each other—’
‘Can such beings love? Vanity not love conducts their feet. Each of them is thrilled and flattered at being an object of worship. That is all their love would probably amount to in any case.’
‘But this is all wrong,’ cried Simon. He held his head in his hands and shook it. ‘We mustn’t let it happen. What about Hilda—what about—’
‘Don’t worry. I will undo the enchantment later. No one will be seriously hurt. Two very conceited persons will be sadder and wiser, that’s all.’
‘It can’t be right to deceive people like that. Anyway how do you know—’
‘But they deceive themselves! They are having an absolutely wonderful time at this very moment in the Park!’
‘Well, I won’t stand for it,’ said Simon. He felt confused and wretched. If only he didn’t feel jealous as well. The idea of Rupert and Morgan—But it was all too nightmarish and beastly. It must be made to go away.
‘And what would you propose to do, my pet?’
‘I don’t know. Tell everybody—’
‘Tell them what? No, no, it’s already too late for telling, things have gone too far. And you’re not going to tell Axel either. Axel would behave like a blunt instrument.’
‘Maybe we need a blunt instrument!’
‘Now just think for a moment. How would those two feel if Axel came blundering round trying to sort them out? How would they feel if any outsider pushed his way into that deliciously delicate and private situation? Imagine the humiliation, the hurt vanity! Ouf!’
‘But they’ll be hurt, anyway, you said yourself—’
‘Not so much. They’ll gain a little experience. It will all unravel quite painlessly, you’ll see. Any revelations now would just be senseless and ugly. Let them have their little drama, their little dance together. Let them work the machine themselves. They’ll feel the better for it afterwards, even if they are a bit let down!’
‘You can’t play with people like that.’
‘Why shouldn’t they be educated? They’re keen enough on educating others, at least Rupert is.’
‘But that doesn’t make it right to—’
‘Enough, enough. Listen Simon, did you tell Axel about what happened that day at my flat, when you were so delightfully deprived of your clothes?’
‘No.’
‘Good boy, you’re learning. And you won’t tell Axel about this either.’
‘I will! I must tell Axel! I don’t know what to do!’
‘I’ll tell you what to do. No, no, you’ll keep quiet, Simon my boy. If you tell Axel—’
‘Well, what?’
‘I shall inform Axel that you have been making advances to me!’
‘But I haven’t!’
‘Haven’t you?’
Julius was smiling amiably, tilting his chair back, intent on cleaning his glasses with a blue silk handkerchief.
‘Julius, you know perfectly well—’
‘What do I know? Didn’t you hold my hand just now when we were sitting in our little stage box?’
‘You held mine!’
‘What’s the difference?’
Simon felt a flood of panic. He was blushing, breathless.
‘You couldn’t do that—tell Axel—it would be—’
‘Why of course I won’t! And you’ll keep quiet too, and not spoil things, won’t you? If you reflect, you’ll see it’s far better. Make no mistake, dear Simon. If I chose to I could destroy your relationship with Axel very easily. No need even to tell falsehoods. A few jokes about your interest in me—for you are interested in me, Simon, and you can’t deny it—would be quite enough. A few idle speculations, a few obscure references, nothing to be taken seriously of course. The poison would lodge and work. And the funny thing is that you would help! You would feel guilty and act guilty! Surely you realize how close Axel is to seeing you as a vulgar little flirt? And he’s an extremely jealous man, as you know.’
Simon was trembling. With an uncanny accuracy Julius had laid his finger upon the very quality of his secret fears. Axel might indeed see him, might see him at any moment, as a vulgar flirt. It was unjust, unjust, unjust. But how unutterably precarious his world was, how precarious and how frail!
‘You see, Simon, as in the case of the two enchanted donkeys whom we overheard just now, one has only to set the machinery going, and then it runs.’
‘All right,’ said Simon. ‘I won’t tell Axel.’ He pressed his hands to his burning cheeks.
‘You are wise, little one. Let me give you some advice, Simon, may I? I don’t want to upset your little applecart, but it grieves me to see you so full of illusions. Human loves don’t last, Simon, they are far too egoistic. You seem to imagine that your romance with Axel will last forever, yet just now you were prepared to believe that the tiniest strain would break it. Your fears are juster than your hopes, I am afraid. At present you think you are happy knuckling under to Axel and giving way to his moods and his ill-tempers. But human beings cannot live without power any more than they can live without water. Of course the weak can often rule the strong through nagging and sulking and spite. You choose at present to give in. But every time you give in you notice it. Later perhaps you will make Axel’s life a misery. Then gradually the balance will tilt. You will get tired of being Axel’s lapdog. You are not at all monogamous really, my dear Simon. You miss your adventures, you
know you do. And you will find out one day that you want to play Axel to some little Simon. The passage of time brings about these shifts automatically, especially in relationships of your kind. You are not at the beginning of a long marriage, my Simon, you are at the beginning of a series of love affairs of an entirely different sort. I don’t say this to discourage you, but simply out of kindness so that you should not suffer too great a disappointment later on.’
‘Get out,’ said Simon.
‘Axel will soon be putting on weight. Have you thought of that? Have you ever seen a picture of Axel’s father? Axel will soon lose that lean ascetic look which you prize so much. Will you still care for Axel when he looks like an elderly teddy bear?’
‘Get out.’
Julius got up, still smiling. ‘Come, don’t be out of temper with me just because I have told you the truth. I like you, Simon. I liked you from the moment when you said that Tallis ought not to have taken my hand. Well, I will go, since I see you are upset. It would be nice to have you fetching and carrying. But perhaps things are better as they are. In a purely spiritual sense I am, like lucky Alphonse, always in the middle. Good-bye, dear boy, and remember to keep that pretty mouth shut, eh?’
Julius patted Simon’s cheek. The door closed behind him.
Simon pulled himself off the desk. He sat in his chair and lifted the telephone. He held it in his hand for a while and then slowly laid it down again.
CHAPTER FOUR
RUPERT AND MORGAN were sitting in the sun on the steps of the Albert Memorial. They had just walked from the Prince Regent Museum to the Park.
Morgan had Rupert’s letter in her pocket and she touched it from time to time with the tips of her fingers. She felt more at home with the letter now than she did with Rupert. She knew it better. In his presence she felt a paralysing mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment which made her both coy and effusive. She could not behave naturally and realized only now how thoroughly frightened she was of the situation. It was not a dull fright. She was frightened because so much was at stake, because it was all so exciting, because it was unprecedented and unique. She felt shy of this tall burly blond man whose nervous apologetic sympathetic smile was so new to her that at times she could scarcely recognize his face. It was like a momentous second encounter with someone whom she had met only once and who had suddenly and impetuously kissed her on parting.
Rupert plainly did not know how to behave either. He seemed at the moment more anxious to reassure her than to repeat any of the burning phrases of his letter. The anxious atmosphere of mutual consideration was not indeed conducive to any passionate confessions. But the amazing letter was there in her pocket. The moment has come to tell you how much I love you … I cannot any longer now sustain the role of the detached and helpful friend … A long-felt need to come closer to you and know you better … I have so long admired you … Time will show us what to do … And so on for pages of Rupert’s tiny almost illegible script, with many erasures and the rendezvous mentioned in a scrawl at the end.
Morgan wondered if Rupert now regretted the letter. It was very possible from his embarrassed demeanour that he did. She knew that she could not possibly ask him. It was indeed an extraordinary letter for someone like Rupert to have written, impetuous, indiscreet, even inconsiderate. Yet Morgan was delighted, and had from the first moment been delighted, to receive this feckless homage from her sage and dignified brother-in-law. So there were surprises in the world. She recalled what Julius had said about Rupert’s secret life, the lost soul, the private grief, the wild sad crying. Now she had seen these things, though perhaps only for a moment; and she wondered regretfully but bravely whether Rupert would not now simply require her assistance in resuming the mask. But of course the mask could never be entirely resumed. I have come closer to Rupert, she thought. Rupert needs me. We are involved with each other forever.
Rupert’s letter had said nothing about Hilda except indirectly. We both have our responsibilities. And yes, there was Tallis too. How clear it had suddenly become to Morgan that she had somehow hoped that Rupert would clarify her feelings about Tallis. Only she had not expected quite this method of clarification. For what had become plain to her as she brooded over Rupert’s letter that morning before and after Julius’s visit was that really she felt far more at home with Rupert than she did with either Julius or Tallis. Tallis was an eerie dream, Julius a beautiful but casual destructive force. Rupert was a man, an intellectual, a person rather like herself, a person who interested her profoundly and to whom she could talk. Rupert was someone who might have made her happy.
The unfulfilled conditional brought her uneasily back to reality. She was indeed excited but she was also afraid. It was inconceivable that she should meddle with Hilda’s marriage. Yet here, fully-fledged, was an extremely tricky situation and one which threatened her beloved sister. Hilda must never know. If there was pain she and Rupert must bear it. Almost with joy she felt herself able to take up that challenge. Hilda, who had shared all her troubles, must be forever spared this one. She would come close to Rupert, she would help him to bear his private grief, she would keep the secret of the wildness within, she would transform by patience the violence of his love. And if she was brave enough to undertake this dangerous, this heavy task was it not because in the end she trusted in his wisdom and not in her own?
‘I trust your wisdom,’ she said. ‘I trust it. I trust you.’
‘You have indeed shown your trust,’ he said. ‘I hope I shall be worthy of it.’
‘Hilda must not know.’
Rupert was facing the sun, frowning. ‘One hates deception—’
‘I know. But it’s kinder. How could you tell her that?’
‘I certainly think it must be our secret for the present,’ said Rupert, after a moment.
‘Yes, yes.’ Morgan was finding the conversation difficult. She was fumbling carefully with words and phrases and she could see Rupert doing the same. With a certain painful joy she postponed the moment of taking hold of his hand.
‘Rupert,’ said Morgan, ‘I think you said the essential things when you talked about going through and not running away. There has always been love between us, hasn’t there?’
Rupert shaded his eyes. He looked uncertain, apprehensive. ‘Yes.’
‘What has happened isn’t all that new and strange. Of course our relationship has altered, it must alter. Of course you must be feeling—well, anxious and upset. But once we’re clear that we want to go on seeing each other, then should we not regard this new thing as a natural development of an old friendship? Would not that be the wisest way to look at it? And will not that development continue for us in a good way if we go on just keeping our gaze steadily and seriously fixed upon each other?’
‘I admire your confidence, your sense—’
‘You know, somehow I feel this had to happen, it was in the womb of time.’
‘I’m not sure that I feel quite that. Anyway as I said, I take it as something deep and serious and not just a piece of momentary madness.’
‘Of course it’s deep, Rupert. With you it couldn’t be otherwise. ’
‘Well, I suppose we must—ride out the storm.’
‘You sound so worried, Rupert, and so sad! Don’t be, my dear. We’ll meet regularly. We’ll make each other’s acquaintance quietly. We’re both very rational, you know! Only you don’t worry and I won’t.’
‘I only hope it won’t be all—too painful for you.’
‘How marvellously considerate you are, my dear. No. It’ll be painful for you. But we must sustain the pain together.’
‘Not telling Hilda hurts me, but I see it’s inevitable. Have you said anything to Tallis?’
‘Good God no! It’s no business of Tallis’s.’
‘I should have said, my dear, that in a way it was—’
‘I don’t see that. Nothing’s going to happen! And this is our private muddle, Rupert, yours and mine.’
‘I wonder if you fe
el—free of Tallis now—emotionally I mean?’
How anxious he is, she thought. I must reassure him. ‘Yes, I think I do. There’s still a lot of distress of course. But I’m out of that wood.’ Am I? she wondered. All that was perfectly clear at the moment was that her immediate task was one of absolute attention to Rupert.
‘It’s all very perplexing,’ said Rupert. ‘You are stronger than I am. Women so often are strong at these moments. You are so clear and so calm, now. But I can’t help being worried on your behalf. I don’t want as it were to lead you on into an even more painful situation. Imagine yourself in my position.’
‘But, my dear, I do! I can see it all, the puzzlement, the scruples, the pain. But once we’ve decided to ride out the storm as you put it we must simply trust each other and wait for time and affection to show us the form of a deeper and permanent relationship. Because that’s what we both want, isn’t it, Rupert?’
‘Yes. I want it. Is it possible?’
‘Your diffidence touches me so much! Do you really imagine that I’m going to rush off and abandon you? Of course it’s possible!’
Rupert sat sideways, shading his eyes and regarding her. ‘I so much don’t want you to be hurt. You don’t think we’re playing with fire?’
‘Life is made of fire.’
‘Morgan, your courage is fantastic.’
‘So is yours, my dear.’
‘Look,’ said Rupert, ‘I must get back to the office. And I want to think all this over.’
‘You won’t change your mind and say we should forget all about it and not see each other or something?’
‘No. I won’t.’
‘When shall we meet again? Soon?’
They began to walk down the steps in the direction of the High Street. ‘All the same,’ said Rupert, ‘I am worried. There’s something—puzzling in it all. And I don’t want to put an awful strain upon you.’
‘If you can bear the strain I should think I can! When? Let’s have lunch tomorrow.’
‘I’m having lunch with Hilda tomorrow.’
