A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘You’ve been encouraging her to think things about me—’

  ‘Now don’t be ridiculous, Rupert. And please don’t get so hot under the collar. Your wife needed comfort, even perhaps advice. I told her, and I do in fact believe, that very little has happened and there is no grave cause for alarm.’

  ‘But nothing has happened.’

  ‘Of course, Rupert, if you say so.’

  ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s just a muddle, a nightmarish muddle, and I simply can’t think how this rumour—’

  ‘Well, you know how malicious and sharp-eyed people are. And how they love to discover faults in those they envy and admire. ’

  ‘But I am to blame,’ said Rupert. ‘Something has happened. Of course the rumour isn’t based on nothing. I am terribly to blame.’ He sat down.

  ‘It’s probably wiser to admit that to yourself,’ said Julius. ‘Why should you not be a little to blame after all? You are upset because your image of yourself is shaken and because Hilda’s image of you is shaken. A trifle chipped or cracked perhaps. You have expected too much of yourself, Rupert. No marriage is as perfect as you have imagined yours to be and no man as upright as you have posed to yourself as being. It was perhaps a pity that you chose your sister-in-law to go to bed with—’

  ‘But I didn’t—’

  ‘Well, never mind the details, Rupert. You have just admitted that something happened. From Hilda’s point of view the details don’t even matter all that much. She sees you utterly involved with Morgan and an idol falls to the ground. So much perhaps the better. Doubtless things can never be quite as before, but your marriage can continue and be no worse than the next man’s. A little realism, a touch of shall we call it ironical pessimism will oil the wheels. Human life is a jumbled ramshackle business at best and you really must stop aspiring to be perfect, Rupert, especially after this latest piece of evidence! As for Morgan, the poor girl is a natural man-chaser and a hopeless muddler and self-deceiver. She sees herself as a sort of intellectual eagle, whereas she is blind with sentiment and feeble with self-indulgence. But she’s a very sweet person all the same and of course you were right to be kind to her. She’s very attractive and she needs you. In the circumstances a love affair was practically inevitable and you mustn’t blame yourself too much—’

  ‘But there wasn’t a—You’re deliberately confusing things—I couldn’t live like that. I couldn’t live like that.’

  ‘Like what? Without a false picture of yourself?’

  ‘No. In cynicism.’

  ‘Why use that nasty word? Let us say a sensible acceptance of the second-rate.’

  ‘I won’t accept the second-rate.’

  ‘If you stay in the same house as yourself you may have to. Come, there will be a few smiles at your expense, but why worry? The smilers merely demonstrate their own tawdriness. But human life is tawdry, my dear Rupert. There are no perfect marriages. There is no glittering summit. All right, Hilda will stop admiring you. But when have you really merited her admiration? Haven’t you deceived yourself, just as Morgan has deceived herself? All right, Hilda won’t love you quite as she did before. She may feel sorry for you, she may even despise you a little. And you won’t forget what you’ve learnt either, how to pretend, how to lead a double life. It’s natural to you, Rupert, you all do it. There will be those late nights at the office, and Hilda will sort of know and sort of not know, and it won’t matter anything like as much as it seems to do at the moment.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Rupert. ‘There’s something I can’t live without—’

  ‘A mirage, my dear fellow. Better the real world, however shabby, than the condition of high-minded illusion. By the way, have you been into your study in the last half hour?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I think you had better come up and see.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘I will come with you. Come.’

  Julius left the drawing room and led the way up the twilit stairs. At the door of Rupert’s study he said, ‘Prepare yourself for a shock.’ He opened the door and switched the light on.

  Rupert followed him in, blinking. The room seemed to be paler, different. He stared about.

  It seemed to have been snowing in the room. The floor, the chairs, the desk were covered in drifts of white. Rupert looked more closely. It was torn paper. Paper torn up into very small pieces. He picked up one of the pieces. He saw his own writing upon it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Julius, ‘I’m afraid it’s your book.’

  Rupert picked up a few more pieces. He let them fall. He looked at the table where the stack of yellow notebooks had been.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s all gone,’ said Julius. ‘It was Peter. I came upstairs wondering if you’d stopped talking to Hilda and I heard this curious tearing noise in your study. He’d done about half of it when I came in.’

  ‘You didn’t—stop him—?’

  ‘How could I? I could hardly use force. I reasoned with him a little. Then in the end I helped him.’

  ‘Helped him—to destroy my book?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps it was silly of me. But I could see that he was determined to finish the job, so I thought I might as well tear up one or two notebooks too. Besides, to be perfectly frank, Rupert, I don’t think it was a very good book. I don’t just mean it wasn’t true, it wasn’t even particularly clever, at least not anything like clever enough for its pretensions. You haven’t got that kind of mind. It wouldn’t have done your reputation any good.’

  Rupert turned back towards the door, leaned against the doorway, switched the light out. ‘Could you go now.’

  ‘Not in your dressing gown, please, my dear Rupert.’

  ‘Take any suit—there in my dressing room—and then go. I don’t want to talk to you again tonight.’

  Rupert went down the stairs. A few minutes later he heard the front door shut quietly. He turned the lamp off and stood in the dark drawing room. His body ached with misery and with tormented love for his wife. Tomorrow he would talk to Hilda. He would persuade her not to go away. But of something he knew that he would never persuade her and never persuade himself ever again. There was something which had vanished away out of the world forever.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MORGAN LAID DOWN HILDA’S LONG LETTER. She had read it through carefully once. Then she tore it into small pieces.

  What a long distance lies between an act and its consequences. How could her dreamy converse with Rupert have occasioned, have caused, this terrible violence? It was like the humming of a song causing an aeroplane crash. Had she deserved this awful rejoinder from Hilda and the horror of seeing Hilda’s pain? It’s all a mistake, she thought, I’ll have to explain. But now that this had happened could it be explained? Rupert’s love was a fact and her acceptance of it a fact. She had even started to imagine that she was in love with Rupert. And now it had all been made to look so dreadful.

  How did it happen? she wondered. Hilda did not say how she knew. Axel must have told her. Morgan imagined it all. Axel’s hints, Hilda’s quick suspicion, her certainty, her taxing of Rupert, Rupert’s breakdown. That was pitiful to imagine. Rupert was, after all, so weak. How had she ever imagined him as a hero? Rupert would break down, would confess everything, would tell Hilda all the details of his love for Morgan, swear to get over it, weep probably, promise never to see Morgan again. No wonder Hilda thought it had all been so terribly serious. And this has happened because I was kind to him, she thought. It was his idea that we should meet and talk, his confidence that made it all seem permissible. And now Hilda writes to me as if I were trying to steal her husband from her.

  Morgan sat down. She was dry-eyed. Anger, contempt, remorse kept her rigid. They shall not overcome me, she thought. I will not be an object of disapproval and ultimately of pity to the married pair. How idiotic of her to have encouraged Rupert so. Of course she was fond of Rupert and of course it had been interesting an
d she had spent enough years admiring the huge seamless edifice of her sister’s marriage. But she should have seen from the start that Rupert was a muddler. He must have left letters lying about in the office. How else could Axel have known? Rupert’s soft, she thought. Someone tougher and braver would not have let me be hurt like this. Rupert would be on his knees to Hilda at the first word of reproach. He will scarcely have confessed his love before he will start denying it. He will drop me. He will abandon me absolutely in his heart.

  How was I so taken in, she wondered. What was it in Rupert that seemed so remarkable? Was it just his horribly perfect marriage? Some moral glory had seemed to shine round about him. I believe I was simply impressed by his own self-satisfaction, she thought. Some people are like that. They are so profoundly pleased with themselves that they mesmerize others into admiring them. Perhaps in Rupert’s case it had something to do with his particular sort of theories. Of course she hadn’t read any of Rupert’s stuff, but it did somehow come out in his conversation, even in his manner. Rupert imagined that he knew all about goodness. He imagined that it was permitted to him to love and do as he liked. But what was he in reality? A hedonistic civil servant, an easy-going member of the establishment, with a marvellous wife and a lucky disposition. Well, his luck had abandoned him this time.

  How little he deserved Hilda, she thought. How often he had seemed to be, about his wife, the least little bit patronizing: Hilda was not an intellectual but of course she was a wonderful woman. Couldn’t he see that Hilda was a much cleverer and better person than he was? Hilda was no muddler. Being the sweetest person in the world did not prevent her from being steely truthful and clear in the head. She needed no steamy visions of moral altitude to make her and keep her a decent human being. Who was always talking about helping people? Rupert. Who was always really helping people? Hilda. Only one failed to notice Hilda’s virtue because she was unaware of it herself. And she treated her good works as jokes.

  Morgan sat there stiff, with her eyes half closed, leaning forward, and her face became hard and strange to her like a mask and she felt the deep obscure bases of her life shuddering and stirring. I have not known who I am, she thought. But I will know. She sat thus quietly for a long time. She wished that she had not torn up Hilda’s letter for she was collected enough now to meditate upon it. It had caused such a shock and such pain that her instinct had been to destroy what had hurt her so. She could not conceive of reading it a second time. Yet already that was possible. She reached for the wastepaper basket and began to pick out the pieces of the letter.

  She found she had something in her hand in Tallis’s writing and she dropped it quickly. It was part of the letter which she had torn up unread. Tallis’s letter and Hilda’s letter now seemed inextricably jumbled up together in the basket. She began to pick up pieces and look at them and let them flutter down again: really remember our life together? was Tallis, even our innocent childhood was Hilda, and by a family bond I mean was Tallis, warned by your casual treatment of was Hilda, to buy you an engagement ring was Tallis, Rupert misled you? Our happiness was Hilda, lot of tommy-rot, my darling was Tallis, only this particular treachery was Hilda, position to command not beg was Tallis, vulgar deceptions and lies was Hilda, unharmed and bright was Tallis, blackened and destroyed was Hilda, always always was Tallis, never never was Hilda.

  Men, thought Morgan, all the trouble in my life has come from men. The only time I was ever really happy was when Hilda and I were together, long ago when we were young. And not just long ago, but ever since in a way Hilda has been the guardian of my happiness. I never came to claim it, but I knew it was there, and that was my only deep and enduring comfort. All through that awful time in America I rested upon the thought of Hilda, and when I came back it was to Hilda that I came home. How childish of me to have tried to deceive her. As if it could even have been possible. The flirtation with Rupert was a piece of idle folly. But the deception of her sister was a crime for which she deserved to suffer, to suffer with meaningful and purging pain, with Hilda as judge and executioner and healer.

  As Morgan surveyed her life and the deep interlocking of her past and her present she felt in all her being which still ached from the shock of Hilda’s letter a kind of bitter confidence and a sense of being at last in the truth. Compared with her bond with Hilda, these matters of men, of lovers and husbands, seemed utterly flimsy. And, it came to her, compared with Hilda’s bond with her, even Hilda’s marriage could be seen as an interlude. Something might be blackened and destroyed, but it was not the tie that untied Hilda and Morgan. That tie could not ever be broken. Of course she had acted wrongly. But it was to Hilda that she would come for judgement.

  Morgan lifted her head and a ray from the far past, from the dark forgotten beginnings of her existence, shone through her eyes and made them glow like amber. Hilda must know of this, Hilda must know that there was no horror, no shock and no crime which could in any way undo that ultimate belongingness.

  The sun had ceased to shine and the room had become dusky and brown. Morgan rose and turned on a lamp. She went to her writing table.

  To Rupert she wrote at considerable length. Her letter began thus.

  My dear Rupert,

  I have received an emotional letter from Hilda which leads me to assume that you have by now told her everything about your initiative with me. As I can scarcely believe that your feelings can sustain the shock of Hilda’s discovery of them, I am also assuming that our curious interlude is now over. I cannot help feeling slightly resentful that you should have so signally mismanaged the drama which you yourself occasioned and that you should have exposed me to Hilda’s anger. You were, I am afraid, over-confident. Your choice of method might have suited the saint which I fear you are not. For ordinary mortals, more conventional reactions are doubtless safer. I am of course to blame for having followed your ‘high style’ rather than my own more mundane instincts. These things, your tactics and my ill-considered response, are regrettable but possibly not very important. Remorse and hurt pride are stings which are cured by time. And it seems to me now that your emotions were stormy but not profound. What is important to me, and for this I find it harder to forgive either you or myself, is the damage done to my relationship to Hilda: a relationship older and, I venture to say deeper, than the relation of either of us to you. What you may decide now to think or do about your marriage is of course your affair. But I would like to say this. I will not be a sacrifice to the restoration and celebration of your married bliss. In brief, you shall not separate me from Hilda. I do not propose to save you from embarrassment by shunning the house, though I may henceforth shun you. And the explanation of our little drama which really matters is the explanation which Hilda will receive from me …

  To Hilda Morgan only wrote:Darling, hang on. We will not be divided. M.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘AXEL, STOP THE CAR will you, anywhere.’

  Axel did not reply, but he turned the car down a side street and stopped it and switched off the engine. Then he took out a cigarette, lighted it and sat looking straight ahead of him. They had just left Priory Grove after the immersion of Julius in the swimming pool.

  ‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ said Simon.

  Axel said nothing.

  ‘A lot of things have happened which you don’t know of—’ Simon found it hard to talk. His throat was still hurting. He was blushing with emotion and something like a sob impeded his tongue.

  Axel still said nothing, looking away down the road and smoking his cigarette.

  ‘Listen,’ said Simon. ‘I must tell you everything. I should have from the start. But I was afraid to, afraid of you, afraid you’d be angry or not understand or something or that you wouldn’t believe me or that you’d suddenly see me in some ghastly new way. But now it’s getting so awful and Julius—I feel he’s taking me over—I mean just sort of controlling me—and what you said on the way to Rupert’s was so terrible. I almost feel I�
��ve nothing to lose any more. I mean, you couldn’t think worse of me. And I’m sure you suspect all sorts of things which aren’t true. And if I tell you the whole truth perhaps you’ll see that it’s the whole truth and believe me.’

  He paused. Axel still sat motionless, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his cigarette, staring ahead.

  ‘It all started,’ said Simon, ‘on the day when Julius first came to dinner. Just as he was going he whispered to me that I should come round to see him on the following Friday evening. That was the evening when you were going to Fidelio. He said, come round, but don’t tell Axel. I thought this was pretty odd but I imagined Julius wanted me to help him about giving you a present or something on your birthday, so I went round—I’m sorry, all this is going to sound pretty mad but every word of it’s true—I went round and Julius wasn’t there but Morgan was there with no clothes on.’

  ‘With no clothes on?’ said Axel. He threw the cigarette away. He was still expressionless.

  ‘Yes. Something had happened between her and Julius, I don’t know what, and he had destroyed all her clothes—all right I know it sounds mad—and then locked her out of the bedroom and gone off, and there she was by herself with no clothes on when I arrived. Then Morgan persuaded me to give her my clothes so that she could go and fetch some of her own from Priory Grove, so I gave her my clothes and I was there with no clothes on when Julius came back.’

  Simon paused. Axel said nothing.

  ‘Julius just laughed at me. He said he’d forgotten he asked me to come and he’d just asked me for the hell of it to see if I would come. Then Morgan came back and gave me my clothes again and they persuaded me not to tell you anything about it. They both thought it rather funny. Then about—’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Axel. ‘One or two questions. Why did they want you not to tell me and why did you agree?’