by Iris Murdoch
‘Don’t talk like that.’
‘And you want me. All right, I know I disgust you. Strike me then.’
‘Stop—’
‘I know you better than you think. I know the twistings and turnings of your heart. I know you because at the bottom you and I are as like as two pins. You want to humiliate yourself. You want your will to drive you like a screaming animal into some dark place where you will be crushed utterly. You want to test yourself to the point where you can will the death of all that you are and stand aside coolly and watch it die. Come to me then. I will be your slave and your executioner. No other woman can please you. Only I, because I am hard and clever like a man. Only I can understand you and lift to you the face of the beauty that you really desire. Come to me, Pat.’
‘Stop—’
‘Come soon. Come before the month ends. Think that I shall be at Rathblane, in my bed, waiting for you. Come.’
Pat fumbled desperately with the door. He seemed to be turning the handle the wrong way. Then before he could get it open she had tumbled herself at his feet in a sort of animal onslaught. Her arms entwined him fiercely, pinching and pawing, while she babbled out incoherent supplications. Pat jerked the opening door violently against her and kicked himself free. As he rushed down the stairs and out of the house he felt his trousers damp at the knee from Millie’s tears or kisses. He ran away as fast as he could along the shining wet pavements in the direction of Merrion Square.
Chapter Thirteen
ANDREW was riding to Rathblane on a bicycle borrowed from his mother’s new gardener. It was Thursday afternoon and he was going to have tea with Millie. On Monday she had asked him and Frances to come to tea. Now he was going there by himself.
Andrew felt that he had received a violent blow which had in reality killed him, although he was still moving blindly about. He felt as he had felt when his father died. Grief had destroyed his ordinary self and now there was nothing but the grief and a body racked with physical pain which somehow accompanied it. Frances had been there so long, so long, an ultimate and invincible source of comfort. He had taken her to be eternal, and this deep sense of the permanence of love had been the essence of all his joys, even those apparently unconnected with her. To lead a life without her he would have to remake himself entirely. But there was no vital being left. She had been the hidden sun of his world. He had thought that world was beautiful just for him, an offering to his youth and his hope, whereas it was only she who had lent it brightness. Her affection and her intelligence had gilded everything. Now all that beauty was withdrawn into her veiled, forbidden figure and the world was ashen. He turned to and fro in despair, seeking a familiar support which should enable him to live through such misery, but the support was Frances.
He tried resolutely to become more rational and to confront his situation. He realized how dreadfully he had undervalued Frances, how stupidly he had taken her for granted. He ought to have behaved like one of Malory’s Knights and treated her as a great and difficult trial of his worth. Yet they had known each other so well, with a simplicity which now seemed to him a source of infection. Surely things had been all right, their long love had not been illusion? What had gone wrong? Was it perhaps that Frances had thought him too casual, and was thrusting him away so that he might return again more ardently? But such a policy was inconceivable in her. She was incapable of ruse. There were no mysteries here out of which dramas could be made. She was his oldest friend, and if she wanted him she would take him as he was, without gallantry. The truth was that she was exercising her last inalienable and terrible natural right, the free disposition of the heart. She simply did not want him.
Absolute devotion of one human being to another is comparatively rare, yet such is the dazzling light of egoism in which each of us lives that when devotion fails us in some quarter where we have looked to find it we feel amazement, shocked surprise, that so great a value should not be an object of love. And amid his shame and his misery Andrew felt also quite distinctly this surprise, which he did not then recognize as the germ of a healing selfishness which would in time make his pain diminish. How could Frances abandon him? It seemed inconceivable that she should have deliberately ended their long happy companionship and made it impossible for him to come to her any more. Would it not, tomorrow, be as it was? But he knew in his slowly sobering heart that he had not been teased, provoked, played with or simply asked to wait. He had been rejected.
He was already nearing Rathblane, which he had not visited for a number of years, and was surprised to notice that he had found his way there quite unconsciously. Looking at the road now, he found it uncomfortably memorable, loaded with some pungent but undeclared consciousness out of his childhood. Some vanished self had made that landscape live. And it accosted him now like an old friend who fails to realize that one has changed utterly.
Rathblane was about fifteen miles south of Dublin, situated in a fold of the Dublin mountains not far from the river Dodder. Without reflection Andrew had taken the road through Stillorgan and turned inland at Cabinteely. It was a windy day. Little round clouds like smoke rings hung high over the sea, but inland the sky was crowded with bulbous folds of grey and golden stuff which formed a huge and alarmingly three-dimensional world, gathering, rearing and toppling with slow speed only just above the tops of the mountains. The peak of Kippure, now coming into view, was a dark slatey blue against a diminishing strip of fading yellow sky, as if the peak had already absorbed the dark ray of the coming night. But the little won fields of the nearer mountain sides, pressing upward almost vertically against the thick rusty surge of the heather, were an almost silvery light green, and the gorse hillocks, round which the black-faced sheep stood in circles, glowed a rich yellow in the afternoon sun with a light which seemed to come from within their dense humps of golden flowers.
Andrew had dismounted now and was walking on the rough road up the ridge which separated him from Rathblane. The crumbling domain wall on his right, overgrown with brambles and valerian, seemed like a natural excrescence. A little rain had welcomed him into the wilder country, but now it was dry again. Near by the left side of the road they had been cutting turf, and the thick dark undersoil of the bog, the consistency of sticky fudge, glistened in the momentary sun. Weary with pushing his bike over the stones, Andrew wondered why he had bothered to come at all. There was little point in it now and he could easily have sent an excuse. Well, it was something to do. And it was a pretext for escaping from Claresville where the arrival of the furniture had sent his mother into a state of unbearable excitement, setting up all sorts of painfully domestic trains of thought. Hilda had even uttered the word ‘nursery’. His imposed silence was a torture to him, and to be taken to be happy when he was in fact the most wretched man in the world. He mounted the bicycle again and jolted down the hill, through the entrance gates between the battered stone griffins, into a sudden windless hush.
Rathblane was a Georgian house of moderate size, grey and rather tall, with an irregular front, bowed and buttress-like at one end, and smooth and balustraded at the other. Some further extension of the house had been intended but never built. It stood in a large square of trees which separated it entirely from the open country. An eighteenth-century print showed the house in a vista, but nineteenth-century Kinnards had zealously planted innumerable varieties of trees, many of them rare ones, so that boughs of gingko and catalpa and liquidambar, grown into a dense matrix, now concealed the house in a web of closely woven quietness so intense, after the windy expanse of the mountain road, as to make the unsuspecting visitor gasp. Seen only at the last moment within its thick green architecture, Rathblane had that formidable sinister stillness of the Irish country house, a stillness which is perhaps something to do with the Irish air, or is more simply due to the continued absence of the owners or to the premonition that, on coming close to the handsome façade, one will suddenly see the open sky through the upper windows.
Andrew turned the last corn
er of the drive and saw the big grey buttresses still deep in trees. The bumpy drive led on beside a stone wall toward the stables, but the front door of the house had to be approached across a small unmown lawn where a semicircular stone staircase with white painted railings descended directly into the rough rye grass. Andrew propped his bicycle against the wall and walked across to the steps. He pushed open the heavy door and came into the hall which always smelt of stale bread. There seemed to be no one about, so he wandered through into the big bow-windowed drawing-room.
‘Why, Andrew!’
It was immediately and painfully apparent that he was not expected. Millie had forgotten all about inviting him, had forgotten all about his existence. Andrew stared at her miserably.
‘Andrew, how lovely that you’ve come. Tea will be in directly. I was just expecting you to arrive. Where’s Frances?’
‘She couldn’t manage it after all. She sends apologies.’
‘What a shame. Excuse me for a second while I hurry on the tea.’
Andrew went and leaned his head against the window which looked out at the back of the house. Here there was a narrow pavement of irregular stones, much overgrown with long fluffy yellow moss, in the crannies of which numerous little blue flowers were growing. Beyond that was a small paddock in which a chestnut horse idled, and beyond that the circle of the trees again, each motionless leaf distinct in the sombre vivid light. The sun was clouded and there was an expectation of rain.
‘I see you’re admiring my scillas. Aren’t they little darlings? The bluest things in the world. I wish I had eyes that colour! However did you get here?’ Millie was wearing a big swirling gown of some scaley mauvish material which looked as if it were wet, a black sash and a large black silk collar which looked arbitrary enough to be part of the clothing of a nun. Above it, her plump pretty face was smiling almost too vigorously and for a second it occurred to Andrew that she might have been crying.
In answer to her question Andrew, feeling very unhappy and now sulky as well, said, ‘Bike’.
‘Bike? Over all these hills? You’re a hero. Oh, thank you, Maudie, just put the trolley here, would you, and could you put some more turf on the fire? Indian or China, Andrew?’
‘Indian.’
‘You should have hired a horse, you’d have been here in half the time, and there’s a lovely way you can ride by Glencree.’
‘I don’t like horses.’
‘You, what?’ This information for some reason amused Millie very much. It seemed to cheer her up. ‘The little pet! And you a cavalry officer! I hope you’ve kept it a secret. But of course I don’t believe you. Now I want nothing so much as to see you on board. You shall come down here often, and we’ll have a gallop together. I’ve got such a fine grand horse for you to ride, he’s called Owen Roe, and you could have him any time.’
‘I’m afraid I shall be leaving for Longford almost at once, Aunt Millicent.’
‘Aunt Millicent, indeed! It was today, wasn’t it, that you were to start calling me Millie. What a pity dear Frances isn’t here, you could have begun the new regime together. Eh, Andrew? Now you must say “yes, Millie”.’
‘Yes, Millie.’
‘That’s better. Well, well, Longford is it? I suppose King and Country are after you. What’s your regiment, I always forget.’
‘King Edward’s Horse.’
‘And a fine lot of fellows they are too. How the uniform suits you, especially those boots. I’m sure you’ll distinguish yourself. Have some of Maudie’s lemon cake. Dear God, I think it’s going to rain again, what a country. Listen, can you hear the nuthatches singing? Quee, quee, quee. They always sing like that just before it rains, or maybe it’s just that the air is clearer then and one hears them. They’re building in the old wall, I’ll show you the nest. You’ll stay for dinner and the night of course?’
‘No, sorry, I’ve got to get back, Aunt Millicent.’
‘Well, I won’t keep you from your Frances. But I shall have to punish you every time you call me “Aunt Millicent”! You’re getting a bit big to slap. How old are you now, dear boy?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘You lucky child. I wish I were. You look quite the young man, I must say, and I adore your moustache. I shall come and sit beside you.’
Millie drove the tea trolley away with her feet and bounced heavily on to the sofa beside Andrew.
Andrew edged himself away from her. He fumbled in his pocket for his handkerchief to wipe the lemon cake off his fingers. As he drew out the handkerchief something else came out too and fell on to the rug at his feet. It was the ruby and diamond ring.
Millie saw the ring and promptly picked it up. At once she slipped it on to her finger and held it up to admire it, flashing it to and fro. ‘What an awfully pretty ring! And it just fits me. But of course, it must be Frances’ engagement ring. How romantic! Am I the first person to see it? You shouldn’t carry it loose like that in your pocket, silly boy, you’ll lose it. Haven’t you got a little box for it?’
Andrew said, ‘I’ve got a box—’ Then he stopped. His voice was not under his control and he felt that if he continued to talk he would croak and then burst into tears. He sat in paralysed silence staring at the carpet.
After a pause he felt Millie touching his shoulder. ‘Something’s happened, something’s gone wrong?’
He nodded.
‘Very wrong?’
He nodded.
‘Oh God. She’s refused you.’
‘Yes.’ He put his hand to his eyes which were suddenly wet with tears. He realized that Millie had left him, getting up abruptly and going to the window.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ said Andrew, mopping up the tears with his handkerchief. ‘Just because we’ve always been sort of promised to each other it doesn’t mean—in fact perhaps that’s the reason. In a way we’ve been too close. She says we’ve been like brother and sister.’
‘Brother and sister!’ Millie laughed shortly. ‘You don’t think there’s any special reason, anything to do with her father perhaps?’
‘No. Christopher’s always been in favour.’
‘She’ll come round, surely?’
‘No, I’m certain she won’t. That’s why I’m going away as soon as I can.’
‘Your mother must be knocked by this.’
‘She doesn’t know yet. Frances asked me to tell nobody for a few days until she’s had time to break it to Christopher.’
‘Ah— Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet. I can be. But I’m being so thoughtless questioning you like this. Why, the child’s in tears! Come now, let’s have some sherry, shall we? You need a drink. And I rather think I do too!’
In fact, Millie’s brisk questions had done Andrew good. The tears had come and gone. He felt a little better. He sipped the sherry and felt warmer and more alive.
Millie came and sat beside him and took hold of his hand. ‘You’re infernally like my dear brother, your father. Did you love poor Henry?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’m glad. Not all children love their parents these days. I loved him dearly. Well, well, so it’s not to be Frances after all. But don’t grieve. You’re young and quite confoundedly good-looking. Just keep your head and you can have your pick of the fine girls of England and Ireland. I’ll help you choose one.’
Andrew shook his head. He looked wearily at the sulky flames of the turf fire. ‘No. There won’t be anything else for me. Anyway I’m going to die young.’ The thought was curiously cheering.
‘That’s always a solution, isn’t it? Nonsense! I’m already looking forward to teaching your children to ride.’
‘I don’t think I could marry anybody but Frances. Maybe I’m not the marrying type.’
‘Sweet boy, just look in the mirror! I wonder if you’re really afraid of it, though. Have you ever had a girl?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Now I’ve shocked you. But really never? Don
’t you want to terribly? Have some more sherry.’
Andrew settled back in the sofa, drawing his knees up. He found that he was still holding Millie’s hand, and released it. Millie wriggled into a more comfortable position with her knee touching his. He was very embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken, yet the sudden crudeness of it was a distraction, almost a consolation. ‘I suppose I am frightened. I’m afraid it would be, well, a failure. Anyway the question doesn’t arise any more.’
‘It will arise, my child. You are a soldier. Damn it, Andrew, you are a man. You are inconceivably young. The next two or three years will be more full of events and changes than you can possibly imagine. Here, give me your hand again. How did it get away?’
‘Oh, Millie, I don’t know. Sometimes I feel frightened of everything. I’m so frightened of going back to France.’
