by Iris Murdoch
Toby was reticent.
Dora noticed some children standing on the embankment and waving at the train. She waved back; and found herself smiling. She caught Toby’s eye; he began to smile too, but quickly looked away. As she continued to watch him he began to blush. Dora was delighted.
‘A problem for our whole society,’ the man was saying. ‘But meanwhile, we have our individual lives to live, haven’t we? And heaven help liberalism if that sense of individual vocation is ever lost. One must never be frightened of being called a crank. After all, there’s an example to set, a way of keeping the problem before people’s eyes, symbolically as it were. Don’t you agree?’
Toby agreed.
The train began to slow down. ‘Why, here we are in Oxford!’ said the man. ‘Look, Toby, there’s your city!’
He pointed, and everyone in the carriage turned to look at a line of towers, silvered by the heat into a sky pale with light. Dora was suddenly reminded of travelling with Paul in Italy. She had accompanied him once on a non-stop trip to consult some manuscript. Paul detested being abroad. So, on that occasion, did Dora: barren lands made invisible by the sun, and poor starving cats driven away from expensive restaurants by waiters with flapping napkins. She remembered the towers of cities seen always from railways stations, with their fine names, Perugia, Parma, Piacenza. A strange nostalgic pain woke within her for a moment. Oxford, in the summer haze, looked no less alien. She had never been there. Paul was a Cambridge man.
The train had stopped now, but the pair opposite made no move. ‘Yes, symbols are important,’ said the man. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that all symbols have a sacramental aspect? We do not live by bread alone. You remember what I told you about the bell?’
‘Yes,’ said Toby, showing interest. ‘Will it come before I go?’
‘Indeed it will,’ said the man. ‘It should be with us in a fortnight. We’ve planned a little ceremony, a sort of christening, all very picturesque and traditional. The Bishop has been very kind and agreed to come over. You’ll be one of the exhibits, you know - the first of the few, or rather of the many. We hope to have a lot of you young people visiting us at Imber.’
Dora got up abruptly and stumbled in the direction of the corridor. Her face was glowing and she put up one hand to hide it. Her cigarette fell on the floor and she abandoned it. The train began to move again.
She could not have mis-heard the name. These two must be going to Imber as well, they must be members of that mysterious community Paul had spoken of. Dora leaned on the rail in the corridor. She fingered in her handbag for more cigarettes, and found she had left them in her coat pocket. She could not go back for them now. Behind her she could still hear the voices of Toby and his mentor, and it seemed suddenly as if they must be talking about her. For a short time they had existed for her diversion, but now they would be set before her as judges. Her acquaintance with them in the railway carriage had been something slight and fragile but at least innocent. The sweetness of these ephemeral contacts was precious to Dora. But now it was merely the prelude to some far drearier knowledge. It occurred to her to wonder how much Paul had said about her at Imber and what he had said. Her imagination, reeling still at the notion that Paul had actually existed during the months of their separation, now came to grips with the idea that he had not existed alone. Perhaps it was known that she was coming today. Perhaps the sunburnt man, who now seemed to look like a clergyman, had been on the look-out for the sort of woman who might be Paul’s wife. Perhaps he had noticed her trying to catch Toby’s eye. However had Paul described her?
Dora had a powerful imagination, at least in what concerned herself. She had long since recognized it as dangerous, and her talent was to send it, as she could her memory, to sleep. Now thoroughly roused it tormented her with pictures. The reality of the scene she was about to enter unfolded before her in rows of faces arrayed in judgement; and it seemed to Dora that the accusation which she had been prepared to receive from Paul would now be directed against her by every member of the already hateful community. She closed her eyes in indignation and distress. Why had she not thought of this? She was stupid and could see only one thing at a time. Paul had become a multitude.
She looked at her watch and realized with a shock that the train was due to arrive at Pendelcote in less than twenty minutes. Her heart began to beat in pain and pleasure at the thought of seeing Paul. It was necessary to return to the carriage. She powdered her nose, tucked her untidy blouse back again into her skirt, settled her collar, and plunged back towards her seat, keeping her head well down. Toby and his friend were still talking, but Dora murmured quiet imprecations to herself inside her head so that their words should not reach her. She looked resolutely at the floor, seeing a pair of heavy boots, and Toby’s feet in sandals. A little time passed and the pain at her heart became more extreme.
Then Dora noticed that there was a Red Admiral butterfly walking on the dusty floor underneath the seat opposite. Every other thought left her head. Anxiously she watched the butterfly. It fluttered a little, and began to move towards the window, dangerously close to the passengers’ feet. Dora held her breath. She ought to do something. But what? She flushed with indecision and embarrassment. She could not lean forward in front of all those people and pick the butterfly up in her hand. They would think her silly. It was out of the question. The sunburnt man, evidently struck with the concentration of Dora’s gaze, bent down and fumbled with his boot laces. Both seemed securely tied. He shifted his feet, narrowly missing the butterfly which was now walking into the open on the carriage floor.
‘Excuse me,’ said Dora. She knelt down and gently scooped the creature into the palm of her hand, and covered it over with her other hand. She could feel it fluttering inside. Everyone stared. Dora blushed violently. Toby and his friend were looking at her in a friendly surprised way. Whatever should she do now? If she put the butterfly out of the window it would be sucked into the whirl-wind of the train and killed. Yet she could not just go on holding it, it would look too idiotic. She bowed her head, pretending to examine her captive.
The train was slowing down. With horror Dora realized that it must be Pendelcote. Toby and his companion were gathering their luggage together. Already the station was appearing. The other two were moving towards the door as the train jolted to a standstill. Dora stood up, her hands still cupped together. She must get herself out of the train. She quickly thrust one hand through the handles of her handbag and the canvas bag, and closed it again above the now quiescent butterfly. Then she began to totter towards the carriage door. People were beginning to get into the train. Dora backed her way out, pushing vigorously, keeping the butterfly cupped safely against her chest. She managed to get down the steep step on to the platform without falling, although her awkward shoes leaned over sideways at the heels. She righted herself and stood there looking round. She was on the open part of the platform and the sunlight rose from the glinting concrete and dazzled her eyes. For a moment she could see nothing. The train began to move slowly away.
Then with a deep shock she saw Paul coming towards her. His real presence glowed to her, striking her heart again, and she felt both afraid and glad to see him. He was a little changed, thinner and browned by the sun, and the blazing afternoon light revealed him to her in the splendour of his Southern look and his slightly Edwardian handsomeness. He was not smiling but looking at her very intently with a narrow stare of anxious suspicion. His dark moustache drooped with his sourly curving mouth. For a second Dora felt happy that she had done at least one thing to please him. She had come back. But the next instant, as he came up to her, all was anxiety and fear.
Paul was followed closely by Toby and his companion, who had evidently met him further down the platform. Dora could see them smiling at her over Paul’s shoulder. She turned to him.
‘Well, Dora-’said Paul.
‘Hello,’ said Dora.
Toby’s companion said. ‘Well met! I do wish we’d known
who you were. I’m afraid we quite left you out of the conversation! We travelled up with your wife, but we didn’t realize it was her.’
‘May I introduce,’ said Paul. ‘James Tayper Pace. And this is Toby Gashe. I’ve got your name right, I hope? My wife.’
They stood in a group together in the sun, their shadows intermingled. The other travellers had gone.
‘So very glad to meet you!’ said James Tayper Pace.
‘Hello,’ said Dora.
‘Where’s your luggage?’ said Paul.
‘My God!’ said Dora. Her mouth flew open. She had left the suitcase on the train.
‘You left it on the train?’ said Paul.
Dora nodded dumbly.
‘Typical, my dear,’ said Paul. ‘Now let’s go to the car.’ He stopped. ‘Was my notebook in it?’
‘Yes,’ said Dora. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’
‘You’ll get it back,’ said James. ‘Folk are honest.’
‘That’s not my experience,’ said Paul. His face was harshly closed. ‘Now come along. Why are you holding your hands like that?’ he said to Dora. ‘Are you praying, or what?’
Dora had forgotten about the butterfly. She opened her hands now, holding the wrists together and opening the palms like a flower. The brilliantly coloured butterfly emerged. It circled round them for a moment and then fluttered across the sunlit platform and flew away into the distance. There was a moment’s surprised silence.
‘You are full of novelties,’ said Paul.
They followed him in the direction of the exit.
CHAPTER 2
THE LAND-ROVER, DRIVEN FAST by Paul, sped along a green lane. The hedges, rotund with dusty foliage, bulged over the edge of the road and brushed the vehicle as it passed.
‘I hope you’re comfortable there in front, Mrs Greenfield,’ said James Tayper Pace. ‘I’m afraid this is not our most comfortable car.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Dora. She glanced round and saw James smiling, hunched up and looking very big in the back of the Land-Rover. She could not see Toby, who was directly behind her. She was still completely stunned at having left Paul’s notebook on the train. And his special Italian sun hat. She dared not look at Paul.
‘I tried to get the Hillman Minx,’ said Paul, ‘but his Lordship still hasn’t mended it.’
There was silence.
‘The train was punctual for once,’ said James. ‘We should be just in time for Compline.’
The road was in shade and the late sun touched the great golden yellow shoulders of the elm trees, leaving the rest in a dark green shadow. Dora shook herself and tried to look at the scene. She saw it with the amazement of the habitual town-dweller to whom the countryside looks always a little unreal, too luxuriant and too sculptured and too green. She thought of far away London, and the friendly dirt and noise of the King’s Road on a summer evening, when the doors of the pubs stand wide to the pavement. She shivered and drew her feet up beside her on the seat for company. Soon she would have to face all those strangers; and after that she would have to face Paul. She wished they might never arrive.
‘Nearly there now,’ said James. ‘That’s the wall of the estate we’re just coming to. We follow it for about a mile before we reach the gates.’
An enormous stone wall appeared on the right of the car. Dora looked away to the left. The hedge ended, and she saw across a golden stubble field to a feathery copse. Beyond was a shallow blue line of distant hills. She felt it was her last glimpse of the outside world.
‘There’s a fine view of the house when we turn in,’ said James. ‘Can you see all right from where you are, Toby?’
‘Very well, thanks,’ came Toby’s voice from just behind Dora’s head.
The Land-Rover slowed down. ‘The gates appear to be shut,’ said Paul. ‘I left them open, but someone has obligingly shut them.’ He stopped the car beside the wall, its wheels deep in the grass, and hooted the horn twice. Dora could see two immense globe-surmounted pillars and tall iron gates a little further on in the wall.
‘Don’t hoot,’ said James. ‘Toby will open the gates.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Toby, scrabbling hastily to get out of the car.
As he busied himself with the gates, lifting the huge pin out of its hole in the concrete, two sheets of newspaper blew out of the drive, one wrapping itself round his legs, and the other rearing and cavorting across the road. Paul, whose glance remained sternly ahead, not turning toward Dora, said, ‘I wish Brother Nicholas could be persuaded to make the place look less like a slum.’
James was silent. Toby returned and jumped in. Paul swung the car wide into the road and round at right angles into the drive. Dora saw that there was a little stone-built Lodge cottage on the left as they came in. The door stood open and another sheet of newspaper was in process of making its escape. A dog began to bark somewhere inside. A further movement caught her eye and she turned round to see that a thick-set man with long straggling dark hair had emerged from the door and was looking after the car. James was turning round too. Paul, looking into the driving mirror, said ‘Well, well.’
Dora turned back to the front and gave a gasp of surprise. A large house faced them, from a considerable distance away, down an avenue of trees. The avenue was dark, but the house stood beyond it with the declining sun slanting across its front. It was a very pale grey, and with a colourless sky of evening light behind it, it had the washed brilliance of a print. In the centre of the façade a high pediment supported by four pillars rose over the line of the roof. A green copper dome curved above. At the first floor level the pillars ended at a balustrade, and from there a pair of stone staircases swept in two great curves to the ground.
‘That’s Imber Court,’ said James. ‘It’s very fine, isn’t it? Can you see, Toby?’
‘Palladian,’ said Paul.
‘Yes,’ said Dora. It was their first exchange since the railway station.
‘That’s where we live,’ said James. ‘Us straight ahead, and them away to the left. The drive doesn’t go right on to the house, of course. The lake lies in between. You’ll see it in a moment. Over there you’ll get a glimpse of the Abbey wall. The Abbey itself is quite hidden in trees. The tower can be seen from our side of the lake, but you can’t see anything from here, except in winter.’
Dora and Toby looked to the left and saw distantly between tree trunks a high wall, like the one which skirted the road. As they looked the car turned away to the right, following the drive, and a stretch of water came into view.
‘I didn’t realize the Abbey would be so close,’ said Toby. ‘Oh look, there’s the lake! Can one swim in it?’
‘One can if one doesn’t mind the mud!’ said James. ‘It’s not very safe in parts, actually, because of the weeds. Better get Michael to advise you, he’s the lake expert.’
The Land-Rover was running along now close to the water, which beyond a marshy area of bulrushes was smooth and glossy, refining the last colours of the day into a pale enamel. Dora saw that it was an immense lake. Looking back along the length of it she dimly saw what must be the Abbey wall at the far end. From here Imber Court was hidden by trees. The lake was narrowing to a point, and the car began to swing back to the left. Paul slowed it down to walking pace and passed gingerly over a wooden bridge which clattered under the wheels.
‘The lake is fed by three little rivers,’ said James, ‘which come into it at this end. Then there’s one river leading out at the other end. Well, hardly a river, it seeps away through the marsh, actually. ’
The Land-Rover clattered very slowly over a second bridge. Dora looked down and saw the stream, glittering green and weedy, through the slats of the bridge.
‘You can’t see the far end of the lake from here,’ said James, ‘because it turns round to the other side of the house. The lake is shaped like an L, an L upside down from here, of course. The house is in the crook of the L.’
They passed over the third bridge. The Land-Rover was turnin
g to the left again, and Dora began to look for the house. It was immediately visible, presenting its side view to them, a rectangle of grey stone with three rows of windows. Below it, and set back a little from the drive, was a courtyard of stable buildings, surmounted by an elegant clock tower.
‘And there’s our market-garden,’ said James, pointing away to the right.
Dora saw an expanse of vegetable patches and greenhouses. Far beyond there was park land with great trees scattered upon it. The air was close and dusky. The distant greens were heavy with the final light of day, fading already and hazy.
The Land-Rover ran onto gravel and came to a standstill. They had reached the front of the house. Dora, suffocating with nervousness, felt the blood glowing in her face. Stiffly she began to get out of the car. James vaulted out at the back and came to help her. Her high-heeled shoes crunched onto the gravel. She stepped back and looked up at the house.
From here it looked less huge than it had seemed in the distance. Dora saw that the Corinthian pillars supported a wide portico over a balcony behind which the rooms of the first floor were set back. The twin flights of steps swept outward from the balcony, overlapping the two side wings of the house, and twisted back again to reach the ground not far from each other near the central point of the façade. Stone lions, sitting complacently cat-like, crowned the end of each stone banister, and between them could be seen a line of French windows, put in by some impious late nineteenth-century hand, leading into a large room on ground level. An elaborate stone medallion above these doors contained the message Amor via mea. A similar medallion surmounted the tall doorway up above on the balcony, above which a swathe of carved garlands led the eye upward to the stone flowers under the portico roof, dimly alive with the last reflections from the lake. Turning away from the house Dora saw that the gravel drive on which they stood was a terrace which ended at a stone balustrade, surmounted by urns, and a wide shallow flight of steps, cracked and somewhat overgrown by moss and grasses. A gentle grass slope led down to the lake, which lay close in front of the house, and from the steps a roughly mown path, flanked by precariously leaning yew trees, went to the water’s edge.
