Henry and Cato

by Iris Murdoch

  The Hall was L-shaped, the foot of the L being a remnant of a brick-built Queen Anne house onto which about 1740 a longer slightly lower stone house had been added at right angles. This long façade now faced towards Henry, several lighted windows, making pale milky rectangles in its uncertain form. Against the dark blue sky the darker outline of the shallow roof seemed to creep a little. Beyond the house, invisible, the land sloped to the lake. There was more light. A bright half moon was now making its presence felt from behind the grove of conifers, shining over Henry’s shoulder, silverpointing the slates and making pendant shadows beneath the far-projecting eves. The mown grass ahead, shaven here to a level carpet, was grey, heavy with moisture.

  Something moved, just ahead of him, and Henry’s gaze sharpened. A small darkness moved among bushes, detached itself, then began to travel noiselessly across the lawn. It stopped again, and Henry made out the outline of a fox. The darkness which was the fox seemed to be looking at the darkness which was Henry. Then, without haste, it moved away and in a few moments disappeared into the longer grass which fringed the birch woodland beyond. Henry looked back at the house. Then he sat down abruptly on the grass. Some huge violent emotional thought had come to him: the thought, he realized, that this was the first time in his life, since his early childhood, that he had ever seen the Hall without apprehending ‘Sandy’s’. He could not recall much from the time before his father’s death. What he remembered, with his first vivid memories of himself playing upon the terrace, was Sandy saying, ‘This is my house, I could turn you out if I wanted to.’ ‘You couldn’t.’ ‘I could.’ ‘You couldn’t!’

  Henry got up after a while, feeling damp. He had somehow or other failed to sit on his raincoat. He vainly tried to brush the wetness off his trousers. Then he picked up his bag and began to walk with careful foxlike silence across the lawn, leaving a wavering track of watery footprints behind him in the moonlight. He had now parted company with the drive which turned away to the left, passing round the house to the front door on the other side, and branching to reach the stable block and join the other driveway to the Dimmerstone road. Henry had intended to arrive unexpectedly, but he had not really intended to arrive at night. Coming like this, he felt himself both menacing and menaced. But most of all now he felt, foxlike Henry, as he approached the house, a piercing tender agonizing emotion which was like a desire to worship, to kneel down and kiss the earth. But what would he have been worshipping? He also, as he set his foot upon the first of the three steps that led up to the nearside of the terrace, felt sick, a positive urge to vomit which he had to pause and quell. The second step was cracked, a corner missing, where a patch of thyme grew. His foot felt the crack and the softness of the thyme. He stopped again on the terrace, summoning up reserves of coldness. He could weep now, but must not. He would be cold, hard, if possible even sardonic, utterly masked. The alternative was a blubbering mess. Henry called up, and felt it come, blessing him from beyond the coldness, sheer old hatred. That was what was needful, that would stiffen him all right, thank God.

  On the ground floor the lights were on in the library, where the tall Victorianized sash windows, which also served as doors, reached down to the ground. The curtains were pulled, but the light glowed goldenly through, revealing in rectangles the damp uneven ochre-coloured stones of the terrace, covered with hairy mounds of yellowish-green moss. Henry set his bag down and glided forward to the nearest window where a slit in the curtains revealed to him the scene within.

  He saw first, directly opposite to him, the tapestry, the outstretched hand of the goddess buried in the hero’s copious hair. Only two lamps were burning, but the interior dazzled him and he could not read how the room lay. Then his body recalled, his head moved, and he saw the big round central table with its drooping red cloth covered with newspapers and the tall Chinese screen that hid the door. For a moment it seemed as if the room was empty, then he saw his mother. Gerda was standing, almost out of his line of vision, beside the fireplace, looking down at the fire, one knee leaned against the club fender. She was wearing a long robe of blue wool, streaked in its folds with long dark shadows, and with a hood or collar which rose up half concealing her hair. The skirt fell away from the leaning knee to show a tract of brown stocking and a velvet slipper. Her hair isn’t grey, was his first thought, or else she dyes it. But her face was older, older; and in that shock of seeing her he realized for the first time how much he had somehow hoped that she would still look young and beautiful. She seemed thicker, her face fatter, coarser, though not lined. Her mouth looked larger, more masculine. She looked a little like Sandy. Henry closed his eyes for a moment; then opening them saw that his mother was not alone in the room. A pair of trousered legs with boots on extended in a rigid diagonal to the floor out of the depths of the huge old sofa on the other side of the fire, the owner of the legs being otherwise invisible. A man is with her, thought Henry, with intense surprise. He drew in his breath and leaned against the wooden frame of the window. Something fell to the ground, probably a piece of plaster dislodged by his sleeve. Gerda turned round full face, took a step, then cried out.

  In equal panic Henry stepped back, fell over his suitcase, then called ‘Hello!’ and began to tap on the window. He saw his mother’s face, now shadowed, close to him, looking through the glass.

  ‘Sorry, it’s me,’ said Henry.

  There was a sound of scrabbling as Gerda undid the catch. Then the long lower sash rose eerily and soundlessly and Henry stepped through into the room.

  He faced Gerda, who had receded to make space for him. Then he turned and began to pull the window down again. As he did so his mother, trying to kiss him, jolted against his shoulder. There was an awkward perfunctory embrace, and Henry finished closing the window and shot the catch which he found that his fingers could remember. He turned back and saw with annoyance that his mother’s visitor was Lucius Lamb.

  ‘Hello, Mother. Hello, Lucius. Sorry to arrive like this.’

  Lucius came forward, skirting the round table on the other side, and took Henry’s hand. Lucius was wearing, on his now visible upper half, a royal blue corduroy jacket and a white open-necked shirt with a mauve silk scarf. He looked a good deal older, even since the meeting in New York, his flowing hair almost white, his face browner and more lined. He also seemed to have acquired, in the interim, false teeth. ‘Trundle, dear boy, welcome home!’

  ‘Nice to be back,’ said Henry, pulling his hand away from Lucius and moving past his mother towards the fire. ‘Sorry to be so late, I didn’t realize the trains didn’t stop any more.’

  ‘But why didn’t you ring up? We didn’t expect you for a week.’

  Henry did not answer, he leaned over towards the fire, unconsciously taking up the stance his mother had held a few moments ago.

  ‘You must eat something,’ said Gerda. ‘We dine early now, but—Haven’t you any luggage?’

  ‘Oh damn, it’s out on the terrace.’

  ‘I’ll go, I’ll go,’ cried Lucius, already opening the window again. He came back with Henry’s bag and brought it to him.

  ‘Lock the window again, would you,’ said Gerda, who was staring at Henry with a rigid amazed face. Henry, looking at her for a moment, seemed now to see the resemblance to himself in her determination to repress emotion. ‘I hope you had a nice journey? Won’t you take your coat off?’

  Henry pulled off the coat, dropping it on the floor, whence a smiling Lucius, returning from having locked the window, hastened to pick it up and spread it on the sofa.

  ‘Not there,’ said Gerda. She dropped the coat carefully over the back of a chair. ‘It’s soaking. Was it raining in London?’

  ‘Scarcely. Well, it was drizzling. Everything looks much the same here.’ There must be no pause in which something terrible could occur.

  ‘You haven’t seen much yet,’ said Gerda. ‘We’ve sold the Oak Meadow.’

  ‘The Oak Meadow. Oh yes.’

  ‘We sold it to John Forbe
s.’

  ‘Oh yes. Is Cato Forbes at home? What’s happened to him?’

  ‘He’s in London,’ said Lucius. ‘You knew he’d become a priest?’

  ‘A priest? You mean a Roman Catholic priest?’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it ghastly?’ said Gerda. ‘It nearly killed his poor father.’

  ‘I can imagine that. Finished your book, Lucius?’

  ‘Well, no—er—’

  ‘Nice to see you. Are you staying long?’

  ‘Lucius lives here now,’ said Gerda.

  ‘No, well, not exactly, I’m just—er—your mother very kindly—I do hope you don’t mind, Trundle.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t mind,’ said Gerda.

  ‘Please don’t call me “Trundle”,’ said Henry.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I—’

  ‘What time is it supposed to be here?’ said Henry.

  ‘It’s about a quarter past eight. You really must eat something. Or have you had dinner?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ said Henry, who had not.

  ‘Rhoda can warm you up some—’

  ‘That funny-looking girl, is she still here? I think I’ll just go straight to bed, Mother, if you don’t mind. I’ve come all the way from St Louis, I just changed planes in Chicago, I feel pretty odd, all the time’s gone crazy—’

  ‘Your bed is made up in your old room. Wouldn’t you like something hot? Ring the bell, would you, Lucius.’

  ‘No one will answer,’ said Lucius, ‘Rhoda will have gone to bed.’

  At that moment bird-headed Rhoda entered the room. Henry turned. Rhoda, wearing the dark disciplined dress which served her for uniform, advanced.

  ‘Rhoda!’ Henry took her hand and kissed her on the cheek, realizing the next moment that he had done something extraordinary. He heard his mother draw breath.

  ‘Rhoda, could you turn on the electric fire in Mr Henry’s room and put a hot water bottle in his bed?’

  Henry, who had thought first that one did not kiss servants, thought next that he had not kissed his mother. He suddenly wanted to laugh.

  ‘You must eat something, Henry.’

  ‘So you keep saying, Mother. Perhaps I could have a sandwich in my room.’

  ‘Rhoda, could you make some sandwiches for Mr Henry? What would you like, dear?’

  ‘Anything, anything, anything.’

  ‘And hot coffee, soup—?’

  ‘Whisky,’ said Henry.

  ‘Have some here,’ said Lucius. ‘I wouldn’t mind a spot myself.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Rhoda, would you take some whisky—’

  ‘Scotch,’ said Henry.

  ‘Up to Mr Henry’s room? Would you like soda, dear, or—’

  ‘No. Anything. Good night. Sorry. I’m awfully tired. Good night.’

  Henry grabbed his suitcase and blundered out of the room. The hall was dark, and he suddenly felt lost, uncertain which way to go, until bird-headed Rhoda, who had left the library on his heels, sped ahead of him, turning on lights, and then vanishing. He heard her very light feet tap on the echoing floor, and then away through the swing door which led to the kitchen quarters. He glanced back as he ascended the stairs but the library door was shut.

  The wide curving oak staircase led to a broad landing underneath a large oval window, and then divided into two flights to reach the first storey. Henry’s remembering feet took him to the left. He walked, trying to silence resounding steps, along the bare brightly lit upper landing, passed the door which closed in the servants’ stairs, and went through another door and up another short flight of stairs which led to the first floor of ‘Queen Anne’, which was on a higher level since the house was built upon a slope. As he went through the door, the temperature, already low by American standards, dropped several more degrees, the coldness being reinforced by a damp smell of mildew. A light was on upon the landing as he turned to the right towards his room. He opened the door, seeing the room already lighted up by a one-bar electric fire. He turned the light on.

  The room was spruce and tidy, the curtains pulled and the bed turned down. A hump denoted the presence, already, of the desirable hot water bottle. Henry put his suitcase on the floor and quickly opened it as if it might be able to persuade him that he was in a hotel. He took out his sponge bag and clutched it. ‘Queen Anne’ had always been his territory, as far as possible away from Sandy. He had listened with silent childish rage to plans for pulling it down. Fortunately these had always proved to be too expensive. Without looking, he perceived his surroundings. The massive chest of drawers with the mahogany mirror on top. The rather ugly ‘gentleman’s wardrobe’. The little writing table with the brass rail. The red leather ‘club’ armchair. The wallpaper, more faded, a brown lozenge pattern upon yellow. The narrow iron bed which he had insisted on keeping. The imitation Sheraton commode beside it. The dark brown well-worn woollen rug upon the dark red well-worn Turkey carpet. The rather pretty upright Victorian chair not for sitting on. The stout Windsor chair with the cushion upon it. Even the cushion was the same. Who had slept here since he left? Almost certainly no one. The room was stripped to its minimum as if in an attempt, without destroying it, to make it forget. But it remembered.

  Henry went out into the corridor and into the adjoining bathroom. The bathroom smelt of damp linoleum and disuse. He turned on the hot tap but the rusty water continued to run cold. The bath was badly stained and there were dark lines upon the soap. As Bella used to say, England is great but it’s so dirty. He noticed a spider, then another. The spider population of the house must run into millions. He had never seen a spider in America. He lifted the immense glowing mahogany seat and used the lavatory. The flowered porcelain bowl was the same, full of knowledge. He went back into the bedroom and took off his tie and his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt, having forgotten all about the sandwiches, when suddenly there was bird-headed Rhoda once more with a tray.

  ‘Oh, thanks, thanks, do put it anywhere.’

  Rhoda put the tray on the chest of drawers, on top of a spotless white embroidered cloth which lived there, always perfect in spite of Henry’s messes, changed at frequent intervals no doubt by, in the old days, the housemaid whose name Henry could not now remember.

  ‘Thanks, Rhoda, that’s marvellous, sorry to be a nuisance.’

  Rhoda had almost grotesquely large eyes, or perhaps it was just the shape of her head. Henry now vividly recalled his recent kiss and how her cheek had tasted of resin. He considered kissing her again, but it was already impossible. Noiseless-footed, she disappeared.

  As soon as Henry saw the sandwiches he began to feel very hungry, and the odd feeling, not exactly desire but more like a special kind of fear, which Rhoda had aroused in him went away. He started to eat so voraciously that he almost choked. The bottle of Scotch had arrived with a large cut-glass tumbler and a soda syphon. Henry poured out and gulped some neat whisky, wondering if this was a mistake. No sooner was the whisky down his throat than he began to want to whimper. Legions of tears, of cries, of screams, were mustering. He wanted to lie face downwards upon the floor and wail.

  He adopted a device which he often used to calm himself. He looked intently into the oval of the mahogany mirror, widening his bright tearless eyes. Self-portrait. He was warily alert, thin, not tall, narrow-nosed, quizzical mouthed, in his self-portrait. His copious longish very curly hair was very dark, yet shot with red. (Burke, Sandy, had been redheads.) His eyes were long and exceedingly dark brown and glowed under triangular eyebrows. His stubby chin was neat and round and (perhaps too) small. There was a deep runnel above his lips. The small lips were finely grained with close vertical lines. Behind the head the brightly lit lozenges of the faded wallpaper hung like a shabby harlequin’s dress.

  Assuaged drunken Henry turned out the light, then by the glow of the electric fire pulled back the curtain and opened the window. He leaned out. There was an overwhelming smell of wet earth and plant life as the warmer air from outside rushed into th
e room where the electric fire had made scarcely any impression upon the archetypal coldness. Henry stretched out his hand into the windless night and thought he could feel a faint misty rain. He listened. There was a soft regular dreadfully familiar sound, the murmur of the little river descending to the lake. Clouds must have covered the moon. Leaning out, he could just see the lower façade of the main house, lightless, just outlined against the dark sky. His mother’s bedroom was on the other side. He remembered with disgust the presence of Lucius. A light came on in a room just above him, on the maids’ floor, and he moved back and partially closed his window and drew the curtains. He was reeling on his feet. He got his trousers off, then collapsed onto his bed and fell instantly into deep sleep, leaving the electric fire burning. When he awoke in the morning it had been turned off.

  ‘Copperbottomed?’

  ‘Copperbottomed, Mr Henry.’

  ‘Good. That’s all I wanted to know.’

  ‘Shall I show you—?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Merriman, the details can wait.’

  It was the next morning. After having dismissed Merriman, Henry continued to sit, quite still, at the red-velour-covered round table in the library gazing at the big tapestry of Athena and Achilles: Flemish work, probably of the late seventeenth century. Recording this, it occurred to him how much he had learnt about art in America, after having left England as a barbarian. Seeing the tapestry for the first time, he studied it now in the bright sunless northern light of the morning. The goddess, her long-tailed helmet thrust back over her curls, wearing a much-pleated robe with the aegis rather carelessly falling off one shoulder, was striding out of a large-foliaged shrubbery which took up most of the left side of the tapestry. A determined sandalled foot, heel-down, emerged from the swinging skirt. The right hand held a tall vertical spear which divided the sky above the shrubbery, while the left, in an elaborate and implausible pattern of flowing locks and crooked fingers, grasped from behind the bright hair of the helmetless hero, who was also represented as moving away to the right, holding a sword and a foreshortened shield and wearing extremely brief glittering fishscale armour beneath which a fancy undergarment fell in pleated flounces so as barely to cover his private parts. The long brazen-grooved muscular legs, glimpsed through the foliage, were lovingly rendered. Both figures were in profile, the goddess impassive and stern, the hero, his head not yet turning to his patroness, very large-eyed, very beautiful, very young, with parted lips, registering a mild surprise. The plain of windy Troy was suggested by a foot or two of golden sward edged by a pattern of elegant flowers; then the shrubbery began again with, beyond it, the pallid turrets of the city. The sky was a very, very light radiant brownish blue. ‘Why hast thou come, O daughter of Zeus?’