Henry and Cato

by Iris Murdoch

‘No, of course not.’

  ‘I’d like to feel you had somebody to look after you.’

  ‘Lucius needs somebody to look after him.’

  ‘Well, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve been doing so for years. I want a change.’

  ‘I can imagine that. I’ve never had anybody to look after.’

  ‘Did Stephanie get up?’

  ‘She trailed around in her dressing gown.’

  ‘She needs fresh air, a brisk walk.’

  ‘I wish she’d do something, even if it’s only reading a novel.’

  ‘In my opinion—’

  ‘She’ll be perfectly all right once we’re in America and out of sight of these faded glories.’

  ‘I hope you are right.’

  ‘Mother—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I feel I should tell you. Stephanie wasn’t ever Sandy’s mistress.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because of the way she talked about him. It simply sounded false. Then I laid a trap for her.’

  ‘What sort of a trap?’

  ‘Well it concerned—a scar—’

  ‘So you knew. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Gerda was silent for a moment. ‘I thought it would make no difference to your plans and I found it all so—’

  ‘Disgusting?’

  ‘Upsetting. I preferred not to go into the matter. She told you?’

  ‘Yes. She never knew Sandy—She was the charwoman.’ ‘She is in her way an ingenious little person.’ ‘You seem to have been quite ingenious too.’ ‘I wonder if you will be happy with her.’

  ‘When was I ever happy, Mother?’

  ‘Oh don’t be stupid, Henry.’

  ‘One can’t whistle up happiness. It’s a gift of nature and I haven’t got it.’

  ‘Why do you want to marry her?’

  ‘How can one say? It’s the way the universe is flowing. I’m not a lucky person who makes radiant decisions which are obviously right. Perhaps it’s sheer self-importance that makes me feel so responsible for Stephanie. Of course there was a lot of illusion involved, there probably still is, and of course it was partly because of Sandy. I don’t mind her having lied, there was something heroic about that. She’s so frail, and yet she fought back against life, against rotten luck. She’s got a strange charm, I know you can’t see it. Perhaps it’s just that she’s so awfully touching and I’m sorry for her—and I’ve got her, and this had never happened before. It’s the first serious thing that has ever come about in my life and because I’m me I’ve no idea how it happened or why. I see through the illusions, or some of them, and I love her like God loves her, I guess. Maybe I’ve been swindled into it, swindled into seeing her as God sees her and loving her as God loves her. Well, of course I don’t mean it about God. I just mean I can see what a mess she is but she’s mine and I feel fatalistic.’

  ‘I rather hoped you’d marry Colette,’ said Gerda, snapping the thread and sliding the needle carefully back into the pink cushioned lid of her work box.

  ‘Oh Colette. You know she proposed to me. It must be proposal time.’

  ‘And you refused her.’

  ‘Yes. I couldn’t—see her—’ Henry was intently lifting up some warm ash on his shoe.

  ‘But you can now?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know. She took it all back later, she isn’t in love with me. Anyway she’s a kid, a schoolgirl. No, Colette isn’t my fate.’

  ‘Why do you think you haven’t got the gift of happiness?’ said Gerda, after a moment or two. She was now sitting in repose, her hands folded, watching Henry twisting his leg round one of the bars of the fender.

  ‘Because you and my father stole it from me when I was an infant.’

  ‘So you think you had it earlier, in the womb perhaps?’

  ‘You’re smart, Mother. Maybe. But consciousness doomed me. My confidence was broken before I was six. Everybody combined to put me down. Sandy bullied me, my father mocked me and discouraged me and contradicted me. He jeered at me and encouraged you and Sandy to jeer. You could have protected me. All right, you much preferred Sandy, but you could have stopped Father from crushing me. You didn’t—you were his ally and his agent. Because we were taught to be so bloody tight-lipped and stoical you probably have no idea how much I suffered as a child, how absolutely my will was broken. Every little project that I ever made for jmyself was somehow destroyed by Father, shown to be petty and laughable and worthless. You both waged war on me. Of course Sandy joined in. I spent my childhood concealing my misery, concealing my tears. No wonder I’ve never wanted to do any thing since except run and hide.’

  ‘This is unjust, of course,’ said Gerda, sitting very still with folded hands.

  ‘All right, it’s only my impression. But people are responsible for the impression that they make on children.’

  ‘I think you were often happy.’

  ‘O.K. Forget it.’

  ‘Your father was an impatient strong-willed man.’

  ‘A bully. Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Henry tapped the ash off his toe and looked at his mother.

  ‘You accuse me of being his ally,’ said Gerda. ‘Perhaps I should have fought him, but the cost would have been too great. I had to submit. Of course he absorbed me and dominated me as the years went by. I had to attend to him and not to you. I loved him and I tried to make him happy and be happy myself. It wasn’t easy, perhaps it wasn’t possible. I kept on sacrificing my will to him, and I kept on thinking that I had come to the end of my will and the end of the sacrifice, but there was always something more than he wanted from me that was hard to give. He loved me and it was one sort of way of having a satisfactory marriage. But I couldn’t deal with both you and him. Sandy was all right, I think he sort of understood, and anyway he was independent. I hoped you’d be. You weren’t. You were demanding, then you were terribly hostile. A child’s hostility can hurt too. I couldn’t reach you. I had my own fight, and my own tears. It was partly just a matter of energy. I liked Lucius because he was so absurd and sensitive and gentle. And then when Burke died Lucius was somehow useless, he didn’t seem to care enough, at any rate he didn’t assert himself enough. Lucius and I mislaid each other because I had lost the will to happiness, I had lost the key. I ought to have taken hold of Lucius then, but my strength was gone and I stood there coldly and waited for him to take hold of me. And now there’s nothing left of that either. I let him become a dependent, a figure of fun, a silly idle man. I almost made him inferior because he had failed my hopes. Sandy was the only thing that gave my life any pure sense and any pure joy, but I never talked to Sandy. I never communicated with Sandy. I never told him what I’ve just told you. I never touched him or kissed him after he was twelve.’ Gerda’s voice was perfectly steady, only her immobility conveyed emotion.

  Henry, who had been holding his breath, gave a little whistling sigh. ‘You’re a cool customer, Mother. Maybe we’re a bit alike after all. You know—I hope you don’t think I’m selling the property just for revenge.’

  ‘Not just for revenge. I think your motives are mixed up. I think you are mixed up. I don’t like what you are doing or the way you are doing it. But perhaps one day when I am living at Dimmerstone I shall be grateful to you.’

  ‘Ah—you are—yes—thank you—’

  Gerda was very still. Henry was now standing in front of her. He went on after a moment, ‘I don’t know you very well. I feel now that I don’t know you at all. I’m so grateful that you—talked to me. This is the first real conversation that we’ve ever had. Yes, you are a cool customer. I wish—oh, I wish—I wish—’

  ‘Don’t wish, Henry. We’ve both got to accept what you called the way the universe is flowing. Go to bed now, my dear, it’s late.’

  ‘Oh Mother—it’s as if—as if—’

  ‘Good night, Henry.’

  Henry stood stiffly, then twisted and took a step away, then
came back. Gerda lowered her eyes and slowly put her hand out towards her work basket. The moment passed. Henry turned again and his swift steps echoed in the room, in the hall, upon the stairs. Gerda closed the work basket and fixed its catch. She checked tears and gazed, frowning thoughtfully, into the now pale remains of the fire.

  ‘Oh stop crying, Colette,’ said John Forbes, exasperated. ‘It’s just nervous. No one can sincerely go on and on crying.’

  ‘I can,’ said Colette. She had removed the Copenhagen animals and was sitting on the ledge by the window, looking out into the garden.

  ‘He’ll see you there.’

  ‘He sees nothing.’

  Cato was outside in the garden weeding the flowerbeds. It was raining slightly. He was without coat or hat.

  ‘I’ve been watching him for an hour,’ said Colette.

  ‘I hope you haven’t been crying for an hour, you’ll damage your eyes. God, girls are so stupid.’

  ‘He isn’t seeing. I’ve been watching him. He picks the weeds out all right, but it’s as if he was blind. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just look at him.’

  ‘I won’t look at him,’ said John Forbes, and he turned away from the window, clenching his fists. ‘He’s getting wet. I’ll tell him to come in.’

  ‘Better not, it’ll be like waking someone from a trance, he might die. Anyway it’s stopping. Look, there’s a rainbow.’

  ‘I wish he’d do something else.’

  ‘He can’t. Well, he could wash up. I’ve left him some. He can’t go for a walk or read a book or talk to us. He’s in hell. I’ve never seen anyone in hell.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Colette. You know nothing about hell. He’s suffering from shock. I wish he would talk though.’

  ‘It’s impossible. He feels ashamed. And for him it’s terrible, terrible, not like it would be for us. Have you ever felt ashamed, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ But John, who was embarrassed by the question, could not recall any very convincing instances.

  ‘I think he’s dying of shame.’

  ‘Stop crying, Colette.’

  ‘All right, I’ve stopped. It’s cold in here. Can we have the fire on?’

  ‘Don’t watch him.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I only hope this ghastly business won’t send him running back to the church.’

  ‘I hope it will. He’s got to get help somewhere and we can’t give it to him. I wish I could pray for him. I almost feel I could learn to pray, just for this time, as if I could invent God simply to save Cato.’

  ‘Don’t you start! You exaggerate everything so, Colette. You’re so absorbed in your own feelings, you make a sort of metaphysical crisis out of every disaster.’

  ‘He loved the boy. He killed him.’

  ‘Of course he didn’t love him! And he killed a dangerous violent criminal. No one dreamt of blaming him. I know it must be terrible to kill someone. Thank heavens the war spared me that experience. But one must be man enough to deal with it. It’s a hard saying, but it’s one’s duty not to have a breakdown.’

  ‘He’s not having a breakdown. He’s in hell. It’s different, it’s worse. Don’t you see how his face has changed?’

  ‘Yes.’ John Forbes had felt terror when he saw that changed face. ‘What I can’t understand is why he wrote those awful servile letters, and how it was he didn’t make any serious attempt to get out until the very end. We were taught it was an officer’s duty to escape.’

  ‘Cato’s not an officer.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean it’s different. Daddy, you won’t ever say that to Cato, will you, about the letters and his not trying?’

  ‘No. But he ought to be able to stand it if I did. I certainly wish I could understand.’

  ‘Please don’t say it, and please don’t think it either, it’s somehow disloyal to Cato.’

  ‘I propose to think what’s true, not what’s loyal! I’m not hurting him by thinking, am I?’

  ‘Yes, you are. We can’t talk to him now or even touch him. I touched his arm this morning and he shuddered and gave me a terrible look. What we must do is hold him in our thoughts very sort of tenderly and lovingly—’

  ‘Colette, please don’t be sentimental. All this hypersensitive brooding over him won’t help. He’ll have to be robust and realistic about it in the end. I’ll have a talk with him tonight.’

  ‘Daddy, please don’t, please. You’ll only drive him away. I feel he’s—it’s as if he’s just being polite to us. He’s pretending all the time. He’d like to pretend to be calm, only it’s absolutely unconvincing, he’s screaming inside. Look at him now, look at the way he’s bending, he’s physically different, he’s like a marionette.’

  Cato, bending rigidly from the waist, dropped his head and stretched out a poised hand. He plucked a piece of groundsel, then stood up throwing his head back. He tossed the groundsel, without looking, onto a heap, took a step to the right, drew his feet together, then bent again.

  ‘I can’t bear to see him like that,’ said John Forbes. ‘If only he hadn’t written those letters, that’s what I can’t understand—’

  ‘In an officer and a gentleman! You despise him and he feels it, he feels everybody does. He feels ashamed and disgraced. I think at the moment he hates us.’

  ‘Oh nonsense! I hope he’ll stay here till his term starts.’

  ‘I don’t. We can’t help him, Daddy. We haven’t got the machinery to help him. He’d far better go back to London to Father Craddock. He will go back, I know, as soon as he feels he’s been polite enough to us.’

  ‘Polite! Colette, go and wash your face, you look a sight. Suppose Giles Gosling calls and sees you like this?’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You will go to the dance with him, won’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t got a dress.’

  ‘Then you must buy one. Why not go to London tomorrow morning? What does a nice dress cost now, ten pounds?’

  ‘Daddy, you’re living in the past!’

  ‘Well, twenty pounds, thirty pounds. Colette, do go and buy yourself a dress. I want you to go to that dance with Giles and I want you to be the prettiest girl there. Forty pounds?’

  ‘Daddy, you’re bribing me to be happy!’

  ‘It’s all fixed,’ said Henry, just returned from London at tea time. ‘The vans for the stuff for Sotheby’s are arriving at eight on Tuesday morning.’

  ‘The men from the auctioneers were here,’ said Gerda. ‘Lucius, don’t you want a crumpet?’

  ‘I shall never eat a crumpet again,’ said Lucius.

  ‘Why not?’ said Henry, helping himself to one.

  ‘I hear Cato Forbes has gone back to London. I’m very sorry you didn’t see him, Henry, I’m sure you could have helped him.’

  ‘Because crumpets belong to happiness.’

  ‘Oh come,’ said Henry, ‘I hear you’re going to write your autobiography in rhyming hexameters.’

  They were having tea in the dining-room which was still intact, since the big mahogany dining table and set of Victorian chairs were to be sold in situ. White numbered labels had already been stuck on. Meals, never elaborate since Rhoda’s departure, had now been reduced to a basic simplicity. Scattered crumbs were not always removed. Lucius was wearing his cloak with the collar turned up, although the day was still very warm. He sat sideways to the table, staring at the wall, his legs thrust straight out in front of him. He seemed to be already remote, grey, deep in a dream, no longer seriously attempting to arouse sympathy. Gerda on the other hand was in a nervous bright mood. Henry had attempted in vain to restore the communication between them. She evaded his tacit advances and refused to meet his eyes. She had put on a summer dress and appeared alert and young.

  Henry, looking through the window at the sun caressing and celebrating the red brick wall of Queen Anne, covered on this side with budding wistaria, felt as if he were waking from a dream. Or rathe
r as if he had had a nightmare and then found it real. Had he not known, not understood, what he was doing till now when he saw the white labels pasted on the furniture and Lucius too miserable even to pose? Ever since his return home he had been having, for the first time in his life, an orgy of will. He felt as if he had never before really positively done anything, never stretched out a strong imperious hand and altered the world, never until now. Now he had courageously done so, hoping to have life more abundantly. But he felt rather as if he had killed himself. He had destroyed the house of his ancestors, he had exiled his mother and uprooted that silly pretentious harmless old man. Had he done it to prove his pluck or out of a sense of duty or for a revenge? He could not have endured property and riches and to be corrupted by them, and did not all else flow from that? Was not this moral courage and the drawing of consequences?

  Lucius had accepted money and his mother would certainly survive. And he would be married and would return to America with the dear helpless woman who was now and for ever to be his task. How was that for will power? And if it all seemed at the moment like a desolation, had he not willed it and was it not his as nothing had ever been before? He had won a kind of liberation, he had won a kind of Stephanie, and out of these he would create the future, his right decision and his wife. Yet he felt an awful remorseful anguish which he connected somehow with that talk with his mother when, for the first time since his childhood, they had really, just for seconds perhaps, communicated with each other. And by that communication some deep rift had been made, some old capacity to love his mother had been touched and wakened. There was a love in him still which did not know of her crimes or could ignore them. Only now there was no time left, and Gerda had closed herself again and armed herself with an awful glossy cheerfulness. Henry stared at her, but she refused to look. He wanted to touch her hand. He stretched out his fingers and moved some crumbs upon the table, wondering if she was aware of his movement and what it simulated.

  ‘Well, have some bread,’ said Gerda to Lucius.

  ‘I shall go to Audrey’s before the auction.’

  ‘You can’t forswear bread for ever! And there isn’t much for supper.’