by Iris Murdoch
‘Those are goldfish, those are shubunkins, those quick slim fellows are orfe, golden orfe. And you can see a tench, there the dark green one, you can hardly see him, a green tench, tinca tinca.’
‘That’s his zoological name.’
‘Yes.’
‘How pretty. Where is Strawberry Nose?’
Nolan turned towards her in the dark and the lighted torch broke the surface with a soft splash.
‘How did you know that name?’
‘You had him in a bowl when I first met you and you named him to Mr Scottow.’
‘Oh. He is in the other pool. He is well now.’
Marian felt that she had hurt him. He had the humourless dignity of the local people. He could not tolerate the lightest touch of mockery. Yet she had not been mocking. She said quickly, ‘How is the little bat?’
‘It died.’
Marian sat back on the stone verge of the pool. She was conscious now of the fragrant bushy darkness about her and of the bulk of the house near by, outlined against the sky which the hidden moon had lightened to a bluish black. There was a light in one window, she could not identify which. The stone was still warm from the day’s sun. The torch faltered, skimmed the water and went out.
Marian said, ‘Mr Nolan, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’
He was standing now, as if about to go away. She could see his head and shoulders dimly above her. ‘What questions?’
‘What is the matter with this place?’
He paused before answering. Then he switched the torch on for a moment and shone it quickly round about them. The dark green broom bushes and a haze of harebells and white daisies and ragged vetch were suddenly vivid and then gone. He said, ‘Nothing is the matter with this place. You are just not used to such a lonely place.’
‘Don’t put me off,’ said Marian. She had known, as soon as she stepped off the gravel path, that the moment of revelation had come. ‘Sit down, Mr Nolan. You’ve got to tell me, at any rate to tell me something. What was it that happened seven years ago?’
He fell on one knee near to her, disappearing against the darker background of the garden. ‘Nothing happened, nothing special. Why?’
‘Come,’ said Marian. T know a lot of things already. About Mr Crean-Smith falling over the cliff and so on. You must tell me more. There is something very odd about this place, and it’s not just the loneliness, I’m sure. Please talk to me. You must see how difficult it is for me here, and how awful it is in a way. Talk to me, or I shall have to ask someone else.’ The speech came from her without forethought and she felt as she spoke that Nolan was caught by it. He sat down. Their knees were close together upon the warm rough stone.
‘I can’t tell you anything.’
“There is something to tell, then? But I must know if I’m to stay on here and not become quite deranged -‘
‘Like the rest of us -‘ he said softly.
‘Please tell. Otherwise I shall ask Mrs Crean-Smith.’
‘Oh, don’t do that -‘
He was alarmed. She had struck the right note again. ‘Come on, Denis.’ His name came naturally now.
‘Look - well - wait a minute.’ He flashed the torch all round them once more, slowly and carefully. The light in the house had gone out. T will tell you something. It is true that you must know it if you are to stay here. And I would rather tell you myself than have you learn it from another.’
He paused. There was a little liquid sound of a fish breaking the surface. ‘You ask what is the matter with this place. I will tell you. What is the matter with it is that it is a prison.’
‘A prison?’ said Marian, astonished, and tense now at the nearness of the revelation. Her heart beat painfully. ‘A prison? Who is the prisoner?’
‘Mrs Crean-Smith.’
She felt she had half known it. Yet how could she have done? Even now she did not understand it. ‘And who are the gaolers?’
‘Mr Scottow. Miss Evercreech. Jamesie. You. Me.’
‘No, no!’ she said. ‘Not me! But I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you mean that Mrs Crean-Smith is - shut up here, incarcerated?’
‘Yes.’
‘But this is mad. What about Mr Crean-Smith, why doesn’t he-‘
‘Rescue her? It is at his will that she is shut up.’
‘I don’t understand at all,’ said Marian. She felt again the sick panic which had gripped her by the gateway, and which she had felt prophetically upon the first day. ‘Is Mrs Crean-Smith - ill - I mean insane, or dangerous, or anything?’
‘No.’
‘Well then, why is she shut up? People can’t be just shut up. We’re not living in the Middle Ages.’
‘We are here. But never mind. She is shut up by her husband because she deceived him and tried to kill him.’
‘Oh God -‘ She was far beyond curiosity now. She felt sheerly frightened of the story to come as if it might shake her reason. She was for a moment on the point of stopping him.
But he went on in a low voice. ‘I had better tell you all in order. Now that I have told you this much. It is quickly enough told. And God forgive me if I do wrong. It was like this. Hannah Crean-Smith is a rich woman, was a rich girl, rich in her own right, of the landowning families of this part. This house, for instance, and all this land for miles belongs to her. And she married very young, married her first cousin, Peter Crean-Smith. He was, God forgive me if I wrong him, a brute of a young man, though a charming one, a drinker and a runner after women and violent to his wife and other things more. It was not a good marriage. She was unhappy, and so it went on. They were at this house often enough, for he loved the fishing and the shooting and that. And so it went on. And then there came Philip Lejour.’
‘Philip Lejour?’
‘Yes. Him they call Pip Lejour. Old Mr Lejour’s son. Young Mr Lejour bought Riders then, when it was a wreck of a place, bought it for a song, to use it as a hunting-lodge, and he rented the shooting and the fishing, and so he and Mr Crean-Smith were acquainted and Mrs Crean-Smith too. The men would be often shooting together. That would be nine years or so ago. Then Mr Crean-Smith went away to America on business. I suppose it was on business, though I know nothing of his business apart from being a rich young man. And when he went away Mrs Crean-Smith and Mr Lejour fell in love with each other, and they made love to each other.’
He paused and again flashed the torch. The garden was utterly silent.
‘This was how it was for a time, and Mr Crean-Smith knew nothing about it. How long a time I don’t know, and I don’t know what Mrs Crean-Smith would have done. But one day Mr Crean-Smith came back unexpectedly, came back here to Gaze, and found his wife in the bed with young Mr Lejour.’ He paused. ‘That was seven years ago.’
He was silent then for a while as if rapt entirely into the story. He went on. ‘I told you that Mr Crean-Smith was a violent man. Is, for he still is. God forgive me if I wrong him. He was very violent then.’
‘To Mr Lejour?’
‘To his wife.’
He seemed for a moment choked to silence by emotion. He continued. ‘He kept her then in the house, kept her locked in.’
‘What did Mr Lejour do?’
‘He went away. What could he do? He would have taken her off, he would have rescued her. She knew that. There were letters, there were people to bring letters, though they risked terrible treatment from him, from the husband. But she would not come.’
‘Why not? If Mr Crean-Smith was so -‘
‘She was married to him in a church.’
‘Yes, but still, when -‘
‘How can we know her mind? Perhaps she was afraid of him, and she must indeed have been terribly afraid of him. It would not have been easy even to leave the house. She was guarded, she was watched. Besides, to leave her husband, to go into the world - remember she married very young. Possibly she simply would not. Perhaps she felt, for it all, guilt, sorrow, even then.’
‘Even then-?’
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br /> ‘Something else happened. What I told you was only a little while. Some months, weeks maybe. I don’t know what she would have done. But there was something else. One day -after some violence maybe, I don’t know what - she ran out of the house. She ran out of the door to the cliffs, the door you came from just now. She ran out toward the cliff top. God in His mercy knows what was in her mind - suicide, it might be, to throw herself from the cliff. Or perhaps she was just running away with no thought at all. Mr Crean-Smith ran after her. What happened then nobody knows for sure. But there was a struggle between them and Mr Crean-Smith went over the edge of the cliff.’
‘Oh God -‘ said Marian. She felt sick, stifled as with a taste or smell of burning. She jumped at the flash of the torch. It was dark again.
‘He lived. It was like a miracle. There is a sort of cranny in the cliff there, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, a break, a little stony channel of an old stream maybe, and he fell into that. It was a big fall, but he lived.’
‘Was he - much hurt?’
‘I don’t know. He lived. People say he was maimed somehow or hurt, hurt for good, but they say different things of what it was happened to him, and I don’t know.’
‘You haven’t seen - since?’
‘No. And little enough before indeed. I was not at Gaze then. He has not set foot here since that time seven years ago.’
‘And she-?’
‘She was - shut up.’
‘You mean ever since, seven years?’
‘Yes. He shut her up. It was then he brought Gerald Scottow into the house. Gerald was his friend, from childhood they were friends here though of different worlds, when he came to fish as a boy, and he trusted Gerald and he set Gerald to look to her. And so the time has passed.’
‘But my God!’ said Marian, ‘this is all mad. She’s not kept here by force, is she, she could go away if she wanted to, she -‘
‘You are forgetting her.’
‘You mean she stays - voluntarily - now?’
‘Who can say what is in her mind? She was at first confined to the domain. Many miles she could go either way, and she rode her horse a lot then. Then one day, five years ago it was, she suddenly left and galloped her horse to Greytown and was on the train before anyone knew. And she went to her father’s house.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Her father would not receive her. He sent her back.’
‘But why did she go?’
‘Who can say what was in her mind? Remember it was her first cousin and families are powerful things, those families are. And she wed as a young girl and her not able to strike a match for herself. It’s a wonder she was able to buy a railway ticket. She came back.’
‘And then -?’
‘And then it was a rumour that he was coming, Peter Crean-Smith, and she was near mad, but he did not come. But he confined her then to the garden.’
‘You mean she hasn’t been outside the garden for five years?’
‘She has not. And it was then he sent the Evercreeches to be here, they were poor relatives, and he sent them to add to the watch. They are not close, but they are her nearest relatives, after her husband, now her father is dead.’
This is an insane story!’ said Marian shrilly. She lowered her voice. ‘I don’t mean I don’t believe you. But it’s all mad. You say “I am forgetting her”. But what about her? Why does she put up with it all, why doesn’t she just pack and go away? Surely, Gerald Scottow and the rest of you wouldn’t forcibly restrain her? And surely there are people anyway who know about her? What about this Effingham Cooper? What about young Mr Lejour? What is he doing? What-‘
‘Mr Lejour watches and waits. He comes every summer here. He has done up the house and has brought his old father to live here. He comes and he watches. But there is nothing for him to do. And I don’t know if there is anything he wants to do - now.’
Marian recalled the man with the field-glasses whom she had so abruptly encountered on her first evening at Gaze. ‘He doesn’t - see her, communicate with her?’
‘He is not allowed to see her, and as far as I know he does not communicate with her. He could only make her situation worse, he could only harm her.’
‘But this is all absolutely appalling. What about you? Surely you can help her? Surely you aren’t on their side?’
‘What is - helping her?’
‘But I still don’t understand. Does she want to stay here?’
‘Perhaps. You must know that she is a religious person.’
‘What has religion to do with it? Did she - Do you think that she did really push him over?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps she does not know now. But there are - acts which belong to people somehow regardless of their will.’
‘You mean she’d feel responsible anyway? Do you think she pushed him over?’
He paused. ‘Yes, perhaps. But is not important to say so. She has claimed the act and one has no right to take it from her.’
‘I just can’t imagine it. Staying so long in one small place. I’m surprised she hasn’t run mad.’
‘There are holy nuns in the convent at Blackport who live forever in smaller places.’
‘But they have faith.’
‘Perhaps Mrs Crean-Smith has faith.’
‘Yes, but she’s wrong. I mean, it can’t be right to give way to that sort of thing. It’s morbid. And it’s bad for him as well as for her. Do the people about here generally know about her?’
‘The local people? Yes, they know. She is a legend in this part of the country. They believe that if she comes outside the garden she will die.’
‘They think she is really under a curse?’
‘Yes. And they think that at the end of seven years something will happen to her.’
‘Why seven years? Just because that’s the time things go on for in fairy tales? But it is the end of seven years now!’
‘Yes. But nothing is going to happen.’
‘Something has happened. I have come.’
He was silent, as if shrugging his shoulders.
‘Why have I come?’ said Marian. Her own place in the story occurred to her for the first time. The ghastly tale had become a reality all about her, it was still going on. And it was a tale in which nothing happened at random. ‘Who decided I should come, and why?’
‘That has puzzled me,’ he said. ‘I think it may be simply -some moment of compassion. Or it may be that you are to be a sort of chaperone.’
‘Who do I chaperone, who with her, I mean?’
‘Oh, anyone. Mr Cooper, for instance. He is one of the few people who is allowed to visit her. He is a harmless man. But there might now be a chaperone to make sure. Or else it might be some torture.’
‘Some torture?’
‘To make her fond of you and then take you away. I don’t know. The nicer maids have all gone. You will be wise not to come too close to her. And another thing. Do not make an enemy of Gerald Scottow.’