The Unicorn

by Iris Murdoch

  Jamesie lit the candle, and placed it on the table beside her. He went on looking at her.

  Marian felt afraid of Jamesie. She was afraid of everyone now. She had even been frightened by Denis, by his long silences, by his air of being elsewhere. It was as if his spirit had taken flight from his body. He had held on to her hand, when they sat together, and caressed it. But he had been looking through her at something else. With Hannah he had behaved quietly, hovering about her silently, and she had seemed somehow glad of him, more aware of him than she was of Marian. But he had not touched Hannah. He moved about her as if compelled by an aura which both attracted and protected, and he looked at her through it as one might look at some weird but holy relic in a casket. Marian touched her, partly in the natural course of her tasks, but partly too through some compulsive fascination; and Hannah’s flesh felt inert and cold, as if from her too the spirit were being slowly withdrawn.

  Denis had shown considerable hesitation about whether he should go to the airport himself or send one of the men. Jamesie had refused to go, and neither Marian nor Violet could drive. Denis had hesitated long, holding Marian’s hand in an absent childish way, but without at all discussing with her which he should do. He decided in the end to go, and set off into the black darkness and a rain so opaque and thick that it completely deadened the headlights. The interior of the Land Rover was soaked, through its rickety hood, a moment after it left its garage. Marian had run across the terrace in her mackintosh and sat with him for a moment in the front of the car, while a dim light from the dashboard illumined his dripping head. They embraced, hugging each other awkwardly in the narrow space. ‘Be very careful. The road to Blackport may be dreadful. Hadn’t you better go inland?’

  ‘No. The coast road is quicker. It will be all right. God bless you. Look after her.’

  He had started the engine, and as she got out the car moved off and instantly vanished into total darkness. There was a roaring sound behind the rain which was perhaps the sea. She had waited a while under the porch, trying to imagine that she made out the lights of the Humber approaching, but nothing came, and she had gone back past the now silent drawing-room to rejoin Hannah.

  ‘What is it, Jamesie?’ Marian stood up and drew on her overcoat. She had lain down in her clothes. It was very cold in the room now, and the candle flickered in a draught. Marian glanced at Hannah’s door, but it was closed as before.

  He did not reply, but sat down near her and seemed to listen. Marian listened too. There was complete silence in the house. The rain could be heard all about them pattering noisily on the roof and gurgling along the gutters and battering the terrace and the garden, merging into a deep continuous roar, which seemed to surround the house’s silence and make it more intense. Marian sat down again and drew a blanket over her knees. Four o’clock.

  The image of Gerald suddenly rose before her like an apparition. She had not, in all yesterday’s mad anguish, had a full thought, a full heart, to spare for him. She had been appalled for Hannah, in terror about the police. Now in the cold dark he seemed to rise. She had not seen them carry him downstairs, and had only known of his whereabouts when the cries of his mother had echoed from the drawing-room, to be followed by the long undulating whine. She thought of him lying there now in the dark with the old woman beside him, lying there lonely and without power any more, reduced to nothing. She whimpered at the thought, and found her tears coming, tears of pity and fear, tears for him and for herself. Now in the black middle of the night it was the fact of death that mattered most, the translation of a big, healthy, powerful man into a piece of senseless heavy stuff.

  Marian felt that in a moment she might break out into hysterical gasping. She took a deep slow breath and gripped the blanket, feeling its thick furry texture. She must not show her fear to Jamesie. If Jamesie knew how afraid she was he might, like some wild animal when its human opponent falters, break out in some way, occasion some new appalling thing, she knew not what. In this darkness everyone was dangerous; and Marian felt it all round about her, the accumulated vicious savagery of the house, ready to rush through again when any weak point should be found. She must hold on to her courage and her sanity or she herself would become that weak point and let through the terrible flood.

  ‘Jamesie, can you not light the lamp? It’s so dark.’

  ‘There’s no oil. There is’ no oil in the whole house.’

  ‘Why did you come and wake me up?’ For her too the return of consciousness was hateful. It would have been better to have slept on.

  ‘I wanted to watch with you,’ Jamesie was sitting near her, still looking at her, his legs crossed and his hands in his pockets. He suddenly seemed to her to have the air of a gaoler. But was she not herself now a gaoler? The house was now more totally a prison than it had ever been.

  Jamesie stared. She could see his eyes, darker and larger in the very dim light. The wavering candle flame cast moving shadows across his features, making them mobile and grotesque. It came to Marian that he was full of purpose, he was going to do something, he had come to her with some end. She shrank back from him. She had not let her mind dwell upon the mystery of his relation with Gerald. It confronted her now, and she felt in the staring boy the new madness of the house collected and wakeful.

  Wakeful. Jamesie was listening again. He became very still, seeming to urge her to listen too. But she could hear only the endless mingled battering of the rain. She thought of Peter coming steadily through the darkness toward the house.

  Jamesie got up. He kept his alert questioning stare upon Marian. Though he was so quiet he seemed excited or very frightened. He lifted the candle from beside her and went to stand in the middle of the room. Then he slowly raised the candle above his head and looked away from her.

  She could not at first understand the ritual. She watched him breathless, still straining her ears. Then she heard a tiny sound in the room itself, and she followed Jamesie’s gaze. The handle of Hannah’s door was quietly turning. It turned, and then slipped back, and turned again. Hannah was trying to get out.

  Marian felt the hair rising on her head. There was something hideous and uncanny in the quiet desperate little movement. She knew that she ought to dispel her sudden crazy terror by speaking out loud to Hannah. But she could not speak. Hannah was imprisoned now in the small centre, in the very heart of things; and perhaps it was there that Peter would keep her shut up now, imprisoned in that room for ever. The handle turned again.

  She stared at Jamesie, who was looking at her with his enormous night eyes. He had lowered the candle which made his face golden from below. His lips were parted and he looked at her with a fearful urgency, trembling with purpose.

  Marian said in a low whisper, ‘Have you got the key? Should I go in to her?’

  Jamesie put his finger on his lips. He motioned her to rise and took her arm and led her outside into the corridor. He closed the door of the ante-room and put the candle on the floor beside them.

  ‘What is it? Jamesie, you’re frightening me.’

  The long corridor stretched away behind them, dark and quiet. She could not see Jamesie’s face now. The light of the candle seemed to swirl about their knees and get lost He still gripped her arm.

  ‘We must let her out’

  Marian heard him, but without understanding. ‘You mean you must let me in. Have you got the key?’

  ‘Yes. I tell you we must let her out’

  Marian stood quiet while the sense of the words expanded round about her seeming to fill the house with resonant echoes. It was as if now everybody must awake, must be awake, standing in the darkness beyond the candle flame, listening to what would be. Had it come at last then, the moment of liberation? Hannah now wanted to get out. The idea was terrifying and painful.

  She said, still whispering, ‘You are mad, Jamesie. Where could she go, what could she do, leaving the house like this at night and in this rain?’ The answer seemed to echo, booming round about them under the dome
of the rain. She held on to Jamesie now. They clung together like conspirators, like threatened children.

  ‘We must let her out,’ he said again. ‘It is her right We must let her go before Peter comes.’

  Marian felt a sharp spasm of pain: why should it be to me, to me that this comes? She said, ‘No, no. We can take her away tomorrow in the car.’

  Take her away? Where to? What for? Peter will be here any moment. No, this is the time and this is the way. We must simply open the door.’

  ‘No. Jamesie, I can’t. Why did you wake me, anyway? Why didn’t you just open the door yourself?’

  ‘I had to have you too. Don’t be afraid, Marian. This is how it must be. Come.’

  He opened the door of the ante-room and began to draw her back. As the door opened the candle flared up for a moment and then went out They stood immobile together, still holding on to each other, in the dark room. Then Marian saw that there was a little grey light. The morning was coming.

  She murmured again: ‘No!’ pitifully. But Jamesie was fumbling for the key. She watched him with fascination as he found it and quietly inserted it in the lock and turned it He pushed the door open a little and stood back.

  Marian shrank back against the wall. She felt that some dreadful apparition was about to pass through the room. Jamesie stood opposite to her, his eyes fixed on the dark gap of the door. The light was increasing.

  They waited, perfectly still, for several minutes. Then there was a little sound from within. Marian was open-mouthed, almost gasping. Then the door moved and a shape was there in the doorway.

  After a moment’s pause she moved noiselessly forward through the room and passed between them. Her face was indistinct but her figure was clearly seen in the first cold twilight She was wearing an overcoat and her feet were bare. She disappeared into the corridor. Marian became aware that Jamesie opposite to her had fallen to his knees. As she moved to the window he slowly stretched himself out full length face-downwards on the ground.

  The terrace was grey and empty, glistening with running water. The rain had become less fierce and it was just possible to see across the battered garden to the wall and the gate. The next moment Hannah was there on the terrace. She glided with unhurrying swiftness down the steps and past the fish pools and along the path between the ragged yews, a figure so blurred and uncertain that it might have been a ghost. She passed through the door in the wall and disappeared into the rain beyond.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ‘Take her inside.’

  Violet slowly opened the glass doors, and the men, who had laid their burden down upon the terrace, lifted it again and began to shuffle in. It was still raining.

  Marian followed them. She was scarcely able to walk and held on to the glass doors as she went through. She stood uncertainly behind them as they passed into the drawing-room. She saw the other white draped figure within. As Violet led the men and told them what to do, Marian met her long fatigued eyes through the closing door. Violet looked at her not with hatred but as if she were a complete stranger. She was now, in this house, a total outlaw. She began to go slowly up the stairs.

  The time, she supposed, must be about nine o’clock. Or it might be earlier. All the clocks seemed to have stopped. Hannah had been found almost at once. A fisherman had seen it happen, and her body had been recovered without much difficulty from where it lay among the rocks. It had been brought up to the house soon after the arrival of the first messenger with the news.

  When she had emerged from her trance, or prayer, at Hannah’s window she had found Jamesie gone. She had returned to her own room and lain down. She kept dozing off into a nightmare-ridden half-sleep, to wake quickly each time in a fright, listening and wondering. Once she imagined she heard Hannah calling her just as she woke, and once she set off to Hannah’s room to see if she had come back but gave up half way. She could not see that place again. At the stairhead she found herself suddenly expecting to meet Gerald, and she ran all the way to her own room. After that she sat at the window until she saw first the running panting messenger and then the slow cavalcade. She looked now along the drive. She dreaded the appearance of the Land Rover.

  The gathering daylight had brought with it, as she gazed from the window, another shock. She had been looking at the grey composing shapes of the valley and had become aware that they seemed to be composing in a very strange way. She almost for a while wondered if she were dreaming, in one of those weird dreams where a waking consciousness seems to accompany the dreamer. The scene outside looked entirely different. She turned back several times to the room to make sure that she was indeed in her own room and not in some quite other part of the house which had a view she had never seen before. But her room was familiar, and on the far side of the valley she saw, as the light gained, the unaltered silhouette of Riders. But the valley between was utterly changed: and then at last she realized what had happened and why it was that Effingham and the others had not come back. There was a huge torrent, wide, brown and turgid, roaring down the centre, dividing the two houses. The bog had released its waters.

  The bridge had completely disappeared, and the white cottages were submerged to half their height. The stream had cut a steep-walled cleft at the top of the valley through which it descended, straight and very fast, its former meanderings forgotten. Further down it spread out, boiling and foaming among the boulders, casting thick lines of debris upon the shore, and surging forward in the centre with the violent motion of a big fast river. The bottom of the valley had become a surging lake, hundreds of yards wide, where with a churning of brown and white, in a series of whirlpools, the waters met the sea.

  It must have become, soon after Effingham and Alice had departed last night, quite impossible to get across. Marian looked upon the wrecked, altered scene with appalled amazement, and then with a kind of dazed relief. The general cataclysm dulled her own pain. She trained her field-glasses upon the valley. The lower slopes were strewn with a wide debris of stones and bushes. She made out the bedraggled corpse of a sheep. Further up there were pale glistening streaks among the heather which she later saw to be dead salmon lying broadcast upon the hillside. The river must, in the night, have been even more tremendous. No one could possibly have crossed it.

  The rain was gradually abating now and the sky was lightening, turning to a dirty light yellow and bringing a new sharp clarity to the devastated scene. Marian looked through her glasses at Riders, but could see no signs of life whatsoever in the other house. It lay above the rushing waters like a stranded and abandoned ship. It seemed to her confused mind a very long time since she had said in such imploring tones that she wanted to crowd the house with people. Crowds were no use now any more. This was the end game.

  Marian had not yet dared to think fully or properly about what had happened in the night At times it seemed like a dream, something done in unconsciousness; and in certain moments of half-sleep she thought that perhaps it was just a fantasy in her mind and that she had imagined it all. Yet, with a pain which had not yet fully claimed her, she knew that there had been an act and that it belonged to her. Even Jamesie seemed like an accessory; she did not even trouble to reflect upon Jamesie’s motives, so little did he seem responsible. It was she who had done the thing that mattered. Had she done right to give Hannah this last thing, the freedom to make her life over in her own way into her own property? When at last Hannah had wanted to break the mirror, to go out through the gate, ought she then to have been her gaoler? It Was not any more the old image of freedom which could move her now. It was Hannah’s authority which had moved her, her sense, in the pathetic scene of her final imprisonment, of Hannah’s sovereignty, of her royal right to dispose of herself as she would. Marian could not at that moment have been her keeper. The memory came to her of Jamesie kneeling upon the floor and Hannah gliding past But had she done right? She could not yet give the words a sense. But she knew, as she moaned and rubbed her forehead upon the cold window pane, that she had ta
ken upon herself a blood guilt which would make its own reckoning.

  No one could be her judge. But there was one person who could help her and that was Denis, because he was innocent and because he loved Hannah. And although he could not be her judge he could, she felt, at least if necessary be her executioner. Denis and Peter were coming together. Now their figures merged strangely in her mind. Her task had been to protect Hannah. She had performed it, but too perfectly. And now she stood, as it were, in Hannah’s place and it was perhaps on her that the axe would fall. She turned to look for the hundredth time along the length of the drive.