by Iris Murdoch
'WELL, old thing, he's gone, said Mildred t? Felix. 'Now to work!
Felix had been camping uneasily at Seton Blaise, waiting, as Mildred put it, for the balloon to go up. That it had gone up Mildred discovered from Clare Swann in a matter of less than an hour after Ann had received Randall's letter: Ann had telephoned the rectory and Douglas had set off immediately for Grayhallock, followed by Clare, who paused only long enough to make ten telephone calls.
Mildred at once summoned Felix. 'Quick, she said. 'Get out the Merc. We're off to Grayhallock.
Felix hesitated. 'Is it quite proper, he said, 'to go over at once? I mean, won't it look bad? Won't we be just a nuisance? —’I despair of you, said Mildred. 'You should be wearing a smock and chewing a straw. That's your uniform.
'I don't want to intrude on a grief that I can't altogether either sympathize with or understand, said Felix stiffiy.
All the same, five minutes later the Mercedes was at the door.
The scene at Grayhallock resembled a curious sort of fate. Work in the nursery had been suspended. Bowshott and one of the men were conversing on the gravel outside, and Nancy Bowshott and Clare Swann were having an animated discussion in the hall. There was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement.
Felix still felt that there was something highly improper in his presence there so soon after news of what must be felt as a bereavement. But his appetite to see Ann, after more than a fortnight of inactivity and sheer waiting at Seton Blaise, was intense. He had felt, and Mildred had agreed, that during the interval between what Mildred referred to as Hugh's crime and the longed-for departure of Randall he should make no attempt to see Ann. That Randall would go he now felt curiously certain; and he had made no plans, envisaged no possibilities, in the event of Randall's not going. He waited. During the interval he had made several attempts to write the letter to Marie-Laure, but without success; and he had heard again from her two days ago saying that although he had not written she had decided to go to Delhi. Her beautiful French seemed to him dry and unreal as a language of substanceless birds.
Clare Swann, delighted to see them, ran up to Mildred. 'She's in the kitchen with Douglas. I thought I'd leave them together. Of course, she can't be surprised. She must have seen it coming a mile off. And it wasn't exactly a happy situation, was it? But it's a shock all the same, like when someone actually dies after they've been ages dying.
She fastened on to Mildred. Felix averted his eyes from their gay vivid faces. Now Clare was drawing Mildred confidentially aside. 'My dear, I must ask your advice. It's so hard to know what will cause offence.
Nancy had joined her husband outside, and Helix was left standing uneasily in the middle of the hall. The hall at Grayhallock was a cheerless place at the best, like the entrance to a seaside boarding-house: One expected to find notices saying what time breakfast was. Felix wondered if he should sit down somewhere; but it seemed so meaningless to sit down. He did not know whether to go to the kitchen or not. He was in a physical agony at the nearness of Ann.
The boy Penn passed him by, mumbled something and made for the stairs. His face had a stricken appalled look. He bounded up as far as the first landing and stopped as if deprived of purpose. Then he went more slowly on up.
Felix had just decided to take refuge in the still-room among the Wellington boots when he turned to find that Miranda was standing beside him and regarding him with a hostile look.
Conversation with Miranda was the last thing which Felix felt able at this juncture to sustain. What after all did one say to a child whose father had just publicly gone off with his mistress? How much did Miranda understand about the matter? How much did she know of the Facts of Life? How old was she, anyway? Utter paralysis gripped Felix.
As she showed no signs of going away but still stood provocatively beside him, he muttered, 'Bad business, Miranda. Sorry to hear about it.
'Sorry to hear about what? said Miranda in a clear voice.
'Well, about your father — going away — well, all that.
'You know all about it too, do you? said Miranda. 'It looks as if everybody knows. I think everybody knew before Mummy did. Felix could make nothing of this. But at least the child was composed.
'Do you think it will be better in the long run? said Miranda.
Felix was taken aback. 'I don't know, Miranda, I can't say really. I believe your mother is in the kitchen with Mr Swann. I think I won't disturb them. I'll just wait a minute. He looked for somewhere to escape to. He could hardly go to the still-room now.
'Mummy got a letter from the lawyer about the divorce, said Miranda.
'Oh, did she? This was appalling.
'Yes, said Miranda. 'He said there should be no difficulty as it was a simple case of adultery. Mummy will have to appear in court, but Daddy won't have to.
Felix stared about him in desperation. He could not stand any more of this. A quick glance at the bright faces of Clare and Mildred made him shudder. He mumbled an apology to Miranda and fled in the direction of the kitchen.
He knocked on the kitchen door and entered at once. Ann was sitting at the far end of the table in close converse with Douglas Swann. Swann looked up with annoyance at the interruptor. It was not every day that he had a chance of holding Ann's hand.
Ann rose when she saw him with an exclamation of surprise, brushing the clinging Swann aside. 'Why, Felix! How good of you to come. I didn't know you were in the country.
Of course, she doesn't know, thought Felix, she doesn't know anything. She did not know that he had been sitting at Seton Blaise waiting for exactly this to happen, she did not know about Hugh's crime. A mind like Ann's would not have seen any special meaning in the sale of the picture. Ignorant and innocent, there she was surrounded by schemers. He felt, before her, confused and ashamed. He stammered out, 'Old friend… just thought I'd call…
'I'm so glad, said Ann, and she sounded very glad. She had obviously been crying, but seemed calm now. 'I'd better make some coffee, she added. 'There's quite a rout!
'You'll do no such thing, said Douglas Swann. 'Coffee indeed! He was standing close behind her and lightly resting his hand on her shoulder. — ’Douglas, dear, would you just go and see what's going on outside?
Did Mildred come with you, Felix? Douglas, would you go and ask Mildred to sit in the drawing-room? And thank you for being so sweet and helpful and for coming so soon. I'll just talk a bit with Felix now, I think.
Douglas Swann murmured obediently and retired. Ann flopped back into her chair. 'Oh, Felix —’
'My dear, he said. 'My dear. He took the chair, drawn close to hers, which Swann had vacated, and took her hand. He felt her grief as something small and precious in the midst of his own joy. He wanted to embrace her and cry out with emotion. He was so far on in his thoughts, it was strange to think that she was not yet with him.
Ann pushed her hair back behind her ears. 'I didn't know you were a. t Seton Blaise. I suppose Clare told you. I feel such a fool. I rang up Douglas at once, and now Clare has told everyone and it seems as if I'm making a sort of public fuss.
'Well, you have something to make a fuss about, I should think! aid Felix. He squeezed her hand rhythmically.
'It was such a shock, the letter, said Ann. She released herself and put both hands to her brow. 'And it was such a horrid letter. I suppose I'd been half expecting something like that for ages. But when it comes it's different. Randall did write sometimes and ask me to send things, books and things. Quite nice letters. But my heart always turned over when I saw his writing.
Felix could not trust himself to speak in case his feelings about Ann's husband should come pouring out in a vitriolic flood. He contented himself with touching her arm in a timid way.
'You see, he always came back for Christmas and for Miranda's birthday and was here a lot of the time really. I liked to feel it was his base, that he needed it. This last time he was home was terrible, of course. But it wasn't usually so bad. It's extraordinary what one can.
urvive in a marriage. And I kept thinking things might get better. They did get better when Fanny was ill. Oh, Felix, all that long road, all those hopes and struggles, to lead us here —’
'Well, it's not your fault, said Felix.
'It is, it is, she said with a groan. 'These things are never unjust!
'I can't agree, he said. 'But did you not — somehow expect it now?
'Why now more than another time? No. But I might have known, ns he came secretly last week to see Miranda. Nancy Bowshott told me.
'Didn't Miranda tell you?
'No. And I didn't say anything to her. God! how painful! She put one hand to her side. 'He took his toys away, she added. 'I should have known then that it was the end!
'His toys?
'Yes, it sounds so silly, but he had them beside his bed, things he'd had as a child, a toy dog and a —’ She became silent, breathing hard. Then great copious tears rolled down her cheeks and she hid her face with a cry.
Felix was overwhelmed. He put his arms right round Ann and drew her close against his shoulder. With a sigh he lowered his face into her cold pale hair. He had waited years for this.
Miranda came into the room and shut the door sharply behind her.
Felix quietly released the sobbing Ann. Ann found a handkerchief, blew her nose and said' Sorry'. Miranda approached, and after looking for some time at her mother's red damp face, leaned against her shoulder and transferred her gaze to Felix. He moved his chair back and got up.
'Felix, said Ann, putting her Ann round Miranda, 'would you mind going to tell Douglas to tell everyone to go away?
'All right. Is Douglas to go away too?
'Yes. Tell him I'll ring him.
'Am I to go away too?
'Yes, please. I'll ring you later.
Felix moved reluctantly towards the door. He would have liked to have held Ann's hand again before he left. As he reached the door he heard a curious sound and turned about. Miranda had started to cry hysterically, her head buried in her mother's shoulder. He left them locked together.
Chapter Twenty-five
ANN looked, for the twentieth time, out of the window, and her heart staggered as she saw, at last, the very dark blue Mercedes coming through the gate.
Randall had now been gone a week, rather more than a week. It seemed to her a century of experience. She had been amazed, frightened, at the intensity of her pain. Envisaging beforehand the situation she was now in, Ann had thought that at least whatever else there was there would be an element of relief. But there was no relief: only a blank misery of loss shot through with the most terrible jealousy. She was astonished at her sudden capacity to be jealous; she had somehow, and she saw stupidly, imagined herself to be above jealousy. But now she was positively brought to the ground by it. Randall, for all his tiresomeness and badness, had always been her Randall, and she had thought of him as such even when she half knew, even when she knew, that he was going to another woman. He was hers as a mild chronic illness might be hers, when one knows all its strange ways and it has become a part of the personality. He belonged to her and in her, this was loving him, for better or worse she was Randall. And she had really believed that however broken down and odd things became, at best they would continue. But Randall had gone, Randall referring her to his solicitor, this was fearful and dreadful, and she was not prepared for bearing it.
She missed him hideously, and yearned for him with a violent fruitless yearning which was a kind of maimed falling in love. His absence had not so much mattered, had not so much been felt, before. I h d not been real absence. But now the house gaped and rattled with it. She began to be afraid of the house, especially at night. It was as if its old indifference, now that Randall's protection was removed, had begun to reveal itself as something more sinister. She felt, upon dark stairways and in quiet empty rooms, a brooding hostility. She wished she could leave it.
Mildred Finch, who with a rather sham-faced Felix had in fact still been waiting around when Anne had emerged after comforting Miranda on that first day, had most cordially invited her to stay at Seton Blaise. The idea of the comfortable friendliness, of the sheer beautiful orderliness, of the other house, the idea of being taken charge of and looked after, tempted Ann extremely; but she said no. She had her reasons for not wanting to go to Seton Blaise at present. Mildred had then offered to have the children to stay, but Ann had refused that too. She did not want to be separated from Miranda, and it seemed cruel to send Penny away at a time when, rightly or wrongly, he might feel that he could be of some service to his cousin. Miranda, after her early hysterics, had retired into a moody taciturnity, and Ann could only conjecture what she thought and suffered. Hugh had been down twice, each time for the inside of a day, but had seemed restless and self-absorbed and could not be persuaded to stay.
Ann had written to Randall at Chelsea saying that she did not want to divorce him. She wrote this coldly, as the situation seemed to leave her no other way of writing it. It would have been inconceivable to wail or entreat. But the coldness chilled her all through and she felt herself already in the grip of some machine-like necessity. She had never in the past, however violent and unpleasant Randall had been, met him with coldness, and only rarely with anger. Even now she did not feel resentment against Randall. Perhaps she would yet have to learn it in order to survive. She had written to the solicitor saying she had no. wish to discuss divorce proceedings at present. She did not exactly expect Randall back, and she certainly did not intend to go on refusing him a divorce. But she could not suddenly, and however great the shock of his departure, give up all her old hopes.
She was sorry that, on the first day, she had made that distracted telephone call to Douglas. He meant well, but his sentimental sympathy had been irritating, unwelcome, almost degrading. And then the arrival of all those inquisitive people had made such a rowdy undignified scene. She ought, at that time, to have made sure that she had her grief to herself. A fuss and a drama had been made, and Miranda; who at breakfast time had been fairly calm, had become quite hysterical later in the morning. She was rather sorry too that Felix had come.
Ann was surprised to discover that even in the midst of the acute pain she was suffering she did continue to think about Felix. His image was present constantly in the background of her preoccupations, like a picture in a busy room, not regarded yet somehow affecting the consciousness. She was obscurely aware too of the possibility of recent events having altered her relation with Felix; but she was not sure whether the effect was simply to make him more remote or whether it was something else. While Randall's protection, however unwillingly given, had formally remained to her, there had been as it were a separate compartment in which Felix could be stored. Now she would have to make, for him, some other arrangement. She had not thought this out, and occupied with her maimed and obsessive passion for Randall, she had let the image of Felix recede a little and grow dim. Yet it still remained like a distant light and though she did not look at it she was glad it was there.
She had told him that she would ring him, but she had not done so. 'When it came to it, the action seemed a little too significant, and she had put it off. It was better to leave things. Then she had received a rather formal little note from Felix saying that he was going back to London, but that he would be returning to Seton Blaise, after dining nearby, on a certain evening, and might he drop in briefly on the way to take a cup of coffee and inquire how she was? Ann had said yes to this, as it seemed too unkind to say no — and because she suddenly felt he wanted to see him. Oh, as the day went on, she wanted very much to see him. And she trembled now, seeing the Mercedes.
It was late evening and the sky was an intense blue from which the radiance had been gradually withdrawn. The colours in the garden had risen to their last peak of shimmering brightness and now faded quietly like a descending hand. Murky purples and browns thickened in the distance. It was a very quiet evening. The church bells had been ringing for a practice, a sad sound, but they
were silent now. As she went to the door Ann switched on the lamps in the drawing-room, and as she did so she glimpsed herself for a moment in the big mirror. She had put on a summer dress instead of her usual blouse and skirt, and the unexpected image startled her. She seemed another person.
'Come in, Felix, come into the drawing-room. How very nice to see you. Would you like the electric fire? It's getting rather chilly now. I've got some brandy for you, I hope it's the right kind. You have dined, haven't you?
Felix came stooping through the doorway. He looked, she thought, terribly respectable in his dark suit and outrageously immaculate shirt and narrow tie. Ann, even in her best cotton dress, felt shabby and tousled beside him. She smiled at the thought.
Felix accepted the electric fire and the brandy, said he had dined, and answered questions about Mildred's welfare. Then silence fell between them.
They were sitting in armchairs on either side of the fireplace. The electric fire sat a little forlornly in the big grate. Aim could feel him looking at her and tried quickly to think of something to' say. It struck her suddenly as extraordinary that she should be sitting here so late at night alone with Felix: extraordinary and pleasant and alarming. Then she was amazed to find herself feeling tearful. She said quickly the first thing that came into her head. 'Oh, everything is such a mess here. I do wish I could catch up. I just get into more and more of a muddle. I still haven't sent out those catalogues.’ Felix said, 'I wish you'd let me help you. Couldn't I do the catalogues?
'No, of course not! It's only a few hours' work really. It's just that I've got so terribly tired.
'You certainly look' tired, said Felix. 'You ought to have a holiday. Let me drive you to Greece.
Ann was startled. Instantly she had a clear almost magical vision of herself flying southward with Felix in the very dark blue Mercedes. With this there came a very odd and unfamiliar feeling, and she said with frightened vehemence, 'No, that's quite impossible I'm afraid.