A Fairly Honourable Defeat

by Iris Murdoch

  In her reflections on the matter Morgan was cheered by finding that there was really no conceivable alternative to the course which she was taking. She based this view, which she had worked out with some care, partly upon her knowledge of her own temperament, partly upon her hypotheses concerning Rupert, and partly upon the feeling that her conjunction with Rupert was the world’s will. Morgan, smiling rather wryly at herself in the mirror, knew perfectly well that she was not capable of passing up this adventure. She had not invited Rupert’s love. She had been astonished by it. But now that she had it she was certainly not going to go on a world cruise and trust to find a polite embarrassed cured Rupert waiting for her on her return. Whatever this thing was, she was determined to wade right through the middle of it. Rupert would be cured, of course, at least he would be, must be, somehow changed. And oh in the change, she thought, let nothing be lost! Everything here was precious, precious. Rupert’s own needs must dictate to her. Happily they dictated a similar policy. It would be unthinkable to abandon Rupert in this awful mess. It is rarely enough that two human beings really come within hailing distance of one another. It would be, at the very least, unfair to Rupert not to attempt to make this unexpected proximity into something psychologically and morally workable. We shall be very close friends, she thought, very very close, forever. No one will know. No one will be hurt. It can be done. And she felt that in this resolution life was on her side.

  ‘The trouble is I’m getting damnably attached to you,’ said Rupert.

  ‘I adore your understatements! So indeed I gathered from your letters! I’m pretty attached to you if it comes to that.’

  ‘I enjoy seeing you so much,’ said Rupert. ‘Of course I always have done and this doesn’t alter it—’

  ‘I imagine not!’

  ‘And you are able to be so wonderfully calm—’

  ‘We have got to get used to each other again, in a new way, in a deeper better way. Rupert, it is all right, you know.’

  ‘When I hear you say this so quietly and firmly I want to believe you. But I somehow can’t see, I can’t see. In accepting that you love me—’

  ‘And I do love you, Rupert, I do—’

  ‘And in feeling—moved by you—myself—’

  ‘There you go again! I can’t help being glad that you’re moved!’

  ‘I, we, are creating a situation, a dramatic dynamic situation, which we may find we are unable to control.’

  ‘I think for the present we must simply surrender ourselves to it,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Rupert. ‘There is however one fairly foolproof way of keeping the thing in order.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tell Hilda about it.’

  Morgan was silent. She had been afraid that Rupert would suggest this. And the idea was intolerable. She could not bear Hilda to know. That would rob Rupert’s love of half its sweetness. Her own quite special closeness to Hilda made this the one impossible revelation. Whatever this strange exciting new thing was in her life, Hilda’s knowledge of it would kill it dead. How could she, without revealing all that she felt, dissuade him?

  ‘It’s just an idea,’ said Rupert. ‘I don’t know myself what exactly—’

  ‘We can’t hurt Hilda like that,’ said Morgan. Hilda’s distress, Hilda’s concern, Hilda’s understanding? No.

  ‘Hilda loves you. In a way, we’re insulting her by assuming she couldn’t bear to know how you feel—’

  ‘How I feel? And what about how you feel! No, Rupert, this is the sort of thing people don’t get over. It’s so unpredictable. You might really damage your marriage—I mean more than it is already—I mean, after all, exactly this damage is what we’re trying to avoid, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m confused,’ said Rupert. ‘I wish I wasn’t so uncertain about my own emotions. I wish I could be sure I—’

  ‘Your last letter didn’t sound as if you were uncertain about your own emotions!’

  ‘My letters are calmer than my mind.’

  ‘Then your mind must be in trouble!’

  ‘You are very perceptive, Morgan. My dear, I had better go. I’ll think all these things over.’

  ‘You’re always saying that! Rupert, you won’t suddenly tell Hilda without warning me?’

  ‘No, no. You may be right that it’s better not to tell her, or not anyway until things have calmed down.’

  ‘I’m glad you agree. Oh Rupert, when you have that worried look you look so sweet! Like a dear puzzled animal!’

  ‘I am a puzzled animal!’

  ‘And your eyes are so very blue,’ she said. ‘I think the sun must be making your eyes bluer just as it makes your hair fairer.’

  Rupert smiled. He said, ‘God, I wish things were simpler. Good-bye, ring me.’

  They were standing close to each other beside the door.

  Morgan said, ‘Rupert, I’m sorry and perhaps it isn’t fair, but I’ve simply got to take you in my arms.’ She leaned up against him, passing her arms round his waist. Rupert closed his eyes and held her for a while in silence.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘WHERE ARE YOU GOING?’ said Hilda.

  ‘To see Julius,’ said Rupert. ‘He asked me to drop over tonight. Or “drop by” as he puts it. I said yes because I thought you’d be out too. Aren’t you going to that committee meeting?’

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t till nine-thirty. I forgot to tell you Simon rang up.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Nothing, just to say he couldn’t come round about the bathroom after all. I’m afraid he’s lost interest in our decoration problems. ’

  ‘He seems to have lost interest in us. Better leave it then, it’s all right as it is.’

  ‘Yes, leave it, I suppose. Are you feeling all right, Rupert? You hardly ate any supper.’

  ‘Yes, I feel fine.’

  ‘Don’t be too late—’

  Rupert turned to go. Then he came back and, very grave, kissed his wife. Then he went off again leaving the door open. Cool evening air blew through the house.

  Hilda went back into the drawing room. She shivered and closed the french windows. Perhaps the weather was changing. She went into the kitchen and began putting the supper plates into the washing up machine. She washed up the knives and forks. After a while she went restlessly back into the drawing room. She lifted the telephone and dialled Morgan’s number. There was no reply. She laid the telephone down on the table and let the number continue to ring. She had seen Morgan that morning in the Fulham Road.

  Hilda still did not know what to make of the mystifying conversation she had had with Julius. The trouble was that she could not now properly remember the conversation. It was like a dream which the awakened mind feels and grasps at but cannot quite evoke. There had been a misunderstanding. But what did it mean, and what exactly had been said? Morgan was in love with somebody. Hilda was being heroic. Morgan had said she was going away. It was more sensible to wait. Some of the possibilities, as Hilda’s frightened imagination with a mechanical speed deployed them, were so grotesque that she deliberately covered them with a haze. She knew that nothing really dreadful could happen to her. But Morgan had certainly behaved oddly. And had she really gone away or not?

  Hilda telephoned Morgan’s flat several times and got no reply. Then that morning she decided that she would go round and ring the bell. It seemed a rather pointless activity, but at least it was an activity. It was something she could do in connection with her restless worries. As she came out of Drayton Gardens into the Fulham Road she saw Morgan on the opposite pavement just going into a grocer’s shop. Hilda for a moment felt almost faint. Then she turned quickly back and went home. She sat stiffly in the drawing room for nearly an hour. Throughout the day, quietly, quietly, she brooded upon the mystery which had so suddenly and strangely arrived in the middle of her life.

  The telephone was still ringing in Morgan’s flat. Hilda had forgotten that she had laid the receiver down upon the t
able. She picked it up now, pressed down the receiver rest, and telephoned to the friend at whose house the committee was meeting to say that she was unable to come. She did not feel able to deal with those simple ordinary things any more. The world had changed.

  Is it all a hallucination? Hilda wondered. Was Julius really talking about Peter, as he tried to say at the end that he had been? But no, he had clearly not been talking about Peter. And if he did not mean Peter then—But this was all unthinkably absurd. She had indeed noticed that Rupert was behaving a little strangely even before that evening with Julius. She had noticed something to which, before that evening, she had not quite been able to put a name, something intensely distressing which she now saw to be this. The deep rapport between herself and her husband was somehow broken. Hilda felt this as physical illness, as pain. In a happy marriage there is a continuous dense magnetic sense of communication. Hilda had enjoyed this with Rupert uninterruptedly for years. Even when Rupert was absent this magnetism filled the house, a web upon which Hilda’s spirit rested, upon which it travelled. Looking, touching, the telepathy of speech, the telepathy of silence, the full mystery of trusting married love, she had taken utterly for granted. Now she became aware that something had been altered. Rupert behaved very much though not quite as usual. He was nervy and abstracted and seemed to avoid her eye. The intonation of his voice seemed to be slightly different. There were a number of small things. The big thing was that her channels of communication with Rupert were indubitably blocked.

  Hilda wondered if she should not say something to Rupert about it. She had not told him about Julius’s visit. But supposing it was all a colossal mistake? At other times she wondered if she should not go and question Julius. Yet would that not be terribly indiscreet? On reflection it seemed absurd and everything that she feared so shadowy. She did not really think that Rupert and Morgan were involved with each other. Why if either of them had seen that coming they would have run a mile. Besides, it was impossible. Perhaps Morgan was in some secret trouble and Rupert was helping her? Perhaps she was in some trouble which she would feel ashamed to confess to Hilda? This supposition had a ring of sense about it. Morgan had certainly lied about going away. If she had merely changed her mind she would certainly have told Hilda, whom she knew to be anxious to see her. Morgan was in trouble, Rupert was helping. Yet it was odd that they had told her nothing about it. And why had Julius spoken about Morgan being in love and called Hilda heroic? Surely he had said these things?

  I must stop this, Hilda said to herself. There was panic in these thoughts. The lost contact with Rupert hurt and hurt. Even that exchange of words at the door just now had rung somehow false, as if for both of them there was a second meaning, something hidden. ‘Where are you going?’ Surely even a few days ago she would not have said that? ‘Aren’t you going to that committee meeting?’ The tone was wrong. I must keep sane and calm, Hilda said to herself. Rupert loves me and nothing has changed, nothing can change. She gripped the side of her chair, feeling suddenly giddy. Supposing Rupert regretted having married her? She was not clever, she was not an intellectual. She had been a very dull wife for such a brilliant man. Why should he love me, after all? she thought. Perhaps there had been gradual slow regrets.

  Hilda got up quickly. The room was twilit and seemed strange to her. Things could change, all things could change. She turned on one lamp in the corner and got out the decanter of whisky. She poured out a little whisky and sipped it. She felt an instant of false comfort. The whisky did not know of her troubles. She thought, because Rupert was so much in love with me it all happened so quickly. We ought to have waited a little. But I was determined to keep him. Perhaps he ought to have married a quite different kind of person. Yet did these doubts make any sense after twenty years of quiet solid marriage?

  ‘May I come in?’

  Hilda jumped and set the glass down. Someone was standing in the half darkness near to the door. It was Julius.

  ‘Oh Julius—’ Hilda switched on another lamp and saw Julius, dressed in what looked like an evening cape, carrying a bunch of yellow roses.

  ‘You look so—But what happened, did you miss Rupert, or what?’

  ‘Rupert? Why, was Rupert looking for me?’

  ‘He said he had an appointment with you. He left more than an hour ago.’

  ‘Appointment with me? No, he had no appointment.’ There was a moment’s silence. Then Julius said, ‘Oh well, perhaps he did, I may be mistaken—Perhaps he said—I seem to remember something now—it must have slipped my mind—’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Hilda. ‘It does you credit.’ She switched on some more lights.

  ‘I brought you these roses,’ said Julius. ‘I know it seems a bit idiotic, bringing you roses when your garden’s full of them. But these are such a lovely yellow, and all the garden ones seem to be pink and white, so I thought at least they’d make a change.’

  Hilda took them. She felt ready to cry. ‘Thank you so much—I’ll just put them in water.’ Out in the kitchen some tears did come, but she knocked them away, baring her teeth. She must keep her head now and get the truth out of Julius.

  He was sitting down when she came back, rose, sat down again and accepted whisky. He was in evening dress.

  ‘Thank you for the roses.’

  ‘I just—I wasn’t going to stay—in fact I’m on my way to a late evening party—I just felt I wanted to give you something.’

  ‘Julius,’ said Hilda, ‘what is going on?’

  ‘Going on? I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Morgan said she was leaving London and she hasn’t left. Rupert is being most secretive and peculiar. There’s some drama going on. What is it?’

  Julius was silent for a while, examined his fingers, examined his whisky, stared at the hazy dark blue screen of the uncurtained window, and cast a quick glance at Hilda. He said at last, ‘Well, I suppose you were bound to find out.’

  ‘Bound to find out what?’

  ‘About Rupert and Morgan.’

  Hilda fought for control of her face and her voice. ‘You mean there’s something going on between them?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Julius, ‘that would be—I’m not quite sure what you mean—but one mustn’t exaggerate—and with two such people—’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘Probably a nothing, Hilda,’ said Julius, giving her his full heavy stare. He seemed grave and upset. ‘Probably a shadow that will vanish away as if it had never been. A shadow which, believe me, it is very much wiser and kinder simply to ignore. I am afraid that our last conversation must have sounded to you rather portentous. And I would certainly not have expressed myself in that way if I had thought—you see, I imagined that they must both have told you everything—in fact I took this as a proof that it was all really something quite unimportant. I must say, I was rather relieved. ’

  ‘But they haven’t told me everything,’ said Hilda. ‘They haven’t told me anything.’ Her hand had begun to tremble. She put her glass down.

  ‘Yes, yes, but I’m sure they will. Or no, it’s much more likely that they won’t. They’ll feel it has all become exaggerated and if they tell you it will seem much larger than it really is. Honestly, Hilda, there’s practically nothing to it. And after all, think who they are.’

  ‘But what is it?’ said Hilda. ‘You keep speaking as if I knew. I know nothing.’

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s nothing at all. Perhaps a little infatuation on one side, a little kindness on the other. Who knows how these things begin? Believe me, Hilda, just pay no attention. In a few months it will have passed away and you’ll all have forgotten it.’

  ‘I couldn’t—forget it—’ said Hilda. ‘It changes—everything.’ She felt the tears again and pressed both her hands hard against her eyes.

  ‘Hilda, Hilda, don’t, you upset me terribly, I blame myself, I must have given you the wrong impression. There’s no—there’s no love affair, Hilda.’

 
‘No, but they’re in love.’

  ‘Hardly that, a mere, shall we say, involvement. Oh dear, whyever did we start to talk about it. You’ve made me say all sorts of things I shouldn’t have said. Dearest Hilda, you are so good. I can’t bear that you should suffer.’

  ‘You’ve been very kind, Julius, and you mustn’t blame yourself. I’m grateful to you. It’s better to know.’

  ‘But truly, Hilda, there’s nothing there, or practically nothing—a shadow, a fancy. Be generous. Don’t speak of it to poor Rupert. Let those two deal with it themselves. Why, they may have done so already. In a long happy marriage there must be moments when one turns a blind eye. Be merciful to them and let it all be buried and forgotten. It’s something very tiny and very momentary. And you know poor Morgan is in a thoroughly unstable condition.’

  ‘I must think,’ said Hilda. ‘I must think.’

  ‘I wish I could undo the effect of my words. There is really nothing between Morgan and Rupert. It would honestly be more true to say that than to say anything else at all.’

  ‘You are kindhearted, Julius, and very loyal. You must go now, you must go on to your party. I don’t want Rupert to come back and find us talking.’