The Good Apprentice

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘How are you, Ed, better?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve been at Seegard.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Jesse.’

  ‘Yes. What’s happened about Midge?’

  ‘She’s down at Quitterne with Thomas. She seems to have chucked Harry.’

  ‘Oh. I never understood that business. So we’re all back home here. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ve decided, I’m going to be a schoolmaster.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I’ve got to go to a training college first, I’ve got a grant, and — ’

  ‘Oh. Well done. I’ll just go and look at those letters.’

  Edward legged it up the stairs. He found the letters in a drawer and sat down on the bed and spread them out. He looked for Brownie’s writing but it was not there. There was an unsigned postcard of the Eiffel tower from Ilona saying, Back soon, hope see, your loving sister. There were several typed envelopes, two letters from Mrs Wilsden, and one in a vaguely familiar hand. He opened this one first.

  My dear Edward,

  I just thought I’d write to say how pleased we all are with you because of what you did for Midge. She told me all about the whole thing on the telephone. You were exactly right, you were calm and wise, you gave her ‘room to turn round’, those were her words, what a gift to be able to give to someone who’s ‘up against it’! She’s so fond of you and you were really the only person who was close to her that she could talk to! You made her understand her ‘real feelings’. You ought to be a psychiatrist, you’d be a jolly sight better than Thomas! You simply said, ‘Look, let’s sort it out together’ and you did. Then when you said ‘Stay with Thomas’, it was clear that this was right! Well done little Edward! Come and see us soon, won’t you? We were sorry to hear about Jesse Baltram. Not that you knew him, but it must have been sad. I hope and believe that you are better. Time heals, dear Edward, youth heals. You must be ready now to see that it wasn’t your fault and to forgive yourself. Everyone else has forgiven you long ago, or rather never blamed you at all. I expect you’ve heard our wonderful news about Giles. We’ll tell you all about it when we meet. Willy sends his best love and hopes you’re reading Proust! With very loving love to you, dearest Edward,

  Yours Ursula.

  Edward threw the letter onto the floor. He did not remember saying ‘Stay with Thomas’. Perhaps Midge imagined it afterwards. He opened two of the typewritten envelopes. One contained an invitation to a party from someone called Victoria Gunn, the other an invitation to a dance from someone called Julia Carson-Smith. Edward could not think who these people were and threw their letters on the floor too. The next letter was from Sarah Plowmain.

  Dear Edward,

  I’m sorry you got that awful letter from me hinting at dire things. I thought I was pregnant and I decided I must have an abortion and I was going to write to you and say it was all your fault and you had now killed someone else, our first child. However it turned out to be a false alarm and that child which caused me such frightful worry never existed at all! Even after this time interval I’m still suffering from shock. The imagining of that child was so intense (I even thought I ought to be finding out how nappies work!) and I told nobody and I couldn’t bring myself to dream of ‘consulting’ you, I felt it was all my own affair, my future, my university degree, my life. And I felt angry with you because you’d rushed into my room and started it all and rushed out again and dropped me. And you didn’t answer my other letter and I felt abandoned and I’d said how unhappy I was and you didn’t even reply! Of course I’m relieved about the ‘child’ but I feel sad too because of course in the end I probably wouldn’t have destroyed it. I miss it, and feel now almost as if it had died! Everything has been a mess lately and what hasn’t been has just made me envious! Ma is in a permanent state of excitement and indignation about May Baltram’s memoirs (I expect you are too! I refrain from further comment!). She is going to write her own memoirs and a big book on feminism. (Of course I didn’t tell her what I thought was going on inside me!) I feel so depressed. I’ve given up smoking. You know, I think my father’s death is just catching up on me. I wish I’d cared more about him. I might have given him something to live for and made him love life after all. Edward, I’d like to see you. Nothing to do with sex, I’m fed up with sex, I think I need friends. It’s only lately occurred to me that sex prevents friends — it does for women anyway. I hope you’ll be decent enough to reply to this letter. I’ve never done you any harm. I hope you’ve got over the Mark business. Of course I know one never gets over etc. etc. etc., but in a way one does and should.

  Love from Sarah.

  Edward read this letter through and crumpled it up and dropped it. He was about to destroy Mrs Wilsden’s two letters unread when he thought he had better look at them. The first one was familiar, Mrs Wilsden was beginning to repeat herself. ‘Murderer … blackness … loss … forever …’ Edward picked up the second one, opened it, glanced at it, and as it was already slipping from his fingers began to take it in.

  I have written you some terrible letters, terrible letters out of my terrible grief. I felt that you should realise what you have done. I am told that you do. Nothing can bring my son back. One has to live with such things, every day, every minute. I had to write those letters to you. Now it seems less necessary. I know you won’t forget ever in your life. But I must gather up my grief and not spend it in vain accusing. I have been asked to say, and I do say, out of the sincerity of deep sadness, that I forgive you. Perhaps it is pointless to use those words, but after having written those letters I feel I may owe it, if not to you, then to someone or something else. I imagine your state of mind and I pity you. As you may know, I am soon going away, and some peaceful gesture may be appropriate as one surveys one’s arrangements and one’s life. And an angel has spoken on your behalf.

  Jennifer Wilsden.

  Your brother’s visit did some good. Tell him.

  Edward could scarcely believe that anything so wonderful had really happened. He read the letter through again very carefully, scrutinising and weighing every word. Yes, it was a good letter, a beneficent letter, an order of release. The reference to Brownie could only be the opening of a door. A door! He could go straight round now this very moment. Knock on Mrs Wilsden’s door and find Brownie! He had been dreading confronting Mrs Wilsden, and even more the likelihood of failure, of being sent away with curses and learning nothing. Now, though his visit might be embarrassing, Mrs Wilsden could hardly deny him news — or sight — of that angel who had spoken up for him! Indeed it seemed to him very likely that Brownie was actually there, in that house, waiting for him to come. She had felt it necessary, before seeing him again, to persuade her mother to forgive him.

  Edward could not contain his joy. The metaphor was apt. He felt as if he were bursting with it, it was running out of his eyes and ears and mouth and the soles of his feet. He stood up and covered his eyes and his brows with his hands holding himself hard lest he crack with emotion. He breathed deeply and stood quite still for a while. Then he went to his washbasin and began very carefully to shave. His hand trembled. He looked at his mad grinning face as he stretched his lip for the razor. He ought to have washed his hair, but there was no time. He dried his face and drew back the long dark locks from his forehead. How dark and bright his eyes looked. He took off his cotton jersey and began looking for a tie, kicking aside the papers on the floor. He noticed the last unopened letter, with a typed envelope, which was lying on the bed and thought he had better glance at it. It was from Brownie.

  My dear Edward,

  I am very glad that I saw you and was with you. It was something so essential for both of us, it came about in such a beautiful way, and it did so much good, I am very very grateful to you for your sincerity and frankness, your love and grief for Mark, and the affectionate support which you have given to me. You will by now have had my mother’s letter. I am so happy for her that she was able after all t
o overcome that awful violent bitterness. She is in all ways better. Our mourning for Mark will never end, but it will change, become gentler and wiser and less extreme. You have helped very much in this. We had to meet. I am sorry I didn’t see you at that pub when you failed to turn up. Of course I know only something very urgent could have prevented you, so please don’t worry about that. I’m so glad we met in that room — Thomas McCaskerville wrote saying you were there — seeing that window was an experience I had to have, and it was a special blessing that I was able to have it with you. I feel that together we have ‘gone through’ so much, as if there were a set of things which had to be done, a sort of ritual which had to be completed, for Mark, and for ourselves; and without you this would never have been, for me, complete. I thank you and bless you with all my heart.

  I expect you will have heard by now that I am going to marry Giles Brightwalton. We have known and loved each other for ages, but Giles kept thinking that he was really homosexual. (He even thought he was in love with your brother at one time — I don’t know whether your brother knew.) Now at last he has entirely made up his mind. (I said nothing about him earlier, because then there was nothing to say.) We are going to be married next month and live in America, where I hope to get an academic job, and my mother is coming too. By the time you get this we shall have left England. Everyone seems pleased. Willy was especially clever about it all. I think he got alarmed when I wrote to Giles about meeting you! Giles was alarmed too! My mother, who always wanted me to marry him, is overjoyed. I think this is what made her able to forgive you.

  Edward, I hope you won’t be hurt in any way, I’m sure you won’t. It was Mark who brought us together, and our mutual affection, which I hope will remain, flowed in and through him. Giles knows about this, but I won’t talk about it to anyone else, it’s our secret. I was relieved actually when you didn’t come to the pub. It was a sort of comfortable sign. My mother and I will be living in the New World and we shall leave Mark behind in peace. And I hope that you too, dear Edward, will be at peace, feeling no guilt or self-destructive distress about the past. No one was to blame. Life is full of terrible things and one must look into the future and think about what happiness one can create for oneself and others. There is so much good that we can all do, and we must have the energy to do it. I was so sorry to hear of the death of your father. It was a blessing that you were with him near the end. Giles joins me in sending love and good wishes. We shall hope to see you, here or over there, before too long. With my most affectionate and humble thanks, With love,

  Brownie.

  Edward found that he had, while reading the letter, been panting, incoherently exclaiming, choking for breath. For he saw at once that it was not the letter he had been waiting for. He stood, feet well apart, controlling his breathing, and when he had looked at the letter again and was sure he had understood it all, he put it down on the chest of drawers beside the azalea, and lay down on the bed. So Brownie was gone. She had been taken from him and had vanished. She had been a dream of reconciliation and love, and she had finished her task. He had believed in her passionately, reverently, she had been for him the touchstone of all reality and truth. Yet in a way she had never, for him, existed at all. She had needed him for her ‘ritual’. He had been of service to her as a part of Mark, a remnant, a relic. She had written about him to Giles. She was not really part of Edward’s story after all, it had all been contrived and imagined. Even her visit to Mark’s room had been organised by Thomas. And he had failed her twice, three times, after she had done so much and come so far. She had been relieved when he did not come to her at the pub, it was a ‘comfortable sign’, an indication that she need not feel guilty about having ‘loved’ him, while all the time she loved somebody else. So, after it all, when he had thought there would be some significant and healing end to his guilt and his grief, he was presented with a simulacrum, which indeed he had fashioned himself. It was not the order of release. The light fell on those who waved goodbye, leaving him behind in the dark, the old dark full of miseries and ghosts, which he had but briefly been away from in a dream. With a demonic accuracy, the pain of jealousy had been added now to all the others. Jealousy lasts forever. Bad news for the young. And he recalled his dream about the butterfly, the psyche which flew about and could not get out of the window, and fell down dead upon the floor. Edward lay limp upon the bed with folded hands and tears gathered behind his closed eyes.

  At about this time Stuart too was reading a letter which he had just received by the morning post.

  My dear Stuart,

  I am so sorry I startled you with that curious ‘declaration of love’. It all seems very strange to me now, I suppose it’s what Thomas calls ‘a psychotic episode’, and I certainly owe you an apology! Please don’t worry about me or about my state of mind, all that is definitely over! As you know, I am at home as usual with Thomas, and have discontinued what was always an uneasy and unhappy relationship with your father. All that has been put away into the past, and I hope will not affect continued relations between our families. I rely on you for help in this. Please don’t feel upset about anything to do with me. Really you didn’t do anything to me, it was all in my mind. You weren’t part of what I was going through, you were just an external impulse like a bump or jolt. I thought you were affecting me in some way, but you weren’t really, you were a negative presence, a sort of catalyst. Because of your unworldly withdrawal I was able to see my situation, and you brought about things which didn’t really concern you at all. I put it all onto you like an ass’s head. My thinking I was in love with you was just my being surprised by my ability to see things differently. So it was all my doing, I’m so sorry! Edward was perfectly sweet, very sympathetic and kind. Please give him my love if he’s with you. Meredith sends love and says cryptically ‘it’s OK’, which he says you’ll understand. He’s awfully grown up now he’s at boarding school. Thomas is with a patient, he’s still got one or two, but if he were here he’d send love too. After a little while I hope we’ll meet again. With all best wishes and love,

  Midge.

  Sitting in the box chair in the drawing room with his book on his knee Stuart read this letter through twice. Then he raised his head and looked at how the sunshine was throwing shadows of leaves onto the shutters. He sat still a while, thinking, with his pretty lips pursed and a little intent frown above his puzzled yellow eyes. Then he relaxed and began to smile. He was glad about Meredith; and he liked the bit about the ass’s head.

  The mouse. And the spider. Who had talked about the spider? Thomas. Well, the spider mattered too. There are signs everywhere, everything is a sign. There are no ordeals, or else everything is. And no way, only the end, as somebody told him.

  He decided he should go upstairs and find out how Edward was getting on.

  When Stuart reached him Edward was sitting on the edge of his bed with a lot of crumpled paper round his feet. He looked terrible.

  ‘How tired you look, Ed. Here, I’ve brought you some coffee and today’s Times.’

  ‘Thanks. Put them on the thing, the chest of drawers. No, give me The Times. I hope there’s been an earthquake with ten thousand dead.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. I’ve had such a nice letter from Midge, she sends love. She says you were so kind to her, you were wonderful.’

  ‘So everyone thinks I’m wonderful. Except Harry. I don’t suppose he does. Does he hate me? He was quite polite last night.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t hate you!’

  ‘He was pretty angry with you, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he chucked me out twice. But when I came back again one evening — Well, he was sitting in the drawing room looking crazy, he’d been drinking and he hadn’t shaved and his hair was everywhere and his eyes staring, he looked like something out of Bedlam, you know, those pictures of mad people — like what I thought a madman looked like when I was a child. I said something and he simply ignored me, didn’t even look at me. I just sat
down — he was sitting by the fireplace and I sat here, and we just sat together in silence for quite a long time. Then quite suddenly he seemed to come together, and he said, “I’m sorry, Stuart — ” and then we talked a bit and everything was all right between us. I knew it would be. And he’s awfully glad you’re back — So you see — ’

  ‘How nice everyone is,’ said Edward. ‘I’m wonderful and everyone is nice. And you’re going to be a schoolmaster.’

  ‘Do go down and talk to Harry — when you feel like it — just — ’

  ‘Yes, yes. So we’re all gathered together.’

  ‘And Willy rang up to say he was looking forward to your being back next term and were you getting on with some reading. I suppose you know that Giles is going to marry Mark’s sister?’

  ‘Oh that, yes. I’ve known about that for ages. I mean that it was likely. It’s splendid, isn’t it.’ It occurred to Edward that of course no one knew about his relationship, his love relationship, with Brownie. Brownie hadn’t talked, and he hadn’t. It was ‘our secret’. What a good thing it was that he had never told anyone. He could do without public commiserations and sympathetic looks — without the shame of having lost her.

  ‘I think it’s such a good thing,’ said Stuart, ‘I’ve always been very fond of Giles, he’s such a splendid chap. And I’m told she’s stalwart. I think you don’t know her? I haven’t met her.’

  You have though, thought Edward, in that room where I said she was Betty something. I don’t suppose he’ll remember. When he meets her as Mrs Giles Brightwalton she’ll be so bloody transformed by matrimonial happiness and the USA. Yes, she’s stalwart all right. Stuart’s vocabulary was often curiously apt. As he talked Edward was idly turning the pages of The Times. Suddenly something caught his eye.