The Flight From the Enchanter

by Iris Murdoch

  Rosa knew this; and she knew, too, that she had not got the strength to escape from the power of the brothers. It was profitless to ask now whether the bond that tied her to them was love. The darkness in which those two held her was profound beyond the reach of names. She could not of her own will break the spell. And then she would ask herself and why should I break it? What do I care about other people! Why should I sacrifice this true love? The brothers, after all, had committed no fault beyond that of loving her. They were poor and helpless, they were her children. In reason, she had nothing to hold against them. Whereas of Mischa she knew much ill and suspected more, so that he became for her at moments the very figure of evil. These things Rosa said to herself. But they were not the things which she was really thinking.

  Rosa was aware that Hunter had never forgiven her for refusing to marry Mischa; and that inevitably the boy must be dreaming something, hoping something, in the present situation. Sometimes it seemed likely to Rosa that to sell himself into Mischa’s power was precisely Hunter’s profoundest wish — though it was not necessarily the one on which he would have acted, even had the complication concerning his sister been absent from the scene. As it was, Hunter was in the dark, even concerning the degree of Rosa’s attachment to the Artemis, let alone concerning the possible existence of any remnant of her attachment to Mischa. He could only make guesses about her attitude; and his sharpest temptation would be to imagine that perhaps what Rosa really wanted, only she didn’t like to say it to him openly, was that he should sell the periodical and so in some sense let them both be drawn back into the orbit of Mischa Fox. This was how Rosa saw the situation. Her prediction was that, failing any lead from herself, Hunter would refuse to sell the Artemis, influenced partly by ideals of independence but chiefly by the fear of offending his sister, should it be the case, as after all the available evidence suggested, that she wished to have no further dealings of any kind with Mischa Fox.

  The annual meeting of the shareholders of Artemis was due to occur in about a week’s time. If Hunter should decide to sell, the matter could most conveniently be raised then, and indeed, technically speaking, settled at once. It was a part of the consitution of Artemis that decisions taken at an appropriately publicized meeting of shareholders required no quorum. The energetic women who had founded the periodical and who had felt their love for it to be eternal had argued that if ever a time came when shareholders were too indifferent to attend meetings the thing should be left to its fate. That time, which they had been unable to imagine, had come; and now each year, as they dozed by their firesides, Hunter read out the annual report to an empty room and took whatever policy decisions were necessary with the assistance of Rosa, who was very often the only shareholder present. The sale, therefore, could very easily be put through; and when Rosa reflected upon how, from so many mundane points of view, attractive the idea must seem, she felt that she was putting an intolerable strain upon Hunter. But in so far as to help him she would have to make up her own mind about a number of matters which she could scarcely bear even to think about, let alone to make definite, she felt herself to be incapable of doing so.

  Suddenly, however, Rosa did think of a project which held some promise of at least lightening the tension — and, passionately desiring action of some kind, and quite incapable of the action which was most gravely needed, she seized upon the idea with joy. It was an idea which had been suggested to her by John Rainborough when she had last met him with Peter Saward and which had indeed occurred to her very much earlier but had been rejected for a variety of reasons: namely, to appeal for funds to one of the shareholders. Rosa and Hunter had discussed this possibility long ago, but they had decided against it then. As Hunter put it, ‘If we go stirring up those old girls, they’ll start to interfere’; and Rosa herself had felt too proud to ask for contributions from elderly and wealthy women who had been the admirers and followers of her mother, and who, she felt, ought to be coming forward now of their own accord to give assistance to Artemis.

  When this idea came afresh to Rosa in the midst of her troubles, it seemed to her a very good one. If some large sum of money were suddenly forthcoming for Artemis from another source, this would simplify, though it would hardly solve, the situation vis-à-vis Mischa Fox. Rosa told herself that as things stood at the moment she could never be sure how much in her own attitude was a genuine concern for Hunter’s welfare. If this item could be looked after by some means quite external to the situation, then, Rosa felt, she might be able to see more clearly just what was at stake. To bring the Artemis financially speaking out of danger would so enormously relieve her mind and Hunter’s that she could believe them both capable of miracles of clear thinking and decisive action once that was achieved. If the sum of money available were large enough, she might even think in terms of a regular salary for Hunter and a new lease of life for the periodical; and although Rosa was not optimistic enough to imagine that money was really the solution to all her difficulties, she was certainly overjoyed at finding at last a field in which she was free to move — and the notion that she could, on her own initiative and in however small a way, alter the situation in which Mischa Fox had placed her, made her feel already halfway towards winning back her freedom.

  When she got home from the factory that night she took the book of shareholders and carried it off to her own room. She said nothing to Hunter about her plan. As she studied the book, it seemed to her that there were two people whom she might approach, one a Mrs Carrington-Morris, who had been, and still was, a prominent Methodist, and the other Mrs Camilla Wingfield, the eccentric lady who had been mentioned by Rainborough. Rosa debated for some time between these two and decided finally in favour of Mrs Wingfield. It might turn out that Mrs Wingfield was too crazy, but it was even more likely to turn out that Mrs Carrington-Morris was too sane; and Rosa decided to bet first upon the generosity of Mrs Wingfield, which might be non-existent but might equally be extravagant. Rosa could also remember having met both ladies some thirty years ago and having felt a marked preference for Mrs Wingfield. It was her name, therefore, which she now looked up in the London telephone directory, to discover to her surprise that Mrs Wingfield also lived in Campden Hill Square, in a house on the opposite side which could be seen out of the window. Rosa took this to be a good omen.

  Rosa decided to open her campaign by a personal visit, rather than by a letter, and to rely upon the effects of surprise together with her mother’s name and her own physical resemblance to that lady to bring about an immediate capitulation. So it was that on the following day, which was a Saturday, Rosa was knocking on Mrs Wingfield’s door at about four o’clock. She had calculated that it was wisest to call at tea-time, when any embarrassment caused by her arrival could be rapidly dispelled amid the dispensing of cups of tea.

  Rosa knocked several time without getting any answer and had stepped back on to the pavement to look up at the closely curtained windows when the door opened very quietly to a gap of a few inches and a pale face peered out. Rosa sprang forwards with such alacrity that the owner of the face immediately shut the door again, and Rosa could hear the chain being fixed. With this additional safeguard the door opened once more to a narrow slit and Rosa could see one pale blue eye looking out at her.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Rosa, made thoroughly nervous by this reception, ‘I am anxious to see Mrs Camilla Wingfield. I wonder if you could tell me whether she is at home?’

  At this the door closed again, and Rosa was about to go away in despair when she heard the chain being removed, and a moment later the door was thrown wide open to reveal a fuzzy-headed woman dressed in an overall.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry!’ said this personage, beaming at Rosa. ‘I took you for a gipsy. You must forgive me. There are so many around at this time of year. They work with the circuses in the winter, you know, and in the summer they do farm work, and about this time of year, which is an inbetween time, they go about in the towns and try to sell things. One came last we
ek and was so unpleasant. She put her foot in the door and wouldn’t go away. In the end I had to buy some heather off her to make her go. You wouldn’t mind if they sold useful things like brushes, but selling heather at that price, it’s just daylight robbery. You must excuse me for having thought you were a gipsy. As soon as you spoke, of course, I knew you weren’t one. But at first I just saw your black hair, and it gave me a turn. I can see now from your appearance, too, that you’re not a gipsy. It was just seeing you for a moment I made a mistake. It’s so unusual for a lady these days to wear her hair so long. They all do, of course, I mean the gipsies. But your hair is very beautiful, if I may say so, and very becoming the way you wear it. I wish more young girls would wear their hair long. But they can’t be bothered, can they, they’re always in such a rush, the poor things, bless their hearts.’

  During this speech Rosa relaxed completely and began to smile. She liked the speaker, whose social class she still felt unable to guess. Rosa prided herself on being able to place the people she met, considered as social phenomena, very rapidly: a capacity she had picked up from her mother. That distinguished Socialist had possessed an almost uncanny sensitivity to social differences. Rosa decided that what confronted her was, in spite of the overall and the woollen stockings sagging towards the ankle, Mrs Wingfield’s lady companion. But the age of this person remained uncertain. Her large eyes were of a blue so pale as to be almost white, like a washed-out garment, and the flesh of her face and neck, which was of a light greyish colour, was covered all over with a criss-cross of tiny wrinkles of anxiety and good nature which destroyed the lines of the features, so that the eyes looked at Rosa out of a flabby expanse of flesh which reached with no other interruption from the wig-like hair, which resembled the interior of a mattress, to the round-necked lace of the ancient dress which announced the beginning of the body.

  ‘I am Miss Foy,’ said this person, with the air of one uttering a famous name. The dry skin undulated as she spoke, like the skin of an alligator.

  ‘Ah!’ said Rosa, with what she hoped was the appropriate intonation.

  ‘Yes!’ said Miss Foy triumphantly. She laid the dishcloth which she was holding over her arm. ‘I’m doing the wash-up,’ she said.

  ‘I was wanting to speak to Mrs Wingfield,’ said Rosa. ‘I wonder if that’s convenient?’

  ‘She doesn’t expect you,’ said Miss Foy reproachfully.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rosa. ‘If it would be easier, I could go away and come again.’ She cursed herself for not having thought to bring a visiting-card.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter!’ said Miss Foy cheerfully. ‘She’ll be amused to see you. You’d better go straight up. Come in, my dear; that’s right.’

  Miss Foy ushered Rosa in, and as the door closed behind her they were plunged into almost complete darkness. Rosa could descry various very large objects clustered round the walls, while overhead there appeared to be a number of plants which leaned over the scene, rustling and breathing. In the background there was a curious moaning sound, as if some sort of machine were working.

  ‘You must forgive me if I don’t announce you,’ said Miss Foy.’ She hates to see me when I’m washing up. The drawingroom is in the front on the first floor. You’ll probably hear her singing, and that will guide you. Don’t be nervous, my dear. And,’ Miss Foy drew Rosa close to her and lowered her voice, ‘don’t mind the funny things she says, will you, she only says them to shock people, and she doesn’t really mean them, you know.’

  With that, Miss Foy abruptly vanished into the darkness, leaving Rosa to find her way upstairs. She began to mount; and as she went, she became aware that the curious sound which had met her as she entered and which had continued throughout her conversation with Miss Foy was in fact made by a human voice. This sound, as Rosa approached it, revealed itself as a deep and not unpleasant voice, which was singing in an oddly monotonous manner. Filled with curiosity about what she was going to see, Rosa knocked on the drawingroom door. There was no reply, and the singing continued. So she knocked again, more loudly, and then walked in.

  She found herself in a large, bright, untidy, over-furnished drawingroom, amid whose litter of objects her dazzled eyes could at first descry no human form. Then she became aware of a pair of stout masculine-looking shoes, whose soles, high upon the arm of an enormous sofa, were pointing towards her. The owner of the shoes and the voice, which continued to sing, evidently lay out of sight upon the sofa. Rosa walked round until she was broadside on to the sofa, and there was revealed a tall grey-haired woman, dressed in a tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, who lay prostrate with her feet raised well above her head, while beside her upon the floor stood a champagne bottle and a glass. As Rosa came into sight, the owner of the shoes turned upon her a face of considerable power, from whose very dry, heavily powdered and apparently unwrinkled expanse two dark brown eyes looked serenely out.

  ‘You’re just in time for the row in the hall,’ said Mrs Wingfield.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Rosa.

  ‘I said you’re just in time for the row in the hall,’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘It’s simply an expression. Before your day, I expect. Fashions in idiom change so rapidly.’ Mrs Wingfield spoke in a deep lazy voice, which was not the voice of a very old woman.

  ‘I’m so sorry to walk in unannounced,’ said Rosa, and then regretted this remark, which seemed to reflect on Miss Foy.

  ‘I suppose the old trout let you in,’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘That’s all right. She’s washing up. Have some champagne. It’s the only thing I can drink now that doesn’t upset my stomach. Sorry there’s only one glass.’

  With surprising energy she swung her legs down and poured out some champagne, which she handed to Rosa. Then she swung her legs back into their original position and began to drone, ‘In the twi — twi — twilight, out in the beau — ti -ful twilight. I’ve never forgotten a song that I heard before 1910 and never remembered one that I heard since,’ she explained to Rosa.

  ‘You have not, in my view, missed much,’ said Rosa politely. She had not yet got the wavelength of Mrs Wingfield, and was trying to move carefully.

  ‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ said Mr Wingfield. ‘This is just like this bloody age. People walk into your drawingroom without any by-your-leave, and before you know where you are they’re drinking your champagne, and you don’t know them from Adam.’

  Rosa was about to announce her identity when Mrs Wingfield cried out, ‘Don’t tell me! Let me guess!’ She turned her head towards Rosa, and her two dark eyes, which appeared vertically one over the other above the plump cushions of the sofa, surveyed her critically.

  ‘Would you mind showing me your profile?’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘Thank you. Yes, I thought so. You are Miss Keepe, Margaret Richardson’s daughter, and you live on the other side of the square.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rosa. ‘We met once, a long time ago, when I was a child. You’ve probably forgotten.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten at all,’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not as senile as you evidently imagine. We met at Wimbledon. You must have been about eight, and your manners were shocking, even then. But I’m damned if I can recall your Christian name.’

  ‘Rosa.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘Your mother was an absolute bolshy. But she’d have had her bellyful of it by now if she’d lived.’

  Rosa flushed with annoyance and was about to reply when Mrs Wingfield cried, ‘Don’t be angry! I adored your mother. I probably appreciated her far better than you did. I must say I wondered when you’d have the courtesy to call on me. I suppose you want some money, though; that’s the only reason why anyone calls on me nowadays. Well, you can’t have any. Hasn’t anyone told you? I’m an old skinflint. But you can stay and talk to me till I go to bed. You may have precious few manners, but you can’t walk out as soon as you’ve come, and now I’ve got you here I’m going to keep you. What do I care if you never come
again? Have some champagne.’

  Rosa, who was poised between annoyance, amusement, and despair, said ‘Thank you’, and held out the glass.

  ‘Oh, you want some more, do you?’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘Well, give me back the glass. You can drink it out of a cup. There’s one left over there, I think, in the cabinet.’

  Rosa went over to the cabinet, picking her way between the poufs, hassocks, cushions, footstools, and occasional tables with which the floor was strewn in the interstices of the larger pieces of furniture. She took down a very beautiful Dresden cup and brought it back to Mrs Wingfield. The latter had meanwhile filled and emptied the champagne glass with startling rapidity and was filling it for herself once again, her head dangling awkwardly over the edge of the sofa.

  ‘You’d better wipe it with your hanky,’ she said, as Rosa held out the cup. ‘It hasn’t been dusted for two or three reigns.’ This appeared to be true. Rosa rubbed her handkerchief over it, and Mrs Wingfield poured in the remnants of the champagne.

  ‘Not much left, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘and this is the last bottle. Well, I’m a liar, it’s not the last bottle, I only mean it’s the last you’ll get.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful cup,’ said Rosa politely.

  ‘Yes, it’s sweet, isn’t it,’ said Mrs Wingfield. ‘I’ve got some lovely stuff here, only you can’t see it, there’s such a mess. I must get the old trout to show you round some time. Just now she’s washing up. I only let her wash up once in three weeks. It takes that long for us to work through all our china. I hate Foy dashing away after a meal to wash up, it destroys my digestion. So we wait till there’s no china left and then Foy makes a day of it.’

  ‘I see. What a sensible arrangement,’ said Rosa.