A Fairly Honourable Defeat (51 page)

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Authors: Iris Murdoch

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‘She’s got herself involved with Rupert.’
Tallis went on staring at the window. He said, ‘That simply cannot be true.’
‘Oh well,’ said Julius, picking up his umbrella, ‘it’s no good talking to you. I dare say it’s all on the highest plane. I don’t suppose she means to appropriate Rupert. He’s just sorting her out. And tidying you away is the obvious first step.’
‘Oh go to hell, will you,’ said Tallis. He reached out and poured himself some more beer.
‘You need looking after,’ said Julius. ‘There’s a most peculiar smell in here. The place must be crawling with germs. You ought to have it thoroughly cleaned up. Or better still move somewhere else and start again. Look, I’ve got plenty of money. I never lend money on principle, it only causes trouble. Let me give you some.’
‘Don’t be idiotic.’
Julius sighed. ‘I won’t say I’m misunderstood. I’m sure you understand me very well. But I am, as I say, disappointed, in more ways than one. Well, good-bye. It looks as if I am going to have to unroll my umbrella after all.’
 
After Julius had gone Tallis sat for a long time watching the slow quick quick slow of the raindrops coming down the window pane. They glittered very faintly gold, like white sapphires. The rain was noisier now, hissing, beating. The Sikh was out driving his bus and wearing his contentious turban. The Pakistanis upstairs had taken in a flood of new relations from Lahore, including several children. There was a faint continuous distant din. A policeman had called that morning and asked for someone with a name which sounded like one of the upstairs names. Tallis had said he knew nothing. Usually he helped the police. Sometimes suddenly on instinct he didn’t.
He thought, Daddy must be still asleep or he’d be yelling his head off. Those new tranquillizer tablets must be very soporific. Tallis gave a long sigh. He finished the beer. Things which had scuttled away in terror on Julius’s arrival had begun to come out from under the sink and the dresser. They watched him. He thought about Morgan and Rupert. Any serious involvement there was inconceivable. Hilda and Rupert were so married. And Rupert was an honest conscientious man. And Morgan loved her sister. That Rupert was trying to sort Morgan out, that he could believe, and also that Rupert might have advised her to get a divorce. Rupert was impatient with muddles.
I won’t agree to a divorce, thought Tallis, I’ll fight that. If there is no divorce she’ll come back. Or am I just deceiving myself? I must do something, I must see her. But it’s always such a rotten failure when I do. I’m so clumsy and stupid with her. I’ll write to her today. Perhaps I should see Rupert too. If only I had some energy and could
think.
His heart lurched with the now familiar pain of remembering his father. Other thoughts came and went, they had to, but this deep thought hung like a leaden weight upon his heart, pulling his consciousness steadily back in the direction of pain. How soon would his father begin to suspect something? In these days he was accomplishing the tragic and final passage from being an ailing person to being a seriously ill person. Tallis had said, ‘You’ll be up and about in a week or so.’ Had he been believed? He ought to tell his father. Julius was right. Leonard owned his life. He owned it down to its last miserable fragment. This terrible thing belonged to him too. And if he wanted to think his own final thoughts he should be allowed to think them. He should not be deceived. I ought to tell him, thought Tallis, yes I ought to tell him. Only not today.
Every night now Tallis dreamed of his sister. Every night a lurid radiance hung like a canopy about his bed and a tall white-robed figure regarded him, formidably quietly, in silence. He could not see her eyes but he could feel their scrutiny, while he lay sweating with excitement and a sort of fear. The apparition never failed to amaze him. And he sometimes felt afterwards that it wearied him. Something was spent. Had his nocturnal visitor changed in some way? Or was it that he had at last come to realize what had always been so? It was not a protective or a benign presence. It was not exactly hostile either, but ambiguous. Here something much greater and more august was watching him, but watching with a curiosity which was not totally unlike that of the creatures with claws and tails which had for so long inhabited the holes and corners of his world.
Tallis felt suddenly giddy. The giddiness came with a sense of large empty space, encircling him but not supporting him, as if he were spinning, spinning, spinning, but just about to tilt and fall. He held on tightly to the edge of the table, staring at his hand and at the bright red stain upon Julius’s handkerchief. He could recognize but not understand these great moments of temptation. The formless light which he had once known had withdrawn from him, and he was now capable for the first time in his life of believing it to be illusory. Perhaps she was the queen of the other world after all and that glory had been just an empty reflection from the passing splendour of her robe?
CHAPTER TWELVE
 
‘SO YOU DON’T FEEL that my visits are intrusive?’ said Julius softly.
Hilda released his hand, which she had been holding. ‘No. You have been a tremendous comfort. I really don’t know how I could have got through this time without someone to talk to. Without
you
to talk to. You are so wise.’
‘Not wise, alas, but your very devoted servant.’
It had been raining, but now there was an obscure golden greenish light in the garden. It was afternoon. Hilda and Julius sat beside a tea table in the drawing room. Tea had been drunk but no one had tried the walnut cake.
‘I am sure you are right. You have convinced me,’ said Hilda, ‘that it is better just to wait and let
them
unravel it all.’ She stared out at the dripping roses.
‘You see, they are so
proud
,’ said Julius. ‘Let us be tender to their pride.’
‘It goes against my instincts in a way—’
‘I know. But remember, you are sacrificing yourself to them. You suffer. And you spare them suffering.’
‘You put it so clearly. Yes, I know Rupert
will
tell me about it. He will tell me, won’t he?’
‘Yes, of course. He may be in a tiny bit of a muddle at the moment. But it will all pass and he’ll tell you. You must be patient, Hilda. After all, we don’t suppose, do we, that anything much is actually happening?’
‘Something is happening to me,’ said Hilda. ‘Something is—perhaps—irrevocably spoilt.’
‘I am glad that you say “perhaps”. You simply must not give houseroom to that thought. It is your
duty
, Hilda, to keep un-spoilt the thing of which you are the guardian.’
‘It isn’t just Rupert, it’s Morgan—Oh God—Sorry, Julius, we’ve been over and over this. You’ve been so kind, listening to all my obsessive worries—’
‘I know, I know, my dear. You’re hurt two ways. But one simply must not exaggerate. I blame myself in a way. We’ve so talked it over that it seems larger than it is. It isn’t as if they were having a love affair or planning to run away or anything. It’s just a momentary emotional patch in a brother-in-law sister-in-law relationship. This isn’t at all unusual. Morgan needs help and Rupert can give it. It’s as simple as that.’
‘You seemed to think more seriously of it when we had that first conversation.’
‘No, indeed, I never thought it serious. And you don’t really either, do you, Hilda? Come now.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s the deceptions—Sometimes it all becomes huge, like a nightmare, as if
they
were living in an epic world.’
‘Come, come. You must satisfy yourself. You must have been watching Rupert. You must see it’s not all that important to him. What’s a little prevarication about an evening’s outing? I daresay it’s happened before now! And I can just imagine him and Morgan sitting and discussing the economic situation or post-Christian ethics or something and forgetting to hold hands. They’re such an intense pair.’
‘But then why—I can’t get it into focus. I don’t want to imagine anything. I’m sure Rupert’s never deceived me before, even about the tiniest things.’
‘Your faith is touching, Hilda. Of course we know that Rupert is an exceptional person.’
Hilda sat very still, looking out at the garden where the light was growing pinker and the rose bushes were becoming plumper as the air became warm and the raindrops were drying upon their leaves. She sat carefully on her chair, very upright, her hands lightly resting on the arms, as if she had suddenly realized that she was made of very thin china. She had assumed that Rupert could not lie to her. Looked at from the outside it might seem a naive assumption. But she was not on the outside. She had extra proofs, the proofs provided by a sense of connection, a loving communication which carried its own marks of truth. Just lately this communication had failed. But how well did she remember the past? Perhaps it had failed before? Had Rupert really been satisfied with his marriage? And would she, unless driven to it, ever have come to ask herself this question? Her own motives for self-deception were strong and for the first time visible to her.
‘I’ve got to keep my head,’ said Hilda, thinking aloud.
‘Don’t
worry
so, Hilda.’ Julius was leaning forward intently across the tea table. His fingers touched the back of her tensed hand. His dark thickly-lidded eyes gleamed at her, with reassuring humour, with pleading affection. His hair was a little shorter and more sleeked back, which made his face seem younger and more nakedly aquiline. His long curly mouth smiled, then drooped with sympathy. ‘My dear, relax. Remember that you are confronted with a number of little things, not with one big thing.’
‘A lot of little things make a big thing.’
‘No, not in this region. Rupert’s misdemeanours, if they are such, are quite scattered probably quite momentary and random lapses. All right, suppose he did lie to you the other evening. Suppose he has given Morgan money. Suppose they have exchanged a letter or two, and been seen about together. These things should
not
be added up. It is far more just to see them as a series of impulses than as a deliberate policy.’
‘Given her
money
?’ said Hilda. This was a new idea.
‘Well, why not?’ said Julius. ‘I confess this was just something which I assumed or guessed. Morgan seems to have got some money from somewhere lately. Consider all those rather expensive new clothes. And I certainly haven’t given her anything.’
Hilda blinked at the garden which was damply sunny now, glittering here and there with sparks of light where some last drops of rain hung downward from the leaves. Well, why not? But the idea of Rupert secretly giving Morgan money for clothes was somehow appalling. Perhaps he went with her to the shops—‘No, no,’ said Hilda. ‘No, I doubt it—yet the clothes—I did wonder—’
‘It’s not a very grave matter after all,’ said Julius. ‘Come. Do you tell Rupert exactly how you spend your money? No little secrets?’
‘No secrets at all.’ Well, almost none, thought Hilda. I never told him I’ve been subsidizing Peter. But that’s different. Different yet still a falsehood, a rift in the structure.
‘Well, I think these things are tiny,’ said Julius, ‘and you ought to set your mind at rest. It’s better to know than not to know. I expect you’ve already had a quick look through Rupert’s desk.’
‘No, I haven’t!’ said Hilda. ‘I wouldn’t dream of searching Rupert’s desk! Besides, he’s such a careful man—’ Where am I going? she thought. I have leapt in a second from indignation at the very idea to the thought that anyway it would be profitless. How quickly can one lose one’s faith and abandon one’s standards.
‘Hilda, Hilda, don’t misunderstand me. I wasn’t thinking of a search for incriminating documents, for I’m sure there aren’t any. I merely thought that it might relieve your mind. I mean, suppose you found some quite casual note from Morgan, affectionate,
ordinary.
That would give you an inside look at their relationship. And that is exactly what you need—to calm all those ridiculous fears.’
‘Well, I’m certainly not going to search Rupert’s desk!’ said Hilda.
‘Quite right, my dear, if you feel like that. But do please believe me that it’s all just an unconnected pile of trivialities. No love affair, no grand passion, nothing with consequences. You do really believe this, don’t you?’

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