Edgar felt for a second that he was being visited by a ghost. Then he saw, feeling his own years, that it was only a young girl, a schoolgirl, a stranger. She was tall and dark-complexioned with long hair and very large dark eyes. She wore a loose blue cotton sweater which reached almost to the hem of her short skirt. Her hair, disordered by haste, had spread and looped itself about her like scales, like chain-mail. She had the urgent look of a runaway as she tapped upon the glass.
Stuffing the letters away into his pocket, Edgar went to open the window. Without waiting to be further invited, the girl still snuffling and panting in her haste, thrust a long brown bare leg through, then taking hold of Edgar’s shoulder as a convenient support, steadied herself and drew the other long leg after. The room was suddenly filled with warm close animal presence, as if a beautiful agile beast, smelling of the woods and still glorious with its own speed, had leapt in. His shoulder still burning with her touch, Edgar backed away from her, murmuring ‘I say – I say —’
‘Excuse me. Where is Monty?’
‘Gone,’ said Edgar hollowly.
‘But will be back when?’
‘I don’t know. He’s gone to Italy. For a long time.’
‘Oh.’ Kiki St Loy sat down on a chair and consulted with her still heaving bosom about whether or not she should cry. She had felt suddenly quite unable not to come to Locketts, persuaded that both Monty was willing her to come and that he would be very angry with her for coming. When the combination of these two ideas had become irresistible she had felt winged with joy and under the orders of her deepest self, directed by cosmic rays expressive of the will of the stars. She had raced in her car, raced on her feet, panting with the declared necessity of love. And now she had run into an emptiness more final than any words of rejection. He was gone and would make himself a stranger to her for ever. She struggled with her tears for a moment, won the struggle, and looked up at Edgar with eyes even wider and more glistening.
‘I am Kiki St Loy, a friend of Monty.’
‘I am Edgar Demarnay, also a friend of Monty.’
‘Then we must be friends of each other.’
‘Friendship is unfortunately not a transitive relation.’
‘Ah, you are the professor!’
‘Not any more actually.’
‘But you are head of an Oxford College and are they not all professors?’
‘No.’
‘How can that be?’
‘Very easily.’
‘I want to come to Oxford to make my bachelor. When can I come and talk to you about it for a long time?’
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean,’ said Edgar, his hand on the door and his eyes upon the blue sweater where the wild hair had made a glowing veneer over each breast, ‘but I am afraid I am just leaving —’
‘I shall come to you in Oxford then. On Thursday, yes? I shall drive my car to your college and say I am the guest of the – what are you called – the Principal?’
‘The Master,’ said Edgar faintly.
‘How beautiful. The Master!’
There was a loud banging upon the front door. Then a long steady peal upon the bell. Kiki, with one quick movement, gathered all her truant hair in a long hand and tossed it back over her shoulder. One stride took her to the open window and another precipitated her through it. As she turned to look at Edgar, waving farewell, her lips inaudibly uttering ‘Oxford, Thursday’ it seemed to him that there were tears in those huge dark eyes.
Dazed, Edgar went to the front door and opened it. Pinn, who was standing outside, one hand poised to ring the bell again, sidled quickly in. ‘Where’s Monty?’
‘Gone,’ said Edgar. ‘To Italy.’
‘Ah.’ She looked anxiously round, as if trying to descry changes in the house, or as if she might after all spot Monty hiding under a chair. Then she went on into the drawing-room with Edgar after her. ‘So he’s escaped. I’m not surprised. He couldn’t just stay and be, could he. Someone like Monty lives entirely in gestures. What am I saying? There is no one like Monty. And how are you, Edgar? Heart-broken?’
Edgar said nothing. He stared with respectful amazement at Pinn, at her glowing rounded cheeks and her neat healthy hair and her military handbag with the brass buckles and the very soft silky scarf at her neck and the Italian cameo brooch that held the scarf.
‘Do you mind if I pour myself a drink? I can see a bottle and glasses over yonder. Thanks. Here’s how. Cheer up, Edgar. Monty was some sort of monster. If he’s gone back under the ice so much the better. Do you mind if I stay here and talk to you for a while? It’s not exactly that I’m suffering from shock. I just feel it’s the end of an era. Conspiracy and treachery and violence and sudden death. Did you know you gave Blaise a black eye that night simply by raising your elbow?’
‘What night?’
‘Never mind, my pet. I say, what do you think of the love birds over at Hood House? Do sit down and let’s have a good natter.’
‘I’m just leaving for Oxford.’
‘Well, I must talk to you,’ said Pinn. ‘It strikes me that you and I are the only sane people in this story, so we must get together. I’ll come and see you in Oxford. I’ve never been there, so you can show me the city. When can I come? Soon? Friday?’
There was a sound in the hall, the unmistakable sound of a key being inserted in a lock. Pinn and Edgar stiffened, then bolted out into the hall jostling each other in the doorway. A figure was entering the house. A tall dignified handsome woman set down her suitcase and confronted Edgar. She was hatless and wore her lustrous dark hair combed down on to her neck in a smooth metallic mane. Her linen dress, the colour of cornflowers, was long and full, caught to her slim waist by a belt of silver links. She appeared to be about thirty. Her radiantly cunning dark eyes regarded Edgar with a gaze that seemed suddenly familiar.
‘Isn’t it Edgar?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you remember me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You remember my visiting you at Mockingham?’
‘Yes, Mrs Small.’
‘Where’s Monty?’
‘Gone to Italy,’ said Edgar. ‘This is Miss – er-’ Her name had disappeared.
‘Pinn,’ said Pinn. ‘I won’t keep you. See you in Oxford on Friday. Cheery-bye, Edgar. Don’t forget our compact.’
‘Who was that?’
Edgar felt unable to explain. Who after all was it? He waved vaguely, offering Mrs Small the house. ‘I’m so sorry Monty —’
‘Never mind. I expected it. Perhaps it’s just as well. Now I can look after everything here. I hope he hasn’t sold anything?’
‘Not that I—’
‘Now, dear boy, let us come in here and sit down and you shall tell me all about it. I know how devoted you always were to Monty. I want to hear the whole story.’
‘I’m afraid I’m just leaving —’
‘That’s a pity. I might have wanted you to move some furniture. Now where will you be at the weekend?’
‘At Mockingham.’
‘Good. I’ll come there. May I stay the -? How kind. Expect me Saturday lunch time. Now I won’t keep you. I just want to look round the house and make sure there’s nothing missing.’
The vision vanished. Edgar heard the soft determined footfalls mounting the stairs. He bolted quickly into Monty’s study and shut the door. It all came swooping back to him, his unhappiness, his loss. Sophie was dead, Harriet was dead, Monty was gone, David was just a boy who would pass by as boys passed by. Oxford was full of Davids, bitter-sweet boys, each one a fruitless brief joy, perhaps a long sorrow. Come in, defeat, come in and make yourself at home.
Edgar thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the ruffled package of his letters to Sophie. As he did so a shower of white rose petals suddenly flew about him, adhering to his jacket, falling upon the carpet and the warm dusty hearth stone. The petals of the big white rose which had clambered so high up into the cherry tree and whose flowers he had seen t
ranslucently alight against the brilliance of the sky. Edgar looked down at the strewn whiteness, like little messages, like confetti. He had always preferred white flowers. He then began to unfold one of the letters and to peruse upon the faded paper his own years-old writing. Oh my darling darling girl. How far away that love seemed now, and yet it was part of a whole, part of his own mysterious continuing self. I always wanted Monty’s women, he reflected, perhaps it was a way of wanting Monty. And yet of course it was not just that. It was special, it was private, it was a part of history with its own unique sacredness. I won’t read these letters, thought Edgar, these letters which so much ‘amused’ Monty. I couldn’t reread them now with innocent enough eyes. Better not disturb the decent work of memory and of time. Better to leave them here. The wood fire, the fire which Monty had lit centuries ago in another era, was glowing red at Edgar’s feet. He thrust the small bundle of letters into the hottest part of the fire and raked the embers over them and watched them flame. Good-bye to the past, with its mysteries which would never be fully unfolded. Come in, defeat.
No, thought Edgar, no, I may be in the Neva but I’m damned if I’ll drown! If I ever believed in divine grace now is the time to make a grab for it. Every little thing matters, yes it does, and if Monty thinks it is greed and not love that says this, well Monty need not be right. Monty is simply a chap with his own troubles, a chap just like me after all. Monty will change his mind, thought Edgar. He is not the dear awful monster I have sometimes thought him to be. He is an ordinary human fellow with his muddles and his needs. He will change his mind. I shall see Monty again.
The letters were all burnt. Edgar moved away from the fire and quietly opened the door into the hall. Upstairs there was a sound of drawers being opened, objects being shifted. He tiptoed across to the front door and let himself out into the bright sunshine. And as he did so he thought to himself, and now there are no less than three women, three powerful handsome women, wanting my attention, needing my help, insisting on coming to see me. Fascinating women would stroll again upon the terraces at Mockingham, mingling with the reading parties of charming young men, all of them affectionately flirting with their genial host. The heart would be touched again, not dreadfully perhaps, not divinely, but touched. There would be innocent frivolous unimportant happiness once again in the world. Three good-looking women, he thought, and all of them after me! And he could not help being a little bit cheered up and consoled as he got into the Bentley and set off alone for Oxford.
• • •
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Iris Murdoch in Penguins
A Selection
THE FLIGHT FROM THE ENCHANTER
A group of people have elected ambiguous and fascinating Mischa Fox to be their god. While Mischa is charming his devotees, his alter ego, Calvin Blick, is inspiring fear, and Rosa Keepe, a high-minded blue stocking under Mischa’s spell (who also loves two Polish brothers), is swept into the battle between sturdy common sense and dangerous enchantment.
A FAIRLY HONOURABLE DEFEAT
Rupert and Hilda are perfectly matched. Their only worries are a dropout son and Morgan, Hilda’s unstable sister, just back from America. Enter Julius, Morgan’s ex-lover, determined to give Rupert and Hilda’s seemingly impregnable marriage a mild jolt...
THE BLACK PRINCE
A remarkable intellectual thriller with a superbly involuted plot, and a meditation on the nature of art, of love and of the power of human relationships.
THE ITALIAN GIRL
Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life. Returning for his mother’s funeral he finds himself involved in the old, awful problems together with some new ones. He also re-discovers the eternal family servant, the ever-changing Italian girl, who was always ‘a second mother’...
THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUPIL
To the English spa town of Ennistone steeped in ancient lore and subterranean inspiration the Philosopher returns. He exerts an almost magical influence over a host of Ennistonians, and especially over George McCaffrey, the Philosopher’s old pupil, a demonic man desperate for redemption.
Iris Murdoch, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
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