Iris Murdoch - An Unofficial rose

Humphrey was also depressed, Felix had always, from the very beginning of his sister's marriage, found it a trifle difficult to believe in Humphrey. He found his brother-in-law mysterious, in some ways substanceless, in some ways too good to be true. There was something in him he admired and to which he found it hard to give a name: perhaps it was Humphrey's courage, or an artistic aloofness from conventional life. His brother-in-law had particularly taken his breath away at the time of the catastrophe, which Humphrey had weathered with a calmness and irony which made him seem a man truly superior to fortune. Yet Humphrey was also, for Felix, a nothing. It was partly that Felix could not really believe in homosexual love. Mildred had many a time, defending her husband out of the curious deep attachment which bound them together, tried to make him see the seriousness of the matter; and that Humphrey often suffered Felix was prepared to believe and could even see. But be could not envisage Humphrey's bizarre relationships as having any possible connexion with the human heart; and there was, in his picture of Mildred's husband, a chilling void at the centre.

That Humphrey was suffering now was indeed evident enough; and Felix took Mildred's word for it that it was because of young Penn; though his imagination, when it occasionally had time to spare for Humphrey's troubles, could do little with the almost ludicrous idea. Humphrey visited Grayhallock several times during Miranda's sojourn at Seton Blaise, and returned each time with a long face. He and Mildred drew together in a private sombre communion which excluded Felix. They were often to be discovered, almost like lovers, holding hands and having conversations which terminated abruptly on Felix's arrival. He could not conjecture the nature of their complicity and when he wondered what they were talking about he found himself shuddering. Eventually Humphrey took himself off to London and Mildred retired morosely to her room.

Miranda, after a day or two of rather feverish elation, joined herself to the general gloom. She seemed incapable of reading anything except the newspaper, and after remarking upon the extreme pliancy of their covers, took no further interest in Hugh's Jane Austens. She lay for hours huddled upon the settee with a rug over her, staring out at the rain, and consoling herself with snacks. Someone, usually Felix, had to come and make conversation with her. She seemed to him ill in some indefinable way, and, in consultation with Ann, he asked the doctor to call again. Ann thought she might be sickening for German measles, but the doctor could find no symptoms, spoke again of shock, and departed cheerfully after accepting a glass of sherry.

Felix found the conversation hard going, but he kept at it. He was not used to children, and as he sometimes listened to himself talking he found his tone of a jovial uncle horribly unnatural and patronizing. He could not imagine that he was making a very good impression, and their relations remained embarrassingly formal. Yet he was at the same time troubled by a continual sense of her exigence and his deficiency. He was still rather vague about her age, and simply could not bring himself, at this point, to reveal so shocking an ignorance to Ann. But although he now felt that the whole idea was a depressing mistake, he took it as his duty to get to know the child a little better. The trouble was, there were so many forbidden topics: everything, in fact, to do with her father and mother. This left Felix, as far as he could see, with books, school, animals, the countryside, and such few mutual acquaintances as could be mentioned with impunity. He soon ran through these subjects and had to start again at the beginning, trying in vain to interest Miranda in the content of the library, which were in fact mainly historical volumes which had belonged to Felix's, also military, father. But Miranda, unmoved by Pride and Prejudice, was not likely to become absorbed by Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic.

In despair Felix decided he must supply her with some reading matter, if only in order to give himself some time off, and he drove to Canterbury with that end in view. But the bookshops provided no inspiration. He finally went to a newsagent's and brought a great pile of periodicals and women's magazines which he hoped would placate the child and keep her quiet. Then he had, before he left the town, another happy conjecture. He thought he would buy her a doll. Whatever age Miranda was, she was certainly still interested in dolls, and had had a large number of her 'little princes' brought over from Grayhallock to keep her company. Of course, for such a discriminating child, it must be no ordinary doll, and he wondered if he should not drive to London and see what Harrods could do. But a Canterbury shop in fact provided him straightaway with a distinguished little toy which seemed to him just right. It was a rag doll attired in the dress uniform of the Brigade of Guards, prettily turned out and complete with a sword and a very convincing bearskin. Felix congratulated himself. Even if he could not entertain Miranda he might at least give her some pleasure. He was, after all, more or less wooing her, and a wooer ought to bring gifts. For Felix never stopped being conscious of the influence which hostile Miranda might have upon his suit with Ann.

After a windy overcast morning it w. as raining again when he got back to Seton Blaise. He had missed Ann's visit, but arranged by telephone that he would go to see her later that evening at Grayhallock. He hoped that his thought for Miranda would please her. With the doll in his overcoat pocket he went to the library.

The lit lamps and the blazing fire gave the room a winter appearance which contrasted uncannily with the greenish yellowish light at the window and the lush wet garden outside. Gusts of rain crossed the lawn and lashed the house. Felix shivered, aware of a pain in his shoulder which might be rheumatism or perhaps just the bruise which he had received when, in catching Miranda, he had cannoned into Penn.

Miranda was lying as usual, stretched out and doing nothing. She was propped up on cushions and a rug covered her legs. Several dolls, dislodged no doubt by the child's restless tossing, had fallen down between her and the back of the settee so that she was half sitting on them. A row of protesting heads rose above her thigh.

'I'm so glad someone's come at last, said Miranda. 'I was getting so bored.

Someone's come, not you've come, thought Felix, discouraged. But he was glad he had got the doll.

'Have some tea with me, said Miranda, indicating the trolley. 'I asked for a spare cup in case anyone comed up.

'No, thanks. But you go on having yours, don't mind me.

'I've finished ages ago, she said, and pushed the trolley irritably away.

Felix took a chair and sat down near her. He felt the fiuniliar constraint, the fatal mask of brightness. 'And how's Miranda today?

'Terrible!

Felix laughed. 'Oh, I'm sure it's not as bad as that.

She was staring at him again in the disconcerting way children have. She lay back against the cushions with an air of languor, pale and yet with a thin warmth in her cheeks which made Felix think: again of the German measles. He supposed he ought to take her temperature, but he shrank from any close-quarters looking-after of her as from something obscene. And now with a slight distaste, almost disgust, he apprehended her immature girl's body spread out beside him, soft, formless, white, like a helpless larva. She was wearing n tartan dress with a neat little collar which made her look childish, yet her face was not exactly that of a child: it was not a woman's face either, but like the smooth ruthlessly innocent visage of some mythological creature, some little demi-goddess of the woods. Ah, he thought, I shall never win her.