Iris Murdoch - An Unofficial rose

Penn felt sorry at the thought of losing it, but he also felt pleased to be able to delight Miranda and to make, for her, some evident little sacrifice. He did not want to waste the scene of returning the dagger, and he began to wonder, when shall I give it to her? He opened his window a little wider. The night was very dark but warmer and there was a flowery smell, the smell of thousands of roses. The idea came up when out of the darkness, I shall give it to her now.

Why not? His heart accelerated and he turned back from the window blushing with excitement. He had never entered Miranda's room. She had never asked him up there, and indeed the whole of the other tower had a perilous taboo quality. He was exceedingly frightened by the idea which he had just received. Could he mount the other tower? The notion that he might thereby frighten Miranda made him even more frightened himself. But it was also fearfully attractive; and the next moment he had a vision of himself running up the stairs and seizing Miranda in his arms.

Things are getting out of hand, Penn said to himself. I'd better get back into bed. But he didn't, and stood there tense and frowning. Where had he, with Miranda, really gone? He felt convinced that she needed him and that she really liked him far more than she pretended to. Why otherwise did she so often, even though to tease him, seek his company? He was convinced too, though this more irrationally, that the leap from the tree had been aimed at impressing him. When he thought of his failure there he groaned aloud. If only he had got there first, and, preferably, broken a leg or something in the attempt! He was not managing to cut much of a figure. Perhaps he was being altogether too gentle with her?

He could at least try. Anything was better than the torment of inactivity and helplessness. He would, for once, stretch his limbs. She herself was violent, wild, extreme; he would try to deserve her. He put the unsheathed dagger into one pocket and the sheath in the other and softly opened the door.

He listened. The house was silent except for his own heart beats.

He wondered if Ann was in bed. He did not want to meet her on the way. He began to descend the stairs barefoot in the dim light from his open door. He reached the gallery. Here it was dark, but it was as if he saw and he glided along it confidently until he reached the foot of the opposite spiral. Here he hesitated.

He did not want to pass the door of Randall' s room, which seemed to him, far more than the room his grandmother had been dying in, inhabited by death. Perhaps it was very foolish to disturb Miranda now, perhaps she would simply hate him for it? Could he indeed prevent himself, finding her there warm, reclining, undressed, from crushing her like a nut? An image of her suddenly accessible, defenceless, near, rose before him and he nearly fell on his knees on the stairs. Then his yearning body decided the issue and he ran on up to her door.

Breathless he knocked. There was a silence and then her voice. He entered.

Miranda was lying opposite to him tucked up in her divan bed. She was propped on pillows and had been reading. She looked toward him now, raising a pale startled face. Her hair was tousled and the collar of her striped pyjamas stood on end about her neck.

As soon as Penn found himself in Miranda's presence his violence was blunted and his purposes dimmed. Her small imperious being confronted him and he felt confusion. He said hastily, 'Hello, Miranda, I hope you don't mind my butting in. I saw your light was still on and I thought I'd just come and say hello.

Miranda had recovered herself at once. She adjusted the pillows, sitting up a bit more, and buttoned up the neck of her pyjamas. She gave him a fastidious look which made him feel like Caliban. 'This is a bit unusual, isn't it? The remark had a little conventional grown-up sound. He took in her room a little. It was a replica of his own, but a deluxe replica. Here, after his monochrome, all was coloured. All was vivid, figured, flowered, spotted, striped. He had an impression of a clutter of small things, making of the room a little treasure trove, a miniature queen's boudoir. There were a lot of little square rugs end to end, several bowls of roses, and a shelled arched built-in bookcase, dotted with objects, «two shelves of which were occupied by dolls sitting in jumbled rows with their feet protruding. Their wide blue eyes stared out censoriously. Rich furry curtains were half drawn to reveal upon the long windowsill a row of round glass paper-weights. A single lamp cast an ivory light upon the white sheets and upon Miranda's multi-coloured head.

Penn took a little chair, he swung it by the back like a small animal. He felt very large in the room, Gulliverian, both powerful and clumsy. He feared to hear the sound of something he was crushing with his feet. He felt he might crack anything in the room like an egg shell. He put the chair near Miranda's bed and sat down. Behind her, where the curtains revealed the black window pane, he could see moths with pale bodies and red eyes hurling themselves against the glass. Miranda waited.

Penn felt the silent empty night all round him, as vast and as sterile as if he and Miranda were afloat in a space ship. He began to feel the yearning, he rang with it like a filling vessel. He crossed his legs and said, 'Your room's nicer than mine.

Miranda said nothing. She watched him, curled like a small cat, with a feline face almost vacant, yet with a vacancy that could precede some sort of spring; and Penn felt he could scarcely be surprised to see her suddenly run up the curtains He desired her.

'What are you reading?», he said.

Miranda frowned and tossed the big coloured book on to the counterpane. Penn picked it up and saw that it was a sort of comic strip; and as he looked back to Miranda he guessed that she was annoyed that he had not found her reading something more grown-up. Then he saw that it was in French. Les Aventures de Tintin. On a Marche sur La Lune. He glanced at a few of the pictures.

'That looks good. Perhaps I could borrow it when you've finished? I don't think I'd understand much though. My French is hopeless. But I expect I could follow the pictures.

'It's no use without the text: said Miranda, retrieving the book and pushing it under her pillow. 'The words are the point. They're so witty.

'Text' and 'witty' rather disconcerted Penn and he got up again and began to pace about, squaring his shoulders. Then some of the ebullience of his body gave him strength and he felt a sort of almost impersonal exhilaration, as if he had leapt at a bound into an adult world where the tempo of life was altogether slower and more confident, where glances could be significantly held and relinquished and where words had a new weight and splendour.

'Everyone thinks you're being awfully rude to Humphrey', said the pale curled Miranda.

'But I don't want to go to London.

'Why not?

'I think you know why not. He sat down abruptly on the end of her bed. She drew her feet away and half sat up, bracing herself against the pillows. He sensed with ecstasy that she was a little frightened. He felt like a god, like a man in a film. The warm silence was full of the smell of roses.

Miranda stared at him and he stared back, she held his gaze as never before, and he rocked in it like a light plane in a gale. 'I haven't the faintest idea', she said, her voice slightly high.

'I love you, Miranda.

'Oh that. I thought you meant something about Humphrey. Could you get off my bed please? You're crumpling the counterpane.

Penn leapt up. Now that he had uttered the words he felt frenzied.

The bright room rotated about him like a whirlpool whose vortex was Miranda. Only somehow he must keep himself from sinking, from whirling, into the centre. He receded to the book shelves and luing on to them for support. He saw, fragmentarily, the black square of glass and the red eyes of the beating moths.