Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince

«What are you talking about? You insisted on the abortion.»

«She wanted the abortion. I didn't know what I wanted. Then when the child was gone I felt awful about it. Then Priscilla told me she was pregnant again. That was your mother's idea. It wasn't true. I married her because I couldn't bear to lose a second child. And there was no child.»

«Oh God.» I went over to the chimney piece and picked up the marble statuette.

«Leave that alone, please,» said Roger. «This isn't an antique shop.»

As I put it down there was a step in the hall and a beautiful young girl came in through the door. She was dressed in a mauve canvas jerkin and white slacks, tousled and casual like a girl on a yacht, her dark brown hair gilded. Her face glowed with something more exalted and inward than mere good health and sunshine. She looked about twenty. She was carrying a shopping bag which she put down in the doorway.

I felt utter confusion. Had there been a child after all? Was this she?

Roger leapt up and ran to her, his face relaxed and beaming, his eyes looking larger, more luminous, wider apart. He kissed her on the lips, then held her for a moment, staring at her, smiling and astounded. He gave a short «Oh!» of amazed satisfaction, then turned to me. «This is Marigold. She's my mistress.»

«It hasn't taken you long to install one.»

«Darling, this is Priscilla's brother. We'd better tell him, hadn't we, darling?»

«Yes, of course, darling,» said the girl gravely, pushing back her tousled hair and leaning up against Roger. «We must tell him everything.» She had a light West Country accent and I could now see that she was older than twenty.

«Marigold and I have been together for years. We've been half living together for years and years. We never let Priscilla know.»

«We didn't want to hurt her,» said Marigold. «We carried the burden ourselves. It was hard to know what to do for the best. It has been a terrible time.»

«It's over now,» said Roger. «Thank God it's over.» They were holding hands.

I felt hatred and horror of this sudden cameo of happiness. I ignored the girl and said to Roger, «I can see that living with a girl who could be your daughter must be more fun than observing your marriage vows with an elderly woman.»

«I am thirty,» said Marigold. «And Roger and I love each other.»

'For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.' Just when she was most in need of help you drove my sister out of her home.»

«I didn't!»

«You did!»

«Marigold is pregnant,» said Roger.

«How can you tell me that,» I said, «with that air of vile satisfaction. Am I supposed to be pleased because you've fathered another bastard? Are you so proud of being an adulterer? I regard you both as wicked, an old man and a young girl, and if you only knew how ugly and pathetic you look, pawing each other and making a vulgar display of how pleased you are with yourselves for having got rid of my sister-You're like a pair of murderers-They moved apart. Marigold sat down, looking up at her lover with a dazed glowing stare. «We didn't do this deliberately,» said Roger. «It just happened. We can't help it if we're happy. At least we're acting rightly now, we've stopped lying anyway. We want you to tell Priscilla, to explain everything. God, that will be a relief. Won't it, darling?»

«We've hated telling lies, we really have, haven't we, darling?» said Marigold. «We've both been living a lie for years.»

«Marigold had a little flat-I used to visit her-it was a miserable situation.»

«Now it's all dropped away and-oh just to be able to speak the truth, it's-We've been so sorry for poor Priscilla-«If you could only see yourselves,» I said, «if you could only see yourselves-Now if you will kindly hand over Priscilla's jewellery-«Sorry,» said Roger. «I explained.»

«She wanted the jewels, the mink, that statuette thing, that striped urn, some enamel picture-«I bought that statuette thing. It stays here. And I happen to like that enamel picture. These aren't just her things. Can't you see we can't start dividing things up now? There's money involved. She ran off and left the stuff, she can wait! You can have her clothes though. You could put a lot into those suitcases you brought.»

«I'll pack them, shall I?» said Marigold. She ran out of the room.

«You will tell Priscilla, won't you?» said Roger. «It'll be such a relief to my mind. I'm such a coward. I've kept putting off breaking it to her.»

«When your girl friend got pregnant you deliberately drove your wife away.»

«It wasn't a plan! We were just muddling along, we were bloody miserable. We'd waited and waited-«Hoping she'd die, I suppose. I'm surprised you didn't murder her.»

«We had to have the child,» said Roger. «That child's important and I'm going to act fairly by it. It has some rights, I should think! We had to have our happiness at last and have it fully and truthfully. I want Marigold to be my wife. Priscilla was never happy with me.»

«Have you thought about what's going to happen to Priscilla now and what her existence will be like? You've taken her life, now you discard her.»

«Well, she's taken my life too. She's taken years and years from me when I might have been happy and living in the open!»

«Oh go to hell!» I said. I went out into the hall where Marigold was kneeling, surrounded by an ocean of silks and tweeds and pink underwear. Most of it looked entirely new.

«Where's the mink?»

«I explained, Bradley.»

«Oh you should be ashamed,» I said. «Look at you both. You are wicked people. You should be so ashamed.»

I said, «I'm not going to wait while you pack these cases.» I could not bear to see the girl shaking out Priscilla's things and folding them neatly. «You can send them on to my flat.»

«Yes, yes, we'll do that, won't we, darling,» said Marigold. «There's a trunk upstairs-«You will tell her, won't you,» said Roger. «Tell her as gently as you can. Make it clear though. You can tell her Marigold is pregnant. There's no way back now.»

«You've seen to that.»

«You must take her something now,» said Marigold, kneeling, her bland face glowing with the tender benevolence of real felicity. «Darling, shouldn't we send her that statuette, or-?»

«No. I like that thing.»

«Well then that striped vase, didn't she want that?»

«This is my house too,» said Roger. «I made it. These things have their places.»

«Oh darling, please let Priscilla have that vase, just to please me!»

«Oh all right, darling-What a tender-hearted little muggins it is!»

«I'll pack it up carefully.»

«Don't think I'm the devil incarnate, Bradley old man. Of course I'm not a holy character, I'm just an ordinary chap, I doubt if you'll find an ordinarier. You must understand that I've had a rough time. It's been pure hell running two lives, and Priscilla's been awful to me for so long, she's really hated me, she hasn't said a kind or gentle thing to me for years-Marigold came back with a bulky parcel. I took it from her and opened the front door. The outside world looked dazzling, as if I had been in the dark. I stepped outside and looked back at them. They were swaying together, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand. They could not check two radiant smiles. I wanted to spit upon the doorstep but my mouth was dry.

Later on they were shooting pigeons and the funnel was blue and white, the blue confounded with the sky, the white hung in space like a great cylinder of crinkly paper or like a kite in a picture. Kites have always meant a lot to me. What an image of our condition, the distant high thing, the sensitive pull, the feel of the cord, its invisibility, its length, the fear of loss. I do not usually get drunk. Bristol is the sherry city. Excellent cheap sherry, light and clean, is drawn out of huge dark wooden barrels. I was feeling, for a time, almost mad with defeat.