Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea

It ceased at last, as everything dreadful has to cease, even if it ceases only by death. My presence, my cries, had no effect on her, I doubt if, in a sense, she knew I was there, although also, in a sense, the performance was for me, its violence directed at me. She became exhausted, stopped suddenly and fell back as in a faint. I seized her hand. It was cold. I became panic-stricken and would have run out and shouted for a doctor, only I was too frightened to leave her and too exhausted to make any decision. I lay down beside her and embraced her, uttering her name again and again. Her breathing became deep, regular, as if she were sleeping. Then I looked at her and saw her eyes open. She was looking at me again with that strange cunning look, as if now she were actually estimating the effect of her ‘fit’. And when, later on, she began to talk again she sounded quite sane, quite rational, indeed more so than she had been earlier on.

‘Oh, Charles-darling-I’m so sorry-’

‘I’m sorry-I’m a fool, an insensitive idiot.’

‘No, no-I’m sorry I got so upset and made such a nasty noise-I suppose I’m in a state of shock.’

‘I’m very sorry, sweetheart.’

‘That’s all right. Tell me-how long have I been here, in this house?’

‘Two days.’

‘Has he been here, my husband? Or has he written me a letter?’ This was the first time she had asked this.

‘He hasn’t sent a letter, I would have given it to you. He came, on that morning after you arrived.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He wanted you to come home, and-’

‘And what?’

I was feeling so chastened and confused I went stupidly on, ‘He said he’d brought the dog back with him.’

‘Oh-the dog-the dog-I’d forgotten-’ Some more tears welled up and ran over her cheeks which were so bloated with crying that she was almost unrecognizable, but she controlled herself. ‘Oh dear-oh dear-I do wish I’d been there when the dog came.’

‘Look, Hartley,’ I said, ‘you don’t seem to be capable of thinking about this business, so let me think for you. We can’t go on like this. I’m beginning to feel like a terrorist. You’ve put me in a position where I have to play the bully, which is the role I detest most of all. All right, I don’t know what your marriage was like and maybe it wasn’t all that awful and he wasn’t all that awful, but it obviously wasn’t a success and I don’t see why you should put up with a violent and unpleasant man any longer when you don’t have to. You can walk out. I daresay you would have walked out before if you had had anywhere to walk to. Now you have. Let’s go to London. This situation here is driving me mad. I’m letting it go on because I don’t want to force you, I don’t want you to say later that you didn’t decide for yourself. I don’t want to be forced to force you. Have some consideration for me, and for Titus. I’m very fond of Titus, I regard him as my son, yes I do. And he hates that man, and if you go back to him you’ll never see Titus again. You’re not just choosing between me and your ghastly failed marriage-please forgive my language-there’s Titus in the scales as well. Let’s go to London, all three of us, and then away somewhere, anywhere. We’re a family now. What I’ve never had since I left my parents’ home. Let’s go away together anywhere you like and chase after some happiness. Wouldn’t you like to see Titus happy? He wants to be an actor, I can help him. Don’t you want to see him happy?’

She listened to me, but towards the end of the speech began shaking her head. She said, ‘Please, please don’t force me to go anywhere, you’d kill me. I have got to go home. You know I have got to go, and you know I don’t want to stay here. There isn’t going to be any-any-what you want-it would be like a miracle in my mind.’

‘Oh yes, Hartley, my sweetheart, wait for that miracle, wait for it, its name is love.’

‘No, that is not its name, and it hasn’t come and it won’t come. Don’t you see you are working to destroy me? Now he will never believe me, never. And that is your doing, your crime. It’s like a murder. Never, never, never.’

Soon after this she said she was very tired and would sleep, and I left her.

I awoke suddenly. The moon was shining into my bedroom, where I had omitted to pull down the blind. I could hear the splash of the sea and a very faint rattle of the stones which the waves were gently clawing as they withdrew from the cauldron. It must be low tide. I could hear also, or sense, a vast void, a dome of silence, within which my heart was beating exceedingly fast. I felt suffocated and had to sit up abruptly and gasp for breath. I remembered, as I now did whenever I awoke, with a pang of anguish and love and fear, that Hartley was in the house. At the same time I felt the most terrible dread, a premonition of some catastrophe, some horror, or indeed the certainty that it had already occurred. I began to get out of bed, trembling violently, and fumbled for my candle. I lit it and then stood up and listened. The void dark house was ominously quiet. I very quickly opened my bedroom door and looked down the landing. There seemed to be a dim light coming from the alcove, but perhaps it was a trick of the moon. I listened and seemed to hear a beating sound, a heavy noise, deep and accelerating, very very far away. I moved slowly forward, putting each foot down carefully so as not to make the boards creak. I could now see quite clearly Hartley’s door and the key in the lock. I wanted to reach it, to put my hand onto the key, but I was afraid to hurry, afraid to enter that terrible room. I got the key into my hand and turned it and stepped in through the doorway holding my candle. The mattress on the floor, at which I always looked on entering, was empty, the bedclothes disordered. Hartley was gone-I stared about, ready to cry out with panic fear. And then I saw her-she was standing in the corner. I thought, how odd I had forgotten how tall she is. Then I thought she is standing on something, how odd, she must be up on the chair or the table. Then I saw that she was suspended from the lamp bracket. She had hanged herself.

I woke up. The lightning flash of thought which showed me the dream showed me at the same moment that it was a dream. I was lying in my bed. I had not been to Hartley’s room and found her dead, having hanged herself with one of her stockings from the cast-iron lamp bracket, climbing up onto the table and casting herself off. I felt intense violent relief: and then the thought, but supposing it is true? Sick and trembling I got up, lit my candle, and quietly opened my bedroom door. The candlelight illumined the barrier of the bead curtain but nothing beyond. The curtain was clicking softly, no doubt as a result of the draught from the door. I carefully plucked the bead strings apart and glided on to Hartley’s room and turned the key very quietly. I leaned through the doorway and peered in.

There she was, in the light of my candle, lying curled up on the mattress, covered by a blanket, her hand over her face. I watched and heard her steady quiet breathing. Then I silently withdrew and locked the door again. I went back through the bead curtain, trying not to agitate it too much, and in sheer distraction went into the drawing room. I had, since Hartley’s incarceration, kept out of the drawing room, out of a sort of sense of propriety, because of the long window which gave onto Hartley’s room. I went in now, vaguely with the idea of making sure there was no one there, and of course there was not. I stood, holding my candle, and looking at the long inner window which was now like a glossy black mirror; and it occurred to me that I was shunning the drawing room not out of propriety but because of the appalling possibility that I might see Hartley actually looking out. And then I suddenly remembered the face which I had seen looking at me through the dark glass; and I thought, that face was too high up. It could not have been the face of someone standing on the floor. It was just at the level at which Hartley’s face would have been if she had really hanged herself.