Айрис Мердок - The Nice and the Good

'Ye highlands and ye lowlands,
Oh where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Murray
And hae laid him on the green.'
'Oh shut up, Fivey!' Ducane shouted through the drawing room door.
The kitchen door banged. The drawing-room door banged.
'Sorry, Willy,' said Ducane. 'My nerves are on edge.'
'What seat?'
'Oh nothing. All this sunny weather is getting me down. It's so unnatural.'
'I wonder if those curious spots will go away in the winter.'
'What are you talking about, Willy?'
'Those freckles on your butler or whatever he is.'
'Good heavens! I'd never thought of that. I hope not. I rather like them!' Ducane laughed. 'You make me feel better, Willy. Have a drink.'
'A leetle whisky, maybe, just for a nightcap. Thanks.'
'You're very brown. Been basking in the sun?'
'Just lazy.'
'You seem cheerful, Willy.'
'Just crazy.'
'Octavian and Kate got off all right? V 'Yes, with the usual hullaballoo.'
'I hope they'll like Tangier. I thought it was just like the Tottenham Court Road myself.'
'They will like anywhere.'
'Yes. They're happy people.'
Both Willy and Ducane sighed.
'Happiness,' said Willy, 'is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self.'
'Yes,' said Ducane. 'Kate and Octavian are hedonists, yet they aren't deeply preoccupied with themselves and so they can make other people happy.'
Ducane thought, this is a moment at which I might be able to make Willy talk about himself if I tried very hard. I think he wants to talk about himself. But I can't do it. I'm too burdened with my own troubles. He said, 'Things all right generally down there?'
'Yes and no. I don't see them much. Paula's worried about something, she's got some sort of secret nightmare.'
She's not the only one, thought Ducane gloomily. He said, 'Sorry to hear that. I must try to see a bit more of Paula.' How instinctively I assume that what everyone needs is help from me, Ducane thought bitterly.
'Yes, do that, John. And poor Barbara's still very upset about the cat.'
'The cat hasn't turned up?'
'No.'
'I expect it will. Barbie's a very sweet kid, but hopelessly spoilt of course.'
'Mmm.'
Ducane was feeling almost demoralized and as this was very unusual he was correspondingly alarmed. He was a man who needed to think well of himself. Much of the energy of his life issued from a clear conscience and a lively self-aware altruism: As he had had occasion to note just now, he was accustomed to picture himself as a strong self-sufficient clean-living rather austere person to whom helping others was a natural activity.
If Paula was in trouble then obviously what Paula needed was the support, the advice, the compassion of John Ducane. To think this was a reflex action. Ducane knew abstractly that one's ideal picture of oneself is likely to be misleading, but the discrediting of the picture in his own case had not brought any clear revelation of the shabby truth, but just muddle and loss of power. I cannot help anyone, he thought, it's not just that I'm not worthy to, I haven't the strength any more, I haven't the strength now to stretch out a hand to Willy, I'm enervated by all this mess and guilt.
He had spent part of the previous evening with Jessica and had agreed blankly to 'go on seeing her'. They had argued in a bitter hostile way about how often Ducane should see her.
Ducane had insisted that it should be only once a fortnight.
Jessica had not screamed, she had not wept. She had argued shrewdly, coldly. She had interrogated Ducane, asking him once more if he had a mistress, which he had again denied.
They had stared at each other with suspicion and anger and had parted brusquely. Ducane went away thinking though he was now too wary to say it: when two people have become so hard and unforgiving to each other they ought to have the wit and the strength to part. But then he felt, on reflecting on the evening, so extremely ashamed of his unkind behaviour that he took refuge in feelings of uncertainty and weakness.
He had also seen McGrath again and had given him some more money. He regretted having become so angry with the man on the first occasion, as it was at least worth discovering whether McGrath could be persuaded to sell any more information about Radeechy. Ducane noted wryly that his earlier scruples about corrupting McGrath and demeaning himself seemed to have vanished since he was now in any case on commercial terms with the fellow. McGrath, however, who was still uncertain, as Ducane intended him to be, whether or not Ducane was really settling down to pay him a regular wage for not posting the letters to 'the two young ladies', was evasive, hinted at things he might reveal if suitably rewarded, and made another appointment. In fact Ducane doubted whether McGrath had more to tell. As for the matter of the letters, Ducane told himself that he was just playing for time, and that was indeed all he could do. He must, at some suitable opportunity, inform Kate and Jessica of each other's existence and prepare them for an unpleasantness. They were rational women and it would probably pass off all right. The only serious damage would be to his own dignity and that could be salutary damage.
At least this was what Ducane thought some of the time. At other moments the whole thing was a nightmare. He writhed at the idea of their seeing him as a liar and a traitor. His behaviour to Jessica, already so inconsistent and unkind, would seem, on this revelation, that of a shabby trickster. Jessica was certain to believe that Kate was his mistress. Ducane could face being thought a brute, but could not face being thought a cold-blooded deceiver. Yet, he reflected, I am a cold-blooded deceiver. What I can't bear is not being one but seeming one!
As for Kate, he did not really know how she would take it, and at certain terrible times he pictured himself banished from Trescombe for ever. At these times the thought flashed on him for a second: perhaps after all it would be better just to go on paying McGrath. But Ducane knew that this was the way to hell, and that he should even envisage it showed that he was corrupted indeed.
And he thought about Biranne. He thought more and more intensely about Biranne, producing not clarity but darkness.
Ducane's particular sort of religious temperament, which needed the energy of virtue for everyday living, pictured the good as a single distant point of light. A similar and perhaps less accurate instinct led him to feel the evil in his life as also single, a continuous systematically related matrix, almost a conspiracy. This was perhaps the remnant in his mind of his ancestors' vigorous and literal belief in the devil. So now he felt that the muddle with the two women, McGrath's blackmail, Radeechy's death for which in a curious way he was beginning to feel himself responsible, and the mysterious and in some way obviously wicked activities of Biranne were all intimately connected together. Moreover the key to it all was Biranne himself.
Ducane had begun to have dreams about Biranne and the dreams were odd. In the dreams Ducane was invariably the pursuer. He sought for Biranne with anxiety and yearning through huge empty gardens and bombed London streets.
Familiar scenes were transfigured into ghastliness by a need, an absence, the need for Biranne, the absence of Biranne. Ducane, who was not accustomed to taking dreams seriously, attempted no interpretation of these. In his waking consciousness he was sufficiently obsessed with the man, and he could note how the sheer strength of the obsession had moved him beyond his former irritations and resentments. The inquiry was important and Ducane hated failure. But what Ducane now felt as Biranne's involvement in Ducane's own life was more important still. There is the love of the hunter for the quarry.
Yet was Biranne entirely a quarry? Was he not also a centre of power, a demon?
These bizarre ideas haunted Ducane's disturbed mind not as clear thoughts but rather as pressures and atmospheres. His discovery that Biranne had lied about Radeechy had started a process of development which seemed to have its own private chemistry. While Biranne was just an acquaintance who had been mockingly rude about Ducane many years ago, Ducane had simply felt a small wincing dislike of the man which he had condemned but been unable to lessen. As soon as Ducane found himself with the possibility of power over Biranne and in possession of discreditable facts about him, his interest gained not only in strength but in warmth. The mocking laughter of so many years ago had lost its power to hurt. Biranne as a sinner and as a man in a trap was no longer a menace to consciousness, and Ducane gave himself no credit for an interest which he recognized as having more to do with power than with compassion. However, the fact remained that he was becoming increasingly worried about Biranne and by Biranne. Had Biranne murdered Radeechy? This remained a possibility, and in returning to it Ducane felt a mounting anxiety. He had been putting off a direct confrontation in the hope of acquiring more information, but the sources of information now seemed to be dry. Ducane had no intention of being hustled by his own psychology. But after careful thought he had by now come to the point of deciding: I must see him. I shall have to bluff him, it's risky, but I must see him. And this conclusion filled him with alarm and with a curious deep wicked pleasure. I shall see him tomorrow, Ducane was thinking as he listened to Willy going on talking about the people at Trescombe.
'Has Theo stopped sulking, Willy?'
'Yes. He comes up to see me again.'
. I wonder what happened to Theo in India. Well, I suppose one can imagine!'
'I don't know. I thought you might know, John. You are father confessor to all of us.'
'Don't, Willy!'
, you are our picture of the just man.'
'That's right, mock me.'
'Seriously – '
'Chuck it, Willy. How are the twins?'
'Herrlich. They have great souls, those little ones. And they have been vouchsafed no end of flying saucers. They are the only people who are not in a turmoil.'
'Dear me, are the rest of you in a turmoil? Are you in a turmoil?
I'm sure Mary isn't in a turmoil. She never is.'
Willy hesitated, pulled his lame leg back towards him with both hands, sat up and leaned forward. He looked at the carpet and said, 'You said I seemed cheerful. So I ought to be. I have had a proposal of marriage.'
'Good heavens, who from? T 'Mary.'
Ducane was about to say, Splendid, I told her to do that, but stopped himself in time. If he was to have the impertinence to play at being God he must also have the discretion to conceal the fact. How pleased I am, he thought.
'How marvellous!'
'You disapprove '
'Of course not! So you said yes?'
'I mean you disapprove of her having been so foolish as to want to marry me.'
'Of course not, Willy. On the contrary, I – But you said yes, I may wish you joy?'
'I didn't say yes, I didn't say no. I was speechless with gratitude.
I still am.'
'Willy – light out for happiness. Yes?'
'Happiness. I don't know if that can be a goal for me, John., 'Then make it a matter of faith. Mary is – well, Mary is an ace, you know that. What's more, she needs you.'
'Mary is an ace, as you beautifully put it. I know that. And I presume to love her. But I have a soul like an old cracked chamberpot. I could give no joy to a woman.'
'Rubbish. Let her remake you. Have the humility to let her.'
'Perhaps. I will pray about it. The gods have promised me an answer.'
'Oh Willy, you lucky fool'
I envy him, thought Ducane. He loves innocently and he is loved innocently. It is simple for him, for him and for his gods. Whereas I have tied myself up in this cat's cradle of treachery and falsehood. But I am so glad I prompted Mary here, I am sure she would not have dared to speak if I had not encouraged her. May I have made the happiness of two good people. But Ducane's heart was strangely heavy. He thought to himself with a sort of desperation, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I shall see Biranne.
Jessica Bird rang the bell of John Ducane's house. A small man with a delicate brown face and a crop of white hair opened the door. Jessica, who knew that Ducane was at the office, took this to be the manservant.
In a firm official voice she said, 'I am from Payne and Stevens, the interior decorators. I have come to take the measurements for the curtains in Mr Ducane's bedroom.'
The small man murmured something and opened the door a little farther. Jessica marched in. She had decided that she could no longer live with her uncertainty about whether or not Ducane had taken a new mistress. Or rather, she had no uncertainty, she was sure that there was another woman. She wanted, to make her anguish complete, the absolute proof of it.
'Will you show me Mr Ducane's bedroom, please? I am afraid I don't know the house.' She drew a steel tape measure from her pocket and exhibited it.
'Yes, certainly, yes '
The small man led her up the stairs and into the room in the front of the house above the drawing-room. Jessica, who had never penetrated into her lover's bedroom in the old days, had conjectured that this must be the room, but it was better to be sure.
'Will you want anything, steps or anything?'
'No, no, I'll be all right, you can leave me to it now, thank you. I'll just be about ten minutes or so. I've got to make some measurements in the bathroom too. Don't let me keep you.'
The small man murmured again and went away, closing the bedroom door.
Jessica, who had composed her plan of action carefully T-NATG-H 193 beforehand, now felt so giddy with emotion that she had to sit down on a chair. She had not realized how powerfully Ducane's bedroom would affect her. The silence, his trousers neatly folded upon the counterpane, his brushes and collar studs upon the dressing table, the bare masculine plainness of a single man's room, the bitter-sweet sense of familiarity and absence made her suddenly sick with longing. The bedroom, unlike the drawing-room below, might have been any man's room, yet it was full of the ghost of Ducane which, distilled now into a purer male essence than any she had ever encountered assaulted her fainting senses.
Jessica's rolling eye lighted upon the bed and jealousy pulled her together like a mouthful of brandy. It was not a narrow bed. It was not exactly a double bed, but it was one of those rather broad single beds with plenty of room for two. She leapt up and began her search.
Jessica was of the opinion that it is virtually impossible for a woman to inhabit a room, even for a short while, without leaving traces. If a woman had been in Ducane's bed some sign would certainly have been left behind, some token from the transcendent region of Ducane's love life, some glittering fragment of that Jessica-excluding super-world upon which her imagination had by now so finely worked. What she would do with this talisman, whether torment herself or torment him, she had not yet thought. What she wanted was simply to have the tiny thing in her possession.
Very carefully Jessica folded back the coverlet of the bed and drew down the bed clothes. She put her face close to the pillow sniffing attentively. She had taken care to wear no perfume herself that day. Her pale streaky hair fell forward on to the pillow. How unfortunate that she suffered from hay fever. She interrogated her sense of smell. There was a faint cosmetic odour but it might have been shaving cream or even disinfectant. Inconclusive.
Leaving the bed she moved to the wastepaper basket. It contained a screw of Kleenex, a toothpaste carton, an empty cigarette packet, half a comb and a good deal of human hair. Jessica picked out the ball of hair and began straightening it out and sniffing it. It was all dark brown and looked like pucane's hair. After a moment's hesitation she stuffed the hair into her pocket. She opened the wardrobe. The neat line of pucane's sombre suitings confronted her in the darkness like so many shrunken male presences. The wardrobe smelt of wood and man. It was like a little enchanted house or the ark of some unfamiliar faith. Jessica stood in awe before it. Then, frowning with determination and courage, she began quickly to go through the pockets of the suits. Ducane's pockets were full of entities, papers of all sorts, parking tickets, cloakroom tickets, more hair, coins, several combs and numerous searounded pebbles. There were two letters, but one was from the telephone company and the other from a plumber.
Jessica left the wardrobe and transferred her attention to the chest of drawers. Here, although there was much to make her gasp and sigh – neckties remembered from happier days, cuff links which she herself had given him – there was nothing at all in the way of 'evidence'. There were no contraceptives.
There, was nothing feminine. Jessica, now in a flurried rush slid into the bathroom. There was an indeterminate smell of bath essence. A black silk dressing gown covered with red asterisks hanging behind the door had masculine handkerchiefs in its pockets and smelt of tobacco. The bathroom cupboard revealed no perfumes, no face creams. The bathroom wastepaper basket contained a detective novel.
Jessica ran back into the bedroom. There must be something to find, she thought, and I must find it. Certainty was so much better than doubt, and with certainty would come power, the power to hurt and astonish, the power to create again, however perversely, a bond of living emotion, Jessica began to look into corners, to search the floor. Some tiny thing, a bead, a button, a hairpin, must be hiding somewhere in the carpet. She lifted the skirts of the bed-cover and crawled underneath the bed. There as she lay full length, feverishly combing the carpet with her fingers, she became aware that the room had darkened.
Then she saw two male feet and two lengths of trousered leg which had come close up beside the bed. Jessica crawled out.
'You know, what you told me just now can't be quite true.'
The speaker who uttered these words rather apologetically was the small white-haired man who had let her in.
Jessica was so relieved that it was not Ducane that she sat down on the bed for a moment and just stared. Then she said, 'I was just checking the power points.'
'To begin with,' the man went on, 'I have been looking them up in the telephone book and there is no such firm as Payne and Stevens, and secondly Mr Ducane has just lately had new curtains fitted in this room. And thirdly why have you taken the bed to pieces. That will do to begin with.' The small man took a chair, placed it in front of the closed door, and sat down on it expectantly.
Jessica looked at Ducane's bed, with the bedclothes pulled down and the pillows disarranged. She looked at the chest of drawers, with every drawer open and ties and shirts hanging over the edge. Whatever was she to say? Jessica was not afraid of being sent to prison, she was afraid of being trapped by Ducane, of being kept there by force until he returned. She thought, any moment now I shall burst into tears.
'You see,' the small man went on in a gentle slightly foreign voice, 'I can't just let it go, can I? I mean, you might be a burglar, mightn't you? And I have to defend my friend's belongings, with which I must say you seem to have been making rather free.'
Jessica found her voice. 'You're not the – butler, chauffeur?'
'No. It's the butler chauffeur's afternoon off. I'm someone else. But that doesn't matter. I'm still waiting for you to explain yourself, my dear.'
'I'm not a burglar,' said Jessica in a small voice.
'Well, no, I didn't really think you were. I reflected on you a little bit downstairs, after I'd looked up Payne and Stevens, and I said to myself that young lady is no burglar, However you must be something, you know, and I'm still waiting to hear what it is.'
Jessica sat hunched on the bed. She felt frightened, guilty and wretched. Suppose indeed the little man were to keep her here until Ducane came back, suppose he were to lock her in? Why did loving so much lead to nothing now but misery and terror?
Tears filled her eyes. She thrust her hand into her pocket and brought out the ball of Ducane's hair which fell on the floor.
'Oh come come come come come.' He came and sat beside her on the bed and handed her a big clean handkerchief in which she hid her face. 'I'm not a monster, you know. I don't want to frighten you. I won't hurt you. But just imagine yourself being me! I must ask you some questions. And naturally I'm curious too. I simply can't think what you can be up to. It is all a bit odd, isn't it? There, there don't cry. Just talk to me a little bit, will you?'
Jessica stopped crying and rubbed her face over. She stared into the male darkness of the wardrobe. She felt full of misery and violence. The unexpected, that at least was something. She would impale herself upon it. She said in a hard voice, 'You ask me what I am. I am a jealous woman.'
Her companion whistled softly, a long melodious whistle.
Then he said, 'Wow!'
'Mr Ducane and I used to be together,' said Jessica, 'but then he dropped me. And he says he hasn't got anyone else. But I'm sure that isn't true. I saw a woman coming into the house one day. I just felt I had to know for sure. So I got in, as you saw, and I've been searching the room to see if any woman has been here.'
'Found anything?' he asked in an interested tone.
'No. But I'm sure – '
'I don't think John would tell a lie, even about that.'
Jessica turned to face the small brown man. He was regarding her now with a kind of humorous glee. 'Please will you tell me,' said Jessica, 'do you know, has he got a mistress? Well, why should you tell me. This is all fantastic.'
'But I adore what's fantastic. No, I'm sure he hasn't got a mistress. Is that enough for you? Will you go away happy?'
'No,' she said. 'Nothing's enough. Nothing.'
'The demon jealousy. Yes. I know about it too. Tell me your name, my child, your first name only. We seem to be almost acquainted.'
'Jessica.'
'Good. My name's Willy. Now listen, Jessica, will you for give me if I ask you some more questions and will you give me truthful answers? T 'Yes.'
'How long were you John's mistress?'
'About a year.'
'And how long since he dropped you?'
'About two years.'
'Have you seen much of him in the two years?'
'Yes. We've been sort of friends.'
'You're still in love, and he's not?'
'Yes. And he says now he wants us not to meet any more.
Because he wants me to be free. But I don't want to be free.'
'I can understand that. But jealousy is a dreadful thing, Jessica. It is the most natural to us of the really wicked passions and it goes deep and envenoms the soul. It must be resisted with every honest cunning and with the deliberate thinking of gene. rous thoughts, however abstract and empty these may seem in comparison with that wicked strength. Think about the virtue that you need and call it generosity, magnanimity, charity. You are young, Jessica, and you are very delightful –may I just take your hand, so? – and the world is not spoilt for you yet. There is no merit, Jessica, in a faithfulness which is poison to you and captivity to him. You have nothing to gain here except by losing. You wish to act out your love, to give it body, but there is only one act left to you that is truly loving and that is to let him go, and to let him go gently and without resentment.
Put all your, energy into that and you will win from the world of the spirit a grace which you cannot now even dream of. For there is grace, Jessica, there are principalities and powers, there is unknown good which flies magnetically toward the good we know. And suppose that you had found what you were looking for, my dear child? Would you not have been led on from jealousy through deceit into cruelty? Human frailty forms a system, Jessica, and faults in the past have their endlessly spreading network of results. We are not good people, Jessica, and we shall always be involved in that great network, you and I. All we can do is constantly to notice when we begin to act badly, to check ourselves, to go back, to coax our weakness and inspire our strength, to call upon the names of virtues of which we know perhaps only the names. We are not good people, and the best we can hope for is to be gentle, to forgive each other and to forgive the past, to be forgiven our= selves and to accept this forgiveness, and to return again to the beautiful unexpected strangeness of the world. Isn't it, Jessica, my child?'
After a long pause Jessica said, 'Who are you?'
'My dear,' he murmured. 'You learn fast. Forgive me.'
'Good heavens,' said Jessica.
Willy had kissed her.
They were half facing each other now, with their knees braced together. Willy was holding her firmly by the wrist, while his other hand had strayed round her neck and was playing with her hair. Jessica had gripped the lapel of his jacket.
They stared hard at each other.
'You are very beautiful, Jessica, and you remind me – you remind me of what I have seen in dreams, embraced in dreams.
Forgive me for touching you. Really wanting to touch and to hold somebody, this is so important, isn't it? This is how we poor clay objects communicate, by looking thus, by touching thus. There should be few that you touch, and those the dearest ones.'
'Please tell me who you are,' she said. 'You are so strange.
What is your second name?'
'No, no. Let us just be Willy and Jessica. We shall not meet again.'
'You can't say that when you've just kissed me. You can't kiss me and vanish. I shall ask John – '
'If you ask John about me I shall tell him that you searched his room.'
'Oh! And you were saying that we should be gentle!'
'I am being gentle, my child. I am a murmuring voice, a little bird on a tree, the voice of your conscience perhaps. And if there is anything else it is just a little nameless imp, or an imp called Willy maybe, who is quite momentary and has no real self at all. If I do you any little hurt may it simply make you toss your head and return again to the beautiful strange wide unpredictable world.'
'But I must see more of you – you must help me – you could help me.'
'Anybody could help you, Jessica, if you wanted to helped. For now it is just you and me upon an island, a dream island of the unexpected, to be remembered like a dream, all atmosphere and feeling and nothing in detail. Oh, but you are beautiful. May I kiss you again?'
Jessica slid her arms strongly round him and closed her eyes.
She was roused by a sound which was Willy kicking off his shoes. She kicked off hers. With lips still joined they keeled over slowly into the unmade bed.
Some time later as they lay heart to heart Jessica said softly, not anxiously, but curiously, 'What are we doing, Willy, what is this?'
'This is sacrilege, my Jessica. A very important human activity.'
Twenty-four bounder would live in a place like this, he said to himself, as he turned into Smith Street and began to pass along the line of smartly painted hall doors.
He was feeling far from jocular however. He had thought of Biranne as a man in a trap. But could the trap be sprung? Biranne was a strong man and not a fool. However much Ducane attempted to surprise him or even to bluff him he was unlikely to break down and confess or by any inadvertence to give himself way. There was nothing which Ducane knew for which some innocent explanation could not be garbled up. And if, with a cold eye, Biranne produced and stuck to these explanations what could Ducane do but apologize and retire, and if he apologized and retired what on earth could he do next?
When Ducane reflected upon how little, in fact, he did know he was amazed at the strength of his certainty that Biranne was guilty, at least of something. Could this not be utterly mistaken?
Tonight was a gamble, he told himself. But perhaps it was time for a gamble, since more prudent methods had produced mere intuitions, ranging from suspicion of murder to conjecture of total innocence.
It was now nearly nine o'clock in the evening, and the dense dusty air, heavy with its heat, hung over London like a halfdeflated balloon, stuffy and sagging. The yellow sunlight was tired and the shadows were without refreshment. Only at the far end of the street could be seen the blurred dark green of trees which hinted at the river. Ducane, too agitated to wait at his own house, had come from Earls Court on foot. He had taken an early supper with Willy, who appeared to be in a curious state of euphoria. After supper Willy had switched on the wireless and Ducane had left him dancing round the drawing-room to the sound of Mozart's piano concerto in minor. Ducane, who was relying on surprising Biranne, had dialled his telephone number from Earls Court, silently replacing the receiver as soon as the familiar high-pitched voice answered the 'phone.
As Ducane came near to the house he was almost choking with anxiety and excitement, and had to stop several times to get his breath from the thick air, which now seemed devoid of oxygen. He stopped finally a few paces away, shook himself or perhaps shuddered, straightened his back and walked briskly to the door. It was open.
Ducane stood frozen upon the step, his hand half raised toward the bell. He lowered his hand. To his wrought-up nerves any unusual thing, even of the simplest, had an air of sinister significance. Was he after all expected? Had Biranne understood the meaning of the telephone call? Had Biranne seen him coming?
Ducane stood and pondered. He decided that the open door was a matter of chance. Then he decided that he would not ring the bell. He would just walk in.
As he stepped cautiously on to the thick yellow hall carpet, however, he felt more of the sentiment of the hunted than of the hunter. He looked about quickly, guiltily, half turned to retreat, paused, listened. The silence of the unfamiliar house composed menacingly about him. He became aware, buried in it, of a ticking clock, then of his own heart beating. He stood still, his eyes moving, seeing in the goldenish evening penumbra a marquetry table, an oval mirror, a recession of glittering stair-rods of lacquered brass. An open doorway, some distance straight ahead revealed, brighter, what appeared to be a billiard room. Attempting to breathe normally and not to tiptoe Ducane opened the door upon his right. The front room, evidently the dining-room. Empty. A great many bottles on a Sheraton sideboard. He moved back, breath held in, and reached for the next door. He pushed it open. The room was darkened by venetian blinds upon which the sun fell slanting, dazzling a little along the long hairlike slits of the almost closed blinds. Ducane blinked into the semi-darkness of the room.
Then, on the far side, he saw a standing figure. A remarkable figure, the figure of Judy McGrath.
'Hello, Mr Honeyman. Didn't I tell you that we'd meet again?'
What was remarkable about Judy McGrath this time was . that she had no clothes on.
Ducane came slowly on into the room and closed the door behind him. Collecting himself he looked about with deliberation.
There was no one else present. 'Good evening, Mrs McGrath.'
'You must excuse my deshabille. It's so hot this evening, isn't it.'
'Exceptionally hot and stuffy,' said Ducane. He sat down in an armchair and stared at Judy. He said softly, 'Helen of Troy'.
'I knew you'd find me out, Mr Honeyman, you're so clever.
Have a cigarette? Or one of Richard's cigars? T 'No thanks.' Ducane felt, this is a moment outside my ordinary life, a moment given by a god, not perhaps by a great god, and not by a good one, but by a god certainly. It had never fallen to his lot to contemplate a naked woman in quite this way before.
Judy stood in front of him with a slight awkwardness. The human body, even that of a beautiful woman, cannot easily stand in complete repose. She stood half turned away from him, one knee bent, one shoulder hunched, her chin jutting as if to see him she had to peer over something. Her body lacked the authority of its beauty and wore a little shame, the shame of what is usually hidden from the air and which greets it a little self-consciously. However used Mrs McGrath was in her spirit to taking her clothes off, her body was yet a trifle less forward.
Half consciously Ducane noted this and it touched him. The sunlight dazzled in streaks along the shutters and filled the room with a thick powdery half-light, a warm golden-brown air, in the midst of which Judy McGrath's body rose up, moved slightly, a pillar of honey with a fleeting lemony radiance. The warm light caressed her, revealed her, blended with her. Her black hair, dusted over with a sheen of brown, seemed a slightly greenish bronze, and the shadow between her large round slightly dependent breasts was a blur of dark russet.
Judy's eyes, brooding slits now, were almost closed. She swung her body slightly, revealing the curve of the buttock, outlined in a thin are of fuzzy phosphorescent fire.
Ducane breathed deeply and swallowed his breath before it could become a sigh. He said, 'I came here to see Mr Biranne, but you will do just as well.'
'If you have a use for me, Mr Honeyman, I'm yours.'
'Why did Radeechy kill himself?'
'I don't know, Mr Honeyman. Mr Radeechy was a strange man with strange habits, who got strange ideas into his head.'
'Was it your notion or your husband's to blackmail him?'
'I have no idea, Mr Honeyman. I'm a woman. Look.'
Ducane was looking, but his head was perfectly clear now.
He noticed that the huge brown circles in the centre of her breasts were reminding him of Fivey.
'Tell me about Radeechy,' said Ducane.
'I could love you, Mr Honeyman. You could love me.'
'I doubt that, Judy. Tell me about Radeechy.'
'You mean what we did in the vaults at night?'
'In the vaults – 'said Ducane carefully.
'In the vaults of the office.'
'I see,' said Ducane slowly, thinking as fast as he could. 'Of course. You used to go with Radeechy into the vaults, into the old air-raid shelters underneath the office '
'That's right, Mr Honeyman. I thought you knew. I thought you knew everything.'
'I know practically everything,' said Ducane. 'I just want you to tell me the rest. Why did you go to the vaults?'
'It was getting to be a bit awkward at his house, you see, with Mrs around, and the neighbours. We used to make quite a lot of noise.'
'Hmmm,' said Ducane. 'Did Mrs Radeechy know about all this?'
'Oh yes, it was all ever so honest.'
'Did she mind?'
'I don't know,' said Judy. She had begun to oscillate her body in a circular movement, pivoted upon her rather large feet which were gripping the carpet with long clawlike toes.
, She seemed not to. But I guess she did really.'
'Was Radeechy anxious because he was distressing his wife?'
'He was never anxious when he was with me, Mr Honeyman.
No man is ever anxious when he is with me.'
'What did Radeechy want you to do for him,' asked Ducane.
'I mean apart from the things that were obvious.'
'None of Mr Radeechy's things were obvious things, Mr Honeyman.'
'Well, presumably he made love to you.'
'Oh no, nothing like that. It was all very spiritualistic, if you see what I mean. Besides, Mr McGrath was there half of the time.'
'Oh. You took part in rituals, magic?'
'I never understood it really, I just did what he told me, half of the time I couldn't see what was happening. Some gentlemen have very strange ideas. He was not the first.'
'What do you mean by spiritualistic?'
'It was all ideas, all in his head like. There are some like that.
He never touched me, not with his hands that is.'
The phrase 'not with his hands' produced an effect on Ducane which he took a moment to recognize as extreme physical excitement.
He pushed his chair back abruptly and stood up.
Judy McGrath immediately, with an electrical jerk, altered her stance, stepping forward towards him and throwing her head back. At the same time she picked up something from the table.
Ducane's lowered gaze now sought out, what he had before avoided seeing, the place of the darkest shadow.
'Don't go,' she said softly. 'Or else take me with you. What are your things, Mr Honey? Whatever they are I could do them. And there are things I could teach you too.'
'Put your clothes on,' said Ducane.
Something moved in the sulphurous light between them and came to rest upon his wrist, brushing caressingly along the hairs of his arm. It was the pencil-thin tip of a riding whip, the other end of which rested in Judy's hand.
Ducane jerked his arm away and moved quickly out of the room. He blundered through the hall and swung the front door wide open and blinked in the sudden brightness of the Twenty-five street. As he began to walk rapidly along the pavement he nearly collided with Biranne, who was carrying a bottle. They looked at each other appalled, and before Ducane pushed past and hurried on he saw Biranne's face transfigured with fear. WOW 'why do animals not have to blow their noses?' asked Edward.
No one seemed to know the answer to this question or be prepared to enter into a discussion of it. Mary was cooking rhubarb, Paula was looking through a page of the Aeneid into some private worry of her own, and Ducane was engaged in composing and censoring some very private pictures of Judy McGrath.
'Uncle Theo wants Mingo please,' said Henrietta who had just come into the kitchen. 'Here's a postcard come for you, John.'
The twins shovelled the sleepy Mingo up from his comfortable place in Montrose's basket and departed carrying him between them.
Ducane surveyed a picture of some veiled women. On the other side Kate had written, Darling, veiled women are so thrilling, though mean to be thrilled as would hate to be veiled self. This place is super. This morning saw some dogs doing something quite extraordinary. Can't possibly tell you on postcard. Didn't know dogs had vices. Much love.
Ducane turned the card again and looked gloomily at the veiled women. He too recalled being excited by veiled women in Tangier, and the memory mingled rather horribly with the strong aura of Judy which still hung about him. It was odd that his confrontation with the unveiled Judy should now seem to remind him of the hidden women of Africa. There was something mechanical in himself which responded to the two visions in much the same way. I am becoming cut off, he thought, I am becoming like Radeechy, it is all indirect, it is all in my mind.
Then he wondered, what are my things anyway? The question was not without interest.
He turned the card over again and tried to concentrate his attention upon Kate: sweet Kate, with her halo of wiry golden hair and her affectionate and loving nature. But Kate seemed to elude his regard, and the place in the centre where she should have been seemed either empty or concealed. There was the same sense of the mechanical. I need her presence, he thought. I am not good at absence, at least I am not good at her absence.
Ducane had been disturbed not only by Judy but by what she had told him. At first sight the discovery that Radeechy's 'goings-on' had taken place in the old air-raid shelters underneath the office strongly suggested that those who feared a 'security risk' were not being idly suspicious. The magic might be simply a front, a characteristically extravagant and farfetched facade, to conceal quite other nocturnal activities.
However, on second thoughts Ducane decided this was unlikely.
If Radeechy wished to remain all night in the office there was really nothing to stop him, and the additional indulgence of fantasies involving girls seemed too wantonly risky if his purposes were quite other. No, Ducane concluded, once again the thing was what it seemed. But what did it seem? That dreary sense of the mechanical came to him again. Was there perhaps no centre to the mystery at all, nothing there but the melancholy sexual experiments of an unbalanced man?
Ducane had decided that his next move was to see McGrath again and to get McGrath to show him the place in the vaults where Radeechy did what he did. Ducane did not want any further view of Mrs McGrath, so he had written to Mr McGrath summoning him to the office on Monday. After this, obeying an almost panic instinct of flight, Ducane had told Fivey to drive him to Dorset. He was upset by the whole business and wished heartily that Octavian and Kate were not away. A message had come from the Prime Minister's office to confirm, what Octavian had earlier told him, that the Radeechy affair had 'gone off the boil', and to ask him for an early report, however inconclusive. When he received this message Ducane realized how very far, by now, his interest in the inquiry was from being a purely official one. He was deeply involved and for his own sake would have to try to understand. felt too as if he were being drawn onward almost deliberately by a never entirely broken thread. Whenever the trail had seemed to end something had unexpectedly happened to show him the next piece of the way.
That Judy McGrath was 'Helen of Troy' and that McGrath had, not perhaps for the first time, used his wife as a decoy for a blackmail victim had occurred to Ducane a little earlier as possible. He had not expected the link between Judy and Biranne; but once the link had been so sensationally given it seemed something so suggestive as to be obvious. Ducane had been at first rather sorry that he had now given so definite a warning to Biranne and lost the possible effect of a surprise; though indeed Biranne had probably been kept informed of the direction of the inquiry by the kind offices of Judy and her husband. In all likelihood McGrath was also, in the friendliest possible way, blackmailing Biranne as well. In any case Biranne must know himself to be under suspicion and on further reflection Ducane decided that this was no bad thing. He had been greatly struck by the sudden expression of terror on Biranne's face when he had encountered Ducane in Smith Street. Ducane thought, Biranne will come to me. It was not an unpleasant thought.
'Where's Barbara?' Ducane asked Mary. 'Is she out riding?'
'No, the pony's strained a fetlock. I think she's up in her room.'
'Is she still upset about Montrose?'
'Yes, deadfully. She was crying again yesterday. I can't imagine what's happened to the wretched creature. Cats don't just vanish or get killed.'
'I heard Pierce telling her Montrose was drowned,' said Ducane. 'He shouldn't say things like that to Barbara.'
'I know he shouldn't,' said Mary shortly, stirring the rhubarb.
'Well, I think I'll go up and see her. She shouldn't be moping in her room on a day like this. We might go for a walk to Wi1ly's. Like to come, Paula?'
'No thanks.'
Paula gave him an anxious preoccupied stare. Her face seemed enclosed and grey, the face of a fencer looking through the thick mesh of a mask. Ducane thought, with a familiar pain of conscience, I ought to see Paula properly, make her talk to me and tell me what's the matter. He thought quickly, shall I see Barbara now or Paula? But by now the pain of con. science had brought the accusing image of Jessica sliding before his mind. I ought to see Jessica soon, he thought, and the idea so depressed and confused him that the energy of his sympathy for Paula was at once decreased. Inclination triumphed. Barbara could console him. He would go to Barbara. He rose to his feet.
'Try to bring Willy down to tea, John,' said Mary.
'I'll try, but I'll not succeed.'
Ducane left the kitchen. The sun shone through the glass panels of the front door, revealing the polished slightly rosy depressions in the worn stones of the paved hall. Ducane picked up Edward's copy of The Natural History of Selborne from the floor and replaced it on the table. On the lawn in front of the house he could see Casie and the twins sitting on a red tartan rug shelling peas. He felt, as his hand touched the table and he paused in the sunny familiar hallway, another and a different pang, touching, pleasant, painful, the apprehension of an innocent world, a world which he loved and needed, and surely could never altogether mislay? He thought: innocence matters. It is not a thing one just loses. It remains somehow magnetically in one's life, remains as something quick and alive and utterly safe from the n'iechanical and the dreary. He thought, poor Biranne. And he thought again the disturbing strange thought, Biranne will come to me. He began to mount the stairs.
As Ducane reached the landing he saw at the far end of it Pierce, who had just come up the back stairs from the scullery quarters. Pierce, who had not seen Ducane, was walking rather cautiously carrying a white dish in his hand. Balancing the dish, he opened the door of his bedroom and went in. Ducane half consciously took in what he had seen and half consciously reflected on it. Then, with a sudden flash which brought him back to the present moment, he understood its meaning. He paused, considered, and then walked quickly on past Barbara's door. He gained the door of Pierce's room and flung it open. Montrose was curled up on Pierce's bed.
'Pierce, you rotten little bastard,' said Ducane. pierce, who had just put the saucer of milk down on the floor, slowly straightened up and took off his glasses. He thrust out his plump lower lip and drew his hand slowly down over his straight forehead and long nose as if to secure the expression of his face. He waited.
Ducane picked up Montrose and strode out. He knocked on the door of Barbara's room and entered at once. The room was empty. Pierce, who had followed Ducane directly, came after him into the room. They faced each other.
'God, what a rotten thing to do!' said Ducane. He was sud: denly trembling with anger. All the trouble, the anxiety, the guilt in him seemed focused into this simple anger.
'I didn't hurt Montrose,' said Pierce slowly.
'No, but you hurt Barbara. How could you be so bloody?'
Ducane set Montrose down on the table. As he did so he saw close to his hand Barbara's small silver-handled riding whip.
The image of the whip came to him incapsulated, separate, framed, and was blotted out.
'You see,' said Pierce in the same slow explanatory tone, 'if she had only come to see me, come to my room like she used to do, if she hadn't treated me like a leper, she would have found where Montrose was. It was a sort of test.' He put one hand on the table, leaning earnestly forward.
'You deliberately made her unhappy and wretched, and you kept it up too,' said Ducane. 'I think – 'His hand closed on the handle of the whip and with a quick yet very deliberate movement he raised the whip and brought it down sharply across the back of Pierce's hand. The boy flinched but went on staring at Ducane and did not remove his hand.
'What on earth is going on here?' said Mary Clothier, who was standing in the doorway.
Pierce turned slowly and without looking at his mother walked past her out of the door, away down the corridor and into his own bedroom.
Mary hesitated. Then she moved into Barbara's room. She found she was having to use a lot of strength to deal with the considerable shock of seeing Ducane strike her son. She did not know what she felt. A confusion of feelings silenced her.
'I'm sorry,' said Ducane, obviously confused too. 'I'm sorry., 'Why there's Montrose '
'Shut the door, Mary.'
'What happened?»
'You see – shut the door. You see, Pierce has been keeping Montrose prisoner all the time we all thought he was lost.'
'Oh – how very dreadful – I '
'Yes. I'm afraid I lost my temper with him. I shouldn't have done.'
'I don't blame you. It was very wrong of him. I'll go and look for Barbara.'
'Wait a minute, Mary. Just let Montrose out, will you. That's right. Sit down. Sorry. Just wait a minute.'
Mary sat down on the bed and looked at Ducane who was standing by the window frowning and still holding the whip. He shrugged his shoulders suddenly and tossed it on to the table and then crossed his two hands over his forehead covering his eyes.
'You're upset,' said Mary. 'Oh don't be! Do you imagine I'm going to be cross with you?'
'No, no. I'm upset about something, I'm not even sure what.
I suppose Pierce will hate me for this.'
'He's just as likely to love you for it. Young people have a strange psychology.'
'All people have a strange psychology,' said Ducane. He sat down at the table and regarded Mary. His rather round blue eyes, so markedly blue now in his bony sunburnt face, stared at Mary with a sort of puzzlement and he thrust back the limp locks of dark brown hair with a quick rhythmical movement. Mary studied him. What was the matter?
'I'm sorry,' said Ducane after a moment. 'I'm just having a risis of dissatisfaction with myself and I want sympathy. One ways asks for sympathy when one least deserves it.'
He's missing Kate, Mary thought. She said, 'I'm sure you have little reason to be dissatisfied with yourself, John. But let me sympathize. Tell me what's the matter.'
Ducane's blue eyes became yet rounder with what looked like alarm. He started to speak, stopped, and then said, 'How Id is Pierce?'
'Fifteen.'
'I ought to have got to know him better.'
'I hope you will. But you can't look after everyone, John , You see me as always looking after people?'
'Well, yes – '
'God!'
'Sorry, I didn't mean – '
'It's all right. He's a very reserved child.'
'He's been a long time without a father, too many years just with me.'
'How old was he when his father died?'
'Two.'
'So he scarcely remembers him.'
'Scarcely.'
'What was your husband's name, Mary?'
Oh God, thought Mary, I can't talk to him about Alistair, She recognized that particular coaxing intentness in Ducane's manner, his way of questioning people with close attention so as to make them tell him everything about themselves, which they usually turned out to be all too ready to do. She had seen him doing this to other people, even at dinner parties. He had never done it to her. She thought, I won't tell him anything, I've never talked to anyone about this, I won't talk to him. She said, 'Alistair.' The name came out into the room, an alien gobbet floating away into the air, drifting back again, hovering just above the level of her eyes.
'What did he do? I don't think I ever knew his profession.'
'He was a chartered accountant.'
'Does Pierce resemble him?'
'To look at, yes, though Alistair was taller. Not in temper.'
'What sort of person was he?'
I can't go on with this, thought Mary. How could she say, he was a funny man, always making puns. He was gay. He sang so beautifully. He was a universal artist. He was a failure. She said. 'He wrote a novel.'
'Was it published? T 'No. It was no good.' Mary had spent part of yesterday read. ing Alistair's novel. She had taken out the huge typescript with the intention of destroying it but had found herself unable to. It was so bad, so childish, so like Alistair.
'He died young,' said Ducane softly. 'He might have done better, he might have done much better.'
Mary supposed this was true. It was not a thing that she felt.
Perhaps it was unfair to dub him a failure. Yet somehow the judgement was absolute.
'What did he die of?' said Ducane in the soft coaxing voice.
Mary was silent. A black wall rose up in front of her. She was coming nearer and nearer and looking into the blackness, She stared into it, she entered it. She said in an almost dreamy voice, 'He was run over by a car one evening just outside our house. I saw it happen.'
'Oh – I'm sorry – was he – killed at once?'
'No: She recalled his cries, the long wait for the ambulance, the crowd, the long wait in the hospital.
'I'm sorry, Mary,' said Ducane. 'I'm being '
'It was the accidentalness of it,' she said. 'Sometimes I've nearly gone mad just thinking of it. That it should be so accidental. If I'd just said another sentence to him before he went out of the room, if he'd just stopped to tie his shoe lace, anything, and oh God, we'd just been quarrelling, and I let him go away without a word, if I'd only called him back, but he went straight out all upset and the car went over him. If he'd died of an illness or even been killed in the war somewhere far away where I couldn't know I could have felt it was inevitable, but to have him killed there accidentally in front of my eyes, I couldn't bear it, I've never told anyone how he died, I told Kate and Paula he died of pneumonia and I told Pierce that too. Pierce slept through it all in an upstairs room: I loved him, of course I loved him, but never quite enough or in the right way, and I haven't been able to think of him properly since, and it's somehow because of that awful accident, be cause things were cut off in that particular way, it made all our life together seem meaningless, and I haven't been able to feel properly about him, it's as if he were changed into some awful ghost with which I can't make any peace. I remember an awful feeling I had when I was going through his clothes afterwards as if he were watching me, all sad and deprived and unappeased, and I've had that feeling since, it comes at odd times in the evening, and I feel as if he still wants my love and I can't give it to him. I see his faults and his weaknesses now and what made me love him has faded utterly. It's terrible that one doesn't love people forever. I should have gone on loving him, it's the only thing I can do for him any more, and I have tried, but one can't love in a void, one can't love a sort of nothing for which one can't do anything else, and there's nothing left any more except the novel and that's so terribly silly and yet it's him in a way. If only it hadn't happened like that, so suddenly and all by chance, he walked straight out and under the car. You see, so few cars came down our road – '
'Don't cry so, Mary,' said Ducane. He moved beside her on to the bed and put an arm round her shoulder. 'Chance is really harder to bear than mortality, and it's all chance my dear, even what seems most inevitable. It's not easy to do, but one must accept it as one accepts one's losses and one's past. Don't try to see him. Just love him. Perhaps you never altogether knew him. Now his mystery is free of you. Respect it, and don't try to see any more. Love can't always do work. Sometimes it just has to look into the darkness. Keep looking and don't be afraid. There are no demons there.'
'Words, John,' said Mary. 'Words, words, words.' But she let herself be comforted by them, and felt that the tears were really for Alistair which she was weeping now.
'Mind the steps, Sir. This bit's rather slimy. Better take my hand.'
The slowly moving circle of light from the torch revealed a short flight of steps sheeted over with a fungoid veneer of damp dust. There was a pattern of footprints in the centre, and tangles of dangling black threads at the side. Beyond them a concrete ramp went on down into the darkness.
Ducane steadied himself by pressing his knuckles against the cold brick wall. He did not want to touch McGrath who was just in front of him. They descended slowly as far as the concrete.
'You say Mr Radeechy told you to cut the electric cable at the top of the passage, where we left the air-raid shelters? T 'That's right, Sir. Mr Radeechy liked it all to be by candle light. I think he thought it was safer too, you know, in case anyone came.'
'Was the door we've just come through usually locked? T 'Yes, Sir. Mr. had a key and he gave me a key.'
'Did you ever come down here without him?'
'I hardly ever came down here with him, Sir. I just left the stuff ready for him and cleared off. He didn't want me around when he was at it.'
'Go on, man, lead on, don't just block the way.'
'Are you all right, Sir?'
'Of course I'm all right. Go on.'
The wavering light of the torch undulated forward suggesting a vista of a narrow extended sloping rectangular slot of red brick with a dark ending. Several black pipes, bunched into the corner of the roof and joined together by a heavy sacking of cobwebs, led down into the darkness. The effect was of the entrance to an ancient sepulchre and it was hard to believe that the corridors of a government department were my at a few minutes' distance.
'Did you lock the door at the top behind us?' Ducane asked. he found that he was speaking in a low voice. The concrete ramp was slightly sticky as well, and footsteps made a faint soft kissing sound. A very low almost inaudible hum seemed to be out of the black pipes.
'Yes, Sir. I hope that was right, Sir? I thought we wouldn't want to be interrupted down here, Sir, any more than Mr R.! X 'Well, don't lose the key.'
'We'd be in a rare fix then, wouldn't we, Sir! No one comes near that door. We could be down here for ever and no one the wiser.'
'Get on, get on. Are we nearly there?'
'Nearly. Not that way, Sir. Straight on.'
A narrow black doorway had appeared on the right of the passage.
'Where does that lead to?'
'Lord, Sir, I don't know. I didn't go exploring down here. It's not a very nice place, especially when you're by yourself. I went down to the room and up again as quickly as I could. You aren't nervous, are you, Sir?'
'Of course not. Don't wave the torch about so, keep it down.'
The shape of the passage and the sharp angle of descent was reminding Ducane of kings' tombs he had visited in Greece and Egypt. He thought, I ought to have brought a torch of my own.
Then he thought, I ought to have told someone I was coming down here. There was no need for secrecy. I didn't realize what it would be like. Suppose we do lose the key? Suppose we get separated, suppose we get lost? These passages can't lead to more air-raid shelters, we've left the air-raid shelters behind, we're at much too low a level now. It's more likely that this is some disused part of the Underground or something to do with the sewers.
'It's steep again here, Sir, and more steps, watch out. Not straight on, this way now, follow me. Now this passage on the left. Keep close.'
'I saw one once, Sir, a big fat fellow. Mr. saw several. He asked me to get some biscuit tins and that to keep the stuff in. He was afraid the rats might eat it, you see. Left again, Sir.'
'Are you sure you know the way? T 'Quite sure, Sir. A bit eerie, isn't it? Just like the cata. combs I should think. Here we are arrived. Could you hold the torch now while I use the other key?'
They had reached a closed door. Ducane took a firm hold on the torch. Was the battery not perceptibly fainter? He moved the torch, revealing a black close-fitting well-painted door and McGrath's red-golden head stooped over the keyhole.
McGrath's hairs glistened like burnished wire in the close light.
The door gave silently.
'That's right. Give me the torch, Sir.'
'I'll keep the torch,' said Ducane.
McGrath moved through the opening and Ducane followed stepping carefully. There was a very unpleasant smell.
'Well, here we are, Sir, in the holy of holies.' The door clicked to behind them.
Ducane began to shine the torch about the room but the first thing revealed by it was McGrath. Again Ducane was struck by the intense colour of the man's hair. The light blue eyes stared back. There was a moment of stillness. Then Ducane moved to examine the room. The curious idea had occurred to him: this man could murder me down here and no one would ever know. He did not turn his back on McGrath.
The room was a plain fifteen-foot cube with a concrete floor.
One wall appeared to be covered with a whitish paper, the other walls and the ceiling were red brick. A trio of black pipes curled round the corner of the ceiling and disappeared into the wall. Ducane had an impression of trestle tables and chairs and some old physical memory came to him from the war time, some recalling of dug-outs and guard rooms. He felt at once certain that the strange room had been something to do with the war, something secret and unrecorded and lost.
McGrath moved to a corner and clanked open a metal box.
A match was struck. The candle flame illumined McGrath's hair and paper-white cheek and also the elaborate silver candlestick which held the candle. Ducane exclaimed.
'Very pretty, isn't it, Sir? Mr Radeechy had some nice stuff down here, I'll show you. You can put the torch out now Sir.'
Four candles in identical silver holders were now burning upon the trestle in the corner. Ducane moved to examine the candlesticks. Each one stood upon four silver balls held by four dragoh claws, and the thick shaft was engraved all over with swirling dragons.
'Nice, aren't they,' said McGrath. 'Chinese, Mr Radeechy said they were. And take a look at this.'
He had brought out and was holding aloft a silver-gilt chalice studded with what appeared to be very large jewels.
Ducane took the cup from him and examined it. The light was too dim and he knew too little about precious stones to be sure if these ones were real. But the effect was rich and somehow barbaric.
'Have a drink, Sir,' said McGrath.
As Ducane held the cup McGrath suddenly tilted some wine into it from a bottle which he had just produced. Ducane hastily put the chalice down on the table.
'It's quite all right, Sir. It won't have gone off. Quite a little feast we could have down here. We needn't starve. See, there's this funny bread, and walnuts, Mr. was very partial to walnuts.'
McGrath was taking the contents out of the tins and spreading them upon the table. Ducane saw slices of moist black bread and the nuts, their veined shells slightly green with mould. Black bread for the black mass; and Ducane recalled that walnuts'I saw one once, Sir, a big fat fellow. Mr. saw several. He asked me to get some biscuit tins and that to keep the stuff in.
He was afraid the rats might eat it, you see. Left again, Sir.'
'Are you sure you know the way? T 'Quite sure, Sir. A bit eerie, isn't it? Just like the catacombs I should think. Here we are arrived. Could you hold the torch now while I use the other key?'
They had reached a closed door. Ducane took a firm hold on the torch. Was the battery not perceptibly fainter? He moved the torch, revealing a black close-fitting well-painted door and McGrath's red-golden head stooped over the keyhole.
McGrath's hairs glistened like burnished wire in the close light.
The door gave silently.
'That's right. Give me the torch, Sir.'
'I'll keep the torch,' said Ducane.
McGrath moved through the opening and Ducane followed stepping carefully. There was a very unpleasant smell.
'Well, here we are, Sir, in the holy of holies.' The door clicked to behind them.
Ducane began to shine the torch about the room but the first thing revealed by it was McGrath. Again Ducane was struck by the intense colour of the man's hair. The light blue eyes stared back. There was a moment of stillness. Then Ducane moved to examine the room. The curious idea had occurred to him: this man could murder me down here and no one would ever know. He did not turn his back on McGrath.
The room was a plain fifteen-foot cube with a concrete floor.
One wall appeared to be covered with a whitish paper, the other walls and the ceiling were red brick. A trio of black pipes curled round the corner of the ceiling and disappeared into the wall. Ducane had an impression of trestle tables and chairs and some old physical memory came to him from the war time, some recalling of dug-outs and guard rooms. He feltMcGrath moved to a corner and clanked open a metal box.
A match was struck. The candle flame illumined McGrath's hair and paper-white cheek and also the elaborate silver candlestick which held the candle. Ducane exclaimed.
'Very pretty, isn't it, Sir? Mr Radeechy had some nice stuff down here, I'll show you. You can put the torch out now Sir.'
Four candles in identical silver holders were now burning upon the trestle in the corner. Ducane moved to examine the candlesticks. Each one stood upon four silver balls held by four dragon claws, and the thick shaft was engraved all over with swirling dragons.
'Nice, aren't they,' said McGrath. 'Chinese, Mr Radeechy said they were. And take a look at this.'
He had brought out and was holding aloft a silver-gilt chalice studded with what appeared to be very large jewels.
Ducane took the cup from him and examined it. The light was too dim and he knew too little about precious stones to be sure if these ones were real. But the effect was rich and somehow barbaric.
'Have a drink, Sir,' said McGrath.
As Ducane held the cup McGrath suddenly tilted some wine into it from a bottle which he had just produced. Ducane hastily put the chalice down on the table.
'It's quite all right, Sir. It won't have gone off. Quite a little feast we could have down here. We needn't starve. See, there's this funny bread, and walnuts, Mr. was very partial to walnuts.'
McGrath was taking the contents out of the tins and spreading them upon the table. Ducane saw slices of moist black bread and the nuts, their veined shells slightly green with mould. Black bread for the black mass; and Ducane recalled that walnutscrackers. 'Here, Sir, have half. They're quite good inside.'
Ducane felt the dry wrinkled morsel pressed into his hand.
He moved back. Whatever he did he must not share a walnut with McGrath. That meant something too, only he could not remember what.
'Show me what there is to see and then let's get back.'
'Not much to see really, Sir,' said McGrath munching walnut.
'This was where the candles went. I'll lay the rest of the stuff out.'
McGrath placed the candles in a row along the back of another trestle table which stood up against the white wall. A narrow black mattress lay upon the table. 'That was where the girl went, Sir,' said McGrath in a low reverential voice.
McGrath returned to the other darkened table and then began to lay out a number of articles upon the mattress. First there were a number of well-corked clearly labelled glass jars such as one might find in a kitchen. Ducane looked at the labels: poppy, hyssop, hellebore, hemp, sunflower, nightshade, henbane, belladonna. The black bread and a pile of walnuts were laid next to them. There followed a large packet of table salt, a small silver-gilt bell, a Bible, a battered Roman missal, some sticks of incense, an elongated piece of silver on a stand with a cross bar close to the foot of it, and a slim black whip.
The bell tinkled slightly, McGrath's pale red-haired hand closed over it.
McGrath placed the tall piece of silver in the centre of the table behind the mattress. Ducane thought: of course, a tau cross, a cross reversed.
'For the five senses, you see. Mr Radeechy explained it to me once. Salt for taste, flame for sight, bell for sound, incense for smell, and this for touch.'
McGrath laid the whip in front of the cross.
Ducane shuddered.
'And then there's this,' McGrath was going on.
The candles curtsied in a movement of air and Ducane withdrew his attention from the whip.
McGrath, swollen to twice his size, seemed to be struggling with something or dancing, his hands raised above his head, casting a huge capering shadow upon the brick wall. Then with a heavy plop the garment fell into place and McGrath displayed it, grinning. He was wearing a vast cope of yellow silk embroidered with black fir-cones. With a coquettish move ment he turned in a circle. The sleeves and trouser legs of his dark suit protruded from the exquisite cope with an effect of grossness. The garment was much too large for him. Radeechy had been a big man.
'This completes the get-up, you see.' McGrath had now produced a tall stiff embroidered head-dress rather like a mitre, and was about to put it on.
Ducane took it quickly out of his hand. 'Take that thing off., 'It's posh, isn't it?'
'Take it off.'
Rather reluctantly McGrath struggled out of the cope. As it came over his head he said, 'Do you think I could have some of these things, Sir?'
'Have some –? I 'Well, as mementos like. Do you think I could have that cup thing?'
'No, of course not!' said Ducane. 'These things are the property of Mr Radeechy's heir. The police will take charge of them. Stand out of the way, would you. I want to look around.'
He picked up one of the candles. 'What a terrible smell.'
'I expect it's the birds.'
'The birds?'
'Yes,' said McGrath.'The poor pigeons. See.'
He pointed into the darkness underneath a trestle table on the other side of the room.
Ducane moved the candle and saw beneath the table what looked like a large cage. It was in fact a cage roughly made out of a packing case and some strands of wire. Within the cage, as he leaned towards it, Ducane saw a spread-out grey wing. Then he saw a heap of sleek rounded grey and blue shapes piled together in a corner. The feathers were still glossy.
'All dead now of course,' said McGrath with a certain satisfaction.
'Mr Radeechy wanted them alive.' McGrath's hand reached out to touch the cage with an almost affectionate gesture. His wrist, woven over with golden wires, protruded a long way from his jacket.
'You mean –?'
'He used to kill them in the ceremony, whatever he did.
Blood all around the place something shocking. It always took me quite a time to clean it up after he'd been having a go. He was very particular you see about the cleaning up.'
'Where did you get them?»
'Caught them in Trafalgar Square. Nothing's easier if you get there early in the morning. Bit difficult in winter. But I could usually catch one or two on a foggy day and carry them off under my coat.'
'And you kept them here?'
'Some at home, some here, till they were needed. I fed them of course, but they seemed to be asleep most of the time. Not having any light I suppose. I'd put that lot in when it happened, about Mr Radeechy I mean.'
Ducane turned away from the little soft heap in the cage. 'It didn't occur to you to come down and let them out?'
McGrath seemed surprised. 'Lord, no. I didn't think of it.
I didn't want to come down here more than I need. And with poor Mr Radeechy dead I wasn't going to trouble my head about a few pigeons.'
Ducane shook himself. The candlestick was beginning to feel very heavy in his hand. It tilted over and hot candle grease fell on to his wrist and on to the sleeve of his coat. He felt suddenly slightly faint and it came to him that ever since he had entered the room he had been becoming passive and drowsy. He had a distinct urge to remove the objects from the mattress and lie down on it himself. He wondered for the first time how the room was ventilated. There seemed to be very little air to breathe. He took a deep gasping breath and the smell sickened him and he gave a retching cough.
'Foul smell, isn't it?' said McGrath, who was still on one knee beside the cage, watching him. 'But it's not just the birds, you know. It's him.'
'Him?'
'Mr. He smelt something awful. Did you never notice it?'
Ducane had in fact noticed that Radeechy smelt unpleasant.
He had once overheard clerks in the office jesting about it.
'Well, if we've seen what there is to see we'd better go,' said Ducane.
He turned back to the altar. The golden cope with the black pine-cones had been tossed over one end of the mattress. Ducane saw in the close light of the candle that the cope was tattered and soiled, one wing of it darkened near the hem by an irregular brown stain.
'Is there anything else?»
'You've seen the lot, Sir. Look, there's nothing else in the room. Just these tins, nothing more inside except some matches and some of Mr R's cigarettes, bless him. Nothing under the tables except the old pigeons. But just you look for yourself, Sir, just you look for yourself.'
Ducane walked along the edges of the room with his candle and then turned to face McGrath who was now standing with his back to the tau cross, watching Ducane intently. Ducane saw that McGrath had picked up the whip and was teasing the slender tapering point of it with a finger of his left hand. McGrath's eyes were empty featureless expanses of pale blue.
It's the dreariness of it, thought Ducane, that stupefies. This evil is dreary, it's something shut in and small, dust falling upon cobwebs, a bloodstain upon a garment, a heap of dead birds in a packing case. Whatever it was that Radeechy had so assiduously courted and attracted to himself, and which had breathed upon him, squirted over him, that odour of decay, had no intensity or grandeur. These were but small powers, graceless and bedraggled. Yet could not evil damn a man, was there not blackness enough to kill a human soul? It is in me, thought Ducane, as he continued to look through the empty blue staring eyes of McGrath. The evil is in me. There are demons and powers outside us, Radeechy played with them, but they are pygmy things. The great evil, the real evil is inside myself. It is I who am Lucifer. With this there came a rush of darkness within him which was like fresh air. Had Radeechy felt this onrush of black beatitude as he stood before the cross reversed and rested the chalice upon the belly of the naked girl?
'What's the matter, Sir?'
'Nothing,' said Ducane. He put the candle down on the nearest table. 'I feel a little odd. It's the lack of air.'
'Sit down a minute, Sir. Here's a chair.'
'No, no. What are those odd marks on the wall behind you?'
'Oh just the usual things, Sir. Soldiers I'd say.'
Ducane leaned across the mattress and examined the white wall. It was a wall of whitewashed brick and the appearance of a wallpaper had been given to it by a dense covering of graffiti, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. The customary messages and remarks were followed here and there by dates – all wartime dates. There were representations of the male organ in a variety of contexts. The decorated wall behind the cross provided a backcloth which was suddenly friendly and human, almost good.
Then certain marks caught Ducane's eye which seemed of more recent date, as if they had been put on with a blue felt pen. They overlaid the pencil scrawling of the soldiers. There were several carefully drawn pentograms and hexograms. Then in Radeechy's small pedantic hand was written Asmodeus, Astaroth, and below that Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of law. Directly above the cross was a large blue square which Ducane, moving the candle nearer, saw to be composed of capital letters. The letters read as follows: O A I A 0 I A 0 A I I 0 A O A I O I O A all A 'What does that mean?'
'Lord, Sir, I don't know. It's in some funny foreign language.
Nir Radeechy wrote it up one day. He told me to be careful not to smudge it when I was dusting.'
Ducane took out his diary and copied the square of letters down into the back of it. 'Let's go,' he said to McGrath.
'Just a minute, sir,' said McGrath.
They were both leaning against the trestle table with the cross upon it. Lit by the candles behind it, the multiple shadow of the reversed cross flickered upon their two hands, McGrath's left and Ducane's right, which were gripping the edge of the trestle. McGrath was still holding the whip in his right hand, drooping it now against his trouser leg. Stooping a little, and with a delicate almost fastidious gesture, Ducane took the whip out of McGrath's hand and swinging it round behind him tossed it on to the mattress. As his fingers touched McGrath's he saw McGrath's head and shoulders very clearly as if inscribed in an oval of light, the red-golden hair, the narrow pale face, the unflecked blue eyes. The vision carried with it a sense of something novel. Ducane thought, I am seeing him for the first time as being young, no, no, I am seeing him for the first time as being beautiful. He tensed his hand upon the table, dragging his nails across the surface of the wood.
'Let's not quarrel, Sir, shall we?'
'I wasn't aware that we were – quarrelling,' said Ducane after a moment. He took a slow step backward.
'Well, there was that little business of ours, you know. You were kind enough to help me out with a little money, if you remember, Sir. And I was able to oblige you about the young ladies' letters. I'd be most grateful, Sir, if we could now put this little matter on a proper business footing and then we can both forget all about it, see? I like you, Sir, I won't make any secret of it, I like you, and I want us to be friends. Mr Radeechy and I were friends, like, and you and I could be friends, Mr Ducane, Sir, and that's what I'd like best. There's a lot I could do for you, Sir, if I was so minded, I'm a very useful man, Sir, and a jack of all trades if I may say so, and Mr Radeechy found me very useful indeed. I'd like to serve you, Sir, and that comes from the heart. But I think it would be nicer for us both if we just settled up the other little thing first of all. A matter of four pounds a week, say, not much, Sir, to you, I mean I wouldn't want to charge you much. Just that, regular like – so perhaps Sir, if you wouldn't mind just filling in this banker's order, I've always found that the easiest way 'A banker's order?' said Ducane, staring at the apparition of McGrath flourishing a piece of paper in front of him.
Then he began to tremble with laughter. One of the candles went out. 'A banker's order? No, no, McGrath. You've got it all wrong, I'm afraid. You're a damnable villain but I'm not a total fool. I paid you a little because I needed you for this investigation. Now that you've done all you can for me I'm not paying you another penny.'
'In that case, Sir, I'm afraid' I shall be forced to communicate with those young ladies. You realize that?»
'You can do what you like about the young ladies,' said Ducane. 'I'm through with you, McGrath. The police will communicate with you about collecting up the stuff from here and you'll be required to make a statement. You'll be off my hands, thank God. And I never want to see or hear of you again. Now we're going back.'
'But, Sir, Sir '
'That's enough, McGrath. Just hand me the torch, will you?
Now lead the way. Quick march.'
The remaining candles were blown out. The black door opened and let in the dark fresher air of the tomb-like passage.
McGrath faded through the doorway. Ducane followed, holding the torch so as to illuminate McGrath's heels. As he began to mount the ramp he felt a curious taste upon his tongue.
He realized that at some point he must have put the half walnut absently into his mouth and eaten it; Dearest John, forgive me for writing, I've just got to write. I've got to do something which connects me with you, really, and not just in thought, and this is all I can do. Thank you very much for your dear postcard. I am so glad to think that I shall see you the week after next. But it seems rather a long time to wait. And I thought perhaps you would be glad to know that I was thinking about you all the time. Is that wrong of me? I am so happy when I think that you have somehow accepted me. You have accepted me, haven't you? I mean, you are letting me love you, aren't you? And that is all that I want. At least it's not all that I want but it's all that I can ask and, John, it's enough. I can be happy just thinking about you and seeing you now and then when you aren't too busy.
Love is such a good occupation, John, and I'm beginning to think that I'm clever at it! Be well, my dearest, and don't work too hard, and if it is ever a refreshment to you to know that your Jessica is thinking loving thoughts about you, then know it indeed, because it will be true. Yours, yours, yours Jessica P. S. I wonder if you understand me when I say that I have a guilty conscience? And that I was so relieved to get your postcard and know that all was well? You are a forgiving man and I worship you for that too. (If all this is Greek to you never mind!
I'll explain one day!)
John my dear,
I am feeling wretched and I must write to you, and although I know you don't want to be told that I love you, and that this just annoys you, I've still got to write and tell you because it's a fact and one that I live with in hell. I know one averts one's attention from unpleasant things and I have no doubt you think as little as possible about the problem of What To Do About Jessica; but the problem remains, and I have to press it on your notice now and then because you are the only person who can help me. I might say too that you are the person who ought to help me, since you do bear some responsibility for having awakened in me such an immense, such a truly monstrous degree of love. Of course I shall never recover from this illness. But you must just do a little more to help me to live with it.
I suppose you know, if you use your imagination at all about me (but perhaps you don't), that I expect a letter from you by every post. Idiotic, but I do; I can't help it, it's physical. I rush down as soon as I'hear the postman. And when, as usual, there's nothing, it's like a kind of amputation. Do try to think about this, John, even for two seconds. You leave me without any news for nearly a week.
Then you send me a postcard suggesting a meeting in ten days' time. This just isn't good enough, my dear. Are you really so busy that you can't see me for half an hour sometime next week? I behave very well these days, as you know – you've trained me and I have to! Couldn't you manage a short drink some evening? In fact, I could manage really any time of day, anywhere. Why not telephone me? I'm in nearly all the time now.
It would give me a particular relief to see you just now because – well, I wonder if you know why? I can't help wondering if you are not angry with me especially after getting your postcard. If you think I have done wrong you have got to forgive me. Because otherwise I shall die. John, please see me next week.
Jessica
John, as you may know by now, I went to bed with somebody last week. I expect you probably know all about it and either you are furious or you despise me utterly. I just couldn't interpret your postcard. It had such a curious tone. What are you thinking about me? I don't say 'forgive me' as I don't feel penitent. You've made it so clear that you don't want me, or rather you want me completely on your own terms. I'm supposed to love you but give no trouble. Well, I'm not as trouble-free as all that. And things happen to me too. However I suppose I should be grateful that at least you've always been totally truthful with me-and now I'm being totally truthful with you. It is unfortunately for us both also the truth that I love you and only you utterly and permanently and to distraction. You've just got to bear it. Please see me tomorrow. I'll telephone you at the office..
Jessica Bird had been wandering up and down her room for some time now. The three letters, which she had spent most of the previous night writing, were laid out on the table. Which letter should she send? Which was the sincere one? She felt all of the things in all of the letters. Which was the efficacious one? She knew in her heart that not one of them would be efficacious. Any one of them would annoy John and make him harden his heart against her. He would not see her tomorrow.
He might see her for half an hour next week and then postpone the appointment he had made on the postcard. It was not likely that he was angry with her; she had just become a nuisance and anything that she did, any claim that she made on his attention, was an irritant. This is perhaps the saddest experience in the demise of love and the most difficult for the imagination to encompass: to come to know that someone who loved you once now regards you as boring and annoying and unimportant. Sheer hatred might even be preferred to this. Of course she was being very unjust to John. John was a conscientious man who did no doubt worry about her welfare and it was on principle and as a matter of duty that he had suggested to her such a far off date on a postcard. He was trying to cure her. But this was not the way to do it. And indeed there was no cure.
It had been a sort of relief to Jessica to feel a clear and definite jealousy. The beautiful woman entering John's front door had been an indubitable percept, something novel, an occasion of quite new thoughts and hence a freshener of love; and as there is a joy of loving which lives even in extreme pain, there had been something invigorating and even cheering in this period of jealous love. However, the period of jealous love, though not exactly over, had suffered change. Jessica, amid all her other preoccupations, had been impressed in a quite factual way by her failure to find anything at all of a suggestive nature in John's bedroom: not a pin, not a smell, no cosmetics, no contraceptives, nothing. As John could scarcely have imagined her bold and inventive enough actually to get herself inside his house, he would be unlikely to have kept his room in quite such an innocuous condition if something were really going on there. Jessica was particularly impressed by the absence of the least hint of perfume. A woman who looked like the woman 11111 she had seen would be certain to wear perfume. It was wonderful that there had been nothing to smell. Yet there had been, as large as life, this woman, and Jessica would have continued to devote her time to speculation about her were it not that she had been plunged into the most terrible anxiety by the extraordinary way in which her visit to Ducane's house had terminated.
The little man, Willy, had told her that he would not tell John; but could she believe him? Did men tell each other such things? Of course they did. It would be only human if Willy told her he would not tell, and even meant it, and then told.
How would John take it, how had he taken it? What did the postcard mean? What should she do? Should she confess and risk his not knowing, or not confess and risk his knowing?
Would he be angry, would he be, oh beautiful thought, jealous, would he decide to write her off altogether? This lapse might provide him with just that little extra ounce of resentment needed to make him decide to stop seeing her. Was that the meaning of the postcard? He would nurse his anger, humiliate her by the delay, and then announce to her that it was their last meeting? Or did he know and just feel utterly indifferent? Or did he not know, and was really becoming grateful for her love, ready to accept it, comforted to know that she was eternally there?
Jessica paused facing the window pane but she did not look out. The window pane might have been entirely opaque, she herself might have been wearing a black veil, for all she could see of the cars and the people and the dogs and the cats passing by in the street. Her thoughts and images enclosed her head in a field of forces which literally rendered the world invisible. The only relief from endless speculation was fantasy, and of this she only allowed herself a very little. John did not really know his own heart. He was a hopeless puritan who could not have a love affair without feeling guilty. He had broken things off because he felt too guilty to be happy. But he was gradually discovering that without Jessica his life was empty: He had made conscientious efforts to reduce their love into a friendship, but he could not stop thinking about her.
One day he would realize that he could not cease to love her; and then the idea would come to him that the way to stop feeling guilty with somebody is to marry them. He would write her a long letter about it in his pedantic official style, full of careful explanations of his state of mind, asking if after all the pain he had caused her she still loved him enough to be willing to become his wife.
Jessica had also devoted quite a lot of thought to Willy. Any event is welcome to those who are unhappily in love,. and Willy had certainly been an event. For a short while, before her own reflections, together with John's curious postcard, had begun to frighten her, she had even felt a sort of exhilaration about Willy. There was an odd sacrilegious pleasure in the unfaithfulness itself. But she had also noticed Willy, and although she was scarcely aware of this, simply being forced to see something in the world other than John Ducane had done her good. Willy had intrigued and moved her, and before the old tyranny of love had again incarcerated her poor incurious heart she had felt a very definite desire to see him again. He had never revealed his surname or told her who he was. However, her curiosity about him, which did she but know it was a little spark of virtue in her, had by now been completely quenched by her guilt and indecision about John.
Jessica looked at herself in the long mirror which hung at one end of the room. She could no longer decide whether she was beautiful. Her face had no significance now except seenby-John, her body no meaning except touched-by-John. But what did he see, what did he touch? That he could see her as clearly as she now saw herself was a thought which terrified her. Perhaps he looked upon her now with secret disgust, noticing those hairs upon her upper lip and the enlargement of the pores about her nose. She had shortened her skirt for the new fashion, and her long legs were visible now from well above the knee, clad in lacy cream-coloured stockings. But did her long legs please him any more or was he merely annoyed that she should dress in this juvenile way and led to notice, what he had never noticed before, the bulkiness of her knees? Jessica drew back her long straggle of fair hair with one hand and put her face close to the mirror. There was no doubt about it. She was beginning to look old.
She returned again to her pacing of the room and to contemplation of the three letters on the table. The room was empty, and echoing and white. She had destroyed all her objects and had not had the heart to construct any new ones. As the term was over at her school, Jessica could now devote the whole of every day to walking up and down her room and thinking about John Ducane. She did not dare to leave the house in case he telephoned.
There was a slight sound downstairs and Jessica darted to the door. The post. She sprang down the stairs three at a time and swept up the envelopes which were lying on the that. She longed for a thick letter from John, but she also dreaded it. It might contain his long and careful explanation of why he had decided to see her no more.
There was no letter from John. The particular pain of this, the pain she had described as being like an amputation, flared through her body. No, it was not like an amputation. It was a jerking pain, more like being on the rack. She felt dislocated from head to foot. She put the envelopes on the table. In fact there was one letter for her, in a brown envelope, addressed in an unknown rather uneducated-looking hand. She walked heavily up the stairs and two tears went very slowly, as if they too were weary and discouraged, over the curve of her cheek.
She wished the post did not come three times a day.
She put the brown envelope down on the table. Should she send one of those letters to John? She just had to see him soon.
The agony of not knowing whether he knew and what he thought was becoming just physically too much. Some inner organ would give way, her heart would literally break, if she did not see him soon. Dare she ring him at the office? He had asked her never to do that. But the last time she had telephoned his house the servant had said he was not in, and she could not endure again the special unique pain of imagining that he had told the servant that he was not in to a young lady who might ring him up.
Absently Jessica picked up the brown envelope from the table and began to tear it open. There seemed to be quite a lot inside it. She pulled out a piece of lined paper with a short letter upon it, and an envelope came out too and fell face upwards on top of one of her own letters. Jessica stared at it with a shock of amazement and premonitory fright. It was an envelope addressed to John Ducane Esquire, in another and different handwriting. Why had this been sent to her? Was she supposed to pass it on to John? But she saw that the envelope had already been opened and the postmark was of earlier this month. With fascinated horror Jessica unfolded the accompanying letter. It was brief and read as follows.
Dear Madam,