Iris Murdoch - The Sandcastle

‘Nan, may I introduce Miss Carter,’ said Mor, since Do-moyte said nothing. ‘Miss Carter, my wife.’

The women smiled and greeted each other, and Nan as usual refused the glass of sherry which Demoyte as usual poured out and offered to her.

‘As I said before, the meal is ready,’ said Miss Handforth, who was still standing in the doorway. ‘If the ladies want to go upstairs first, they know the way. Meanwhile I shall be bringing in the soup.’

‘Oh, shut up, Handy,’ said Demoyte. ‘Give us a moment to finish our sherry, and don’t rush the ladies.’

Nan and Miss Carter took the opportunity to withdraw, and Miss Handforth stumped away to the kitchen. Mor turned to Demoyte and looked him over. Demoyte peered at Mor, his eyes gleaming and his nose wrinkled in what Mor had learnt to recognize as a smile. Demoyte’s heavy sardonic mouth did not follow the usual conventions about smiling.

‘Why the fancy dress, sir?’ said Mor, indicating the lounge suit.

‘Not a word!’ said Demoyte, conspiratorially. ‘Am I to be summed up by a slip of a girl? You don’t know what I’ve suffered in these last twenty-four hours! She wants to see pictures of my parents, pictures of me as a child, pictures of me as a student. She wants to know what I’ve written. She practically asked if I kept a diary. It’s like having a psychiatrist in the house. Her sense of vocation is like a steam hammer. You wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you? But I’m going to lead her up the garden. I’ve got her thoroughly foxed so far. She shan’t know what I’m like if I can help it! These clothes are part of the game. Ssh! here she comes.’ They all went in to dinner.

They had reached the dessert. Nan was methodically eating a pear and Miss Carter was picking daintily at a branch of very small grapes. Mor was enjoying the port. Demoyte sat at the head of the table and Mor sat at the foot with the ladies between them. As Nan had predicted, no place had been set this evening for Miss Handforth. This person towered over the table, often leaning upon it as she made a remark, sneezing from time to time, and breathing down the ladies’ necks.

Demoyte said, ‘I asked old Bledyard to come to complete the party, but he made some excuse, obviously false. Miss Carter hasn’t met our Bledyard yet.’ Bledyard was the art master at St Bride’s, an eccentric.

‘I look forward to meeting him,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I have seen some of his work. It is good.’

‘Really?’ said Mor. ‘I didn’t realize Bledyard ever actually painted anything!’

‘He used to, certainly,’ said Miss Carter. ‘I have seen at least three good landscapes. But I gather now he has theories which interfere with his painting?’

‘His head is full of cant,’ said Demoyte, ‘which he employs to excuse the fact that he can’t paint any more. That’s how I see it. But at any rate Bledyard is a man. He’s got some stuff inside him. Not like the pious dolls poor Evvy will fill the place with before long. You’d better start clearing out, you infidel,’ he said to Mor.

Mor, who was anxious to skirt the dangerous subject of his clearing out, said quickly, ‘I believe we are both to lunch with Mr Everard on Thursday, Miss Carter. I think Bledyard has been invited too.’ He regretted this change of subject at once, since it struck him that Everard had as usual blundered in inviting him and failing to invite Nan. This aspect of the matter had not struck him when Everard had mentioned the lunch that afternoon. Nan put down her fruit knife noisily and drank some water.

‘You’ll get nothing to drink with Evvy,’ said Demoyte. ‘Better stoke up now. Have some more wine, Miss Carter. Can’t I persuade you, Mrs Mor? See, Miss Carter is drinking like a fish, and is more sober than any of us.’ Mor had noticed this too.

Miss Carter did not rise to this quip. She said rather solemnly, ‘I have only met Mr Everard once. I look forward to seeing him again.’

‘Impossible!’ said Demoyte. ‘What did you think of poor Evvy? Let’s hear Evvy summed up!’ He winked at Mor.

Miss Carter hesitated. She cast a quick suspicious look at Demoyte. ‘I think he has a fresh and gentle face,’ she said firmly. ‘He seems a man without any malice in him. That is both rare and good.’

Demoyte seemed taken aback for a moment. Mor taunted him with his eyes. ‘Little puritan!’ said Demoyte. ‘So you reprove us all! Let me fill your glass yet again.’

No, thank you, Mr Demoyte,‘ said Miss Carter. ’Of course, it takes a long time to know a man, and this is only an impression. What do you think, Mrs Mor?‘

Mor held his breath. He thought the question rather bold. He hoped that Nan was not going to dislike Miss Carter.

‘Well,’ said Nan, ‘I think fundamentally Mr Everard is a fool, and if someone is a fool, especially if he’s in a position of authority, this spoils his other good qualities.’

‘For once,’ cried Demoyte, ‘I find myself in complete agreement with Mrs Mor. And now, dear friends, it’s time for coffee.’

Coffee was taken in the library. Mor loved this room too. It lay above the drawing-room and had the same view, but it was a longer room. There were the three tall windows, corresponding to the ones below, and then an extra piece on the front side of the house giving to the library one of the big bow windows which faced the drive. Directly below this, cut off from the drawing-room, was a little room which Miss Handforth, making what was always supposed to be a joke, would call her boudoir. The bow window on the other side of the hall belonged to the dining-room, and above, to Demoyte’s bedroom. Next to the library at the back of the house was a guest bedroom, which also enjoyed a view of the lawn, and through whose other window could be seen, once it had grown dark, a reddish glow which showed, at a distance of some twenty miles, where London lay.

Demoyte s books were all behind glass, so that the room was full of reflections. Demoyte was a connoisseur of books. Mor, who was not, had long ago been barred from the library. Mor liked to tear a book apart as he read it, breaking the back, thumbing and turning down the pages, commenting and underlining. He liked to have his books close to him, upon a table, upon the floor, at least upon open shelves. Seeing them so near and so destroyed, he could feel that they were now almost inside his head. Demoyte’s books seemed a different kind of entity. Yet he liked to see them too, elegant, stiff and spotless, gilded and calved, books to be held gently in the hand and admired, and which recalled to mind the fact of which Mor was usually oblivious that a book is a thing and not just a collection of thoughts.

The others sat down near to one of the lamps. Mor wandered about the room. He felt free and at ease; almost, for the moment, happy. He looked out of the windows. The Close was never silent, since day and night there could be heard the hum of the traffic along the arterial road and the distant thunder of trains and their sad piping cries. Headlights of cars swept by perpetually in the middle distance, revealing trees and the scored surface of sandy embankments. Mor turned back into the room. He surveyed the group by the lamp. His eyes still full of the night, he felt detached and superior. Miss Carter was sitting with her legs drawn up under her. Her skirt spread in a big arc about her, and the lamplight falling upon the lower half of it made it glow with reds and yellows. She looked, Mor thought, like some small and brilliantly plum-aged bird. He felt he was being rude, and turned to one of the bookcases.

‘Keep your paws off those books!’ called Demoyte. ‘Come and drink your coffee, or Handy will remove it. You know she only allows seven minutes for coffee.’