The Good Apprentice (16 page)
Read The Good Apprentice Online
Authors: Iris Murdoch
PART TWO
Seegard
Seegard only
, an almost illegible signpost said, pointing away down a muddy track where the country bus had deposited Edward Baltram.
, an almost illegible signpost said, pointing away down a muddy track where the country bus had deposited Edward Baltram.
After his cry of ‘I’ve got to go’, Edward had had second thoughts. The idea had briefly seemed, after the intense emotions of the seance and his talk with Thomas, like an inspiration, a glowing indicator. He had thought, I’ll go to my father, I’ll confess to him and he will judge me. In the next day or two however the energy had faded and the project lost its point. It was not so much that Edward felt afraid of it, though indeed he did; it just seemed useless and worthless, as empty of sense as everything else in his miserable life. Why should he take the trouble to go to a place where he had no significance and was not wanted and would simply be rejected? Besides, how could he go? He could hardly arrive uninvited, and was incapable of writing a letter. He wished he had never told Thomas about the seance, telling about it had made it momentarily more real. That whole episode now seemed to belong to a kind of dull madness which belonged in his unhappy being like an alien ball of black rags which had some- how been stuffed in under his skin. Those were mean nasty small hallucinations, a sort of mental filth exuded by the soul. He once more occupied himself by lying on his bed reading thrillers, and walking about London seeing ugly deformed people and obscene pictures. Even the dogs were hostile. They could smell him. He was afraid at first that the seance might haunt him and prompt new horrible experiences. But soon he began to forget it and returned to his endless familiar rehearsals of the old pain.
One morning however Edward was amazed to receive the following letter.
SeegardMy dear Edward,If I may so call you, my husband and I have been thinking about you, and would so like to see you. I wonder if you would be so kind as to visit us? We would be delighted if you could come, even just for a few days, to renew acquaintance, it would be a great pleasure. Please write and say if you will come, any time soon would suit well.Yours sincerely,
May Baltram.PS We read of your sad mishap in the paper.
On the back of the letter there was a map showing how to reach Seegard from the bus route and a note:
I am afraid after the recent rainfall we cannot get the car up the track, but just let us know roughly when to expect you and we’ll be waiting for you at the house.
Edward wrote at once saying he would come. He sent a note to Thomas, announcing his departure and asking him not to tell anyone. Then, without a word to either Stuart or Harry, he packed a small bag and melted away. And now the little bus, which had smelt of human company and things not yet irrevocable, had left him, and the sound of its engine had faded away and the countryside, in the cold cloudy light of the late afternoon, was silent and empty.
It was not, in Edward’s eyes, an attractive scene. Having been brought up in a city, he looked instinctively for ‘charm’ in ‘the country’, but could see none here. The land was exceedingly flat. The recent rainfall referred to by Mrs Baltram had turned the track into a dark muddy rivulet winding between water-logged fields where some greenish crop was rising a little above the surface. A watery ditch running on one side of the track reflected a little light. Above in the huge sky, a larger sky than Edward had ever seen, some brown clouds were being slowly conveyed along by the steady east wind, their activity and altering colour contrasting with the drab earth which so meagrely depended from the round horizon. The atlas, at which Edward had hastily glanced before leaving London, indicated the proximity of the sea, but nothing of that interesting feature was to be seen. A few isolated trees alone gave definition to the mournful expanse where no human habitation was visible. Mrs Baltram’s map had announced a walk of ‘about two miles’. Edward’s town shoes were engulfed in mud as soon as he left the tarmac. He set off walking into the wind.
In his farewells to Edward after their talk, Thomas had asked him to write. He had also said, ‘Look, if it’s
awful
, return at once and come straight to me.’ Edward had not tried to imagine in any detail what ‘it’ would be like, he had simply tried to hold onto his idea of it as ‘compulsory’. Now it was too late for speculation, his thinking paralysed by the appalled sense of time which attends the approach of a crucial but invisible event: the exam paper, the doctor’s verdict, the news from the scene of the crash. He was accompanied by, almost as if he relied upon it, his old familiar grief, his wound, a part of his body, a blackness in the stomach, a weary sense of futility as he lifted his feet heavy with mud. The invigorating sense of fate, which he had briefly felt in Thomas’s presence and for a short time after, had left him. ‘I will arise and go to my father …’ Seegard had seemed like a significant destiny, at least a novelty, perhaps a refuge. Mrs Baltram’s letter had reinforced the hand of fate, but in making the project more real, made it at the same time more frightening, and thereby in a sense irrelevant. Why should he, in his present condition, submit to being frightened by something else? Yet to deny her summons was also unthinkable, and Edward did not try to work out any significant relation between it and his wounded state. His exclamation to Thomas, that they ‘must connect’, expressed simply his sense of being eaten up by a single obsession.
awful
, return at once and come straight to me.’ Edward had not tried to imagine in any detail what ‘it’ would be like, he had simply tried to hold onto his idea of it as ‘compulsory’. Now it was too late for speculation, his thinking paralysed by the appalled sense of time which attends the approach of a crucial but invisible event: the exam paper, the doctor’s verdict, the news from the scene of the crash. He was accompanied by, almost as if he relied upon it, his old familiar grief, his wound, a part of his body, a blackness in the stomach, a weary sense of futility as he lifted his feet heavy with mud. The invigorating sense of fate, which he had briefly felt in Thomas’s presence and for a short time after, had left him. ‘I will arise and go to my father …’ Seegard had seemed like a significant destiny, at least a novelty, perhaps a refuge. Mrs Baltram’s letter had reinforced the hand of fate, but in making the project more real, made it at the same time more frightening, and thereby in a sense irrelevant. Why should he, in his present condition, submit to being frightened by something else? Yet to deny her summons was also unthinkable, and Edward did not try to work out any significant relation between it and his wounded state. His exclamation to Thomas, that they ‘must connect’, expressed simply his sense of being eaten up by a single obsession.
So now he was to meet his father: that enormous dark figure concealed behind the curtain of the future to which by every step he was coming closer. Mrs Baltram’s letter had spoken of ‘her husband and herself’ as inviting him and wanting to see him. But this might be inexact. Perhaps, after reading about his ‘mishap’, she had written on her own compassionate impulse without consulting her husband, or just taking his assent for granted? Or perhaps she had written out of some idle morbid curiosity such as attracts spectators to afflicted people, as it attracts them to any catastrophe? This, in the light of his vague memories of his stepmother, seemed more likely. He could attribute such coldness to her which, he noticed, he refrained from attributing to his father. The term ‘stepmother’, occurring to his mind now for the first time, had an unpleasant ring. Stepmothers were traditionally cruel and unjust. Also, for some reason, he could not imagine his father as
bothering
to be idly curious about him, as if this distinguished man would be above such petty concerns. Was this a good thing or not? Did he want his father to feel strong emotions about him? Would he be terribly disappointed if his father, absorbed in his important work, were uninterested in him? Yes, of course. Yet would that not be safer? What, here, would ‘safe’ be? Suppose his father were
longing
to see him, expecting from him, perhaps, something remarkable? Suppose the mention of his name in an unpleasant, indeed frightful, context in ‘the papers’ had served as a pretext to recall the child who might earlier have seemed lost forever? Well, he would know soon.
bothering
to be idly curious about him, as if this distinguished man would be above such petty concerns. Was this a good thing or not? Did he want his father to feel strong emotions about him? Would he be terribly disappointed if his father, absorbed in his important work, were uninterested in him? Yes, of course. Yet would that not be safer? What, here, would ‘safe’ be? Suppose his father were
longing
to see him, expecting from him, perhaps, something remarkable? Suppose the mention of his name in an unpleasant, indeed frightful, context in ‘the papers’ had served as a pretext to recall the child who might earlier have seemed lost forever? Well, he would know soon.
How
soon was now appalling him as he walked on, slowly because of the muddy ground, along the track leading to Seegard. To Seegard
only.
The wind was sharper and he felt cold in his thin mackintosh. The watery ditch had by now wandered away into a reedy marshy wilderness which had appeared on the left, wherein, as the clouds were parting, small puddles or pools were being touched by the evening sun. On a very slight eminence on the other side, not considerable enough to be called a hill, there was a mass of fuzzy darkness which Edward took to be a wood. Soon the sky above him had become clear, not blue but a sort of pale lightless green, while the horizon was streaked with burning tongues of gold. His attention was now caught by some portent rising into the air above the wood, a kind of large dark substance like a fast-moving balloon, which kept changing its shape as it moved towards him. He stopped, then realised that it was an immense flock of birds which was executing a very rapid complex dance as it extended, contracted, folded over itself, changed direction and passed with a faint whirring of wings directly over his head. Watching it vanish he realised how dark the landscape had become, though the sky still had light, and how silent it was. He listened to the silence, then detected in it a faint distant murmur, perhaps of a river. The track, already hard to distinguish from its surroundings, was marked by a line of small tormented thorn trees with pallid whitish flowers, and wild rose bushes still bearing a few blackened hips. There was still no sign of any house, and he wondered whether he had missed a turning, a parting of the ways, and were perhaps now heading away into the marshy wilderness to be lost in the dark. He hurried on, looking about him and trying to walk faster. His surroundings were becoming flickering and insubstantial, his eyes failing in what was now certainly twilight. There was a pale presence of mist over the marsh. Then, as if emerging suddenly from behind a curtain of invisibility, there was ahead of him, already not far off, a house, or rather a substantial building, outlined against the fading sky, a humpy mass with a tower at one end. It looked to him, at that first moment, upon that flat land, huge, like a cathedral, or a great ship. He hurried now, gasping with emotion, conscious of time as that edge over which he was about to fall, that window out of which he was about to walk … The image of Mark came to him vividly, almost like a ghost, a reminder of his, in all possible scenes, accursed condition; and he felt suddenly that he was the thing which was so frightening, he the figure approaching out of the dark, a bringer to that lonely quiet place of some catastrophe or pestilence.
soon was now appalling him as he walked on, slowly because of the muddy ground, along the track leading to Seegard. To Seegard
only.
The wind was sharper and he felt cold in his thin mackintosh. The watery ditch had by now wandered away into a reedy marshy wilderness which had appeared on the left, wherein, as the clouds were parting, small puddles or pools were being touched by the evening sun. On a very slight eminence on the other side, not considerable enough to be called a hill, there was a mass of fuzzy darkness which Edward took to be a wood. Soon the sky above him had become clear, not blue but a sort of pale lightless green, while the horizon was streaked with burning tongues of gold. His attention was now caught by some portent rising into the air above the wood, a kind of large dark substance like a fast-moving balloon, which kept changing its shape as it moved towards him. He stopped, then realised that it was an immense flock of birds which was executing a very rapid complex dance as it extended, contracted, folded over itself, changed direction and passed with a faint whirring of wings directly over his head. Watching it vanish he realised how dark the landscape had become, though the sky still had light, and how silent it was. He listened to the silence, then detected in it a faint distant murmur, perhaps of a river. The track, already hard to distinguish from its surroundings, was marked by a line of small tormented thorn trees with pallid whitish flowers, and wild rose bushes still bearing a few blackened hips. There was still no sign of any house, and he wondered whether he had missed a turning, a parting of the ways, and were perhaps now heading away into the marshy wilderness to be lost in the dark. He hurried on, looking about him and trying to walk faster. His surroundings were becoming flickering and insubstantial, his eyes failing in what was now certainly twilight. There was a pale presence of mist over the marsh. Then, as if emerging suddenly from behind a curtain of invisibility, there was ahead of him, already not far off, a house, or rather a substantial building, outlined against the fading sky, a humpy mass with a tower at one end. It looked to him, at that first moment, upon that flat land, huge, like a cathedral, or a great ship. He hurried now, gasping with emotion, conscious of time as that edge over which he was about to fall, that window out of which he was about to walk … The image of Mark came to him vividly, almost like a ghost, a reminder of his, in all possible scenes, accursed condition; and he felt suddenly that he was the thing which was so frightening, he the figure approaching out of the dark, a bringer to that lonely quiet place of some catastrophe or pestilence.
The house was near now and clearer, the twilight haze becoming clarified as if it were dawn not dusk. Edward had, he now realised, seen pictures of Seegard in some newspaper or journal long ago, but had blotted them out of his memory. It was a weird-looking object, indeed very big, consisting of a long high almost windowless building with a pitched roof, looking like a hall, with what appeared to be an eighteenth-century house attached to one end of it by a high corniced wall. At the other end was the tower, a tall thick hexagon of concrete with an irregular dotting of windows. His feet now informed him that he was no longer walking upon muddy earth, but upon a stone pavement, and he was aware of being enclosed on either side by trees, comprising a wide avenue, not impeding but framing his view of the house. He could now see, in the middle of the high central building, a large door standing open and a light coming from within. And then he saw, near to the door, and flattened against the twilit wall, painted there as a frieze or set up as statues, three women.
Edward stopped, then moved on. The women, motionless a moment longer, stepped forward upon the pavement together. Seeing them so suddenly in the light from the open door Edward was at once aware of their beauty, their youth, and their resemblance to each other. They wore long full-skirted dresses of some multicoloured material, approaching the ankle, pulled in at the waist, there were jewels at their necks and their long hair was piled up in heavy crowns. They smiled upon Edward and as if in shyness were silent, so that Edward, feeling that he should speak first, uttered an inarticulate sound.
‘Edward, welcome to Seegard.’ A hand was outstretched, then another. Edward shook two hands, then three.
‘Come inside,’ said a voice, ‘it’s cold.’
‘Welcome to Seegard,’ another voice said.
‘I hope you didn’t mind the walk.’
‘No, not at all,’ said Edward, ‘it was a nice walk but awfully — rather — muddy, and I haven’t got any proper shoes.’ He recalled those, his first words, later as rather feeble and inane. However they served. He followed one of the women in through the door and was followed by the other two. Someone touched his coat.
The main building into which he was now entering was indeed a hall, or rather a very large barn with a high roof with massive crisscrossings of pale wooden beams. As the door closed behind him Edward’s first searching look was for a male figure, waiting, but there was none. There were some high-up windows, a conspicuous tapestry, a group of tall glossy potted plants. The walls were of golden-yellow roughly squared stone blocks. Edward noticed a huge tiled stove, a monster such as he had seen in Germany but never in England. In spite of this presence the large space was distinctly cold. A long solid burly wooden table was laid at one end for a meal. The scene was lit by oil lamps placed upon the table or somehow suspended in distant corners. Edward put down his suitcase and again confronted the women. They still looked very young and all alike.
‘I am Mrs Baltram. Those are your sisters, Ilona and Bettina. This is Ilona, this is Bettina.’ The two girls curtsied, smiling.
Edward had not of course totally forgotten the ‘horrid little girls’. Yet he had not in any way reckoned with them or wondered about them. They had been blotted out of the picture which contained his father, and as a smaller figure his stepmother. He had vaguely thought that ‘the girls’ would be away, perhaps at school, perhaps at work elsewhere, he had never even troubled to work out their ages in relation to himself, and had not, in his final turmoil, thought about them at all.
‘We call her Mother May,’ said one of them.
‘Please call me that.’
‘Yes — thank you — how kind of you to invite me — ’
‘We’re so glad that you could come. You must be tired after that walk. Bettina, would you show Edward his room? Then we’ll have supper. I expected you’re hungry. Oh, would you mind taking your shoes off? They’re a bit muddy. Just put them there, in that box by the wall.’
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