The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
Rain, surveying now at leisure the object placed before her, could hear her father’s voice saying, ‘Don’t forget that a portrait must have depth, mass, and decorative qualities. Don’t be so fascinated by the head, or by the space, that you forget that a canvas is also a flat surface with edges which touch the frame. Part of your task is to cover that surface with a pattern.’ What Rain had lacked was the motif of the pattern. But this had lately occurred to her, and with it came the definitive vision, which she had been seeking, of Demoyte’s face. The old man’s face, it now seemed to her, was of a withered golden colour, like an old apple, and marked with the repetition of a certain curve. Supremely this curve occurred in his lips, which Rain proposed to paint curling in a slightly sarcastic and amused manner which was highly characteristic of him. It appeared again, more subdued, in his eyebrows, which met bushily above his nose, and in the line made by his eyes and the deep wrinkles which led upwards from their corners. The multitudinous furrows of the forehead presented the same motif, tiny now and endlessly repeated, where the amusement was merged into tolerance and the sarcasm into sadness.
Rain had chosen as part of the background one of the rugs which, as it seemed to her, spoke the theme again. In some obscure way this patterned surface continued too to be expressive of the character of the sitter, with his passionate interest in all-over decoration. Rain selected a noble Shíráz, of a more intense golden shade, not unlike the colour in which she proposed to paint the old man’s face, and wherein the curve occurred again, formalized into a recurrent flower. This rug, which was the same one which Rain had been studying when William Mor first beheld her, she had persuaded Demoyte to move, exchanging its position with another one so as to have it in the picture. He had done this with many complaints.
Rain was aware of the dangers of her plan. She was not especially worried at the possibility of depth and space being sacrificed to decoration. That was a risk which had to be run in any case - and she found in practice that if she thought about decoration first, and then forgot it and thought about depth, the thing would usually work out. It was rather that this particular motif, combined with the colour scheme which seemed to be imposing itself, was a somewhat sweet one and might soften the picture too much. To counteract it she would rely upon the sheer mass and strength of the head - that would be her most difficult task - and upon the powerful thickness of the neck. The hands and the objects upon the table would have to play their part too, especially the hands. Rain did not yet see this very clearly. The treatment of the window was also to some extent problematic. She was tempted to paint the trees in a stylized and curly manner, but suspected that this was a false instinct. Something different must be done with the trees, something rather austere. What she could not bring herself to sacrifice was the idea of putting in the neo-Gothic tower of the school in the top left-hand corner, rising into the sky with a fantastic flourish. The sky itself would be pallid, cooling down the rest of the picture, so far as was consistent with a strong light in the room. Demoyte himself would be looking back, away from the window, his glance not quite meeting that of the spectator.
‘It’s time you stopped that now, missie, said Demoyte. ’There isn’t anything like enough light to paint by.‘ He shifted restlessly about in his chair. He particularly resented being kept there when Rain was not painting him but painting a piece of the rug. Rain had told him when he complained that ’all the colours belong to each other, so the rug looks different when you are there.
‘I know,’ said Rain abstractedly. She was wearing her black trousers and a loose red overall on top, the sleeves well rolled up. ‘It is too dark. My father would be cross seeing me painting now. I just want to finish this tiny square.’
She had filled in in very considerable detail one small segment of the rug in the top right-hand half of the picture. The rest of the picture was vaguely sketched in with a small number of thin lines of paint. Rain, following her father, did not believe in under-painting. She painted directly on to the canvas with strokes of colour which were put on as if they were to stand and to modify the final result however much was subsequently laid on top of them. Rain also followed Sidney Carter’s system of painting the background first and letting the main subject grow out of the background and dominate it and if necessary encroach upon it. In particular, she recalled her father’s dictum: ‘A little piece of serious paint upon the canvas will tell you a lot about the rest. Put it on and sleep on it’ Rain hoped that the following day she would be able to construct, from the small and finely worked segment of rug, a great deal more of the rest of her picture.
She laid the brush down. It was too dark now. Demoyte began to get up. ‘Please wait a moment,’ said Rain, ‘just a moment more, please.’ He subsided.
Rain came forward and studied him, leaning thoughtfully across the table. The hands. Much depended on that. The hands must be another mark of strength in the picture, shown solid and square, somehow. But how exactly?
‘I don’t know what to do with your hands,’ said Rain. She reached across and took one of Demoyte’s hands and laid it across the top of one of the books. No, that wouldn’t do.
‘I know what to do with your hands,’ said Demoyte. He captured the one that was still straying about on the table and lifted it to his lips.
Rain smiled faintly. She looked down at Demoyte, not studying him this time. Now it was quite dark in the room, although the garden was glowing still.
‘Have I given you a bad day?’ she said. She did not try to free her hand. Demoyte clasped it in both of his, stroking it gently and conveying it frequently to his lips.
‘You’ve kept me sitting here in one position and an agony of rheumatism for the whole afternoon, that’s all,’ said Demoyte. ‘Let me see how much you’ve done by now.’ He lumbered over to the easel. Rain followed him and sat down on a chair to look at the canvas. She felt exhausted.
‘Good God!’ said Demoyte. ‘Is that all you’ve done, child, in the last two hours? You’re still on that square inch of carpet. At this rate you’ll be with us for years. But perhaps that’s what you want-like Penelope, never finishing her work? I wouldn’t complain. And I can think of one or two other people who wouldn’t complain either.’ Demoyte leaned on the back of Rain’s chair and touched her dark hair. His enormous hand could cup the back of her head in its palm. He drew his hand slowly down on to her neck.
‘The picture will be finished,’ said Rain, ‘and I shall go. I shall be sorry.’ She spoke solemnly.
‘Yes,’ said Demoyte. He fetched another chair and placed it very close to her and sat down, his knee brushing hers. ‘When the picture is finished,’ he said, ‘you will go, and I shall not see you again.
He spoke in a factual voice, as if requiring no reply. Rain watched him gravely.
‘When you go,’ said Demoyte, ‘you will leave behind a picture of me, whereas what I shall be wanting is a picture of you.
‘Every portrait is a self-portrait,’ said Rain. ‘In portraying you I portray myself.’
‘Spiritual nonsense,’ said Demoyte. ‘I want to see your flesh, not your soul.’
‘Artists do paint themselves in their sitters,’ said Rain, ‘often in quite material ways. Burne-Jones made all his people look thin and gloomy like himself. Romney always reproduced his own nose, Van Dyck his own hands.’ She reached out and drew her hand in the half darkness along the rough cord of Demoyte’s coat, seeking his wrist. She sighed.
‘Your father, yes,’ said Demoyte, ‘he taught you many things, but you are yourself a different being and must live so. Here I prose on, an old man, and must be forgiven. You know how much at this moment I want to take you in my arms, and that I will not do so. Rain, Rain. Tell me instead, why do you think artists make their sitters resemble them? Will you paint me to resemble you? Would such a thing be possible?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rain, ‘whether it shows a limitation, if we want to see ourselves in the world about us. Perhaps it is rather that we fe
‘You think that we feel our faces as if they were masks?’ said Demoyte. He reached out and touched Rain’s face, drawing his finger gently down over the outline of her nose.
Miss Handforth came noisily into the room and switched the light on. Rain sat quite still, but Demoyte jerked awkwardly backwards, jarring his chair along the floor.
‘Deary me!’ said Miss Handforth. ‘I had no idea you two were still in here, why you’ve been sitting in the dark! Mr Mor has just come, I sent him up to the library, because I thought you were upstairs.’ Miss Handforth strode across the the room and began lustily pulling the curtains. The garden was dark.
‘I wish you wouldn’t enter rooms like a battering ram, Handy,’ said Demoyte. ‘Leave all that and go and tell Mor to come down here.’
‘Do you want all that stuff left here, or am I to clear it up every night?’ asked Miss Handforth, indicating the white sheet, the easel, and the other paraphernalia.
‘Please may it remain here for the moment?’ said Rain.
‘You propose to take possession of my drawing-room, do you?’ said Demoyte. ‘The whole house stinks of paint already. Go on, Handy, go away and fetch that man down from the library.’
When Mor had walked towards the front door of his house on the previous evening he had still not been sure whether or not he would tell his wife the whole story. The interference of Tim Burke seemed to complicate the picture. Frankness on Mor’s part would now be an exposure not only of himself but of his friend. Yet it was not this that moved Mor so much as a feeling that Tim’s lie, added to his own, made of the whole thing something far more considerable in appearance than it really was. There was something about the way in which Tim had said, ‘I saw you in a car with a girl,’ which made Mor suddenly see the situation from the outside; and seen from the outside it did look as if it were something, whereas seen from the inside it was of course nothing, nothing at all. So that, it seemed obscurely to Mor as he walked back, to tell Nan the truth would really be to mislead her. There was no way of telling the story which would not make Nan think that there was more to it than there was. So, in a way, it was more in accordance with the facts to let Nan think that nothing had occurred. For nothing had occurred and the whole thing would soon be buried in the past. Except for a few inevitable social meetings he would see no more of Miss Carter, and that would be that. Mor echoed again his words to Tim Burke: ‘We won’t speak of it again’ - and this seemed to be the right note to strike. Mor knew he could trust Tim’s tact and discretion absolutely. Whereas, if he told Nan, Mor knew that really, in one way or another, he would never hear the end of it, and that the incident, even against his will, would then be lent a permanent and indelible significance.
When he entered the house he had still not resolved the problem. He was met in the hall by Nan, who said, ‘Well, dear, you’re home at last, are you, I thought you were never coming. Look, your supper’s in the oven, and I’ve made a cake, which is on the sideboard, if you want some. Felicity’s had her supper and gone to the pictures, and I’ve got to go out this very minute to see Mrs Prewett. You can imagine how delightful that prospect is! It’s Women’s Institute tomorrow night and she wants to hear my views on how to get the women to come along other than by dances and film shows. I told her over the phone that there isn’t any other way, but she still wants me to come over. I hope I won’t be long, but you know how that woman pins one down!’ And a minute later Nan had gone out of the front door.
Mor sat down to his supper. He felt that that, in effect, decided the matter. If he had been going to tell the truth that was the moment for telling it. But the moment had passed now. Nan had accepted the fiction, and it was better that he should not upset her view. If she had questioned him he would have owned up. As it was, he would leave things as they were. After he had cut the cake, however, it occurred to Mor that there was something else that needed doing, and that was to let Miss Carter know that he had changed his mind about telling his wife. If he did not do this, and do it soon, she might drop a brick. He paused to ponder over this. Then he began to wonder whether she would have told Demoyte about their outing. This notion made Mor uneasy. He thought, I must see her tomorrow, find out whether she’s told Demoyte, and if necessary shut them both up. Mor knew that he could rely on Demoyte’s discretion also; but he could not help hoping that the old man was not to be in the secret. He could imagine the sarcasms which he would have to suffer if he was. He thought it just possible that Miss Carter would not have told him. She was a curious independent sort of girl and would know how to keep her own counsel.
On further reflection Mor decided that since the matter was of a certain delicacy it was quite likely that Miss Carter would not have told Demoyte about it. It also occurred to him that it might be difficult, in the nearer future, to procure a long enough interview alone with Miss Carter to make the matter decently clear. He was teaching most of tomorrow, and could only be sure of getting away at some time in the evening, when Miss Carter was likely to be in company, at least with Demoyte, and perhaps with other people too. He knew that it was hardly safe to ring her up, since with Handy as intermediary no embarrassment would be spared. Mor decided that the most sensible thing to do was to write a letter, to carry it in person over to Demoyte’s house, to see Miss Carter alone if possible, and if not to find some opportunity of passing the letter to her unobserved.
Mor found these speculations extremely absorbing. Once the matter was settled, of course, he would have no more to do with the young lady, and would scarcely see her except at a party or two and at the ceremonial dinner. There was no problem about that. All the same, when it seemed to him that it was necessary to write her a letter he found that this prospect was not unpleasant. He went upstairs to his bedroom, which also served as his study, collected plenty of paper, and settled down to draft the epistle. It was not a simple task. There were interesting problems about how to begin and end it, how much to say, and how exactly to say what was said. Mor had several tries. What he wrote at first was:
Dear Miss Carter,
When I arrived back last night I found that the friend whom I had intended to visit had officiously supported my false story. So in the circumstances I have decided not to tell the true one. I hope you will understand - and excuse me for having involved you in this decepdon.
I hope that the car is all right. It grieved me to leave you like that. insist on being allowed to pay the bills. Yours sincerely.
Yours sincerely,
William Mor
Mor looked at this for a while, crossed out ‘It grieved me, etc.’, and finally tore the whole thing up and sat, brooding. He reflected that if he was indeed to pay the bills he would have to have further clandestine converse with Miss Carter. He could of course simply tell her to send him the bills. But would she? That girl, of course not. Alternatively, he could send her a sum of money. This was difficult and embarrassing. To send too small a sum would be mean and disgraceful - whereas the idea of sending a sum large enough to be sure that it was not too small unnerved Mor, who was, if not exactly parsimonious, at any rate extremely careful with his money. He decided eventually not to say anything at all about paying the bills in the letter and to trust that he would have an opportunity in the ordinary course of events to discuss this with Miss Carter before she left. He then wrote a second letter as follows:
Dear Miss Carter,
This is just to tell you that I have decided, after all, for reasons which it would take too long to explain, to deceive my wife. I hasten to tell you this so that you may act accordingly; and I beg you humbly to excuse me for having involved you in this unpleasantness. I hope that the Riley survived its strange experience and will soon be on the road once more. I am sorry to have been, in that adventure, so inept and so useless.
Yours sincerely,
P.S. - Have you told Mr Demoyte about our expedition? If you have, I should be grateful if you could signify as much to me, discreetly, as soon as possible. And please burn this letter.
There’s no need to bring Tim Burke into it, thought Mor, and brevity and vagueness, except on essential points, are what we need here. He studied this version for some time; then he destroyed it too. It was scarcely necessary, after all, to tell her to burn the letter. This request only made the thing seem more significant and conspiratorial. She would have enough sense not to leave such a document lying about. Mor started again. This time he would aim at being very brief and business-like, and in this way he would also be able, he felt, to strike a more sincere and serious note. He wrote as follows: