The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch
Scottow, as if guessing her thought, went on, ‘Jamesie kindly tolerates my driving the car.’
‘Oh, is it his car?’ said Marian, and then realized her mistake.
‘Not exactly. Jamesie acts as our chauffeur and generally puts up with us and cheers us up when we get melancholy.’
Marian blushed. Ought she somehow to have known that Jamesie was a ‘servant’?
‘Here the domain begins. You’ll see a rather remarkable dolmen on your left in a minute.’
The big house was out of sight now behind a dome of limestone. The landscape had become a trifle gentler and a little dried-up grass, or it might have been a tufted lichen, made saffron pools among the rocks. Some black-faced sheep with brilliant amber eyes made a sudden appearance on a low crag, and behind them rose the dolmen against a greenish sky. Two immense upright stones supported a vast capstone which protruded a long way on either side. It was a weird lop-sided structure, seemingly pointless yet dreadfully significant.
‘No one knows who put it up, or when, or why, or even how. These things are very ancient. But of course you are a scholar, Miss Taylor, and will understand far more about it than I do. Beyond the dolmen the peat bog begins and goes on for miles. There’s Gaze now.’
As the car began to descend, Marian made out on the opposite hillside a big grey forbidding house with a crenellated facade and tall thin windows which glittered now with light from the sea. The house had been built of the local limestone and reared itself out of the landscape, rather like the dolmen, belonging yet not belonging.
‘Not a thing of beauty, I’m afraid,’ said Scottow. ‘Nineteenth century, of course. There was an older house here, but it got burnt down like most of them. The eighteenth-century terrace remains and the stables. Here’s our little river. It doesn’t look very dangerous now, does it? And this is the village, what’s left of it.’
The car slowed down to rattle very slowly over a long wooden bridge across a channel of large almost spherical speckled stones. A little trickle of water, the colour of brown sherry, forced an erratic way among the stones and spread out on the seaward side into a shallow rippled expanse bordered with tangles of glistening yellow seaweed. A few white-washed one-room cottages huddled in a disorderly group near to the road. Marian noticed that some of them were roofless. No people were to be seen. Below and beyond, framed on each side by the perpendicular black cliffs, whose great height was now apparent, was the sea, total gold. The house, Riders, had come into view again behind them. The car began to climb the other side of the valley.
Marian was suddenly overcome by an appalling crippling panic. She was very frightened at the idea of arriving. But it was more than that. She feared the rocks and the cliffs and the grotesque dolmen and the ancient secret things. Her two companions seemed no longer reassuring but dreadfully alien and even sinister. She felt, for the first time in her life, completely isolated and in danger. She became in an instant almost faint with terror.
She said, as a cry of help, ‘I’m feeling terribly nervous.’
‘I know you are,’ said Scottow. He smiled, not looking at her, and again the words had an intimate protective ring. ‘Don’t be. You’ll soon feel at home here. We’re a very harmless lot.’
Behind her she heard again the high-pitched sound of the boy’s laugh.
The car bumped over a jangling cattle-grid and through an immense crenellated archway. A lodge cottage with blank gaping windows and a sagging roof stood in a wilderness of wind-torn shrubs. The uneven gravel track, devastated by rain and weeds, wound away to the left, circling upward toward the house. After the dry rocks, the earth here was suddenly moist and black, covered patchily with wiry grass of a vivid green. Red flowering fuchsia blotched the hillside among dark dishevelled clumps of rhododendron. The track turned again and the house was near. Marian descried the stone balustrade of a terrace which surrounded it on all sides, lifting it high out of the peaty earth. There was a grey stone wall some distance beyond and indications of an overgrown garden with a few bedraggled fir trees and a monkey puzzle. The car came to a standstill and Scottow switched off the engine.
Marian was appalled at the sudden quietness. But the insane panic had left her. She was frightened now in an ordinary way, sick in her stomach, shy, tongue-tied, horribly aware of the onset of a new world.
Scottow and Jamesie carried her bags. Not looking up at the staring windows, she followed up the steps to the terrace of cracked weedy paving-stones, on to the big ornate stone porch and through swinging glass doors. Inside there was a new kind of silence, and it was dark and rather cold and there was a sweetish smell of old curtains and old damp. Two maids with tall white lace caps and black streaky hair and squints came forward to take her luggage.
Jamesie had vanished into the darkness. Scottow said, ‘I expect you would like to wash and so on. There’s no hurry. Of course, we don’t usually change for dinner here, not seriously, I mean. The maids will show you to your room. Perhaps you’d like to find your way down again in half an hour or so, and I’ll be waiting about on the terrace.’
The maids were already whisking the luggage away up the stairs. Marian followed them through the semi-darkness. The floors were mostly uncarpeted, tilting, creaking, echoing, but there were soft hangings above her head, curtains in archways and vague cobwebby textiles which hung down at doors and corners and tugged her passing sleeve. At last she was ushered into a big room full of evening light. The maids disappeared.
She crossed to the window. She had the big view across the valley to Riders and the sea. The sea was peacock blue now and the cliffs were jet black, receding to where the distant islands were again to be seen against a tawny sky. She looked and sighed, forgetting herself.
The case containing her brand-new field-glasses was slung about her neck. Still absorbed in looking, she fumbled them out. They were yet a delightful toy. She focused them upon the valley. Startlingly close the wooden bridge sprang into view, and slowly the magic circle moved up the hill toward the opposite house. She came to a wall, discerning the uneven texture of the stone where the sinking sun struck it obliquely and cast small shadows; and then unexpectedly there was a stone balustrade, like the one at Gaze, and behind it a shuttered window. She moved the glasses slowly, pausing at a group of gay deck-chairs and white table with a bottle on it. The next moment she was looking at a man. He was standing on the terrace and looking straight into her eyes with lifted binoculars trained on Gaze. Marian dropped her glasses and moved hastily back from the window. The panic returned.
Chapter Two
‘Mrs Crean-Smith is not quite ready to see you,’ said Gerald Scottow. ‘Would you be so kind as to wait here while I find the others.’
Marian had not lingered long upstairs. Recovered from her fright, she had quickly inspected her room, appreciating the eighteenth-century writing-desk, grateful for the empty varnished bookshelves, pleased with the ancient floppy chintz arm-chairs, suspicious of the powerful bedstead whose dinted brass knobs shone like soft gold, and appalled by the extremely garrulous coloured prints upon the wall which she hoped that no one would object to her removing. She washed quickly, finding hottish water in a flowery jug and basin upon a wash-stand of green and ochre tiles. Nervously venturing out into the silent stuffy corridor, she found near by a lavatory with a vast mahogany seat, which seemed warm from generations of incumbents, and a wide shallow bowl adorned with garlands of flowers. She did not know whether to be pleased or unnerved by the discovery that it matched her jug and basin.
She changed hastily into a dress and surveyed herself in a pretty satinwood mirror. There was no long glass. She powdered her long nose and combed back her short, straight, dark hair. Her face, too crowded with large features to be called ‘pretty’, might pass, she thought, as ‘handsome’, or at least as ‘strong’. But there was also her expression to be reckoned with. Geoffrey had often told her she looked sulky and aggressive. She must not look so now. He had said once, ‘Stop thinking that
Scottow had ushered her into a large drawing-room on the ground floor where she now stood alone, fingering an unlit cigarette, and not at all looking forward to ‘the others’. The room smelt broodingly of the past, chilly and obscure in the warm September evening. Two tall sash-windows, which reached almost to the floor, and a high glass doorway communicated with the sunny terrace. They were draped and darkened by swathes of looped-up white lace which was slightly less than clean. Thick red curtains, stiff as fluted columns, emitted a dusty incense, and the fawn-and-yellow carpet gave out little puffs when stepped on. A dark mahogany erection containing a mirror surmounted the fireplace and reached almost to the dim ceiling in a converging series of shelves and brackets upon which small complicated brass objects were clustered. A jet-black grand piano was defended by a troop of little tables draped to their ankles in embroidered velvet cloths. Amid the jumble, pieces of cut glass glittered here and there, and a bookcase with formidable doors supported hazy rows of calf-bound volumes upon shelves with leather fringes. The clutter in the room had about it little suggestion of human use or occupation. Whoever the children might be, they did not come here.
Marian looked cautiously about. There was a yellowish reflected twilight from the sunny evening outside, and an extreme quietness. Yet the room felt watchful, and she almost feared to find that she had overlooked some person standing silently in a corner. She moved noiselessly looking for a match for her cigarette. There was a tarnished silver matchbox on one of the velvet tables but no matches. She peered about near the door for the electric-light switch, found none, and merely dislodged a loose piece of flowery wallpaper. It occurred to her that of course there was no electric light at Gaze. To keep her attention on something and to steady her nerves, she crossed to the bookcase and tried to see the names of the books, but the glass was too dirty and the room too dark. She began to try to open the bookcase.
‘It’s locked,’ said a voice close behind her.
Marian jumped violently round. A tall woman had come very near to her. She could not sec her face clearly, but she seemed to have grey or very fair or colourless hair done up in a bun. She wore a dark dress with white lace collar and cuffs.
Marian’s heart began to hit her so hard that she almost fell down. ‘Mrs Crean-Smith?’
The reassuring voice of Gerald Scottow spoke from beyond. This is Miss Evercreech. Miss Evercreech, Miss Taylor.’
A glow of light grew in the doorway and three black-haired maids entered bearing big oil-lamps with opaque creamy glass domes. They set them down on various tables. The scene became different, enclosed, shadowy, and the figures drew nearer together. Now Marian could see Miss Evercreech. She was thin, with a narrow transparent high-cheekboned face and oily light blue eyes and a long fine mouth. The colour of her hair was still hard to determine. So was her age. She could have been forty or sixty. She stared at Marian unsmiling, frowning slightly, with an intensity which though a little alarming was not hostile.
‘Miss Evercreech is Jamesie’s sister, of course,’ said Scottow. ‘His big sister, practically his Ma.’
‘I don’t know why you say “of course”, Gerald,’ said Miss Evercreech, still intently perusing Marian, ‘or why you permit yourself these references to my age in front of a stranger.’
‘There, there, Violet l’ said Scottow. He seemed a trifle uneasy with her. ‘Anyway, Miss Taylor is not a stranger. She’s one of us, or soon will be.’
Miss Evercreech was silent a moment, then ended her study of Marian’s face. ‘Poor child! Gerald, where is the key to that bookcase? Miss Taylor wants to look inside.’
‘No, indeed, don’t bother -,’ said Marian.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Scottow. ‘It’s never been opened as far as I know.’
‘It must have been opened, dear, to get the books in. The key may be in one of those brass bowls. I seem to remember that it is. Could you reach them down, please?’
With a slightly resigned look which Marian read as a private communication to herself, Scottow began to take down the brass ornaments one by one and placed them on a table where Miss Evercreech extracted from their interiors a miscellany of buttons, paper clips, cigar butts, elastic bands, and what looked like a gold sovereign, which she pocketed. The key was found at last in the pannier of a brass donkey and Miss Evercreech handed it to Marian who, rigid by now with embarrassment, turned it in the lock and affected to look at the contents of the bookcase, since this seemed to be expected of her.
‘Is that all right, child?’ said Miss Evercreech.
Marian, who scarcely knew whether she was being indulged or punished, said, ‘Oh yes, thank you, indeed, yes.’
‘Is Hannah ready to see her yet, Gerald?’
‘Not yet.’
Miss Evercreech suddenly took Marian’s hand in a firm grip and led her over to the window. She drew her right up against the pane so that the girl’s shoulder was driven into the lace curtain, releasing dry dusty smells. Outside the evening was still bright, its colours all washed over with gold, and an orange-and-purple sunset was building up over the sea. But Marian did not dare to take her eyes off the scrutinizing face, lit up now as on a little stage.
‘What is your religion, child?’
‘I have no religion.’ She felt guilty at this, and guilty at so intensely wishing to free her hand. She twitched the curtain off her shoulder.
‘You may find us a little strange at first, but you will soon find your place among us. Do not forget. If you want or need anything in this house, come to me. We do not trouble Mrs Crean-Smith with any practical details.’
‘Hannah will see her now,’ said Scottow’s voice from among the lamps.
Miss Evercreech still retained Marian’s hand, squeezing it very slightly. ‘We shall meet again soon, Marian. I shall call you Marian. And later on you will call me Violet.’ Her tone made it sound almost like a threat. She released Marian’s hand.
Marian murmured some thanks and backed hastily away. She had found the degree of attention almost unendurable. She turned with relief to the friendly figure of Scottow.
As if deliberately changing the key, Scottow said briskly, There now. Nothing left here, no handbag or anything? I’m afraid we don’t use this room very often and sometimes it gets locked up. Now just follow me, will you.’
They emerged into the hall, where the orange light from without produced a blurred radiant interior. At that moment a man came in from the terrace through the glass doors.
‘Oh, Denis, is that you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Miss Taylor has arrived. Miss Taylor, this is Denis Nolan.’
A maid passed by carrying one of the oil-lamps. The drawing-room was being darkened again. By the passing glow Marian saw a shortish man about her own height who was holding a large tin bowl. He had the dark hair and blue eyes of the region, indeed Marian saw, as he turned towards her before the lamp passed, sapphire blue eyes. He spoke with a strong local accent and looked, she thought, rather sulky and servile.
Scottow went on, ‘Denis is my very able clerk. He does our accounts for us and tries to keep us out of the red. Eh, Denis?’
Denis grunted.
‘What have you got there, Denis? Or I should ask, who have you got there?’
The man thrust the tin bowl forward and Marian saw with a little shock of surprise that it contained water and a sizeable goldfish. ‘Strawberry Nose.’
‘Is Strawberry Nose g
‘Yes, sir.’ The man did not smile.
Scottow said, smiling enough for two, ‘Denis is a great fish man. You must see his fish ponds tomorrow. They are one of our few diversions. Now, up we go. Mrs Crean-Smith is waiting.’