The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [177]
She listened to me, but towards the end of the speech began shaking her head. She said, ‘Please, please don’t force me to go anywhere, you’d kill me. I have got to go home. You know I have got to go, and you know I don’t want to stay here. There isn’t going to be any—any—what you want—it would be like a miracle in my mind.’
‘Oh yes, Hartley, my sweetheart, wait for that miracle, wait for it, its name is love.’
‘No, that is not its name, and it hasn’t come and it won’t come. Don’t you see you are working to destroy me? Now he will never believe me, never. And that is your doing, your crime. It’s like a murder. Never, never, never.’
Soon after this she said she was very tired and would sleep, and I left her.
I awoke suddenly. The moon was shining into my bedroom, where I had omitted to pull down the blind. I could hear the splash of the sea and a very faint rattle of the stones which the waves were gently clawing as they withdrew from the cauldron. It must be low tide. I could hear also, or sense, a vast void, a dome of silence, within which my heart was beating exceedingly fast. I felt suffocated and had to sit up abruptly and gasp for breath. I remembered, as I now did whenever I awoke, with a pang of anguish and love and fear, that Hartley was in the house. At the same time I felt the most terrible dread, a premonition of some catastrophe, some horror, or indeed the certainty that it had already occurred. I began to get out of bed, trembling violently, and fumbled for my candle. I lit it and then stood up and listened. The void dark house was ominously quiet. I very quickly opened my bedroom door and looked down the landing. There seemed to be a dim light coming from the alcove, but perhaps it was a trick of the moon. I listened and seemed to hear a beating sound, a heavy noise, deep and accelerating, very very far away. I moved slowly forward, putting each foot down carefully so as not to make the boards creak. I could now see quite clearly Hartley’s door and the key in the lock. I wanted to reach it, to put my hand onto the key, but I was afraid to hurry, afraid to enter that terrible room. I got the key into my hand and turned it and stepped in through the doorway holding my candle. The mattress on the floor, at which I always looked on entering, was empty, the bedclothes disordered. Hartley was gone—I stared about, ready to cry out with panic fear. And then I saw her—she was standing in the corner. I thought, how odd I had forgotten how tall she is. Then I thought she is standing on something, how odd, she must be up on the chair or the table. Then I saw that she was suspended from the lamp bracket. She had hanged herself.
I woke up. The lightning flash of thought which showed me the dream showed me at the same moment that it was a dream. I was lying in my bed. I had not been to Hartley’s room and found her dead, having hanged herself with one of her stockings from the cast-iron lamp bracket, climbing up onto the table and casting herself off. I felt intense violent relief: and then the thought, but supposing it is true? Sick and trembling I got up, lit my candle, and quietly opened my bedroom door. The candlelight illumined the barrier of the bead curtain but nothing beyond. The curtain was clicking softly, no doubt as a result of the draught from the door. I carefully plucked the bead strings apart and glided on to Hartley’s room and turned the key very quietly. I leaned through the doorway and peered in.
There she was, in the light of my candle, lying curled up on the mattress, covered by a blanket, her hand over her face. I watched and heard her steady quiet breathing. Then I silently withdrew and locked the door again. I went back through the bead curtain, trying not to agitate it too much, and in sheer distraction went into the drawing room. I had, since Hartley’s incarceration, kept out