The Sea, the Sea

stay there? Oftener than you might think what human beings actually do is what they want to do.’

‘She may stay. But “choose”? This isn’t a matter of a “tiff”, to use Perry’s ludicrous word which shows that he has no idea what this is all about. She’s a bullied terrorized woman who has never been happy with that man, she told me so herself.’

‘Her marriage may not have been happy, but it has survived a long time. You think too much about happiness, Charles. It’s not all that important.’

‘That’s what she said.’

‘There you are.’

‘Titus,’ I said, ‘is happiness important?’

‘Yes, of course it is,’ he said, and looked at me at last.

‘There you are,’ I said to James.

‘A young man’s reply,’ said James. ‘Now let me make a further point-’

‘Your trouble, Charles,’ said Peregrine, who was still drinking whisky, ‘as I said before, is that you despise women, you regard them as chattels. You regard this woman as a chattel-’

‘A further point. This drama has been developing very fast and it’s a whirling mass of emotions and ideas. You say you’ve kept this image of a pure first love beside you all these years. You may even have come to think of it as a supreme value, a standard by which all other loves have failed-’

‘Yes.’

‘But should you not criticize this guiding idea? I won’t call it a fiction. Let us call it a dream. Of course we live in dreams and by dreams, and even in a disciplined spiritual life, in some ways especially there, it is hard to distinguish dream from reality. In ordinary human affairs humble common sense comes to one’s aid. For most people common sense is moral sense. But you seem to have deliberately excluded this modest source of light. Ask yourself, what really happened between whom all those years ago? You’ve made it into a story, and stories are false.’

(At this point Titus, who could bear it no longer, surreptitiously seized a piece of ham and some bread.)

‘And you are using this thing from the far past as a guide to important and irrevocable moves which you propose to make in the future. You are making a dangerous induction, and induction is shaky at the best of times, consider Russell’s chicken-’

‘Russell’s chicken?’

‘The farmer’s wife comes out every day and feeds the chicken, but one day she comes out and wrings its neck.’

‘I don’t understand, let’s leave this chicken out.’

‘I mean, you are assuming on as far as I can see very insubstantial evidence, your memory of some idyllic times at school and so on, that if you were to carry her off you would be able to love her and make her happy, and she would be able to love you and make you happy. Such situations are in fact fairly rare and hard of achievement. Further, as a matter inseparable from the happiness you prize so much, you assume that it is morally right thus to rescue her, even in the apparent absence of her consent. Now should you not-’

‘James, please just stop insulting me with your pompous speculations will you? I wonder if you realize how insupportable you are? As you said, this business has developed fast and it’s a first-class muddle. And, all right, I made the muddle. But inside it there isn’t any perfect morality any more. That’s what ordinary human life is like. Perhaps cloistered soldiers don’t know about such things.’

James smiled. ‘I like “cloistered soldiers”. So you admit you aren’t sure that this rescue would be a good thing?’

‘I’m not sure, how can I be? But you’re trying to force me to have an argument which isn’t the argument of the situation. What you are saying is all at the side, it’s a sort of abstract commentary. You’re the one who’s “telling a story”. I’m in the place where the real things happen.’

‘Well, what is the argument of the situation?’

‘That I love her. She loves me. She says so. And love doesn’t rely on “evidence” and “induction”. Love knows. She’s been very unhappy and I’m not going to let her return to a bully who will henceforth be even more cruel to her. It will be worse. OK, I made it so, but the fact remains. For his cruelty we have a witness here, though the witness seems unwilling to testify.’

‘That’s not an argument,’ said James. ‘It’s a rather confused statement of intention.’

‘Well, it’s what I propose to act upon. I can’t think why I let myself be drawn into this perfectly ridiculous discussion at all.’

‘All right. What I personally think has probably emerged already, and of course needn’t be a matter of any interest to you. But I’d like to add this: that if you do decide, unwisely in my view, to take her away, we would all want to help you as much as we can. That’s so, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Peregrine.

‘I think I agree with Charles in some ways,’ said Gilbert.

‘For instance, where will you take her? The details have to be considered. What will she do all day?’

‘That question alone,’ said Peregrine, ‘is enough to deter any man from getting married.’

‘Charles, please don’t think me impertinent and above all don’t think me unkind. I can’t just stand by and see you make a mucker of this business. It calls for a joint operation. I wonder if you’d let me talk to her, just once very briefly?’

‘You? Talk to her? You must be mad!’

At that moment I heard a terrible sound, a sound which in fact I had been dreading ever since I embarked upon my perilous adventure. Hartley upstairs had suddenly started screaming and banging the door. ‘Let me out, let me out!’

I ran out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind me, and up the stairs. When I reached Hartley’s door she was still screaming and kicking at the panels. She had never done anything like this before. ‘Let me out! Let me out!’

I wanted to scream myself. I pounded the door frenziedly with my fist. ‘Oh stop it! Stop it! Shut up! Stop shouting, will you?’

Silence.

I ran downstairs again. There was silence in the kitchen too. I ran out of the front door and across the causeway and started walking along the road towards the tower.

Later on that day, towards evening, sitting on the rocks with James, I had begun to agree to things which had by now begun to seem inevitable.

‘Charles, it’s a terrible situation. That’s one reason why you’ve got to end it. And there is only one way to end it. You do see that now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ll write the letter?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think the letter is important. You can explain things clearly in the letter.’

‘He won’t read it. He’ll tear it up and stamp on it.’

‘Well-or may keep it as evidence against you, but I think that risk is worth taking. I believe he’ll read it out of curiosity.’

‘He’s below the level of curiosity.’

‘And you agree that we should come?’

‘I agree that you should come.’

‘I think the more the better.’

‘But not Titus of course.’

‘Yes, Titus too. It might help her, and it could help Titus, if he could be polite to his father for five minutes.’

‘Polite? It sounds like a tea party.’

‘The liker it is to a tea party the better.’

‘Titus wouldn’t agree.’

‘He has agreed.’