The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [442]
‘Liza was quite determined you should stay here; and so we got busy to arrange it!’ Why? Simply that I should submit to a catechism about her brother, who in truth I could hardly claim to have known, and who grew more and more mysterious to me every day — less important as a personage, more and more so as an artist? It was clear that I must wait until she chose to speak her mind. Yet it was baffling to idle away the time in the exchange of superficialities.
Yet these smooth informalities reigned, and to my surprise the girl herself said nothing — not a word. She sat there on the sofa, softly and attentively, as if on a cloud. She wore, I noticed, a velvet ribbon on her throat. It occurred to me that her pallor, which had so much struck Clea, was probably due to not being able to make-up in the mirror. But Clea had been right about the shape of her mouth, for once or twice I caught an expression, cutting and sardonic, which was a replica of her brother’s.
Dinner was wheeled in by a servant, and still exchanging small talk we sat down to eat it; Liza ate swiftly, as if she were hungry, and quite unerringly, from the plate which Mountolive filled for her. I noticed when she reached for her wineglass that her ex-pressive fingers trembled slightly. At last, when the meal was over, Mountolive rose with an air of scarcely disguised relief and excused himself. ‘I’m going to leave you alone to talk shop to Liza. I shall have to do some work in the Chancery this evening. You will excuse me, won’t you?’ I saw an apprehensive frown shadow Liza’s face for a moment, but it vanished almost at once and was re-placed by an expression which suggested something between des-pair and resignation. Her fingers picked softly, suggestively at the tassel of a cushion. When the door had closed behind him she still sat silent, but now preternaturally still, her head bent down-
wards as if she were trying to decipher a message written in the palm of her hand. At last she spoke in a small cold voice, pro-nouncing the words incisively as if to make her meaning plain.
‘I had no idea it would be difficult to explain when first I thought of asking your help. This book….’
There was a long silence. I saw that little drops of perspiration had come out on her upper lip and her temples looked as if they had tightened under stress. I felt a certain compassion for her distress and said: ‘I can’t claim to have known him well, though I saw him quite frequently. In truth, I don’t think we liked each other very much.’
‘Originally’ she said sharply, cutting across my vagueness with impatience ‘I thought I might persuade you to do the book about him. But now I see that you will have to know everything. It is not easy to know where to begin. I myself doubt whether the facts of his life are possible to put down and publish. But I have been driven to think about the matter, first because his publishers ins ist on it — they say there is a great public demand; but mostly because of the book which this shabby journalist is writing, or has written. Keats.’
‘Keats’ I echoed with surprise.
‘He is here somewhere I believe; but I do not know him. He has been put up to the idea by my brother’s wife. She hated him, you know, after she found out; she thought that my brother and I had between us ruined her life. Truthfully I am afraid of her. I do not know what she has told Keats, or what he will write. I see now that my original idea in having you brought here was to get you to write a book which would … disguise the truth somehow. It only became clear to me just now when I was confronted by you. It would be inexpressibly painful to me if anything got out which harmed my brother’s memory.’
Somewhere to the east I heard a grumble of thunder. She stood up with an air of panic and after