The Magus - John Fowles [127]
to arrange, someone to see. No one was visible as I approached the house, as I crossed the gravel. I leapt up the steps and walked quietly round the corner onto the wide tiling under the front colonnade. Lily was standing there, her feet and the bottom of her dress in sunlight, the rest of her in shadow. I saw at once that the pretence was still on. She had her back to me, as if she had been looking out to sea, but her face was turned expectantly over her shoulder. As soon as I appeared she swayed lightly round. She was wearing another beautiful dress, in a charcoal-amber-indigo _art nouveau_ fabric, with an almost ground-length pale yellow stole. As arresting as a brilliant stage costume, and yet she contrived to wear it both naturally and dramatically. She held out her left hand with a smile, back up, for me to check her identity. We didn't say anything. She sat down in her willowy manner and gestured to the chair opposite. And it became a sort of game inside a game inside a game: silence, to see which one of us could go longest without speaking. As she poured water from the silver kettle into the teapot I saw her slide a look at me, and then bite her lips to stop from smiling. I couldn't take my eyes off her. All through the week there had been recurrent memories, images of Alison, doubts that involved comparing her with Lily... and now I knew I was right. It wasn't only the stunning physical elegance of this girl, it was the intelligence, the quickness, the ability to be several things at the same time; to make every look and every remark ambiguous; to look cool and yet never cold. She turned down the pale blue flame of the spirit-stove; with a _moue_ surrendered. "Maurice had to go out." "Oh. why?" She poured two cups and handed one towards me, then looked me in the eyes. "So that we could have tea alone." She smiled. "You look like a dream." "Won't you have a sandwich?" I grinned, gave up, took one. "Where've you been this last fortnight?" "Here." "No you haven't. I've been over several times. The house has been locked up." She nibbled a sandwich, risked a demure look at me. "Come on, be a sport. Athens?" She shook her head. Her hair was up and drawn back from her face. She sat sideways, in profile, long neck, beautifully poised Grecian head. "I saw Maurice just now. He said you were going to tell me the truth. Over tea. Who you really are, where you've been--everything." She looked at me under severe eyebrows; reverting. "That is a fib." "He might have done. You don't know." "But I do." I stared down at the ground. "Lily." "Why do you say my name like that?" "You know why." She shook her head. I let the silence come. She sipped her tea, watched it, sipped it again. Always that secret inner smile; I looked round into the trees, to see if I could see the "nurse"; and hoping that she might ask me what I was looking for. "Was your friend glad to see you in Athens?" "She didn't see me in Athens. We called it off. By letter." "Oh." "For good." She nursed the cup, refusing to look at me, to be interested. "Are you glad?" "Why should I be glad?" "I was asking whether. Not why." She gave a tiny shrug, as if I had no right to ask; raised one of her black shoes and contemplated it; waited for my next move. "You know I've been hypnotised since I saw you last?" She nodded. "Were you there?" She shook her head, quite vehemently. "He's hypnotised you?" She nodded again. "Often?" She turned and put her elbows on the table and stared at me. "Yes. Many times." And I was caught; still not quite able to be sure that the schizophrenia was another invention; still not all clear to what extent she was playing to his cues. "This is why you can't lie to him?" She seemed to be more interested in looking at my face than in answering, but in the end she said, "It's good for me." "He says. Or you?" "Both of us. It is very relaxing." "Last time you seemed to think it was frightening." She smiled. "And frightening." I looked at her mouth, that long, mobile, smiling mouth; the ambiguous grey-hyacinth eyes. It was the way their corners cocked obliquely;