The Magus - John Fowles [260]
But it sounded in an empty house, and sounded so all through August. Whoever lived there was on holiday. I found out his name in that year's directory--a Mr. Simon Marks. I also found out from an old Who's Who that the illustrious Sir Charles Penn Montgomery had had three daughters. I could probably have found out their names, but I had by then become anxious to drag my investigations out, as a child his last few sweets. It was almost a disappointment when, one day early in September, I saw a car parked in the driveway, and knew that another faint hope was about to be extinguished. The bell was answered by an Italian in a white housecoat. "I wonder if I could speak to the owner? Or his wife." "You have appointment?" "No." "You sell something?" I was rescued by a sharp voice. "Who is it, Ercole?" She appeared, a woman of sixty, a Jewess, expensively dressed, intelligent-looking. "Oh, I'm engaged on some research and I'm trying to trace a family called Montgomery." "Sir Charles Penn? The surgeon?" "I believed he lived here." "Yes, he lived here." The houseboy waited, and she waved him away in a _grande-dame_ manner; part of the wave came my way. "In fact... this is rather difficult to explain... I'm really looking for a Miss Lily Montgomery." "Yes. I know her." She was evidently not amused by the astonished smile that broke over my face. "You wish to see her?" "I'm writing a monograph on a famous Greek writer--famous in Greece, that is, and I believe Miss Montgomery knew him well many years ago when he lived in England." "What is his name?" "Maurice Conchis." She had clearly never heard of him. The lure of the search overcame a little of her distrust, and she said, "I will find you the address. Come in." I waited in the splendid hall. An ostentation of marble and ormolu; pier glasses; what looked like a Fragonard. Petrified opulence, tense excitement. In a minute she reappeared with a card. On it I read: _Mrs. Lily de Seitas, Dinsford House, Much Hadham, Herts._ "I haven't seen her for several years," said the lady. "Thank you very much." I began backing towards the door. "Would you like tea? A drink?" There was something glistening, obscurely rapacious, about her eyes, as if while she had been away she'd decided that there might be a pleasure to suck from me. A mantis woman; starved in her luxury. I was glad to escape. Before I drove off I looked once more at the substantial houses on either side of No. 46. In one of them Conchis must have spent his youth. Behind No. 46 was what looked like a factory, though I had discovered from the _A to Z_ that it was the back of the stands of Lord's cricket ground. The gardens were hidden because of the high walls, but the "little orchard" must now be dwarfed by the stands overhead, though very probably they had not been built before the First War. The next morning at eleven I was in Much Hadham. It was a very fine day, cloudless September blue; a day to compare with a Greek day. Dinsford House lay some way out of the village, and although it was not quite so grand as it sounded, it was no hovel; a five-bay period house, posed graciously and gracefully, brick-red and white, in an acre or so of well-kept grounds. This time the door was opened by a Scandinavian _au pair_ girl. Yes, Mrs. de Seitas was in--she was down at the stables, if I'd go round the side. I walked over the gravel and under a brick arch. There were two garages, and a little further down I could see and smell stables. A small boy appeared from a door holding a bucket. He saw me and called, "Mummy! There's a man." A slim woman in jodhpurs, a red headscarf and a red tartan shirt came out of the same door. She seemed to be in her early forties; a still pretty, erect woman with an open-air complexion. "Can I help you?" "I'm actually looking for Mrs. de Seitas." "I am Mrs. de Seitas." I had it so fixed in my mind that she would be grey-haired, Conchis's age. Closer to her, I could see crowsfeet and a slight but telltale flabbiness round the neck; the still brown hair was probably dyed. She might be nearer fifty than forty;