The Magus - John Fowles [261]
but that made her still ten years too young. "Mrs. Lily de Seitas?" "Yes." "I've got your address from Mrs. Simon Marks." A minute change in her expression told me that I had not recommended myself. "I've come to ask you if you would help on a matter of literary research." "Me!" "If you were once Miss Lily Montgomery." "But my father --" "It's not about your father." A pony whinnied inside the stable. The little boy stared at me hostilely; his mother urged him away, to go and fill his bucket. I put on all my Oxford charm. "If it's terribly inconvenient, of course I'll come back another time." "We're only mucking out." She leant the besom she was carrying against the wall. "But who?" "I'm writing a study of--Maurice Conchis?" I watched her like a hawk; but I was over a bare field. "Maurice who?" "Conchis." I spelt it. "He's a famous Greek writer. He lived in this country when he was young." She brushed back a strand of hair rather gauchely with her gloved hand; she was, I could see, one of those country Englishwomen who are abysmally innocent about everything except horses, homes and children. "Honestly, I'm awfully sorry, but there must be some mistake." "You may have known him under the name of... Charlesworth? Or Hamilton-Dukes? A long time ago. The First World War." "But my dear man--I'm sorry, not my dear man... oh dear --" she broke off rather charmingly. I saw a lifetime of dropped bricks behind her; but her tanned skin and her clear bluish eyes, and the body that had conspicuously not run to seed, made her forgivable. She said, "What is your name?" I told her. "Mr. Urfe, do you know how old I was in 1914?" "Obviously very young indeed." She smiled, but as if compliments were rather continental and embarrassing. "I was ten." She looked to where her son was filling the bucket. "Benjie's age." "Those other names--they mean nothing?" "Good Lord yes, but... this Maurice--what did you call him?--he stayed with them?" I shook my head. Once again Conchis had tricked me into a ridiculous situation. He had probably picked the name with a pin in an old directory: all he would have had to find was the name of one of the daughters. I plunged insecurely on. "He was the son. An only son. Very musical." "Well, I'm afraid there must be a mistake. The Charlesworths were childless, and there was a Hamilton-Dukes boy but --" I saw her hesitate as something snagged her memory--"he died in the war." I smiled. "I think you've just remembered something else." "No--I mean, yes. I don't know. It was when you said musical." She looked incredulous. "You couldn't mean Mr. Rat?" She laughed, and put her thumbs in the pockets of her jodhpurs. "_The Wind in the Willows_. He was an Italian who came and tried to teach us the piano. My sister and me." "Young?" She shrugged. "Quite." "Could you tell me more about him?" She looked down. "Gambellino, Gambardello... something like that. Gambardello?" She said the name as if it was still a joke. "His first name?" She couldn't possibly remember. "Why Mr. Rat?" "Because he had such staring brown eyes. We used to tease him terribly." She pulled an ashamed face at her son, who had come back, and now pushed her, as if he was the one being teased. She missed the sudden leap of excitement in my own eyes; the certainty that Conchis had used more than a pin. "Was he shortish? Shorter than me?" She clasped her headscarf, trying to remember; then looking up, puzzled. "Do you know... but this can't be...?" "Would you be very kind indeed and let me question you for ten minutes or so?" She hesitated. I was politely adamant; just ten minutes. She turned to her son. "Benjie, run and ask Gunnel to make us some coffee. And bring it out in the garden." He looked at the stable. "But Lazy." "We'll do for Lazy in a minute." Benjie ran up the gravel and I followed Mrs. de Seitas, as she peeled off her gloves, flicked off her headscarf, a willowy walk, down beside a brick wall and through a doorway into a fine old garden; a lake of autumn flowers; on the far side of the house a lawn and a cedar. She led the way round to a sun