The Magus - John Fowles [266]
and angry with Maurice. With all of us who help him. Though you are the first to reject the offer of friendship I made just now." "I have some ugly questions to ask." "Ask." "Some others first. Why are you known in the village as an opera singer?" She paused before answering, as if warning me not to interrogate too roughly. I sensed formidable powers of snubbing. "I've sung once or twice in local concerts. I was trained." "'The harpsichord is the plonkety-plonic one'?" "It is rather, isn't it?" I turned my back on her; on her gentleness; her weaponed ladyhood. "My dear Mrs. de Seitas, no amount of charm, no amount of intelligence, no amount of playing with words can get you out of this one." She left a long pause. "It is you who make our situation. You must have been told that. You come here telling me lies. You come here for all the wrong reasons. I tell you lies back. I give you wrong reasons back." "Are your daughters here?" "No." I turned to face her. "Alison?" "Alison and I are very good friends." "Where is she?" She shook her head; no answer. "I demand to know where she is." "In my house no one ever demands." Her face was bland, but as intent on mine as a chessplayer's on the game. "Very well. We'll see what the police think about that." "I can tell you now. They will think you very foolish." I turned away again, to try to get her to say more. But she sat in the chair and I felt her eyes on my back. I knew she was sitting there, in her corn-gold chair, and that she was like Demeter, Ceres, a goddess on her throne; not simply a clever woman of nearly fifty, in 1953, in a room with a tractor droning somewhere nearby in the fields; but playing a role so deep-rooted in fidelity to concepts I did not understand, to people I did not like, that it had almost ceased to be a role. She stood up and went to a bureau in the corner and came back with some photos, which she laid out on a table behind the sofa. Then she went back to her chair; invited me to look at them. There was one of her sitting on the swing-seat in front of the loggia. At the other end sat Conchis; between them was Benjie. Another photo showed Lily and Rose. Lily was smiling into the camera, and Rose, in profile, as if passing behind her, was laughing. Once again I could see the loggia in the background. The next photo was an old one. I recognised Bourani. There were five people standing on the steps in front of the house. Conchis was in the middle, a pretty woman beside him was obviously Lily de Seitas. Beside her, his arm round her, was a tall man. I looked on the back; _Bourani, 1935_. "Who are the other two?" "One was a friend. And the other was a predecessor of yours." "Geoffrey Sugden?" She nodded, but with a touch of surprise. I put the photo down; decided to have a small revenge. "I traced one prewar master at the school. He told me quite a lot." "Oh?" A shadow of doubt in her calm voice. "So do let's stick to the truth." There was an awkward moment's silence; her eyes on me. "Was he... still bitter?" "Yes. Very." We stared at each other. Then she stood up again and went to the desk. She took a letter out and detached a bottom sheet; checked it, then came and handed it to me. It was a carbon copy of Nevinson's letter to me. On the top he had scrawled: "_Hope this dust does not cause any permanent harm to the recipient's eyes!_" She had turned away and was looking along some bookshelves beside the desk, but now she came back, with a wide-eyed look, half of warning, half of reproach, and silently handed me the books in exchange for the letter. I swallowed a sarcasm and looked at the top book--a school textbook, clothbound in blue. _An Intermediate Greek Anthology for Schools, compiled and annotated by William Hughes, M. A. (Cantab.), 1932_. "He did that as hackwork--for bread. The other two he did for love." One was a limited edition of a translation of Longus, dated 1936. "1936. Still Hughes?" "An author can use whatever name he likes." The other book was an edition of translations from the poems of Palamas, Solomos, and other modern Greek poets; even