The Magus - John Fowles [268]
quietly, though with a feminine irony, "Strong words." I turned on her. "Look, I begin to wonder how much you know, First of all, your not so virgin daughter --" "I know precisely what she did." She sat calmly facing me; but a little more erect. "And I know precisely the reasons behind what she did. But if I told you them, I would tell you everything." "Shall I call those two down there? Tell your son how his sister performs--I think that's the euphemism--with a Negro?" She let silence pass again, as if to isolate what I said; as people leave a question unanswered in order to snub the questioner. "Does a Negro make it so much worse?" "It doesn't make it any better." "He is a very intelligent and charming man. They have been sleeping together for some time." "And you approve?" "My approval is unasked for and ungiven. Lily is of age." I grinned sourly at her, then looked out at the garden. "Now I understand why you grow so many flowers." She shifted her head, not understanding. I said, "To cover the stink of sulphur." She got up and stood with one hand on the mantelpiece, watching me as I walked about the room; still calm, alert, playing me as if I was a kite. I might plunge and flare; but she held the string. "Are you prepared to listen without interrupting?" I looked at her; then shrugged assent. "Very well. Now let us get this business of what is and what is not sexually proper out of the way." Her voice was cold; a fierceness. "Because I live in a Queen Anne house do not think I live, like most of the rest of our country, by a Queen Anne morality." "Nothing was further from my mind." "Will you listen?" I went and stood by the window, my back to her. I lit a cigarette; I felt that at last I ought to have her in a corner; I must have her in a corner. "How shall I explain to you? If Maurice were here he would tell you that sex is perhaps a greater, but in no way a different, pleasure from any other. He would tell you that it is only one part--and not the essential part--in the relationship we call love. He would tell you that the essential part is truth, the trust two people build between their minds. Their souls. What you will. That the real infidelity is the one that hides the sexual infidelity. Because the one thing that must never come between two people who have offered each other love is a lie." I stared out over the lawn. I knew it was prepared, all she was saying; perhaps learnt by heart, a key speech. "Are you daring to preach to me, Mrs. de Seitas?" "Are you daring to pretend that you do not need the sermon?" "Look --" "Listen to me." If her voice had held the least sharpness or arrogance, I should not have done so. But it was unexpectedly gentle; almost beseeching. "I am trying to explain what we are. Maurice convinced us--over twenty years ago--that we should banish the normal taboos of sexual behaviour from our lives. Not because we were more immoral than other people. But because we were more moral. We attempted to do that in our own lives. I have attempted to do it in the way I have brought up our children. And I must make you understand that sex is for us, for all of us who help Maurice, not an important thing. Or not the thing it is in most people's lives. We have more important things to do." I would not turn and look at her. "Before the war I twice played roles somewhat similar to Lily's with you. She is prepared to do things that I was not. I had far more inhibitions to shed. I also had a husband whom I loved sexually as well as in the other more important ways. But since we have penetrated so deep into your life, I owe it to you to say that even when my husband was living I sometimes gave myself, with his full knowledge and consent, to Maurice. And in the war he in his turn had an Indian mistress, with my full knowledge and consent. Yet I believe ours was a very complete marriage, a very happy one, because we kept to two essential rules. We never told each other lies. And the other one... I will not tell you until I know you better." I looked around then, contemptuously. I found her calm vehemence uncomfortable;