John Fowles - The Magus

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 gray-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; 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 loggia. There was a canopied swing-seat, some elegant cast-iron seats painted white. Money; I guessed that Sir Charles Penn had had a golden scalpel. She sat in the swing-seat and indicated a chair for me. I murmured something about the garden.

“It is rather jolly, isn’t it? My husband does almost all this by himself and now, poor man, he hardly ever sees it.” She smiled. “My husband’s an economist. He’s stuck in Strasbourg.” She swung her feet up; she was a little too girlish, too aware of her good figure; reacting from a rural boredom. “But come on. Tell me about your famous writer I’ve never heard of. You’ve met him?”

“He died in the Occupation.”

“Poor man. What of?”

“Cancer.” I hurried on. “He was, well, very secretive about his past, so one has to deduce things from his work. We know that he was Greek, but he may have pretended to be Italian.” I jumped up and gave her a light for her cigarette.

“I just can’t believe it was Mr. Rat. He was such a funny little man.”

“Can you remember one thing—his playing the harpsichord as well as the piano?”

“The harpsichord is the plonkety-plonk one?” I nodded, but she shook her head. “You did say a writer?”

“He turned from music to literature. You see, there are countless references in his early poems—and in, well, a novel he wrote—to an unhappy but very significant love affaire he had when he was still in England. Of course we just don’t know to what extent he was recalling reality and to what extent embroidering on it.”

“But—am I mentioned?”