“Very much.”
“I will go and get it. And fetch the brandy.”
And so, so soon, I was alone with Lily. But before I could phrase the right remark, the question that would show her I saw no reason why in Conchis’s absence she should maintain the pretending to believe, she stood up.
“Shall we walk up and down?”
I walked beside her. She was only an inch or two shorter than myself, and she walked slowly, slimly, with elegance, looking out to sea, avoiding my eyes, as if she now was shy. I looked around. Conchis was out of hearing.
“Have you been here long?”
“I have not been anywhere long.”
“I meant on the island.”
“So did I.”
She gave me a quick look, softened by a little smile. We had gone round the other arm of the terrace, into the shadow cast by the corner of the bedroom wall.
“An excellent return of service, Miss Montgomery.”
“If you play tennis, I must play tennis back.”
“Must?”
“Maurice must have asked you not to question me.”
“Oh come on. In front of him, okay. I mean, good God, we’re both English, aren’t we?”
“That gives us the freedom to be rude to each other?”
“To get to know each other.”
“Perhaps we are not equally interested in… getting to know each other.” She looked away out over the night. I was nettled.
“You do this thing very charmingly. But what exactly is the game?”
“Please.” Her voice was faintly sharp. “I really cannot stand this.” I guessed why she had brought me around into the shadow. I couldn’t see much of her face.
“Stand what?”
She turned and looked at me and said, in a quiet but fiercely precise voice, “Mr. Urfe.”
I was put in my place.
She went and stood against the parapet at the far end of the terrace, looking towards the central ridge to the north. A breath of listless air from the sea washed behind us.
“Would you shawl me please?”
“Would I?”
“My wrap.”
I hesitated, then turned and went back for the indigo wrap. Conchis was still indoors. I returned and put it around her shoulders, then stood beside her. Without warning she reached her hand sideways and took mine and pressed it, as if to give me courage; and to make me identify her with the original, gentle Lily. She remained staring out across the clearing to the trees.
“Why did you do that?”
“I did not mean to be unkind.”
I mimicked her formal tone. “Can, may I, ask you… where you live here?”
She turned and leant against the edge of the parapet, so that we were facing opposite ways, and came to a decision.
“Over there.” She pointed with her fan.
“That’s the sea. Or are you pointing at thin air?”
“I assure you I live over there.”
An idea struck me. “On a yacht?”
“On land.”
“Curious I’ve never seen your house.”
“I expect you have the wrong kind of sight.”
I could just make out that she had a little smile at the corner of her lips. We were standing very close. The perfume around us.
“I’m being teased.”
“Perhaps you are teasing yourself.”
“I hate being teased.”
She looked at me from the corner of her eyes; a shy malice. “You prefer to tease?”
“Usually. But I don’t mind being teased by someone as pretty and gifted as you are.”
She made a little mock inclination. She had a beautiful neck; the throat of a Nefertiti. The photo in Conchis’s room made her look heavy-chinned, but she wasn’t.
“Then I shall continue to tease you.”
There was silence. Conchis was away far too long for the excuse he had given; I remembered the miserable Janet’s mother, who used to invent elephantine excuses to leave the two of us together in the sitting room, during my year of purgatory in S——.
Her question took me by surprise.
“Do you love Maurice?” She made no attempt to anglicize the French pronunciation, but sounded it with a rather precious exactitude.
“This is only the third time I’ve met him.” She appeared to wait for me to go on. “I’m very grateful for his asking me over here. Especially now.”
She cut short my compliment. “You see, we all love him very much.”
“Who is we?”
“His other visitors and myself.” I could hear the inverted commas. She had turned to face me.
“‘Visitor’ seems an odd way of putting it.”
“Maurice does not like ‘ghost.’”
I smiled. “Or ‘actress’?”
Her face betrayed not the least preparedness to concede, to give up her role.
“We are all actors and actresses, Mr. Urfe. You included.”
“Of course. On the stage of the world.”
She smiled and looked down. “Be patient.”
“Willingly. I couldn’t imagine anyone I’d rather be more patient with. Or credulous about.”
Our eyes met. Once again she let the mask slip; for a fraction of a moment; a sincerity that begged.
“Not for me. For Maurice.”
“And for Maurice.”
“I will help.”
“Me? To do what?”
“To understand.”
“Then I certainly promise to obey the rules.”
Our eyes still met.
There was a sound from the table. She reached out and took my arm. We turned. Conchis was standing there. As we came towards him, her arm lightly but formally in mine, he gave us both his little interrogatory headshake.
“Mr. Urfe is very understanding.”
“I am glad.”
“All will be well.”
She smiled at me and sat down and remained thoughtfully for a while with her chin resting on her hand. Conchis had poured her a minute glass of crème de menthe, which she sipped. He pointed to an envelope he had put in my place.
“The manifesto. It took me a long time to find. Read it later. There is an anonymous criticism of great force at the end.”
29
“I still loved, at any rate still practiced, music. I had the big Pleyel harpsichord I use here in our Paris flat. One warm day in spring, it would have been in 1920, I was playing by chance with the windows open, when the bell rang. The maid came in to say that a gentleman had called and wished to speak to me. In fact, the gentleman was already behind the maid. He corrected her—he wanted to listen to me, not speak to me. He was such an extraordinary-looking man that I hardly noticed the extraordinariness of the intrusion. About sixty, extremely tall, faultlessly dressed, a gardenia in his buttonhole…”
I looked sharply at Conchis. He had turned and, as he seemed to like to, was looking out to sea as he spoke. Lily swiftly, discreetly raised her finger to her lips.
“And also—at first sight—excessively morose. There was beneath the archducal dignity something deeply mournful about him. Like the actor Jouvet, but without his sarcasm. Later I was to discover that he was less miserable than he appeared. Almost without words he sat down in an armchair and listened to me play. And when I had finished, almost without words he picked up his hat and his amber-topped stick…”