“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?”
“There are all sorts of clues that suggest the girl’s name was a flower name. And that he lived near her. And that the common bond was music…”
She sat up, fascinated.
“How on earth did you trace this to us?”
“Oh—various clues. From literary references. I knew it was very near Lord’s cricket ground. In one… passage he talks of this girl with her ancient British family name. Oh, and her famous doctor father. Then I started looking at street directories.”
“How absolutely extraordinary.”
“It’s just one of those things. You meet hundreds of dead ends. But one day you really hit a way through.”
Smiling, she glanced towards the house. “Here’s Gunnel.” For two or three minutes we had to go through the business of getting coffee poured; polite exchanges about Norway—Gunnel had never been further north than Trondheim, I discovered. Benjie was ordered to disappear; and the ur-Lily and I were left alone again.
For effect, I produced a notebook.
“If I could just ask you a few questions…”
“I say—glory at last.” She laughed rather stupidly; horsily; she was enjoying herself.
“I believed he lived next to you. He didn’t. Where did he live?”
“Oh I haven’t the faintest idea. You know. At that age.”
“You knew nothing about his parents?” She shook her head. “Would your sisters perhaps know more?”
Her face gravened.
“My eldest sister lives in Chile. She was ten years older than me. And my sister Rose—”
“Rose!”
She smiled. “Rose.”
“God, this is extraordinary. It clinches it. There’s a sort of… well a sort of mystery poem that belongs to the group about you. It’s very obscure, but now we know you have a sister called Rose…”
“Had a sister. Rose died just about that time. In 1916.”
“Of typhoid?”
I said it so eagerly that she was taken aback; then smiled. “No. Of some terribly rare complication following jaundice.” She stared out over the garden for a moment. “It was the great tragedy of my childhood.”
“Did you feel that he had any special affection for you—or for your sisters?”
She smiled again, remembering. “We always thought he secretly admired May—my eldest sister—she was engaged, of course, but she used to come and sit with us. And yes… oh goodness, it’s strange, it does come back, I remember he always used to show off, what we called showing off, if she was in the room. Play frightfully difficult bits. And she was fond of that Beethoven thing—For Elise? We used to hum it when we wanted to annoy him.”
“Your sister Rose was older than you?”
“Two years older.”
“So the picture is really of two little girls teasing a foreign music teacher?”
She began to swing on the seat. “Do you know, it’s frightful, but I can’t remember. I mean, yes, we teased him, I’m jolly sure we were perfect little pests. But then the war started and he disappeared.”
“Where?”
“Oh. I couldn’t tell you. No idea. But I remember we had a dreadful old hattie-axe in his place. And we hated her. I’m sure we missed him. I suppose we were frightful little snobs. One was in those days.”
“How long did he teach you?”
“Two years?” She was almost asking me.
“Can you remember any sign at all of strong personal liking—for you—on his side?”
She thought for a long moment, then shook her head. “You don’t mean… something nasty?”
“No, no. But were you, say, ever alone with him?”
She put on an expression of mock shock. “Never. There was always our governess, or my sister. My mother.”
“You couldn’t describe his character at all?”
“I’m sure if I could meet him now I’d think, a sweet little man. You know.”
“You or your sister never played the flute or the recorder?”
“Goodness no.” She grinned at the absurdity.
“A very personal question. Would you say you were a strikingly pretty little girl… I’m sure you were—but were you conscious that there was something rather special about you?”
She looked down at her cigarette. “In the interests, oh dear, how shall I say it, in the interests of your research, and speaking as a poor old raddled mother, the answer is… yes, I believe there was. Actually, I was painted. It became quite famous. All the rage of the 1913 Academy. It’s in the house—I’ll show you in a minute.”
I consulted my notebook. “And you just can’t remember what happened to him when the war came?”
She pressed her fine hands against her eyes. “Heavens, doesn’t this make you realize—I think he was interned… but honestly for the life of me I…”
“Would your sister in Chile remember better? Might I write to her?”
“Of course. Would you like her address?” She gave it to me and I wrote it down.
Benjie came and stood about twenty yards away, by an astrolabe on a stone column, looking plainer than words that his patience was exhausted. She beckoned to him; caressed back his forelock.
“Your poor old mum’s just had a shock, darling. She’s discovered she’s a muse.” She turned to me. “Is that the word?”
“What’s a muse?”