“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?”

“A lady who makes a gentleman write poems.”

“Does he write poems?”

She laughed and turned back to me. “And he’s really quite famous?”

“I think he will be one day.”

“Can I read him?”

“He’s not been translated. But he will be.”

“By you?”

“Well…” I let her think I had hopes.

She said, “I honestly don’t think I can tell you any more.” Benjie whispered something. She laughed and stood up in the sunlight and took his hand. “We’re just going to show Mr. Orfe a picture, then it’s back to work.”

“It’s Urfe, actually.”

She put her hand to her face, in shame. “Oh dear. There I go again.” The boy jerked her other hand; he too was ashamed of her silliness.

We all walked up to the house, through a drawing room into a wide hall and then into a room at the side. I saw a long dining table, silver candlesticks. On the paneling between two windows was a painting. Benjie ran and switched on a picture light above it. It showed a little Alice-like girl with long hair, in a sailor dress, looking round a door, as if she was hiding and could see whoever was looking for her searching in vain. Her face was very alive, tense, excited, yet still innocent. In gilt on a small black plaque beneath I read: Mischief, by Sir William Blunt, R.A.

“Charming.”

Benjie made his mother bend down and whispered something.

“He wants to tell you what the family calls it.”

She nodded at him and he shouted, “How Soppy Can You Get.” She pulled his hair as he grinned.

Another charming picture.

She apologized for not being able to invite me to lunch, but she had a “Women’s Institute do” in Hertford; and I promised that as soon as a translation of the Conchis poems was ready I would send her a copy.

Driving back down the lane to Much Hadham, I laughed. I might have guessed that Conchis was compensating for some deep feeling of inferiority towards her and her sisters, towards his own youth, towards England and the English; just as I ought to have had more confidence in my inevitably arriving, one day, at the real truth about him. In a sense I, and all the others who had been through the “system” at Bourani, must represent his revenge for all the humiliations and unhappiness he had suffered in the Montgomery household, and probably others like them, during those distant years.

I came out into the main street. It was half-past twelve and I decided to get a bite to eat before I did the drive back into London. So I stopped at a small half-timbered pub. I had the lounge bar all to myself.

“Passing through?” asked the landlord, as he drew me a pint.

“No. Been to see someone. Dinsford House.”

“Nice place she’s got there.”

“You know them?”

He wore a bow tie; had a queasy in-between accent.

“Know of them. I’ll take the sandwiches separate.” He rang up the till. “Used to see the children round the village.”

“I’ve just been out there on business.”

“Oh yes.”

A peroxided woman’s head appeared round the door. She held out a plate of sandwiches. As he handed me back my change, he said, “Singer in opera, wasn’t she?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s what they say round here.”

I waited for him to go on, but he evidently wasn’t very interested. I finished half a sandwich. Thought.

“What’s her husband do?”

“Isn’t a husband.” He caught up my quick look. “Well we been here two years now and I never heard of one. There’re… gentlemen friends, I’m told.” He gave me a minute wink.

“Ah. I see.”

“Course they’re like me. London people.” There was a silence. He picked up a glass. “Good-looking woman. Never seen her daughters?” I shook my head. He polished the glass. “Real corkers.” Silence.

“How old are they?”

“Don’t ask me. I can’t tell twenty from thirty these days. The eldest are twins, you know.” If he hadn’t been so busy polishing the glass in the old buy-me-a-drink ploy he would have seen my face freeze into stone. “What they call identicals. Some are normals. And others are identicals.” He held the glass up high to the light. “They say the only way their own mother can tell them apart one’s got a scar or something on her wrist.”

I was out of the bar so fast that he didn’t even have time to shout.

72

I didn’t feel angry at first; I drove very fast, and nearly killed a man on a bicycle, but I was grinning most of the way. This time I didn’t park my car discreetly by the gate. I skidded it on the gravel in front of the black door; and I made the lion-headed knocker give the hardest banging it had sounded in years.

Mrs. de Seitas herself answered the door; she had changed, but only from her jodhpurs into a pair of pale fawn trousers. She looked past me at my car, as if that might explain why I had returned. I smiled.

“I see you’re not going out for lunch after all.”

“Yes, I made a stupid mistake over the day.” She gathered her shirt collar together. “Did you forget something?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” I said nothing and she went on brightly but a fraction too late, “What?”

“Your twin daughters.”

Her expression changed; she didn’t appear in the least guilty, but she gave me a look of concession and then the faintest smile. I wondered how I had not seen the similarity; the eyes, the long mouth. I had let that spurious snapshot Lily had shown me linger in my mind. A silly woman with fluffed-up hair. She stepped back for me to enter.

“Yes. You did.”

Benjie appeared at a door at the end of the hall. She spoke calmly to him as she closed the door behind me.

“Benjie, go and have your lunch.”

“Benjie.” I went quickly and bent a little in front of him. “Benjie, could you tell me something? The names of your twin sisters?”

He frowned and looked at his mother. She must have nodded.

“Lil' and Rose.”

“Thank you.”

He gave me one last doubtful look, and disappeared. I turned to Lily de Seitas.

She said, as she moved self-possessedly towards the drawing room, “We called them that to placate my mother. She was a hungry goddess.” Her manner had changed with her clothes; and a vague former disparity between her vocabulary and her looks was accounted for. It was suddenly credible that she was fifty; and incredible that I had thought her rather unintelligent. I followed her into the room.