Ellis Peters - George Felse 08 - The House Of Green Turf Read Online Free PDF Page B

Those dark, dark eyes of hers you would have expected to be softly purple-black like a pansy, but instead they were the startling, piercing blue of high-altitude gentians, as vivid as noon in their midnight darkness. And now he came to think of it, that was exactly the colouring of her dark, dark voice, too. And her hair, refined English mouse-brown in pictures, who could have guessed it would be this unbelievable tint between dark gold and orange-russet, even subtly greenish in the shadows, the colour of the budding foliage of an oak tree in spring? She was much thinner than in any photograph he had ever seen of her; but then, she was probably much thinner now than she’d been a few weeks ago, after extensive surgery, and with this obsession eating her alive.
    He made the same discovery as the anaesthetist had made, paying his midnight visit to her in the ward to make sure she had really decided to take up the business of breathing again. She was beautiful. Very beautiful. It seems some people
can
have everything. Except, of course, peace of mind and a quiet conscience.
    It was at about this point that he observed the first interesting peculiarity about her narrative. He didn’t make a note of it, it wasn’t necessary.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said when she fell silent. ‘That was very comprehensive, and I doubt if I have many questions to ask. If you’d had any clue to time and place you would have included it. But I gather we can’t limit the possibilities at all, apart from ruling out the last few years. Forgetting is mortally easy, easier than remembering, but it does take a little time. Assuming this haunting has a foundation in fact, if it had been recent it would have surfaced more completely, with more detail.’
    ‘But is it genuinely possible,’ she asked opening her eyes wide, ‘to forget something so important? Even after years?’
    ‘It’s possible, all right. What we retain over a lifetime is only an infinitesimally small proportion of the whole. Think how many impressions are run through in an hour, and how many brief acquaintances in a year. The most phenomenal memory can’t contain a tenth of the total.’
    ‘But something like that… a matter of life and death…
that
would surely be retained, whatever was thrown out.’
    ‘We don’t know that it was a matter of life and death, or that it seemed so important then. Maybe this is hindsight. I don’t suggest your condition conjured up a totally illusory bogy, but I do think it possible that it magnified and distorted a comparatively innocuous incident. Wait,’ he said reasonably, ‘until you know.’
    ‘You forget,’ said Maggie mildly, ‘that I’d just slipped through death’s fingers. When you find yourself staring at close range into judgment day, you get your values right.’
    ‘Not necessarily. Not unless you believe fear to be the best introduction to truth. Even the just aren’t going to feel too sure of themselves on judgment day.’
    ‘Oh, no,’ said Maggie oddly, ‘I wasn’t afraid. You go clean through that, you know. It doesn’t apply any more. Even now it isn’t like being afraid, it’s just that it’s impossible to live without
knowing
. Like Oedipus. There isn’t any possibility of turning back and letting well alone. There wouldn’t be any solid ground to stand on. And you can’t sing without truth!’
    No,
she
couldn’t, he quite saw that. It took a bit of believing, in such a bogus world, but this woman had never severed her infant relationship with reality, and while she felt truth to be impaired everything would be devalued for her, even her art. He knew then that he was committed, not simply to accepting her commission, but to bringing it to a successful conclusion.
    ‘We still have half an hour. If you’re not too tired, I should like you to begin talking to me about yourself. Right from the beginning, your family, your childhood, things you remember. Names you remember. Don’t worry about looking for