It was an odd sensation, standing there once more, knowing that the basement all around me and the house above were empty of their present occupants, Vita, the boys, while waiting in the shadows were possibly the people of my secret world.
When I had swallowed the dose I went and sat in the old kitchen, expectant and alert as a theatre-goer who has just slipped into his stall before the curtain rises on the eagerly awaited third act of a play. In this case either the players were on strike or the management at fault, for the curtain of my private theatre never rose, the scene remained unchanged. I sat down there in the basement for an hour, and nothing happened. I went out on to the patio, thinking the fresh air might do the trick, but time stayed obstinately at Wednesday morning in mid-August; I might have swallowed a draught from the kitchen tap for all the effect bottle C had upon mind or stomach. At twelve o'clock I returned to the lab and poured a few more drops into the medicine-glass. This had done the trick once before, and without any ill-effect.
I returned to the patio and stayed until after one o'clock, but still nothing happened, so I went upstairs and had some lunch. It must mean that the contents of bottle C had lost their strength, or Magnus had somehow missed out on the special ingredients and bottle C was worthless. If this was so, I had made my last trip. The curtain had risen on my journey across the Treesmill stream in the snow, only to fall by the railway tunnel at the close of the third act. I had come to journey's end.
The realisation was so devastating that I felt stunned. I had lost not only Magnus but the other world. It lay here, all around me, but out of reach. The people of that world would travel on in time without me, and I must keep to my own course, fulfilling God only knew what monotonous day-by-day. The link between the centuries had gone. I went down to the basement once more and out into the patio, thinking that by walking on the stone flags and touching the walls some force would come through to me, that Roger's face would look out at me from the hatch-door to the boiler-room, or Robbie would emerge from the stables under the loft leading his pony. I knew they must be there, and I could not see them. Isolda too, waiting for the snows to melt. The house was inhabited not by the dead but by the living, and I was the restless wanderer, I was the ghost.
This urge to see, to listen, to move amongst them was so intense that it became intolerable; it was as though my brain had been set alight by some tremendous fire. I could not rest. I could not set myself to any humdrum task in the house or garden; the whole day had gone to waste, and what had promised to be hours of magic were slipping by unused. I got out the car and drove to Tywardreath, the sight of the solid parish church a mockery to my mood. It had no right to be there in its present form. I wanted to sweep it away, leaving only the south aisle and the Priory chapel, see the Priory walls enclosing the churchyard. I drove aimiessly to the lay-by at the top of the hill beyond the Treesmill turning and parked, thinking that, if I waiked down the road and crossed the fields to the Gratten, memory of what I had once seen would fill the vacuum.
I stood by the car, reaching for a cigarette, but it had not touched my lips before a jolt shook me from head to foot, as though I had stepped on a live cable. There was no serene transition from present to past but a sensation of pain, with flashes before my eyes and thunder in my ears. This is it, I thought. I'm going to die. Then the flashes cleared, the thunder died away, and there was a mass of people lining the summit of the hill where I stood, crowding and pressing towards a building across the road. More people came from the direction of Tywardreath, men, women, children, some walking, some running. The building was the magnet, irregular in shape, with leaded windows, and what appeared to be a small chapel beside it. I had seen the village once before, at Martinmas, but that was from the green beyond the Priory walls. Now there were no booths, no travelling musicians, no slaughtered beasts. The air was crisp and cold, the ditches banked with frozen snow that had turned grey and hard from lying during weeks. Small puddles in the road had turned to craters of sheeted ice, and the ploughlands across the ditches were black with frost. Men, women and children alike were wrapped and hooded against the cold, their features sharp like the beaks of birds, and the mood I sensed was neither jocular nor gay but somehow predatory, the mob mood of people bent upon a spectacle that might turn sour. I drew nearer to the building, and saw that a covered chariot was drawn up by the chapel entrance, with servants standing by the horses' heads. I recognised the Champernoune coat-of-arms, and the servants too, while Roger himself stood within the chapel porch, his arms folded. The door of the main building was shut, but as I stood there watching it opened, and a man, better dressed than those lining the route, emerged with a companion. I knew them both, for I had seen them last on the night when Otto Bodrugan had urged them to join in his rebellion against the King: they were Julian Polpey and Henry Trefrengy. They came down the pathway, and threading their way through the crowd paused near to where I stood.
"God preserve me from a woman's spite," said Polpey. "Roger has held the office for ten years, and now to be dismissed without reason being given, and the stewardship handed to Phil Hornwynk—"
"Young William will reinstate him when he comes of age, no doubt of that," replied Trefrengy. "He has his father's sense of justice and fair play. But I could smell the change coming these past twelve months or more. The plain truth is that she lacks not only a husband but a man as well, and Roger has had his belly-full and will oblige no more."
"He finds his oats elsewhere." The last speaker, Geoffrey Lampetho from the valley, had shouldered his way through the crowd to join them. "Rumour has it there's a woman under his roof. You should know, Trefrengy, being his neighbour."
"I know nothing," answered Trefrengy shortly. "Roger keeps his counsel, I keep mine. In hard weather such as this wouldn't any Christian give shelter to a stranger on the road?"
Lampetho laughed, digging him with his elbow. "Neatly said, but you can't deny it," he said. "Why else does my Lady Champernoune come here from Trelawn, disregarding the state of the roads, unless to snuff her out? I was in the geld-house here before you to pay my rents, and she sat in the inner room while Hornwynk collected. All the paint in the world couldn't hide the black look on her face: dismissing Roger from his stewardship won't see the end of it. Meantime, sport for the populace of another kind. Will you stay to watch the fun?"
Julian Polpey shook his head in disgust. "Not I, he answered. Why should we in Tywardreath have some custom foisted upon us from elsewhere, making us barbarians? Lady Champernoune must be sick in mind to think of it. I'm for home."
He turned and disappeared into the crowd, which was now thick not only upon the summit of the hill where the house and chapel stood, but half-way down the track to Treesmill. One and all wore this curious air of expectancy upon their faces, half-resentful, half-eager, and Geoffrey Lampetho, pointing this out to his companion, laughed again.
"Sick in mind, maybe, but it salves her conscience to have another widow act as scapegoat, and sweetens Quadragessima for us. There's nothing a mob likes more than witnessing public penance." He turned his head, like the rest, towards the valley, and Henry Trefrengy edged forward past the Champernoune servants to the chapel entrance where Roger stood, while I followed close behind.
"I'm sorry for what has happened," he said. "No gratitude, no recompense. Ten years of your life wasted, gone for nothing."
"Not wasted, answered Roger briefly. William will come of age in June and marry. His mother will lose her influence, and the monk as well. You know the Bishop of Exeter has expelled him finally, and he must return to the Abbey at Angers, where he should have gone a year ago?"