Part 18 (1/2)

I did not mean to be sarcastic. She could do what she liked, within reason, with Magnus's furnis.h.i.+ngs and bachelor taste. Rearranging rooms was one of her favourite things: it kept her happy for hours.

My effort to appease rebounded. Her eyes filled, and she said, ”You know I'd live anywhere if only I thought you loved me still.”

I can take anger any day and feel justified in returning blow for blow.

Not unhappiness, not tears. I held out my arms and she came at once, clinging to me for comfort like a wounded child.

”You've changed so these last weeks,” she told me. ”I hardly recognise you.”

”I haven't changed,” I said. ”I do love you. Of course I love you.” Truth is the hardest thing to put across, to other people, to oneself as well. I did love Vita, for moments shared during months and years, for all those ups and downs of married life that can be precious, exasperating, monotonous, and dear. I had learnt to accept her faults, and she mine. Too often, wrangling, the insults hurled were never meant. Too frequently, used to each other's company, we had left the sweeter things unsaid. The trouble was, some inner core within had been untouched, lain dormant, waiting to be stirred. I could not share with her or anyone the secrets of my dangerous new world. Magnus, yes, but Magnus was a man, and dead. Vita was no Medea with whom I could gather the enchanted herbs.

”Darling,” I said, ”try and bear with me. It's a moment of transition for me, not a parting of the ways. I just can't see ahead. It's like standing on a spit of sh.o.r.e with an incoming tide, waiting to take the plunge. I can't explain.”

”I'll take any plunge you want, if you'll take me with you,” she answered.

”I know,” I said, ”I know...”

She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, the temporarily blotched features oddly touching, making me feel the more inadequate.

”What's the time? I shall have to pick up the boys,” she said.

”No, we'll go together,” I told her, glad of an excuse to prolong the entente, to justify myself not only in her eyes but in my own as well. Cheerfulness broke in; the atmosphere, that had been so heavy with resentment and unspoken bitterness, cleared and we were almost normal again. That night I returned from self-banishment in the dressing-room, not without regret, but I felt it politic; besides, the divan bed was hard.

The weather was fine, and the weekend pa.s.sed with sailing, swimming, picnics with the boys, and as I resumed my role of husband, stepfather, master of the house, I planned in secret for the week ahead. I must have one day to myself alone. Vita herself, in all innocence, supplied the opportunity.

”Did you know Mrs. Collins has a daughter in Bude?” she said on Monday morning. ”I told her we'd take her over there one day this week, drop her off with the daughter, and pick her up again later in the afternoon. So how about it? The boys are keen to go, and so am I.” I pretended to damp the idea. ”Awful lot of traffic,” I said. ”The roads will be jammed. And Bude packed with tourists.”

”We don't mind that,” said Vita. ”We can make an early start, and it's only about 50 miles.”

I a.s.sumed the look of a hard-pressed family man with a back-log of work on hand he was given no time to clear. ”If you don't mind, I'd rather you left me out of it. Bude on a mid-August afternoon is not my idea of a perfect way of life.”

”O.K... O.K... We'll have more fun without you.”

We settled for Wednesday. No tradesmen called that day, so it suited me. If they left at half-past ten and picked up Mrs. Collins again around five o'clock, they'd be home by seven at the latest.

Wednesday dawned fine, luckily, and I saw the party off in the Buick soon after half-past ten, knowing that I had at least eight hours ahead of me, hours for experiment and recovery too. I went up to the dressing-room and took bottle C out of my suitcase. It was the same stuff all right, or appeared to be, but there was a brownish sediment at the bottom, like cough-mixture put away after the winter and forgotten until the cold weather comes again. I took out the stopper and smelt the contents: they had no more colour and smell than stale water-less, in fact. I poured four measures into the top of the walking-stick, and then decided to screw it up for future use, and pour a fresh dose into the medicine-gla.s.s, which was still lying on a shelf with the jars in the old laundry.

It was an odd sensation, standing there once more, knowing that the bas.e.m.e.nt 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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-gla.s.s. 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 G.o.d only knew what monotonous day-by-day. The link between the centuries had gone. I went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt 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 ma.s.s 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.

”G.o.d 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 stewards.h.i.+p 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 stewards.h.i.+p 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 grat.i.tude, 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?”

”G.o.d be praised!” exclaimed Trefrengy. ”The Priory stinks because of him, the parish too. Look at the people yonder...” Roger stared over Trefrengy's head at the gaping crowd. ”I may have acted hard as steward, but to make sport of Rob Rosgof's widow was more than I could stomach,” he said. ”I stood against it, and this was another reason for my dismissal. The monk is responsible for all of this, to satisfy my lady's vanity and l.u.s.t.”

The entrance to the chapel darkened, and the small, slight figure of Jean de Meral appeared in the open doorway. He put his hand on Roger's shoulder.

”You used not to be so squeamish once,” he said. ”Have you forgotten those evenings in the Priory cellars, and in your own as well? I taught you more than philosophy, my friend, on those occasions.”

”Take your hand off me,” replied Roger curtly. ”I parted company with you and your brethren when you let young Henry Bodrugan die under the Priory roof; and could have saved him.”

The monk smiled. ”And now, to show sympathy with the dead, you harbour an adulterous wife under your own?” he asked. ”We are all hypocrites, my friend. I warn you, my lady knows your wayfarer's ident.i.ty, and it is partly on her account that she is here in Tywardreath. She has certain proposals to put before the Lady Isolda when this business with Rosgof's widow has been settled.”

”Which business, please G.o.d, will be struck from the manor records in years to come, and rebound upon your head instead, to your everlasting shame,” said Trefrengy.

”You forget”, murmured the monk, ”I am a bird of pa.s.sage, and in a few days time shall have spread my wings for France.”

There was a sudden stir amongst the crowd, and a man appeared at the door of the adjoining building, which Lampetho had named the geld-house. Stout, florid-faced, he held a doc.u.ment in his hand. Beside him, wrapped in a cloak from head to foot, was Joanna Champernoune. The man, whom I took to be the new steward Hornwynk, advanced to address the crowd, unrolling the doc.u.ment in his hand.

”Good people of Tywardreath,” he proclaimed, ”whether freeman, customary tenant or serf, those of you who pay rent to the manor court have done so here today at the geldhouse. And since this manor of Tywardreath was once held by the Lady Isolda Cardinham of Cardinham, who sold it to our late lord's grandfather, it has been decided to introduce here a practice established in the manor of Cardinham since the Conquest.” He paused a moment, the better to impress his words upon his listeners. ”The practice being”, he continued, ”that any widow of a customary tenant, holding lands through her late husband, who has deviated from the path of chast.i.ty, shall either forfeit her lands or make due penance for their recovery before the lord of the manor and the steward of the manor court. Today before the Lady Joanna Champernoune, representing the lord of the manor William, a minor, and myself, Philip Hornwynk, steward, Mary, widow of Robert Rosgof, must make such penance if she desires the restoration of her lands.”

A murmur rose from the crowd, a strange blend of excitement and curiosity, and a sudden sound of shouting came from the road leading down to Treesmill.

”She'll never face them,” said Trefrengy. ”Mary Rosgof has a son at home who would rather surrender his farmland ten times over than have his mother shamed.”

”You are mistaken,” answered the monk. ”He knows her shame will prove his gain in six months time, when she is brought to bed of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child, and he can turn both out of doors and keep the lands himself.”

”Then you've persuaded him,” said Roger, ”and lined his purse in so doing.”

The shouting and the cries increased, and as the people pressed forward I saw a procession ascend the hill from Treesmill, lumbering towards us at a jog-trot. Two lads raced ahead, brandis.h.i.+ng whips, and behind them came five men escorting what at first sight I took to be a small moorland pony with a woman mounted on its back. They drew closer, and the laughter amongst the spectators turned to jeers, as the woman sagged upon her steed and would have fallen, had not one of the men escorting her held her fast, flouris.h.i.+ng a hay-fork in his other hand. She was not mounted upon a pony at all but on a great black sheep, his horns beribboned with crepe, and the two fellows on either side had thrust a halter over his head to lead him, so that, startled and terrified of the crowd about him, he ducked and stumbled in a vain endeavour to throw his pa.s.senger from his back. The woman was draped in black to match her steed, with a black veil covering her face, her hands bound in front of her with leather thongs; I could see her fingers clutching at the thick dark wool on the sheep's neck. The procession came stumbling and lurching to the geld-house, and as it drew to a standstill before Hornwynk and Joanna, the escort jerking the halter, the man with the hay-fork dragged off the woman's veil to disclose her features. She could not have been more than thirty-five, her eyes as terror-striken as the sheep that bore her, while her dark hair, roughly scissored, stood out from her head like a cropped thatch. The jeering turned to silence as the woman, trembling, bowed her head before Joanna.