Part 19 (2/2)

”Upon my word, Fr+re Jean, you show true Christian feeling,” she said. ”What do you say, Isolda? Now you have three alternatives: seclusion at Cornworthy, life in a pigsty at Kylmerth, or the protection of a Benedictine monk across the water. I know which I would choose.” She glanced about her as she had first done when she entered the house, and moving round the room touched the smoke-grimed walls, grimacing, then examined her fingers, wiping them with the handkerchief she carried, and finally paused by the ladder leading to the loft above, her foot upon one rung.

”One pallet amongst four, and louse-ridden?” she asked. ”If you travel into Devon or to France, Isolda, I'll thank you to sprinkle your gown with vinegar first.”

The singing started in my ears, and the thunder. Their figures began to fade. All but Joanna's, standing there at the foot of the ladder. She stared towards me, her eyes opening wide, and I did not care what happened afterwards, I wanted to put my hands round her throat and choke her before she vanished, like the others, out of sight. I crossed the room and stood beside her, and she did not fade. She began to scream, as I shook her backwards and forwards, my hands round her plump, white neck.

”d.a.m.n you,” I shouted, ”d.a.m.n you... d.a.m.n you...” and the screaming was all around me, and above as well. I loosened my grip and looked up, and the boys were crouching there on the landing at the top of the back stairs, and Vita had fallen against the bannister beside me, and was staring at me, white-faced, terrified, her hands to her throat.

”Oh, my G.o.d!” I said. ”Vita... darling... Oh, my G.o.d...” I fell forwards on to the bannister rail beside her, retching, seized by the uncontrollable, blasted vertigo, and she dragged herself away up the stairs to safety beside the boys, and they all started screaming once again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

THERE WAS NOTHING I could do. I lay there on the stairs, clinging to the handrail, arms and legs splayed out grotesquely, with walls and ceiling reeling above my head. If I shut my eyes the vertigo increased, with streaks of golden light stabbing the darkness. Presently the screaming stopped; the boys were crying, and I could hear the crying die away as they ran into the kitchen overhead, slamming both the doors. Blinded by dizziness and nausea, I started to crawl upstairs, step by step, and when I had reached the top stood upright, swaying, and felt my way across the kitchen to the hall. The lights were on, the doors were open. Vita and the boys must have run up to the bedroom and locked themselves in. I staggered into the lobby and reached for the telephone, floor and ceiling blurring to become one. I sat there, holding the receiver in my hand, until the floor steadied, and the telephone directory, instead of being a jumble of black dots, straightened into words. I found Doctor Powell's number at last and dialled it, and when he answered the tension inside me broke, and I felt the sweat pouring down my face.

”It's Richard Young from Kilmarth,” I said. You remember, the friend of Professor Lane.

”Oh yes?” He sounded surprised. After all, I was not one of his patients, and I must only be a face amongst hundreds of summer visitors.

”The most frightful thing has happened,” I said. ”I had a sort of black-out and tried to strangle my wife. I may have hurt her, I don't know.”

My voice was calm, without emotion, yet all the time my heart was pounding, and the realisation of what had happened was clear and strong. There was no confusion. No merging of two worlds.

”Is she unconscious?” he asked.

”No,” I said, ”no, I don't think so. She's upstairs, with the boys. They must have locked themselves in the bedroom. I'm speaking to you from the lobby downstairs.”

He was silent, and for one terrible moment I was afraid he was going to tell me it was none of his business and I had better call the police. Then, ”All right, I'll be along straight away,” he said, and rang off. I put down the receiver and wiped the sweat off my face. The vertigo had subsided, and I was able to stand without swaying. I walked slowly upstairs and through the dressing-room to the bathroom door. It was locked.

”Darling,” I called, ”don't worry, it's O.K. I've just telephoned the doctor. He's coming out at once. Stay there with the boys until you hear his car.” She did not answer, and I called louder. ”Vita,” I shouted, ”Teddy, Micky, don't be frightened, the doctor's coming. Everything's going to be all right.”

I went back downstairs and opened the front door, and stood waiting there on the steps. It was a fine night, the sky ablaze with stars. There was no sound anywhere; the campers in the field across the Polkerris road must have turned in. I looked at my watch. It was twenty to eleven. Then I heard the sound of the doctor's car coming along the main road from Fowey, and I began to sweat again, not from fear but from relief. He turned down the drive and came to a standstill in the sweep before the house. I went through the garden to meet him.

”Thank G.o.d you've come,” I said.

We went into the house together, and I pointed up the stairs. ”First room at the top, on the right. That's my dressing-room, but she's locked the bathroom beyond. Tell them who you are. I'll wait for you down here.”

He ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and I kept thinking that the silence from above meant that Vita was dying, that she was lying on the bed, and the boys were crouching beside her, too terrified to move. I went into the music-room and sat down, wondering what would happen if he told me Vita was dead. All of it was happening. All of it was true.

He was up there a long time, and presently I heard the sound of s.h.i.+fting furniture; they must be dragging the divan bed through the bathroom to the bedroom, and I could hear the doctor talking, and Teddy too. I wondered what the h.e.l.l they were doing. I went and listened at the foot of the stairs, but they had gone through to the bedroom again and shut the door. I sat on in the music-room, waiting. He came down just after the clock in the hail struck eleven. ”Everything's under control,” he said. ”No panic stations. Your wife's all right, and so are your stepsons. Now what about you?”

I tried to stand up, but he pushed me back into the chair.

”Have I hurt her?” I asked.

”Slight bruising on the neck, nothing more,” he said. ”It may look a bit blue tomorrow, but it won't show if she wears a scarf.”

”Did she tell you what happened?”

”Supposing you tell me?”

”I'd rather hear her version first,” I said.

He took a cigarette out of a packet and lighted it. ”Well,” he said, ”I gather you didn't want any dinner, for reasons known best to yourself, and she spent the evening in here with the boys, while you were in the library. Then they decided to go to bed, and she found you had gone to the kitchen and switched on the lights. There was bacon on the stove burnt to a frazzle, the stove still on, but n.o.body there. So she went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. It seems you were standing there, near the old kitchen, so she said, waiting for her to come downstairs, and as soon as you saw her you went straight across to the foot of the stairs and began swearing at her, and then you put your hands round her throat and tried to throttle her.”

”That's right,” I said.

He looked at me sharply. Perhaps he thought I would deny it. ”She insists you were fighting drunk and didn't know what you were doing,” he said, ”but it was a pretty grim experience for all of them, and she and those boys were scared out of their wits. More so, as I gather you're not a drinking type.”

”No,” I said, ”I'm not. And I wasn't drunk.”

He did not answer for a moment. Then he came and stood in front of me, and taking some sort of flash thing from the bag he had with him he examined my eyes. Afterwards he felt my pulse.

”What are you on?” he asked abruptly.

”On?”

”Yes, what drug. Tell me straight, and I'll know how to treat you.”

”That's just it,” I said. ”I don't know.”

”Was it something Professor Lane gave you?”

”Yes,” I replied.

He sat down on the arm of the sofa beside my chair. ”By mouth or by injection?”

”By mouth.”

”Was he treating you for something specific?”

”He wasn't treating me for anything. It was an experiment. Something I volunteered to do for him. I've never taken drugs in my life before I came down here.”

He went on looking at me with his shrewd eyes, and I knew there was nothing for it but to tell him everything.

”Was Professor Lane on the same drug when he walked into that goods-train?” he asked.

”Yes.”

He got off the sofa and began walking up and down the room, fiddling with things on tables, picking them up and putting them down again, as Magnus himself used to do when coming to a decision.

”I ought to get you into hospital for observation,” he said.

”No, I said, for G.o.d's sake...” I got up from my chair. ”Look,” I said, ”I've got the stuff in a bottle upstairs. It's all there is left. One bottle. He told me to destroy everything I found here in his lab, and I did-it's all buried in the wood above the garden. I only kept the one bottle, and I used some of it today. It must be different in some way-stronger, I don't know-but you take it away, have it a.n.a.lysed, anything. Surely you realise, after what has happened tonight, I couldn't touch the stuff again? Christ! I might have killed my wife.”

”I know,” he said. ”That's why you ought to be in hospital.” He did not know. He did not understand. How could he understand?

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