The House on the Strand (42 page)

A stone before the chancel steps was inscribed with her own initials and the date of her death, which I could not decipher. A similar stone, to the left, bore the initials H.C. There were no stained glass windows, no effigies or tombs built against the walls: this was an oratory, a memorial chapel.

When Robbie rose from his knees and turned away, I saw another stone before the chancel steps. The lettering read I.C.; the date was 1335. As I followed Robbie out into the rain and down towards the village, I knew of only one name that would fit, and it was not Champernoune. Desolation was all about me, here by the geld-house and in the village too. No people on the green, no animals, no barking dogs. The doors of the small dwellings huddled close around the green were closed, like those on the demesne itself. A single goat, half-starved by its appearance, with ribs protruding from its lean body, was tethered by a chain near to the well, cropping the rough grass. We climbed the hill-track above the Priory, and looking down on to the enclosure I could see no sign of life from behind the walls. No smoke came from the monks quarters, nor from the chapter-house; the whole place seemed abandoned, and the ripening apples in the orchard had been left to cluster on the trees unplucked. And when we passed the plough-lands on the high ground I saw that the soil had not been turned, and some of the corn was not even harvested but lay rotting on the earth, as if some cyclone in the night had swept it down. As we came to the pasture-land on the lower slopes the Priory cattle, roaming loose, came lowing after us in desperation, as though in hope that Robbie, on his pony, might drive them home.

We crossed the ford with ease, for the tide was ebbing fast and the sands lay uncovered, flat and dirty brown under the rain. A thin wreath of smoke came from Julian Polpey's roof—he at least must have survived calamity—but Geoffrey Lampetho's dwelling in the valley looked as bare and deserted as those on the village green. This was not the world I knew, the world I had come to love and long for because of its magic quality of love and hate, its separation from a drab monotony; this was a place resembling, in its barren desolation, all the most hideous features of a twentieth-century landscape after disaster, suggesting a total abandonment of hope, the aftertaste of atomic doom. Robbie rode uphill above the ford, and passing through the copse of straggling trees came down to the wall encircling Kylmerth yard. No smoke curled up from the chimney. He flung himself from his pony, leaving it to wander loose towards the byre, and running across the yard he opened the door.

"Roger!" I heard him call, and "Roger!" once again. The kitchen was empty, the turf no longer smouldered on the hearth. The remains of food lay untouched upon the trestle table, and as Robbie climbed the ladder to the sleeping-loft I saw a rat scurry across the floor and disappear. There can have been no one in the loft, for Robbie came down the ladder instantly, and opened the door beneath it which gave access to the byre, revealing at the same time a narrow passage ending in a store-room and a cellar. Slits in the thickness of the wall allowed streaks of light to penetrate the gloom, and this was the only source of air as well. There was little draught to cleanse the atmosphere of sweet mustiness pervading, due to the rotting apples laid in rows against the wall. An iron cauldron, unsteady on three legs, and rusted from disuse, stood in the far corners and beside it pitchers, jars, a three-pronged fork, a pair of bellows. This store-room was a strange choice for a sick man to make his bed. He must have dragged his pallet from the sleeping-loft and placed it here beside the slit in the wa11 and then, from increasing weakness or lack of will, lain through the days and nights until today. "Roger..." whispered Robbie, "Roger!"

Roger opened his eyes. I did not recognise him. His hair was white, his eyes sunk deep in his head, his features thin and drawn; and under the white furze that formed his beard the flesh was discoloured, bruised, with the same discoloured swellings behind his ears. He murmured something, "water", I think it was, and Robbie rose from his side and ran into the kitchen, but I went on kneeling there beside him, staring down at the man I had last seen confident and strong. Robbie returned with a pitcher of water, and, putting his arms round his brother, helped him to drink. But after two mouthfuls Roger choked, and lay back again on his pallet, gasping.

"No remedy," he said. "The swelling's spread to my throat and blocked the wind-pipe. Moisten my lips only, that's comfort enough."

"How long have you lain here?" asked Robbie.

"I cannot tell. Four days and nights, maybe. Not long after you went I knew it had me, and I brought my bed to the cellar so that you could sleep easy above when you returned. How is Sir William?"

"Recovered, thanks be to God, and young Katherine too. Elizabeth still escapes infection, and the servants. More than sixty died this week in Tywardreath. The Priory is closed, as you know, and the Prior and brethren gone to Minster."

"No loss," murmured Roger. "We can do without them. Did you visit the chapel?"

"I did, and said the usual prayer."

He moistened his brother's lips with water once again, and in rough but tender fashion tried to soften the swellings beneath his ears.

"I tell you, there's no remedy," said Roger. "This is the end. No parish priest to shrive me, no communal grave amongst the rest. Bury me at the cliff's edge, Robbie, where my bones will smell the sea."

"I'll go to Polpey and fetch Bess," said Robbie. "She and I can nurse you through this together."

"No," said Roger, "she has her own children to care for now, and Julian too. Hear my confession, Robbie. There's been something on my conscience now these thirteen years."

He struggled to sit up but had not strength enough, and Robbie, the tears running down his cheeks, smoothed the matted hair out of his brother's eyes.

"If it concerns you and Lady Carminowe, I don't need to hear it, Roger," he said. "Bess and I knew you loved her, and love her still. So did we. There was no sin in that for any of us."

"No sin in loving, but in murder, yes," said Roger.

"Murder?"

Robbie, kneeling by his brother's side, stared down at him, bewildered, then shook his head. "You're wandering, Roger," he said softly. "We all know how she died. She had been sick for weeks before she came here, and hid it from us; and then when they tried to carry her away by force she gave her promise she would follow in a week, and so they let her stay."

"And would have gone, but I prevented it."

"How did you prevent it? She died before the week had passed, here, in the room above, with Bess's arms about her, and yours too."

"She died because I would not let her suffer pain," said Roger. "She died because, had she kept her bargain and travelled to Trelawn and thence into Devon, there would have been weeks of agony ahead, even months, agony that our own mother knew and endured when we were young. So I let her go from us in sleep, knowing nothing of what I had done, and you and Bess in the same ignorance."

He put out his hand and felt for Robbie's, holding it tight. "Did you never wonder, Robbie, when in the old days I stayed at the Priory late at night, or an occasion brought de Meral here to the cellar, what it was I did?"

"I knew the French ships landed merchandise," said Robbie, "and you conveyed it to the Priory. Wine and other goods which the Prior lacked. And the monks lived well because of it."

"They taught me their secrets too," said Roger. "How to make men dream and conjure visions, rather than pray. How to seek a paradise on earth that would last for a few hours only. How to make men die. It was only after young Bodrugan perished in de Meral's care that I sickened of the game, taking no further part in it. But I had learnt the secret well, and so made use of it, when the time came. I gave her something to ease pain and let her slip away. It was murder, Robbie, and a mortal sin. And no one knows of it but you."

The effort of speaking had drained him of all strength, and Robbie, lost and frightened suddenly in the presence of death, let go his hand, and, stumbling to his feet, went blindly along the passage to the kitchen, in search, I think, of some additional covering to draw over his brother. I went on kneeling there, in the cellar, and Roger opened his eyes for the last time and stared at me. I think he asked for absolution, but there was no one there, in his own time, to grant it, and I wondered if, because of this, he had travelled through the years in search of it. Like Robbie, I was helpless, and six centuries too late.

"Go forth, 0 Christian soul, out of this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee..."

I could not remember any more, and it did not matter, because he had already gone. The light was coming through the chinks of the shuttered window in the old laundry, and I was kneeling there, on the stone floor of the lab, amongst the empty bottles and the jars. There was no nausea, no vertigo, no singing in my ears. Only a great silence, and a sense of peace. I raised my head and saw that the doctor was standing by the wall and watching me.

"It's finished," I said. "Roger's dead, he's free. It's all over."

The doctor put out his hand and took my arm. He led me out of the room and up the stairs, and through to the front part of the house and into the library. We sat down together on the window-seat, staring out across the sea.

"Tell me about it," he said.

"Don't you know?"

I had thought, seeing him in the lab, that he must have shared the experience with me, then I realised it was impossible.

"I waited with you on the site," he told me, "then walked with you up the hill, and followed behind you in the car. You stopped for a moment in a field above Tywardreath, near where the two roads join, then down through the village and along the side-lane to Polmear, and so back here. You were walking quite normally, rather faster, perhaps, than I would have cared to do myself. Then you struck to the right through the wood, and I came down the drive. I knew I should find you below."

I got up from the window-seat and went to the bookshelf and took down one of the volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

I turned the pages until I found the reference I sought. "The date of the Black Death," I said, "1348. Thirteen years after Isolda died." I put the book back upon the shelf.

"Bubonic plague," he observed. "Endemic in the Far East—they've had a number of cases in Vietnam."

"Have they?" I said. "Well, I've just seen what it did in Tywardreath six hundred years ago."

I went back to the window-seat and picked up the walking-stick. "You must have wondered how I managed that last trip," I said. "This is how." I unscrewed the top and showed him the small measure. He took it from me and held it upside down. It was fully drained.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but when I saw you sitting there below the Gratten I knew I had to do it. It was my last chance. And I'm glad I did, because now the whole thing is done with, finished. No more temptation. No more desire to lose myself in the other world. I told you Roger was free, and so am I."

He did not answer. He was still staring at the empty measure.

"Now," I said, "before we put through a call to Dublin airport and ask if Vita is there, supposing you tell me what else was written in that report John Willis sent you?"

He picked up the stick, and replacing the measure screwed on the top and gave it back to me.

"I burnt it," he said, "with the flame from my lighter, when you were on your knees in the basement reciting that prayer for the dying. Somehow it seemed to me the right moment, and I preferred to destroy it rather than have it lying in the surgery amongst my files."

"That's no answer," I told him.

It's all you're going to get, he replied. The telephone started ringing from the lobby in the hall. I wondered how many times it had rung before.

"That will be Vita," I said. "Now for the count-down. I'd better get on my knees again. Shall I tell her I got locked in the gents and I'll join her tomorrow?"

"It would be wiser", he said slowly, "if you told her you hoped to join her later, perhaps in a few weeks time."

"But that's absurd," I frowned. "There's nothing to hold me back. I've told you it's all over and I'm free."

He did not say anything. He just sat there staring at me. The telephone went on ringing, and I crossed the room to answer it, but a silly thing happened as I picked up the receiver. I couldn't hold it properly; my fingers and the palm of my hand went numb, and it slipped out of my grasp and crashed to the floor.

The End