Daphne du Maurier - The House on the Strand

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