Lord Jagged of Canaria stepped into the sitting room and seemed to fill it. He bowed to them all and was stared at.
"Do I interrupt? I came to tell you, sir," addressing the time-traveller, "that the quartz has hardened satisfactorily. You can leave in the morning, as you planned."
"With Harold and Inspector Springer and the rest!" almost shouted Amelia.
"Ah, you know."
"We know everything —" her colour was high, her eyes fiery — "save why you arranged this!"
"The time-traveller was good enough to say that he would transport the gentlemen back to their own period. It is their last chance to leave. No other will arise."
"You made sure, Lord Jagged, that they should wish to leave. This ridiculous vision!"
"I fear that I do not follow your reasoning, beautiful Amelia." Lord Jagged looked questioningly at Jherek.
Amelia sank to the sofa, teeth in knuckles.
"It seems to us," Jherek loyally told his father, "that you had something to do with Harold Underwood's recent vision in which God appeared to him in a burning sphere and ordered him to return to 1896 with a mission to warn his world of terrors to come."
"A vision, eh?" Jagged smiled. "But he will be considered mad if he tries to do that. Are they all so affected?"
"All!" mumbled Amelia viciously from behind her fist.
"They will not be believed, of course." Jagged seemed to muse, as if all this news were new.
"Of course!" Amelia removed her knuckles from her mouth. "And thus they will be unable to affect the future. Or, if they are caught by the Morphail Effect, it will be too late for them to return here. This world will be closed to them. You have staged everything perfectly, Lord Jagged."
"Why should I stage such scenes?"
"Could it be to ensure that I stay with Jherek?"
"But you are with him, my dear." Innocent surprise.
"You know what I mean, I think, Lord Jagged."
"Are you concerned for your husband's safety if he returns?"
"I think his life will scarcely change at all. The same might not be said for poor Inspector Springer and his men, but even then, considering what has already happened to them. I have no particular fears. Quite likely it is the best that could happen. But I object to your part in arranging matters so — so suitably."
"You do me too much credit, Amelia."
"I think not."
"However, if you think it would be best to keep Harold Underwood and the policemen in the city, I am sure that the time-traveller can be dissuaded…"
"You know it is too late. Harold and the others want nothing more than to return."
"Then why are you so upset?"
Jherek interposed. "Ambiguous parent, if you are the author of all this — if you have played God as Amelia suggests — then be frank with us."
"You are my family. You are all my confidants. Frankness is not, admittedly, my forte. I am not prone to making claims or to denying accusations. It is not in my nature, I fear. It is an old time-travelling habit, too. If Harold Underwood experienced a vision in the city and it was not a hallucination — and you'll all admit the city is riddled with them, they run wild there — then who is to argue that he has not seen God?"
"Oh, this is the rankest blasphemy!"
"Not quite that, surely," murmured the time-traveller. "Lord Jagged has a perfectly valid point."
"It was you, sir, who first accused him of playing at God!"
"Ah. I was upset. Lord Jagged has been of considerable help to me, of late…"
"So you have said."
As the voices rose, only the Iron Orchid remained where she had been sitting, watching the proceedings with a degree of quiet amusement.
"Jagged," said his son desperately, "do you categorically deny —"
"I have told you, my boy, I am incapable of it. I think it is a kind of pride." The lord in yellow shrugged. "We are all human."
"You would be more, sir, it seems!" accused Amelia.
"Come now, dear lady. You are over-excited. Surely the matter is not worth…" The time-traveller waved his hands helplessly.
"My coming seems to have created some sort of tension," said Lord Jagged. "I only stopped by in order to pick up my wife and the time-traveller, to see how you were settling down, Amelia…"
"I shall settle down, sir — if I do — in my own way and in my own time, without help from you!"
"Amelia," Jherek implored, "there is no need for this!"
"You will calm me, will you!" Her eyes were blazing on them all. All stepped back. "Will you?"
Lord Jagged of Canaria began to glide towards the door, followed by his wife and his guest.
"Machiavelli!" she cried after him. "Meddler! Oh, monstrous, dandified Prince of Darkness!"
He had reached the door and he looked back, his eyes serious for a fraction of a moment. "You honour me too much, madam. I seek only to correct an imbalance where one exists."
"You'll admit your part in this?"
Already his shoulder had turned and the collar hid his face. He was outside, floating to where his great swan awaited him. She watched from the window. She was breathing heavily, was reluctant, even, to let Jherek take her hand.
He tried to excuse his father. "It is Jagged's way. He means only good…"
"He can judge?"
"I think you have hurt his feelings, Amelia."
"I hurt his? Oho!" She removed the hand from his grasp and folded both under her heaving breast. "He makes fools of all!"
"Why should he wish to? Why should he, as you say, play God?"
She watched the swan as it disappeared in the pale blue sky. "Perhaps he does not know, himself," she said softly.
"Harold can be stopped. Jagged said so."
She shook her head and moved back into the room. Automatically, she began to gather up the cups and place them on the tray. "He will be happier in 1896, without question. Now, at any rate. The damage is done. And he has a mission. He has a duty to perform, as he sees it. I envy him."
He followed her reasoning. "We shall go to seek for seeds today. As we planned. Some flowers."
She shrugged. "Harold believes he saves the world. Jagged believes the same. I fear that growing flowers will not satisfy my impulses. I cannot live, Jherek, unless I feel my life is useful."
"I love you," was all he could answer.
"But you do not need me, my dear." She put down the tray and came to him. He embraced her.
"Need?" he said. "In what respect?"
"It is the woman that I am. I tried to change, but with poor success. I merely disguised myself and you saw through that disguise at once. Harold needed me. My world needed me. I did a great deal of charitable work, you know. Missionary work, of sorts, too. I was not inactive in Bromley, Jherek."
"I am sure that you were not, Amelia, dearest…"
"Unless I have something more important than myself to justify —"
"There is nothing more important than yourself, Amelia."
"Oh, I understand the philosophy which states that, Jherek —"
"I was not speaking philosophically, Amelia. I was stating fact. You are all that is important in my life."
"You are very kind."
"Kind? It is the truth!"
"I feel the same for you, as you know, my dear. I did not love Harold. I can see that I did not. But he had certain weaknesses which could be balanced by my strengths. Something in me was satisfied that is satisfied no longer. In your own way, in your very confidence, your innocence, you are strong…"
"You have — what is it? — character? — which I lack."
"You are free. You have a conception of freedom so great that I can barely begin to sense it. You have been brought up to believe that nothing is impossible, and your experience proves it. I was brought up to believe that almost everything was impossible, that life must be suffered, not enjoyed."