“How lucky you are, to have known such famous people as a child. I’m sure you could even tell me why Aix-la-Chapelle is called Aachen in German.”
I didn’t tell her, partly because I didn’t know, and also because I had suddenly seen through her and become thoroughly annoyed with myself. Women take me in all the time. There are moments when they behave as if they were perfectly human. On such occasions a simple philologist like me will hold forth, launching into serious expositions, in the belief that the woman is actually interested in what he has to say. But no woman has ever yet taken an interest in an intellectual matter for its own sake. Either she wants to woo the man by a display of attention, or she is seeking to improve her mind, which is even worse. The first of these is after money; the second is in pursuit of edification, but has other motives which are no less self-interested: she wants to adopt the pose of a woman of culture, as if it were some sort of cloak to be worn at the opera.
I got up and paced angrily back and forth. Cynthia sat staring out from her armchair, lost in reverie. Her gaze was distant, dreamy, noble. She was like the inhabitant of some Welsh fairytale land that would inspire anyone who had been there with the profoundest yearning.
But the instant I gauged her true intellectual merit something was released inside me, and I became aware again of how young she was, and how lovely. I can never feel much attraction to a woman whom I consider clever — it feels too much like courting a man. But once I had realised she was just another sweet little gosling, I began to woo her in earnest.
“Cynthia,” I began, “I really deplore the amount of time I’ve been spending with these books. Life passes so quickly. You see, I grew up so quickly I never even noticed, and just as suddenly I’ll be an old man. And it will all have gone. My memory will fail, and I’ll forget everything I’ve ever read. When I look back over my life I shall have to face the fact that I’ve always been alone.”
By now it was quite dark in the room. I stood at the window. Outside an unusually atmospheric sunset was being projected onto the screen of the heavens. At such moments sentimental declarations are twice as effective, according to books and in my private experience. I proceeded to deploy arguments of a more personal nature.
“I’ve never met anyone who understood me so completely. You are the first woman, Cynthia, with whom I can be truly myself. It’s as if you had once been my sister, or my wife.”
Old Goethe was writhing in his grave.
Cynthia got to her feet, dreamily, and came up to me in the bay of the window. It was the sign I had been waiting for. This time I knew she would not slap my face. But as I stood there summoning up my courage to manage the business in hand, she asked me, in a voice choking with emotion:
“Oh, Doctor … do you even know algorithms?”
“By heart,” I replied, and drew her to me.
I kissed her. She clung to me for quite some time, with no sign of resistance. Visions of sunlit springtime days, of dazzling lakes and azure skies flashed by inside me: as if I were sitting in a train. Life was wonderful, after all.
At last she broke free. She stared at me for a moment, deeply embarrassed, then declared:
“You still haven’t told me why Aix-la-Chapelle is called Aachen in German.”
It was ten-thirty in the evening. I was seated in my room, in the much-celebrated comfort of an English armchair. In fact I wasn’t so much sitting as sprawled out almost supine. I felt too idle to go to bed, and in too much of a daydream to read.
The events of the last few days had fused into a sort of golden haze, from which every so often random flashes leapt out, filling me with alarm. Blended into this haze were the centuries-old atmosphere of Llanvygan Castle, the Earl’s aquatic monsters, the Rosicrucians, and Cynthia … Cynthia, I mused — goddess of the moon, Queen of the Night, my latest dalliance, perhaps my future love. Poets had bestowed her celestial name on the great Elizabeth. Cynthia, in whose veins flowed the blood of the line of Gwynedd and with it the secrets of centuries, the accumulated nobility of an ancient race of lords of the mountains, the aurora borealis itself. I congratulated myself on having actually kissed the aurora borealis, Queen Elizabeth and the whole tradition of the English sonnet.
There was a knock at the door. Osborne stepped in. I felt the same fondness for him too.
“Forgive me, but I noticed your light was still on.”
“Have a seat,” I replied. “Is something the matter? You look so serious.”
“Well, my uncle hasn’t shown himself for several days … but there’s something else. If it goes on like this I’ll become superstitious myself. Are you aware, Doctor, that old Habakkuk the Prophet disappeared the day after his attack of Revelations?”
“Yes, I heard about that. The Reverend’s account of the episode verged on the miraculous.”
“Well, I’ve found the old boy … But why all this talk? What would you say to a little outing? I just can’t make head or tail of the whole business.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
“I’ll have a word with Maloney, if he’s still up. This is just the thing for him.”
The light seemed to be on in his room. We knocked and, hearing his positive reply, pushed the door open.
The light was indeed on, but Maloney was nowhere to be seen. I instantly thought of the Rosicrucians’ power to make themselves invisible.
“Where is the fellow?” asked Osborne. “He’s just told us to come in.”
“Coming,” said Maloney’s voice, from some indefinable place that was clearly not in the room.
Seconds later a pair of legs appeared in the window frame, dangling from above. Then their owner, dressed entirely in black, leapt lightly down onto the floor.
“Training,” he explained, nonchalantly.
“But why at night?” I asked.
“We Connemarans always climb at night. When it’s too dark to see you have to trust your instincts, and they never let you down. If there aren’t any rocks, a good wall will do, or the trees down in the park.”
“Right. Well, come and see what old Habakkuk is up to. Bring your rope.”
We got in the Delage and drove for about twenty minutes down the main road, under a brilliant moon.
“From here we proceed on foot — don’t want to disturb him. He needn’t be aware of us. He didn’t notice me here yesterday.”
For some time we continued along the road. No one spoke. The profound silence, the dark, distant mountains in all their immensity and the silver moonlight held us in their grip. Above us, at a terrifying height, towered the rock on whose peak stood the ruins of Pendragon Castle.
Osborne turned off the road and we made our way through the dense thicket. For some fifteen minutes we struggled on through the trees, slithered down precipitous slopes, and at last found ourselves before a high stone wall.
“These are the remains of the old wall that used to surround the whole of Pendragon,” said Osborne. “Now, where’s the gap? To the left, or right?”
After some time we found it.
“Look,” said Osborne. “You can see this gap has been made quite recently. You used to have to go round the entire wall to get to Llyn-y Castle — the Castle Lake. Who on earth would have made this way through? And why? On we go now: quiet as you can.”
Maloney crept ahead soundlessly, and at great speed. Under my feet, however, the brushwood crackled and snapped, and I kept getting murderous glances from the others.
We arrived at an almost sheer rockface.
“We have to climb it,” said Osborne. “From up there we’ll have a brilliant view of the entire lake, and no one will see us.”