When they reached the Institute they found the place in a turmoil. ‘Have you seen?’ shouted Nesta Wiggins running past them just outside. (She and her father had of course attended the funeral.) She did not say what, but they soon saw for themselves. The ‘Little Teaser’, or Lud’s Rill, had suddenly decided to change itself into a powerful geyser, sending a spout of scalding hot water up more than thirty feet into the air, ‘higher than last time’, it was gleefully reported. It was a cool sunny evening and a light wind was distributing the fallout over Diana’s Garden and the pavement which divided it from the pool. A plume of steam hung about the tall magical spout, around which, allowing for changes in the direction of the wind, Institute attendants had erected barriers on either side. The water, rushing up, made a fierce swishing sound like tearing silk which added to the uncanny frightening charm of the phenomenon.
Behind the barriers a crowd had gathered, watching the antics of the great jet which played unevenly, eliciting ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ such as are to be heard at a display of fireworks. Alarming rumours were also rife. Some people were saying that scalding water was spreading through the whole Institute system, running into the baths in the Rooms and likely to drown unwary people bathing there as had, it was alleged, happened on the previous occasion of such an outburst. A number of swimmers had hastily emerged from the Outdoor Pool, having conceived or been offered the idea that the whole pool would soon be filled with boiling water, the influx of which they of course persuaded themselves that they could now feel. Others, more sceptical, continued to swim. Various speculations were also being eagerly discussed concerning the possible cause of the amazing phenomenon. Druids and poltergeists were mentioned. Someone had a theory about earthquakes, another that it was caused by the Russians, another that it was to do with a Flying Saucer which someone (a respectable youth, newly apprenticed to Dominic Wiggins) had seen two nights ago over the Common. It was recalled (wrongly) that Lud’s Rill had behaved in exactly this way on the occasion of the previous saucer, the one which William Eastcote had seen. It was then observed with triumph that the latest saucer had appeared exactly on the night that William died. All were agreed that the portent indicated that Ennistone was going to have another of its ‘funny times’, that this time had indeed already started, initiated some said by the recent weird goings-on at the Slipper House. Meanwhile Vernon Chalmers, the Director of the Institute, was walking about among the crowds and trying to reassure everyone, explaining that the scalding fount was on a quite different water system from that which served the pools and the rooms. (Vernon was also telling himself that really the Source itself ought to be open to the public, as it used to be before the first war, so that the people could see for themselves how everything worked and how safe and well-controlled the waters were. But certain prudential considerations operated against this idea; and in any case Vernon, who felt very possessive about the Institute with which he had been connected all his life since his father had been a water engineer, felt a certain reluctance to letting the common herd tramp into that sanctum sanctorum.) The citizens listened to his reassurances and then returned ardently to the most gruesome and ridiculous hypotheses.
The McCaffreys, after watching the irregular play of the huge steamy jet, quickly attired themselves for swimming and dived into the pool where the temperature was precisely what it always was, between 26° and 28° Centigrade. Tom swam across the pool and back and then got out and rubbed his long wet hair into a frizzy mop. He dressed and went back to the crowd beside the geyser and pushed his way forward to the barrier. Here by holding out his hand he could feel, at turns of the wind, scalding drops falling on to his skin like red-hot pennies. He felt unbearably restless and miserable. He had waited up for Emma at Travancore Avenue but his friend had not come. Tom felt abandoned and jealous and confused, all his emotions and nerves lashed and raw. He was embarrassed by his black eye which, although only slightly discoloured, was able to attract attention. Brian in his blunt way had said, ‘What’s the matter with you, been fighting?’ Tom said, ‘I fell and knocked my head on a chair.’ Brian said, ‘Drunk again, I suppose.’
But what filled Tom’s soul, painfully expanding it as it were through sheer anguish to a size never attained before, was the question of Hattie, or rather the fact that there was no question any more. The thing was over. Tomorrow Tom would have to go back to London and resume his work, see his tutor, go to lectures, write essays, and go on in the old way as if nothing had happened. So much had happened which seemed like a bad dream. Yet also it was not a dream but a terrible overriding reality, the permanently changed reality of his unhappy being, tortured by yearning and remorse. They were gone, that demonic pair, and he would never set eyes on either of them again.
But how could he return to his ordinary life, to his work, to the, as they now seemed, insipid childish pleasures of his London student world? He had been bewitched. For a short time he had lived with gods or fairies. He had been summoned to a destiny, presented with an ordeal, and he had dully, casually, failed to understand, failed to respond, failed to see. Even at the beginning, when it had seemed important, he had been only grossly excited, flattered and amused. He recalled John Robert’s huge bulk in that little room and how surprised and alarmed and gratified he had been when at last he understood the strange man’s purpose. And he had taken those facile emotions to be something remarkable in his life.
The image of Hattie shimmered before him now, occupying its own space, radiating its own light. He saw her silver-white blond hair cunningly pinned up or descending in amazingly long plaits or as he had seen it at the sea spread out like silk over the back of her dress. He saw her pale white-mottled eyes, gazing sarcastically or else gentle and truthful. He saw her long legs and her stockings with darker-coloured tops. He thought, how can I have lost her, how did it happen? I behaved like an oaf, like a cad, like a bloody fool. At the same time he could clearly remember, though he could not feel or inhabit, the fact that he had actually considered Hattie, looked her over and rejected her! Dully and casually he had turned away, failing to see that the being confronting him was a princess.
But she’s a false princess, he thought. I am in a state of temporary insanity, I must be. They are demons, both of them, wonderful and beautiful and not quite real. Rozanov is a magician who took me to his palace and showed me a maiden. But she was something that he had made, invented out of magic stuff, so as to ensnare me. And they have gone away and I am still ensnared, they’ve gone and I suffer. Oh how much I want to see her now, he thought, how much I want to tell her how it all came about. Yet how did it, what did I do wrong and when did I do wrong? How happy I could be if I could only see her and explain that I wasn’t so stupid and so oafish, or wasn’t any more, and that I was sorry and … But that’s impossible, I never will see her again. She has been removed into the invisible world, and because of her I shall be sick forever after.