Such Stuff Ch. 19

It was mid morning before she woke to find the Chevalier Heuron looking down at her.

"Ma cherie you will catch your death if you lie on damp grass mais, c'est ne pas la petit mort." He was smiling as he helped her up but then he looked serious again, "You have heard the news peut-être? We have been deceived. The Marquess has ordered and I must obey.. It is a great burden but everyone, tout le monde, has been so kind. Mais, votre chemise is all damp. You must take it off."

Even with her many adventures in Conrad's world, Lizzie did not feel com­fortable standing naked without her dress in the middle of the great quadran­gle of the house but the Chevalier was insistent. The hot sun on her skin dried any residual dampness within seconds. Really he was worrying about nothing. Of course it was not as if she was standing naked next to a fully dressed man for the Chevalier, as was his custom had his penis exposed through his hose. At the sight of Lizzie's naked body it stirred. Lizzie did not wish to be excepted from the kindness being shown to the Chevalier and was kind to the him.

The sun shone down on the Great House and in the middle of the lawned Quadrangle, surrounded by the house, Lizzie knelt before the Chevalier as he emptied himself in her sweet mouth.

Lizzie stepped again into Conrad's room. It was silent. Its occupant now resident in the Tower Innominate. Was it only a few hours ago that she had sat at the desk writing with Conrad's pen? She still had it tucked in her dress. Tak­ing it out she held it in her hand and looked at it. It really was a lovely object—even if it was in a colour she had come to intensely dislike. But there was no denying the craftsmanship and quality of he enameling and the gleam of the gold. She looked around. So this was Conrad's room, ridiculously over decorat­ed with hangings and carpets in yellow and black. In the wall to the left Lizzie noticed a peculiar doorway, a doorway whose edges seemed to shimmer and change. She had not seen that before. A doorway through which she could see another room—a room which looked so ordinary, so unlike Conrad's room, so unlike the Great House that the contrast was startling. Lizzie walked towards the doorway to step through it and walked into what seemed, and certainly felt like, an invisible wall. It hurt.

Lizzie staggered backwards and then reached out her hand. There was in­deed a barrier, an invisible wall against her passage. She starred through the doorway at the room. It seemed to be a very ordinary room, a very ordinary bedsit in fact—very ordinary for her own world. It was a mess. On the bed were discarded clothes, some of which she recognised as Conrad's. So this was how he came and went between here and... where she wanted to be—home. But why couldn't she just walk through? She tried again with no success.

The doorway had not been there during the night time she was sure, or had it been there but she had not seen it because it had been night and dark both here and in the bedsit? Lizzie sat down again at his desk and starred at the doorway. A glimpse of home, so near yet so far, so tantalisingly close but seemingly unobtainable. A despair crept over her.

But that did not last long. She thought again of the book and her idea to write herself home but as she sat and read page after further page of the book there was nothing about the doorway, nothing about the Yellow Fountain Pen. She looked at it again. It was a beautiful fountain pen enamelled in the most pretty yellow colour. It was a Parker. But what made it special? What enabled Conrad to write and make things happen? Why was the doorway not men­tioned? Might it be possible for her to write and change things, things that were not the result of Conrad writing in the book? She could not see how that could work. In frustration she threw the pen at the hateful doorway and buried her head in her hands. She wanted to go home. She just wanted to go home.

After a moment or two she looked up. She had not heard the bang of the pen hitting the wall. Why was that?

Lizzie got up to look for the pen and immediately saw it—it was in Con­rad's other room — lying just under the bed. She had thrown it through the doorway and it had not been stopped by the barrier, the invisible wall. Yet when she tried she found again she could not go through, could not follow it. Lizzie cried out in frustration. The solution to the puzzle was obvious. Things which came through, such as the pen and, presumably, the odious Conrad could go back. She had not come that way so could not pass. The doorway began to fade. Was it opened by the pen as well?

Now Lizzie saw in despair not only had she lost her view of home, or a bit of her world anyway, but the pen as well which had at least given her some control over Conrad and his strange world. Lizzie could not think that just any pen would do. She was quite sure it was the pen not the book that was the key. She slammed the book shut; conscious she had just made a big mistake. She was furious with herself.

A long walk calmed Lizzie. It was vital she thought clearly. A way had to be found to escape and she had probably just lost a vital key to one solution. Was there another? What had her friend, the Green Maiden said? "You chose the wrong path." Lizzie remembered how in her dream she had fallen to Con­rad's world. She had been walking and had tripped. Had she taken a wrong path? The Green Maiden thought so but what wrong path? How was Lizzie to get back on the path? If she flew upwards could she get back on the path — surely there were not paths in the clouds? Lizzie looked upwards into the per­fect blue sky. There were no clouds.

Lizzie stepped out on the road from the Great House that lead away be­tween an avenue of Lime trees to rise up the side of the funny little sugar loaf hill. A hill that had been devoid of even a tree when she had last set out from the house and been waylaid by the Great Maple in the Forest, but now was crowned by a forbidding tower of stone—the Tower Innominate. Even from here she could see something yellow at one of the barred windows—Conrad was watching her. As Lizzie drew nearer she could make out his features. It was not going to be an easy meeting—she had not come to gloat but to talk, reason, discuss perhaps even negotiate. She had the upper hand but whilst he was trapped in the Tower Innominate, she was trapped here in his world. He would want release. She wanted to go home and be free of him. Perhaps the meeting would enable her release.

Conrad was sitting looking dejected when Lizzie looked into his cell. "Lizzie, how has this happened? Why have you done this to me? I offered you so much. I chose you to come here with me. Is it not wonderful, is it not perfect and is it not fun? You have been ungrateful, unfriendly and nasty to me."

"YOU brought me here against my will. You did not invite me: no, you ab­ducted me. I want to go home."

A slow smile crossed Conrad's face. "Go home? Oh no, Lizzie, far from that, quite the reverse. You are going to be imprisoned, really imprisoned. How will you like that? Oh yes, I can do that. You think you have me locked up and safe here, but I can seek you out, Lizzie, even from here I can seek you out and have you locked away. You think you've imprisoned me, me who thought all this up," his arms swept about him, "well you will soon know what it is like to be really imprisoned." He smirked and pointedly turned his chair away from her.

It had not, after all, been a good interview.