The House of Doctor Dee Read Online Free Page B

attention to me, and looked back as the police van was driven away.
    'And there was something else, too. Are you listening, Daniel? When I saw the bridge shimmering above the water, I thought I saw people crossing it along a line of light. They rose and fell together, just as if they were walking across waves. But I don't expect you to believe any of this.'
    He was silent for a few moments. 'Can we eat dinner now, please? I'm extremely hungry.'
    There was an Italian restaurant on the opposite side of the Green, about twenty yards from the site of the holy well, and he raced towards it as if he were being pursued. By the time I caught up with him, he was already seated at one of the tables. 'I've been thinking,' he said. 'Next week I'll find out more about the house.'
    I changed the subject and, as we ate, I tried to discuss my plans for the future – how I had decided to move to Clerkenwell permanently, how I intended to decorate and furnish the rooms, how I would hire a garden firm to clear and plant the waste ground around it. I was concerned only with restoration and renovation; by implication, its past did not matter.
    'Now that you're rich,' he said suddenly, as if we had been discussing nothing else, 'you won't have any interest in our old pursuits –'
    'I'm not giving up work, Daniel, just because of an inheritance.'
    'That's probably very silly of you. But let me finish my sentence. If you're busy with other things, I'm quite prepared to do a little digging.'
    The phrase alarmed me. 'No. Don't. It's my house. I want to do my own research.'
    He seemed disappointed. 'And how far do you intend to go?'
    'Right back. Back to the beginning, if that's necessary.'
    We left soon after. He told me that he had an appointment on the other side of London, but I decided to linger in the summer night. I sat in the churchyard of St James, and looked out across the rooftops in the vicinity of the old house. And then there was some kind of movement: it must have been a bat, but for a moment I seemed to see the dark shape of a man soaring upward above Cloak Lane.

 
     
THE SPECTACLE
     
    'W
    HAT BECAME OF the flying man?' one of the concourse beholding this scene asked of his neighbour. 'Where was the wire?'
    'I saw no wire. This is somewhat like the old fashion of magic.'
    'It is a deceit of the eye,' said another. He was a pert little man, in green jerkin and leather doublet. 'All these things are but toys.'
    I could have whipped him at the cart's arse for such empty words. Here was no deceit, no, nor even any magic; here was thaumaturgy, or the science of wonders. It is the mathematical art which gives order to appearances, and makes strange work of the senses of men. So I, Doctor Dee, am come to dazzle your imagination with mirabilia : these are my shows and apparitions which draw the eye cunningly – and what knave, gazing about like a fool with an apple or piece of spice-cake in his mouth, can unriddle their mystery? In all affairs of the world which we command, there is somewhat that is true and somewhat that is false: so who here can tell me what is real and what is unreal?
    By sundry means these wonder-works are made: some by pneumatics, some by strained ropes, some by springs that imitate lively motion. Painting is more powerful upon ragged walls than upon fine marble, and so my artificial house shows itself best in a flickering light. My candles are lit behind bottles of painted colour, with a bright basin to reflect their varied rays upon the scene, and every eye can invent for itself a deeper shadowing. But all have their source, or root, in optical perspective, which along beams and natural lines does recreate the world. Light is thus the origin of wonders, and through its emanations it controls all action and passion in this lower world. So let this spectacle abound with light, as the house revolves and the grave ancient man flies above the city. The beholders are removed from their own corporeal shapes in the