The pretty witch

by Lucy Gillen

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT was several days after her rather eventful meeting with Vanessa that Isobel again got into difficulties with Vanessa Law's cat, Pyewacket, and yet again, it was Lucifer who came to her aid. It was while she was alone in the office, working on, some rather worse than usual manuscript, that something caught her eye. She glanced up, startled by the sudden movement, and saw the huge black cat standing on the sill by the open window. Its back was arched and the malevolent yellow eyes, so like its mistress's, watched her steadily and very disconcertingly. Lucifer was still not back from lunch or she would not have bothered herself, but left the cat's eviction to him, as it was she got up from her chair and approached it cautiously. 'Shool' she told it, clapping her hands together discouragingly. 'Go away, you horrible great brute. Go home!' Pyewacket looked at her, unmoved and quite unafraid, her smooth black back still arched threateningly. 'Go awayl' Isobel told her sharply, hoping to impress the animal with her sternness. 'Go home!' She reached out, meaning to use-a bit of gentle persuasion, since verbal command seemed to be having no effect. She put her hands round the sleek, furry body and pushed gently towards the open window. 'Go on,' she instructed, 'good pussy, go home. Go home, Pyewacket, or whatever your silly name is.' It was not to be as simple as that, however, for the cat resisted her efforts and in no uncertain manner. It turned, spitting furiously, one paw raised to lash out with claws 140 extended, drawing blood with one vicious rake down Isobel's right arm. She dropped the cat with a yell, instinctively putting the injured arm to her mouth while she stared at her assailant in momentary fear. 'You vicious brute!' she told it, while it glared at her-maliciously. That's twice you've scratched me!' Pyewacket stood her ground, her tail swishing back and forth in righteous anger, yellow eyes narrowed in warning against further liberties. Isobel stood for a moment, indecisive, then stubbornness made her determined not to let a mere cat have the last word, and she waved her hands and tried her original methods again. 'Shoo!' she said firmly. 'Shoo! Go home, you horrible, spiteful great monster moggie, go home to your mistress and - and scratch her: She was so occupied with getting rid of her unwelcome visitor that she did not hear the door open, and it'was not until she heard the laugh that greeted her uncharitable exhortation to the cat that she realized Lucifer was there, and turned round. She looked a bit sheepish at being caught so Openly hostile to Vanessa, and he smiled knowingly. 'Are you having trouble with Vanessa's Pye again?' he asked, and came across to the window, picking up the cat, who promptly became all soft and kittenish, closing her yellow eyes ecstatically when he rubbed her throat with his strong fingers. 'She hates me,' Isobel told him, glaring at the cat resentfully, 'and I've never done anything to harm her. She just doesn't like me, for some reason or other.' 'She's just jealous, as I told you before,' he said. 'Aren't you, Pye?' 'But all soft and fussy with you,' Isobel retorted, so indignantly that he laughed and pushed the cat uncere. moniously out of the window. 141 'It sounds to me as if the dislike's mutual,' he told her. 'Don't you like cats?' 'I like cats,' Isobel informed him, 'but I'm not at all sure that that thing is just a common or garden moggie as you claim.' 'Oh?' He gave Pyewacket a discouraging jab in the ribs when she attempted to come back through the open window, and Isobel looked vaguely uneasy. 'Oh, it's ridiculous, of course, and I know it is. The trouble is when she looks at me with those great, evil-looking yellow eyes I can believe she's anything from a - a wild animal to a reincarnated witch, which only goes to show how strong the power of persuasion is.' 'Or how strong your imagination is,' he teased. His laughter did little to pacify her, but at least he did something about the cat. He gave it a none too gentle shove and pushed her off the sill down on to the garden outside. 'Go on, you prowling fusspot,' he told the indignant Pyewacket, 'go back where you belong!' Isobel leaned forward in the window, watching the cat move off reluctantly along the drive. It turned once to look back at her with its yellow eyes narrowed and spiteful so that she drew back her head hastily. The scratches on her arm were much worse than before and ran from elbow to wrist, red and angry-looking. Lucifer looked at them, tut-tutting impatiently, as if he considered it as much her fault as the cat's. 'You just don't leam, do you?' he asked. 'Gome on through to the bathroom and I'll mop you up.' There's no need to mop me up,' Isobel told him shortly. 'I'll survive with a hankie tied round it until it stops bleeding.' She had never been through into the rest of the cottage and somehow she shied nervously away from the idea now. He made no effort to argue with her but simply put a 142 hand firmly in the middle of her back and propelled her through the door and on into the hall, with no more ceremony than he had shown when evicting her attacker. 'You,' he informed her briefly as they went, 'argue far too much - it's a distressing habit in the young. Beppo!' The last was yelled at his manservant who appeared with remarkable speed from the kitchen, his eyes curious, noting the marks on Isobel's arm. 'Si, signore?' There followed a string of what was presumably instructions in, to Isobel, rapid and unintelligible Italian, then the man disappeared again to return a few minutes later with a first aid box. He made what Isobel took to be an offer to help, but Lucifer dismissed it briefly and turned to her again. 'In here,' he told her, and opened the door of a small but luxurious bathroom. 'I wish you wouldn't make so much fuss about it,' Isobel protested. 'I know it was my own fault, and you're right, I don't learn. Not where that wretched cat's concerned anyway, but I'm not mortally wounded.' 'Why don't you just stop talking for just a few minutes and sit down on that stool?' Lucifer asked, as if his patience was fast running out, and he opened the lid of the first aid box, frowning over the contents. 'But I-' Shush!' 'Lucifer, I'm not ' She stopped when he drew a very deep breath and looked at her steadily for a moment before launching into a spate of rapid Italian that lasted for several seconds, while Isobel sat and looked at him wideeyed. 'Now sit down and shut up!' he told her. She looked at him silently for a moment, then smiled mischievously. 'Si, P A warning glint in his eyes cut '43 short the reply that had proved so provocative before and instead she giggled briefly before subsiding on to, the stool. . That's better,' he approved, and bent over to look at her arm. He bathed it gently, although the stuff he used on it stung sharply for a few seconds, while Isobel eyed him curiously. 'What did all that mean?' she asked after a minute or two. He grinned at her ruefully. 1 hope you never know,' he told her. 'I can safely cuss at you in Italian because I know you don't understand what I'm saying and therefore you don't know how uncomplimentary I'm being.' 'I can guess,' Isobel retorted, surveying her wounds. 'You're not going to bandage it?' she added a few seconds later when he produced a roll of white cotton from the box and proceeded to bind it round and round her arm with a dexterity that surprised her. 'Of course I am, to give that stuff a chance to work.' She surveyed the stark white wrapping with disfavour. 'It looks as if I've broken it at least,' she complained, and he shook his head slowly as he put the things back into the first aid box. 'Stop complaining, you ungrateful little wretch,' he told her, and grinned at her suddenly. 'You and Nigel can compare notes now,' he added, 'and see who moans most.' Isobel looked at him indignantly for a second, then met the wicked glint in his eyes and almost inevitably smiled. 'I'm sorry if I sound ungrateful,' she said. 'I'm not, really... Thank you for dressing my war wounds.' 'You're welcome, but if I were you I'd give Pyewacket a wide berth in future, certainly don't attempt to pick her up again.' 'I won't, don't worry,' Isobel assured him fervently. 144 . 'Good. She's obviously chosen you as the object of her special hate and she'll probably swipe at you again if she gets the chance, so don't give it to her.' 'Does she treat every female like that?' Isobel asked curiously, and Lucifer smiled, walking with her back to the office. 'Not every one,' he said. That's why I said she seems to have singled you out.' 'Why?' She looked at him suddenly more serious, some idiotic fear striking coldly at her heart as she recalled the awful sSiilarity between Vanessa Law and the big black cat. Jfeth of them appeared to hate her with equal intensity, and she had the uneasy feeling that it was for the same re
ason-Lucifer. Who knows?' he said, and shrugged. "Now forget Pyewacket and Vanessa and let's get on with some more work, shall we?' It was only as she rolled the first page of paper into her machine that she realized he had mentioned Vanessa and the cat in the same breath, almost as if he had followed her thoughts, and she shivered again at the coincidence. It was later that day, after she had finished work, that Isobel sat with Nigel and tried to explain how her arm came to be so badly scratched. 'It's not nearly as bad as it looks,' she told him, when he exclaimed at the sight of it. 'It's because -Lucifer insisted on putting this wretched bandage on it that it looks so serious.' 'It must be pretty bad,' Nigel told her, 'for Luke to have made so much fuss. He's not given to being over concerned about anyone.' "Well, it isn't, I assure you,' she said. IJndemeath this bandaging it's just a cat scratch, pure and simple.*145 'Pure and simple?' He questioned her meaning with one raised brow and she laughed, determined to have no more fuss made about it. 'Well, maybe it's a bit deep and it was rather messy because it bled a lot,' she admitted, 'but it really doesn't warrant so much fuss being made and it certainly doesn't warrant all this bandage wound round it.' 'Have you something on it beside the bandage?' Nigel asked, as if he mistrusted his brother's ministrations. She smiled. 'Yes, I have. He used some horrible stuff that stung like fury and felt worse than Pyewacket's claws when he first put it on, although it's much better now. He's a very efficient doctor.' 'He should be,' Nigel retorted, as if he parted with the information only reluctantly. 'He did three years as a medical student and then changed his mind.' 'Did he?' Isobel absorbed the new piece of information thoughtfully. 'I wonder why.' 'God knows,' Nigel said impatiently. 'He said something about not being cut out for it. Personally I believe him.' 'Oh, I don't know,' Isobel mused, then hastily recalled herself, reproached by his frown of disapproval. That damned cat seems to follow you around,' he told her. 'YOU must have a fascination for it.' Isobel shook her head. 'It's not me who's the attraction,' she denied. 'It's Lucifer, she's as potty about him as her mistress is.' 'Vanessa?' He raised a doubtful brow. 'Is Vanessa potty about him?' he asked, obviously doubting it. 'Very definitely.' 'I'd have said she was more possessive than anything else.' He seemed prepared to argue the point and she thought ruefully that another hot day had done nothing to improve his temper. 'Although,' he admitted, 'she has 146 to take a back seat every so often when he takes a fancy to someone else.' Isobel nodded quite convinced she was right. 'Oh, she very definitely is potty about him,' she assured him. 'She's in love with him, Nigel, it's not just possessivcness, I've seen her face and the hurt look in her eyes when he's been thoughtless in what he says to her.' Nigel looked at her for a moment thoughtfully. 'You seem to have been very observant," he remarked, and almost made it sound like a vice he disapproved of. Not really,' Isobel denied. 'I just happened to notice the way she looked, that's all. I thought it was - well, rather out of character for her, but it showed, quite plainly, for just a second, when they were talking once.' 'Hmm.' He rubbed his chin, his eyes thoughtful. That's quite a revelation.' !! thought so,' Isobel said quietly. 'Actually I felt quite sony for her for a few seconds.' 'It wouldn't be for very long, I can imagine,' he said wryly, r She looked at him for a moment, curious and only half serious. 'As a matter of fact,' she said, watching his face to see what his reaction would be to the suggestion, 'I wondered why, if she's so practised in the arts of witchcraft, she didn't concoct some weird brew that would make sure he stayed with her and didn't go wandering off after someone else all the time.' 'Good grief!' Nigel exclaimed, in something akin to horror. 'You're not seriously suggesting that she'd use a a love-potion or whatever it is they brew up, are you?' 'Why not?' Isobel asked defensively, and he stared at her for a moment, shaking his head slowly in disbelief. 'Because you surely don't believe in such things, Isobel, you're not so naive.' 'Of course I'm not,' Isobel agreed with a smile, 'but !47 Vanessa Law's supposed to believe in it, isn't she?' 'Not believe in it, no,' he denied. 'They merely study the old witchcraft methods with the object of discovering how they were made to work - or appear to work, because obviously they didn't in fact, it was all psychological.' 'So Lucifer says.' 'Well, for once I agree with him.' He looked at her narrowly. 'Don't you believe it's all psychological chicanery?' 'Yes, I told you I believe, but I'm not at all sure that Vanessa does.'^ He was silent for a moment, as if the idea gave him food for thought, then he shook his head. 'I find it hard to believe that a woman like Vanessa is that gullible,' he remarked at last. 'What makes you think she is?' Isobel shrugged, not really prepared to put her meaning into words. 'I don't know exactly,' she said. 'It's just just the way she behaves generally. She even dresses the part. Those dark dresses and the high-piled black hair, which doesn't really suit her but which - well, gives her an odd look, all weirdly exotic. You said yourself, she gives you the creeps.' 'So she does,' Nigel admitted, "'but I hadn't gone very deeply into the reason for it.' He was thoughtfully silent again for a while, then he looked at her with eyes that had a curiously blank look, as if the full meaning of what she had said had only just penetrated. 'Heavens!' he said, half under his breath, 'it doesn't bear thinking about in this day and age.' 'It's - it's nonsense, of course,' Isobel said, a bit uncertainly for she was not at all sure that she had not raised some devil of her own by starting this conversation. 'Of course,' he echoed, and was silent for so long that she felt sure he must be taking her seriously about Vanessa. After a while, however, he seemed determined to 148 shake the idea and he shrugged his shoulders, leaning across to take her hand in his. 'Oh well, I suppose she and Luke will sort out their .own salvation one of these days,' he said, and Isobel nodded absently. He smiled at her serious face and squeezed her hand. 'You're very preoccupied tonight,' he told her. 'Is it your arm?' 'My arm?' She blinkedfor a moment. 'Oh no, no, that's O.K. Just a bit sore, that's all.' 'And he didn't offer to give you any time off to recover, I suppose?' Isobel smiled wryly at him. -'Would you have done?' she asked. 'For a cat scratch?' He shook his head. 'No, I suppose not,' he admitted. 'But if it isn't because your arm's paining you, what's making you so thoughtful?' She shrugged. 'I didn't know I was.' That wasn't quite true, in fact, for ever since she had, left the cottage that afternoon there had been a strange sense of uneasiness troubling her that she could neither identify fully nor find a reason for. Tou've had an air of not-quite-with-me, all evening,' he told her, and she smiled apologetically. 'And I'm wondering if you'd tell me what was worrying you, even if you knew.' Isobel looked surprised at what sounded almost like an accusation. .'Of course I'd tell you if I knew myself.' 'Would you, darling?' He held on to her hand tightly. 'Or would you run to Lucifer like you did when the prospect of a thunderstorm frightened you?' She saw his reason at last and shook her head over it. 'I didn't run to him,' she reminded him quietly. 'He ran to me, if you remember, and without my asking.' 'Only because he knew you were frightened,' Nigel insisted. 'And you hadn't seen fit to tell me about your fear.' 149 . She sighed, not prepared to argue that subject again either. 'Oh, please don't let's go into all that again,' she begged. 'I told you how it happened, Nigel, and it's ancient history now.' For a moment she thought he would carry it further, but then he smiled and kissed her fingers lightly, 'I'm sorry, my darling.' Isobel shook her head. There's no need to be,' she told him, and laughed uncertainly. 'I don't know, it seems to have been a funny sort of day altogether somehow. First that wretched cat scratched me and gave me the creeps, then when I ' She hesitated, wondering if her vague, groundless fears would bring his scorn down on her head. 'When you?' he prompted. She laughed, trying to make light of it. 'It's really too stupid for words,' she admitted, 'but ever since I left my cottage to come over here, I've had the strangest feeling that - that something's going to happen.' 'Something's going to happen?' It was obvious from the way he repeated her words that he had no conceptum of how she was feeling and she wished, though she would never dare have admitted it, that he had some of Lucifer's understanding of things that weren't always down to earth and easily explaina
ble. She shrugged, trying to appear off-hand about it. 'Oh, you know what I mean,' she told him. 'People often say they feel all churned up inside, as if something's going to happen. It seldom does,' she added optimistically. 'Of course it doesn't,' he declared bluntly. 'You're just letting the atmosphere of the place, and Vanessa's ghastly cat, get on your nerves, darling.' 'I suppose so,' Isobel allowed, unconvincingly. Nigel looked at her sharply, disapproval plain on his good-looking face. 'Well, I hope to heaven you're not 150 going to start believing in that ridiculous hocus-pocus that Luke and Vanessa prattle about,' he told her shortly 'I don't think I could stand it if you went mystic on me, too.' She flushed, cross because he was so lacking in understanding, and would not even pretend to humour her. 'For heaven's sake,' she told him, 'there's nothing mystic about me. I just said I felt as if something was going to happen, that's all.' Well, I hope you're wrong,' he told her shortly. Then you'll realize how daft the idea is.8 Mrs. Grayson sat on the other side of the room. She never sat actually with them unless she was specifically brought into the conversation, but made herself as inconspicuous as possible while they spoke quietly together. At the moment, however, she seemed to sense that something was amiss between them and her head was raised, her blue eyes looking across at Isobel inquiringly, as if she realized her need for understanding. 'Is your arm very painful, Isobel?' she asked, and Isobel knew quite well that the question was only a way of admitting herself to the conversation. 'It's not too bad at all, Mrs. Grayson, thank you,' she said, smiling her thanks. 'I know how it can be,' the old lady said gently, but with a meaningful glance at her grandson. With this hot weather an illness or a pain can seem very much worse and it can make one quite crotchety at times, which is quite understandable.' Nigel glanced sharply from one to the other of them, then pulled a droll face, that was part apologetic. 'I am being a bit of a so-and-so, I suppose,' he admitted, and his grandmother smiled reassuringly. You did look rather crotchety, dear,' she told him mildly, 'and I suspect you were taking it out on poor 15! Isobel.' He leaned over and kissed Isobel gently beside her mouth. 'I suppose I was doing that too,' he confessed, 'but the idea of Isobel having mysterious feelings was too much for me to contemplate without objection.' Mrs. Grayson looked at Isobel inquiringly. 'Are you having mysterious feelings, my dear?' she asked with a smile. 'How very intriguing.' 'Nigel's exaggerating,' Isobel told her. 'I merely said that I felt that - that something was going to happen. You know what I mean,' she added, confident the old lady would be less-impatient with her than Nigel had been. 'It's nothing definite and most people feel like it at some time or other.' 'I know exactly what you mean,' Mrs. Grayson agreed. 'I remember that's how Madge was the day before Andy Frome was killed - Nigel's father, you know.' Isobel looked startled for a moment, especially when she saw the black frown with which Nigel greeted the information. 'She felt - she felt something was going to happen?' she asked, uncertain if it would be wise to pursue the subject in view of Nigel's obvious dislike of it. Mrs. Grayson nodded. 'She told me the night before, just as she was going to bed, that she felt as if something . unpleasant was going to happen, though of course, like most people, she laughed about it, but I could tell it disturbed her.' The old lady sighed deeply. 'Of course with Andy being in the profession he was, it was far more likely to become a fact than most people's intuitions are, and in this case it did. Poor Madge!' Nigel looked at her narrow-eyed, as if he suspected her of making it up just to support Isobel. 'I never knew about that,' he told her, and the old lady smiled. 'I don't suppose you did, dear,' she told him. 'It isn't 152 the kind of thing one tells one's children about, and especially the very practical little boy that you were.' Her smile too'k the sting out of the words. The very practical person you still are,' she added. 'I think after that, she was always afraid to admit to any such feeling again in case it came true as it did that time, but of course it was mere coincidence as it is with most people.' 'Of course it's coincidence,' Nigel retorted. 'And I've never realized before that Madge was fanciful at all, quite the reverse, in fact.' 'I don't think she is fanciful,' Mrs. Grayson corrected him gently. 'But it did frighten her a little, being such a traumatic experience for her. She was very much in love with your father, you know, dear,' she added, as if that would be some comfort to him. Nigel's facial expression when Isobel looked at him quite shocked her with its bitterness. 'So much so,' he said sharply, 'that she married John Patterson after only fifteen months of being a widow.' His grandmother shook her head reproachfully. 'YOU mustn't judge so harshly, Nigel,' she told him softly, regretting the bitterness as if it was directed at herself and not at her daughter. 'Madge is a woman who needs a man to lean on, she never had my independent nature.' 'Hmm.' Isobel had the feeling that, had she not been there, he would have pursued the subject further and not in favour of his mother. She had not known before that Madge Frome had married again so soon after Nigel's father was killed, or that Nigel felt so bitterly about his mother. He had. never revealed quite so much to her before, and she wondered, briefly, if Lucifer's opinion of their mother was as uncomplimentary as Nigel's was. It was sheer disloyalty, she decided a few minutes later, that gave her the idea that Lucifer would be much more tolerant and less ready to condemn. 153