Death in Hellfire

by Deryn Lake

  “Sorry indeed, Lady Dashwood, to be a dashed bore but the fact is that Betsy and I had a most appalling journey from London, don’t you know. We hardly stopped at all.”

  “Except for comfort,” Betsy said predictably.

  “Quite,” said Sir Francis. “Do please sit down. “Mrs Avon- Nelthorpe if you would sit next to Lord Arundel and James next to Lady Arundel.”

  She took her place at once and gave his Lordship a nudge in the ribs. “Hello, Charles,” she said and flashed one of her sharp-toothed smiles.

  He looked slightly discomfited. “How are you, Betsy? Well, I trust.”

  “Yes, thank you. I am in good health.” She turned her attention to John. “I’m sorry I didn’t quite catch your name.”

  “Fintan, ma’am. Fintan O’Hare. I am Irish.”

  “Are you now? How delightful. I think them a most amusing race.”

  John smiled and nodded as she rambled on in this vein, wondering all the while about her origins. She was, he could have sworn, a lady of the night who had somehow - his mind reeled away from going down this path - inveigled a respectable young man into marrying her. His gaze turned on the husband. A plain creature when all was said and done with only his eyes to redeem him.

  James looked up at this point and, fleetingly, the Apothecary saw something beneath the workaday surface; something quite molten and alarming. But almost instantly it was gone, leaving John with the impression that he had imagined it, that the carroty-haired young man was ordinary in the extreme. Yet had that notion been deliberately foisted upon him?

  Betsy was holding forth. “I do find coaches so uncomfortable these days. La, but they make my bum ache.”

  “Really?” said Coralie, icily polite.

  “Ah well,” put in Sir Francis jovially, “you’ll find the beds here really restful. A good night’s sleep will soon put you at your ease.”

  This remark was completely harmless in itself, but at that particular moment John glanced up and this time caught an extremely lewd wink given by the host to Arundel, who returned it with an elegant shrug of his shoulders.

  The Apothecary decided to enter the conversation, saying, “Flow do you manage to amuse yourselves, here in the heart of the country?”

  Lady Dashwood said boringly, “Oh well, we enjoy country pursuits.”

  “Such as?” John persisted.

  “Of an evening we play chess, or have music and singing, or we might even dance.”

  “Of come now, Mr O’Hare, you live in the country in Cavan. Surely you must know what people get up to the in the evenings,” said Coralie, turning to regard John with her wonderful green eyes.

  “I think I have some idea, ma’am,” answered John, innocently enough, but at that moment catching Sir Francis’s nut-brown gaze.

  “We find plenty to do with ourselves, young fellow, don’t you worry.”

  “Oh no, sir, I’m quite sure you do. I’m not worried at all,” John answered insouciantly, and looking straight at his host raised his eyebrows in a question.

  Chapter Nine

  “And what happened then?” asked Samuel, brimming with ale and jolliness.

  “I watched like a somewhat drunken hawk and felt sure that at least two of them - I refer to the men of course - were hiding something,” John answered.

  “What?”

  “That I am not certain about.”

  “Well I am,” said Dominique, slurring his words very slightly. “What you refer to is the Hellfire Club.”

  “Ah! Tell me, does it still exist?”

  “Of course it does. But it doesn’t meet at West Wycombe. Oh no, they’re far too clever for that.”

  “Then where?”

  “At a place called Medmenham Abbey, not far from here. At least that is what my father-in-law told me and he overheard much during his days at the big house.”

  John gave a subdued shout and several lingering customers turned to look at him. “As I thought,” he said.

  The dinner party had gone on for rather a long time, during which he had become more and more convinced that Sir Francis and Lord Arundel were sharing some sort of secret. Eventually, though, he had managed to escape, bowing to everyone and thanking Sir Francis and Lady Dashwood profusely. Then he had hurried back in the Langlois coach to the George and Dragon to find, much as he had expected and hoped, that both Samuel and Dominique were in the taproom and drinking merrily. Samuel in his guise of manservant had stuck to ale, which had made him both excited and sweaty, while Dominique, a Frenchman to his fingertips, had ordered a good wine and had already consumed a whole bottle.

  John, feeling positively sober in comparison, took a sip and said, “Tell me, Dominique, was your father-in-law ever invited to any of these meetings?”

  Dominique snorted. “Not he, sir. He was considered trade.” The Apothecary looked at him levelly. “I am trade too.”

  The water gilder stared at him. “But I thought…”

  “I’m afraid I lied to you. The fact is that I am by profession an apothecary and I have a shop in Shug Lane, Piccadilly. At the moment I am working for Sir John Fielding…”

  “You mean the Magistrate?”

  “Yes, I do. To cut a long story short he asked me to investigate this club because he believes it might be subversive. At one time that wretched man Wilkes was a member and Sir John is anxious to know who belongs to the organisation and exactly what they get up to.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I agreed to investigate it for him but I had to have a cover so I pretended to be a remote member of the peerage. So I invented the Honourable Fintan O’Hare and his redoubtable servant Samuel.”

  “I had thought the two of you were rather familiar but I had put it down to your Irish ways.”

  “No,” said John, cuffing Sam in a friendly manner, “my friend is actually a well-respected goldsmith and we have known each other nearly all our lives.”

  “So you see,” said Samuel, laughing robustly, “I am in trade too.”

  “A toast,” said Dominique Jean, leaping to his feet. “Ere is to trade.”

  “To trade,” chorused the other two, and drained their glasses.

  After they had settled down again Samuel put on his serious face which did not sit easily with his generally hot and happy appearance.

  “So when are you seeing Sir Francis again, John?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I am to conduct an interview with him about the postal system.”

  “Do you know anything about it?”

  “No more than you do I dare say.”

  “Then that should be amusing.”

  “Indeed, indeed.”

  They looked across at the little Frenchman and saw that he had fallen fast asleep in his chair. “Sam, I’m going to bed. I’ll leave you to deal with our friend from France.”

  “Sleep well, John. I hope you don’t dream about that child again.”

  The Apothecary paused in the doorway “Do you know I had almost forgotten about her. Dominique said that she was frightened of her father and promised to tell me something he had seen.”

  “Well, you’ll have to ask him in the morning.”

  “The morning it is.”

  * * *

  As he approached West Wycombe House on the next day John was struck once more by the place’s intense beauty. Yet again he reined in his horse in order to have a better look and was gazing at the sun reflecting on the lake when he heard the sound of hooves behind him. Turning he saw Coralie’s daughter, young Georgiana, riding her pony fast, coming towards him.

  “Good day to you, Lady Georgiana,” he called.

  She ignored him, riding as if all the devils in hell were behind her. As she drew alongside, John had a close look at her. Georgiana was as pale as a cloud and, with her mop of yellow hair streaming out behind her, looked quite otherworldly. She reminded him at that moment of a demonic angel. He got the distinct impression that she was - for all the fact that she was only ten years old - tormented.
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  “Slow down,” he called in a voice that to his ears sounded unnatural. “I’d like to ride with you.”

  She shot him a glance, a glance that appeared to go right through him, almost as if she couldn’t see him. Yet all the while she did not ease her pace but just kept on, thundering towards the house as if her very life depended on it. John did the only thing possible. As she hurtled past him he joined in hot pursuit.

  The pony was showing some signs of distress as the child shot round to the stables where a groom, hearing the clatter, rushed out to see what was happening. Georgiana was half out of the saddle and he only just caught her in time as she slithered towards the ground. A second or two later John careered into view and hurried to dismount. But he was not fast enough to catch the child who, again without speaking, rushed towards the house. The Apothecary was left with no option but to run after her. He caught her up just as she reached the colonnaded entrance.

  “My dear girl,” he panted, “where are you going at such a rate?”

  “Leave me alone,” she answered. “I promised my father I would see him at ten o’clock and I dare not be late.”

  “Why?” John said. “What will happen if you are?”

  She gave him a strange look. “Nothing. It’s just that I said I would be there.”

  “Well that doesn’t seem a very good reason to half kill your pony and not speak to anyone who enquires.”

  The child was clearly about to make some retort but at that moment the door opened and a footman said, “Ah, there you are, Lady Georgiana. Your father awaits you. Good morning, sir, Sir Francis is in the red drawing room.”

  John would have answered but his attention was arrested by a vision descending the great staircase. It was the Marquess of Arundel clad in a crimson night-rail and white turban, his face without make-up but deadly pale for all that. His eyebrows, the Apothecary noticed, had been plucked into high black arches and on his hand he wore a great dark ring. He looked down at the pair of them, John and Georgiana, and said in a voice which trembled with some hidden inner excitement, “Ah, good morning, Mr O’Hare. I see you have brought my child to me. And where was the little wretch?” Before John could reply the girl said, “I went for an early ride, Papa. But I got back in time, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, my dear, so you did. Well, now you can come and read to your old father. Poor old soul that he is.”

  He laughed loudly at this remark and after a second or two the child giggled. But to John her laughter sounded false and put on for the listener’s benefit. And it was at that moment that Coralie appeared, sweeping down the stairs behind Charles, who turned at the sound of her.

  “My dear, I didn’t know that you were up.”

  “Did you not?” she replied coolly. She moved her gaze to take in her daughter. “Why, there you are sweetheart. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come with Mama and have some breakfast.”

  The little girl looked from one parent to the other.

  “I can give her some food,” drawled Charles, turning to look at Coralie better.

  “Nonsense,” she said firmly, coming down to draw level with him. “I haven’t seen my daughter alone for quite some time. And you know how I delight in her company. She shall come with me and there’s an end to it.”

  All this was said in a light bantering tone but underneath, John, who knew Coralie almost as well as he knew himself, could detect steel. Walking down the stairs with a firm tread, she took Georgiana by the hand and led her off in the direction of the breakfast room. Acting entirely on impulse he hurried after them.

  “Sweetheart,” he heard Coralie say, “you are to eat as much as you can and then we shall have a talk, you and I.”

  But to eavesdrop further was impossible. A heavy tread behind him announced the arrival of Sir Francis. Bowing deeply, John appeared confused.

  “Oh, forgive me, Sir Francis. I must have mistaken the rooms. Where was I meant to go?”

  “To the study. Follow me, young man.”

  Once again John found himself in a chamber with an exquisitely painted ceiling which he would have liked to observe were it not for the fact that Sir Francis was motioning him towards a chair.

  “Take a seat, young fellow. Now ask me all you want about the postal system.”

  John gulped and launched forth, having found a few key questions in an old copy of The Tatler which he had been fortunate enough to come across in one of the public rooms of the inn. Having committed to memory as much as he could, he managed to converse in a fairly meaningful manner until eventually the older man said, “Enough. You’ve plenty there to write your wretched articles. Let me press you to a sherry, a far more enjoyable pastime wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, indeed I would. But allow me to thank you, Sir Francis, for spending your valuable time with me.”

  “Nonsense. I reckon it to be part of my duty.”

  He sipped deep and as he did so John took the opportunity to have a very good look at him in the brightness of day. It was the face of a libertine, there was no doubting that. Red of texture, chinned voluminously, the dark brown eyes looked at the world with an expression of worldly knowledge that the Apothecary had rarely encountered before. And beneath all his tremendous joviality John sensed something wicked and wayward, as if life had been an experiment which Sir Francis had probed to the maximum. He looked down into his glass as he felt those eyes which had surely never been youthful turn in his direction.

  “You’ve been a married man I take it?” asked the rich velvet voice.

  “Yes, Sir Francis, I have.”

  “So now you’re a sad young widower?”

  “Yes,” John answered shortly.

  “Oh well, bad luck. But one can’t dwell in the past, you know. Off with the old, on with the new and all that. Have another sherry.”

  John held out his glass and realised that he was being scrutinised closely. Not feeling altogether comfortable he turned his attention to the window and the beautiful vista outside.

  “Fine place you have here,” he said somewhat lamely.

  “Yes. Do you want a look round?”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “Come then,” said Sir Francis, and heaving himself to his feet led the way from the room.

  It was good to be outside again, breathing the fresh air from the lake, which this morning lay like a sheet of glass beneath a vivid sky. Beautiful though the house was it seemed to John that it was a place of secrets, of dark whispers and strange events, and he was glad to be away from it and striding downhill towards the water. A pair of peacocks strolled past, followed by a couple of pure white ones. As it moved away from them one of the males displayed its tail feathers and the Apothecary drew breath at such brilliant splendour.

  On the largest of the three islands there was some sign of building work, though a little slow and desultory as far as John could see. He stopped walking and shaded his eyes with his hand, the better to look.

  “What’s happening there, Sir Francis?”

  “I’m building a little music temple. I plan to have concerts, musical entertainments, that kind of thing.”

  “How very nice. But how will the audience get there?”

  “By boat. I can think of nothing more pleasant on a summer’s evening than to cross the water and listen to the strains of music.” He gave a deep laugh. “Actually I can think of one thing better.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To make love, long and deep, in the open air.”

  Fractionally startled, John said, “I can see your point, Sir Francis.”

  “Can you, by Jove? A man after my own heart, eh?” Something told the Apothecary to play along with the way the conversation was running. “Very much so, I imagine.”

  Sir Francis turned to look at him, his eyes holding an unreadable glint. “We must talk more on this subject, I believe. Tell me, would you care to dine this afternoon?”

  “I couldn’t impose, sir.”

  “Nonse
nse. It would be my pleasure. And afterwards we can chat privately.”

  John bowed. “Nothing would give me greater satisfaction.”

  “Nothing?” said Sir Francis, and gave John an extremely lewd wink.

  John was far away in thought as he walked round to the stables at the end of his tour. He felt sure that he was on the point of discovering exactly what it was that Sir Francis got up to in his spare time, indeed had a feeling that he - John - might soon be invited to attend some sort of orgy. With a consequent spring in his step at having wormed his way in, he made his way towards the loose boxes then paused as he heard the sound of a workman tapping gently within. The noise was coming from one of the larger outbuildings. He took a shrewd guess that it was Dominique repairing one of the Langlois commodes and promptly made his way inside. The Frenchman looked up at the sound of someone approaching and wiped his hands on his apron.

  “Ah, bonjour, mon ami. Comment ga va’f “Very well, at least I think so. Dominique, I have been asked back to dine and I have the strongest feeling that my respected host is going to tell me more of this club of his.”

  “That is good. But I don’t know if I can lend you the coach. I have decided to work late and get the job done. I don’t know what time I will be back at the George and Dragon.”

  “Never mind. I’ll ride up if necessary. But I wanted to ask you one thing before I left.”

  “Which is?”

  “You promised to tell me about Arundel and his daughter. You said you saw something strange.”

  Dominique bent his head to his task. “It was disgusting. A horrible thing to have to see.”