“In fact she thinks someone has made a poppet of her?” asked Jenny. “Someone made one of me and hung it in Margaret’s porch with a dagger in its back. Obviously it must have been a sort of dress rehearsal for today, and I suppose whoever was doing it to me could be doing it to your mother too.”
“Could be,” agreed Simon. “But who belongs to the coven nowadays?”
Jenny told him, adding that really only Robert and Bernard could be described as solidly built and Margaret, if the mask had been used to hide a woman’s face.
“There are only my parents and Bernard Hawker left from the old days, then,” said Simon. “They never thought much of Hawker. They used to say that he was a suppressed homosexual, which is a very rude thing to say about a witch, for their whole religion’s based on fertility and heterosexual coupling and love. I think he really only got by on his hereditary label. He never stopped telling one that there were only six hereditary witches left in England. Probably there are even fewer now.”
“None of them seem very fertile,” said Jenny thoughtfully. “I mean Margaret’s childless and your parents adopted you. Robert had children but left them with his first wife and none of the others have produced so far.”
“Perhaps that’s why they’re so bothered about it,” suggested Simon. “I think my parents were bitterly disappointed and have never really forgiven each other. I wasn’t a satisfactory substitute.”
“But they didn’t try to make a witch of you?” asked Jenny.
“Didn’t they? I was reared on herbal remedies, hardly ever allowed to wear clothes. They had this theory that they felt the cold because they’d been made to wear clothes and that if I was brought up without I wouldn’t feel it – it didn’t work. When I was sixteen they had me all nicely primed and prepared for my initiation ceremony and I did a bolt the night before, couldn’t face it. They haven’t seen me since. I wrote to them of course, but I never sent an address. I’d got away but I was still involved emotionally. It was a difficult set-up to escape from and I didn’t dare come back until I was certain I was free.”
Jenny told of her uneventful suburban childhood, of London and then the sudden transition to Kilruthan and the series of “mishaps” that had befallen her. Simon told of his first job on a Scottish coaster – he’d learned about boats from the fishermen of Ermeporth – of life in engineering works, of a trip to South America. It was at this point that Jenny looked at her watch and gave a guilty cry, “Look at the time. Margaret will think I’m lost or murdered.”
“Will she really be fussing?” asked Simon getting up. “We could telephone her from here; end her misery fifteen minutes sooner.”
“I didn’t say I’d be late, but she did want to be alone. She’s thinking out the end of her book,” Jenny explained, “and if she’s managed to get going she won’t even notice I’m not there. But if she’s stuck – well, she gets so frustrated anything might happen. Though perhaps not, in the end it usually boils down to sending for Robert Cavendish.”
“And he won’t come if he’s the one with two black eyes and a swollen nose,” said Simon cheerfully.
Despite Jenny’s earlier explanations, Simon seemed confused by the divided drive and amazed at the twin houses.
“But there’s a great chunk missing,” he kept repeating as Jenny led the way from the Mini’s garage, carefully lighting the path, alert for obstructions and holes or any new invention of her enemy’s devilish brain. Safely at Margaret’s door, she offered Simon the flashlight. But he said that it was her weapon as well as her light and that she was to keep it, for he, owing to his father’s economies, had learned to see in the dark.
“I’ll be over tomorrow,” he said. “And if anyone starts any nonsense tonight, or you’re worried or anything, just yell for me. But I don’t think our moorland friend will cause any trouble; he’ll be too busy applying witch hazel.”
Margaret, whose face was quite unbattered, seemed enthralled by Jenny’s story. For her, the attack faded into insignificance beside the drama of being rescued by a strange young man who turned out to be the long-lost Simon Forrest.
“But what is he like?” she kept asking, plainly dissatisfied with Jenny’s attempts at description. “Well, he sounds as though he has spirit,” she decided, “rushing to snatch an unknown girl from the grasp of an armed man. Most of today’s youth would content themselves with dialing 999 when they reached a telephone.”
“Yes, he was fine, but who do you think did it, who do you think attacked me?” asked Jenny with indignation in her voice. “It must be someone in the coven and I don’t see why anyone should be allowed to treat me like this. Nigel said he’d stop it, but he hasn’t, and I don’t know whether Simon’s beating up will put the person off or just make him more vindictive. You said before that someone was trying to frighten me away, but why? I don’t understand how I’m involved, but you must know.”
“Well, all I do know,” answered Margaret looking at Jenny with the beginnings of respect, “is that the men are playing power politics; hatching trivial little plots against each other. Lord preserve us from middle-aged men. If only they had an obvious menopause one could drag it up every time they started something silly. ‘Now dear, don’t you think you’re letting your imagination run away with you? You must remember that at your time of life…’ That’s what they do to us.”
“But I still don’t understand how I come into it,” complained Jenny.
“Oh it’s just that Bernard thinks Nigel has been high priest long enough and he wants Bromwyn to choose Robert. And of course she would prefer him in many ways, but he hasn’t Nigel’s knowledge or dedication and Bromwyn takes her position very seriously indeed.”
“But I still don’t see how I come into it,” said Jenny.
“Well I think Bernard’s idea is that Nigel will leave the coven in a tantrum and then Robert will get bored with the responsibility or find a new love and then he’ll be the only third grade male witch left and we’ll have to make him high priest. But meanwhile, they all know that Nigel is looking around for a young and pretty girl to train as a future high priestess, so that even if he loses immediate control he’ll regain it in the long-term, and they suspect that his choice has fallen on you.”
“But I don’t want to be even an ordinary witch,” protested Jenny.
“No, quite. And that makes the whole feud totally absurd,” agreed Margaret. “Now, what about Simon? We must ask him over tomorrow. He’ll need a few square meals to eke out Rosemary’s horrid little messes and Nigel’s bread and cheese. You can’t let your knight-errant go hungry. And, oh Jenny, I think I’ve got the end at last. So shall we eat now, at once? And then I’ll shut myself up and work all night.”
When Jenny took her usual bedtime look across the courtyard, the half-house seemed to have a friendlier face that it had ever worn before. In which room, she wondered, was Simon sleeping. She hoped that it wasn’t too cold and damp and that they’d given him some sort of fire. But he seemed hardy and resourceful, she could imagine him sleeping quite cheerfully in his clothes. Anyway, he would solve the problem of Rosemary and his presence and the fright he’d given her enemy should make it possible for her to stay and type the rest of the book. After that? Well, she’d wait a bit and see…
It was dry, but overcast and cold when Jenny took her pre-work walk next morning. She was looking down at the daffodils and pitying their defenselessness against the chill wind – they couldn’t move to a more sheltered spot, or huddle together, or even twine arms around their stalks – when Simon appeared around the corner of his parents’ house.
“How goes it?” he asked. “Are you feeling better or did robed figures pursue you through your dreams?”
“I feel all right really,” answered Jenny, who was mildly surprised by her own lack of trauma. “I suppose it’s knowing that the enemy got as good as he gave. I always felt powerless when things happened before, but it’s not nearly so frightening now that you’re there to bash him back
.”
“‘Dad,’” said Simon with a mocking inflection which disowned any relationship, “is white with rage over it all. He’s on the telephone, trying to organize a meeting of the coven for this afternoon with expelling the culprit the only thing on the agenda. I suggested going to the police, but the old man pleaded to be allowed to deal with it himself. He didn’t want the reputation of the coven dragged through the mud and all that guff, he sounded just like a headmaster going on about the honor of the school.”
“Was he pleased to see you?” asked Jenny.
“Well, not pleased exactly, moderately interested I should say. His chief concern was to make it absolutely clear that if I was a dropout he was totally unable to support me. But he’s even madder than I remember,” added Simon gloomily.
“And what about your mother?” asked Jenny.
“Not particularly interested in me, too taken up with her own saintly long-suffering. Great spiels about Dad’s errors and economies. Why doesn’t she up and go? Or at least get a part-time job and earn some money of her own?”
“That’s more or less what Margaret said.” Jenny looked at her watch. “In a minute I must go and see if there’s any typing to be done, she was working late last night.”
“You don’t work on Sundays surely? What’s your union doing?”
“Well she’s so undemanding, she doesn’t work me a bit hard normally and if she has managed the end at last, well, I feel that the least I can do is to rush in and type it. I suppose I’ve come to feel involved in the book really.”
“You’re too good-natured,” Simon told her. “Any reasonable person would want danger money for working with this crew. And extra rest days to recuperate from the intense mental strain. Anyway, look, a large chunk of plaster has fallen from the drawing room ceiling so the coven meeting is to be held in the hall, which is much more convenient for us. ‘Dad’ has hinted that I should make myself scarce, so I told him that I was going to take you for a walk. I thought we’d set out in the car and then nip back on foot and listen to what’s going on from the gallery.”
Jenny looked at him uncertainly as she searched around for words to express her doubts.
“All right, it may be ethically indefensible,” said Simon cheerfully, “but we’ve got to identify your attacker and we may as well learn what this crazy gang of crackpots is up to at the same time. Can we leave, rather ostentatiously, in your car at two fifteen?”
Margaret, still in a dressing gown, but vaguely triumphant, handed over the last chapter.
“It’s still very rough,” she said, “but it does help to see it typed.”
Richard had remained “bowed down by his many and varied misfortunes” until the faithful Anne had reminded him of the promise of the ancient witch of Urgly made to his grandfather in return for some small favor that if, in any time of trouble, the rightful heir of the house of Monteluc went to the haunted chasm at Mellin’s Creek at midnight on the first of May, she would come to him and grant his wish. And Richard, at length persuaded by the unusually persistent Anne – she could feel a future heir to the house of Monteluc “stirring within her” – agreed to his solitary vigil. What took place at the chasm “no man ever knew.” Richard returned at dawn, grayfaced with exhaustion. Then, taking Anne on her palfrey and a small party of his most trusted retainers with sure-footed pack animals, he led the way unfalteringly to a cave high in the wild crags. It was “a place of absolute desolation, an abode of wolves and eagles,” a place “that sent a shudder through even the bravest spirit.” And, rolling away a huge boulder from the mouth of the cave, they uncovered a vast hoard of gold and jewels. This bit of luck restored Richard’s enthusiasm and potency and, having rebuilt the family castle, he “sired the merry youngsters to fill it with life.”
Well, good has been bullied into triumphing, thought Jenny as she typed the last words, but she had a suspicion that Richard would really have become as gray and cheese-paring as Nigel, grudging every log of wood burned in the great hall, every grain of corn fed to the horses. He would have remained impotent and Anne would have deteriorated into a complaining neurotic, and, though Jenny hated books that ended like this, it was the only genuine outcome, which she could envisage for these characters; she felt that Margaret had cheated.
However, when she met her employer at lunch she was relieved to find that there was no need for a show of admiration or even for discussion of the final pages. Margaret was her buoyant self again, generating enthusiasm, confidence and certainty and in no need of approbation from outside. Jenny had only to lie about her walk with Simon and Margaret’s romantic delight over that was absurd and, in the circumstances, slightly embarrassing. But Jenny comforted herself with the thought that the coven deserved far worse from her than eavesdropping and, though her own trials might be over, there was still Rosemary, bewitched and in need of rescue.
At two fifteen, the morning cloud had vanished and it was a beautiful day with a soft blue sky and a sun that warmed and revitalized. Jenny suddenly felt aggrieved that she and Simon were not going for a walk, it would have been so much more fun than wasting this lovely afternoon in the cold and damp of Kilruthan house.
They got into the car discussing alternative walks in loud voices and then, when they were on the road, Simon said, “I thought we’d leave the Mini by the church – there’s a cul-de-sac where only the Sunday school kids will spot her – then we can slink back across the field. I don’t know if you know the layout, but the hall’s at the north end of the house so once they’re all inside we’re safe. It’s your boss I’m afraid of running into, if she comes trotting around the comer a bit late. Is she a punctual person?”
“Fairly,” answered Jenny. “I left her drinking coffee and reading my last bit of typing. If she goes off into one of her daydreams about the noble house of Monteluc she could be hours late, otherwise I should think she’ll be on time.”
“Well, if we do run into her, I left my wallet behind and we’ve cut back across the field to fetch it. Why? Oh, I know, I wanted to show you the copse where I had my hut as a child and boiled my solitary eggs in stream water over my stick fire.”
“Didn’t you have little friends?”
“No, I was far too afraid that they would come out with, ‘your Dad’s a witch!’ A granny who was a witch would have been quite a status symbol, but a Mum and a Dad!”
“It must have been very difficult for you,” said Jenny as they left the car. They climbed a gate.
“There, in that little wood,” said Simon, “but we haven’t time for a nostalgic visit to the ruins, it’s almost half-past. Come on, if they’re still arriving we’ll lurk in the ha-ha; it was quite a suntrap, I remember, and one was conveniently out of sight of the upper windows.”
They moved cautiously along the upper edge of the field until they reached the beginning of the ha-ha, excavated, in a time of cheap labor by some earlier owner of Kilruthan who had objected to the field fences spoiling his view.
“I forgot I had grown,” said Simon looking ruefully at the sides of the ditch and then bending double. “I have a distinct memory of total invisibility even when upright, but I suppose I must have been the same height as the fence then.”
“I can hear voices,” said Jenny who was a little afraid of discovery.
“Dissident groups planning their strategy before going in,” suggested Simon. “If we creep along until we’re level with the magnolia we may be able to see and hear.”
Jenny followed him cramped in a double up posture, but just as they came level with the sweep of the drive the last car door banged and the voices trailed away as their owners trooped into the house.
“Now, let’s hope your boss is with them,” said Simon, straightening up. “Anyway, we walk in boldly, but quietly. We’ve come back for my wallet but, naturally, we don’t want to disturb the meeting. Stop looking so apprehensive, Jenny, my mother may be standing at her bedroom window.”
Jenny illuminated her face with a seri
es of extravagant smiles and they both giggled silently as they crossed the lawn, but as they slunk through the back door which Jenny had used on her visits to Rosemary the house’s atmosphere of cold, grim malice sobered them. They crept up the dark, narrow stairs, Simon’s leather soles clacking on the uncarpeted wood.
Jenny’s heart had begun to beat with a painful intensity. She was a fool, she thought, to have let Simon involve her further with the witches, for, though one might not believe in witchcraft or magic or the supernatural, one had to admit that they radiated some sort of power. She had felt it that night she watched them dancing in the field and she felt it again now as she followed Simon through the door at the top of the stairs. There was no sound from Rosemary’s room though the door stood ajar and they moved quietly down the passage, their footsteps deadened by the threadbare carpet. Shafts of light, muted by grimy glass and diminished by the encroachment of long untrimmed creepers across the windows, revealed the ravages of damp and neglect: brown-stained walls, peeling paper, rotting woodwork, cobwebs and dust, a scuttering wildlife of beetles and spiders.
The passage ended with another door which Simon opened with great caution. He looked back at Jenny one finger over his mouth to indicate that silence had become crucial. They were now in all that remained of the hall of the original house. It rose two stories to a once beautiful plaster-decorated ceiling, now yellowed and disfigured by unskilful attempts at repair. Having lost two-thirds of his length, the room was grotesquely out of proportion and no effort had been made to continue the gallery, the two sides of which ended abruptly in the bare, white-washed brick of the wall which filled the gap left by the demolition of the center section of the house.
Nigel had done it on the cheap, thought Jenny. It was so cold and gloomy; why hadn’t he put in a west window?
Simon was looking over the brown balustrade. Signaling to Jenny, he led the way past the stairhead, keeping well back and pressed against the wall, to the far comer of the gallery. There they crouched and listening to the angry voices strained to catch the words. Simon crawled forward and peered down through the balustrade, then he gestured to Jenny that she too should take a look.
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