She came to with a start. Drusilla was speaking. ‘I need a new gown. Mary Swain must be sent for and shown the latest pattern books from London. I have some pretty pale green satin which would look well with the Faulkner pearls.’
‘Mary Swain,’ exclaimed Miss Faulkner aghast. ‘Oh, no, you must go further afield and find someone who will make you as comme il faut as the London beauties who surround m’lord when he is in town.’
‘Cordelia, I have not the slightest intention of competing with the London beauties. I am but a simple country girl and so m’lord must take me or leave me—if he thinks of me at all, which I beg leave to doubt.’
Saying which, Drusilla was aware that she was being deceitful. She might be but a simple country girl but she knew quite well that there was something particular in m’lord’s manner when he spoke to her which told her a different tale.
He was, in fact, thinking of her that very afternoon. Leander Harrington had ridden over to present him with his invitation in person.
‘If you accept it, Devenish, I intend to use this occasion to honour your arrival in Surrey and introduce you to as many notables as possible. Your late grandfather passed the majority of his life here and we should be charmed if you would do the same.’
‘Would you, indeed?’ replied Devenish drily. ‘I’m not yet sure that I would be charmed to spend mine likewise. But I will accept your invitation in the same spirit in which it is offered.’
‘And Mr Stammers? You will allow him to accept an invitation, too?’
‘Oh, that is a matter for Mr Stammers to decide, not for me. May I say that I’m a little surprised that your Republican beliefs would allow you to approach me first.’
‘But, then, Devenish, I was not yet aware that your attitude towards those who serve you was so very different from that of the late Earl. Every man in his place, knowing his place, was his motto.’
Oh, yes, that sounded like his late grandfather. Devenish smiled his most subtle smile.
‘A useful motto for those whose place is secure, you will allow.’
‘Oh, indeed, but in the new age of reason which will shortly dawn, all men will be judged by what they are and not by the bedroom they were born in.’
Devenish’s smile grew more subtle still. ‘That age not having arrived yet, sir, we must continue to endure our present fortunate condition. And that being so, I shall enjoy your hospitality at Marsham Abbey, as will I expect, my good friend Rob Stammers. Until then, I bid you adieu.’
It was Leander Harrington’s congé and he knew it. He gave his sweet smile and left. One of the delights of the new age of reason, he thought, would be a guillotine set up in Trafalgar Square where the liberated masses would cheer as each aristocratic head rolled in the dust—most particularly when m’lord Devenish’s landed there.
Nothing of this showed, however, when Devenish arrived at Marsham Abbey in the middle of a fine early August afternoon. Both men smiled at one another as though they had been bosom companions since boyhood. There was already a goodly sprinkling of guests on the lawn before the Abbey, that noble relic of the days of Catholic glory.
A long-gone Harrington had built his house using the Abbey’s north wall as his southern one, and retaining, Rob had told Devenish, the staircase down to the huge crypt. Over the centuries Marsham’s abbots had been laid to rest there, and there was still a chapel at one end of it, with a ruined altar.
This afternoon, though, no one was eager to visit dim underground rooms, least of all Devenish, who wished to mix with his neighbours as much, and as soon, as possible. His host led him on to the lawns where trestle tables had been erected and set out with food and drink and where burly footmen stood around ready to help those too helpless to help themselves.
Many of those already present were known to him and greeted him with the deference suitable to the honour of a peer. Devenish was just growing weary of being bowed and scraped to when he saw Drusilla Faulkner standing alone before a bed of roses, a glass of lemonade in her hand.
She looked divinely cool in white muslin and a wide-brimmed straw hat worn in such a fashion that it did not hide her charming face. The old trot, as Devenish unkindly thought of Miss Faulkner, was for once not with her.
With a muttered ‘Excuse me,’ he rescued himself from a tedious discussion about the respective excellencies of different breeds of sheep and walked over to her, picking up a glass of lemonade for himself on the way.
‘Alone for once,’ he offered, ‘no Gorgon of a duenna dancing attendance on you, no high-spirited younger brother ready to insist on your full attention. I am in luck.’
Surprised, for she had not seen him coming, Drusilla still had the presence of mind to riposte, ‘Now, is not that exactly what I should expect of you? That you would always wish the undivided attention of those whom you are with!’
‘Is not that what we all wish?’ he parried.
‘Oh, indeed. But few of us are lucky enough to get it.’
‘And you least of all,’ he told her. ‘For whenever we have previously met you have been surrounded by demanding others. Not so, now. And, if I see them coming, I shall whip you away down the nearest alley, claiming that I wish to admire the scenery with you, when all I wish to admire is you.’
This was plain speaking with a vengeance which surprised even the man who was uttering it. He had not intended to be so plain, so soon, but the sight of her had wrenched it from him.
Drusilla coloured; delightfully, Devenish thought. ‘You cannot mean that,’ she said at length, not quite sure how she ought to respond.
‘Oh, but I do. And in token of my truthfulness I shall ask you to stroll down that very alley, and I shall admire you—but respectfully and from a discreet distance. Come.’
He held his arm out for her to take, and after a little hesitation, Drusilla took it.
That she had not been admired greatly before was very plain, Devenish thought. He wondered what the young husband had been truly like. Nevertheless she comported herself admirably, not tittering, or murmuring, ‘Oh, my dear lord, you honour me too greatly,’ or the rest of the female piff-paff which had so often been served up to him in the past.
She possessed the blessed gift of quiet, and so they walked along in the golden afternoon sun leaving the noisy lawn behind until they came to an open spot which looked out on the green and wooded countryside before them.
A sundial stood in yet another bed of roses. ‘I tell only the sunny hours’ it proclaimed, but strangely there was a skull and cross bones on one side of the pillar which supported it, and the face of a demon on the other. Someone had tried to erase them, but had failed.
For some reason the sight set Drusilla shivering, warm though the afternoon was. Such a chill sensation ran through her that her face turned white and her lips blue.
‘You are cold,’ Devenish exclaimed. He looked about him, and discovered a low stone wall. He began to strip off his fine deep-blue jacket. ‘Sit down a moment,’ he ordered her, ‘and let me put this round your shoulders.’
Still shivering, Drusilla did as he bid her. He sat down beside her and took her hand—to find, to his astonishment, that it was as cold as ice.
Devenish chafed it, saying, ‘Are you subject to these fits, madam?’ for he could find no rational explanation for her changed state.
Drusilla looked at him, trying to stop her teeth chattering.
‘No, indeed,’ she whispered. ‘This is very odd and you may think me odder still if I tell you that I suddenly had a feeling of the most profound evil, something cold and monstrous—like that thing there,’ and she pointed to the defaced head of the demon. ‘If you took your coat back, I should like to go away from this place. I think that I might feel better.’
Reluctantly Devenish lifted his coat from her shoulders and resumed it. ‘You are sure you feel well enough to return?’
‘Quite sure. It is only staying here which is distressing me.’
‘And all I wished to do was admire
you,’ he said, trying to be light as they walked away. ‘And instead I took you to what Dante called “the place of horror”. Though why that should be, I cannot think. You are beginning to look better already. The next time I wish to be alone with you I shall make sure that we visit somewhere which I know must be free of such frightful associations.’
‘You will think me stupid, I fear.’
Devenish stopped and turned her to face him just before they walked into the sight of the other guests. Her colour had already returned and the shivering had stopped.
‘Not at all,’ he said, and was quietly serious after a fashion which he had never shown her before. ‘I have reason to know that the black devils may appear without warning and that their power is strong. I felt nothing there, but you did, and I know you to be a woman of sense. In another place I might be affected—and you not. Do you feel ready to return to the normal prattling world again?’
Drusilla smiled at him. ‘You are very kind, and the answer is yes.’
‘Good.’ He bent down and kissed her very gently on the cheek, a brotherly kiss, nothing like the passionate one which he wished to give her. ‘Do not go there again, I beg of you, with or without me.’
Drusilla had to bite back the words which she wished to say. I would go anywhere with you, m’lord, for I now know that you would always be ready to protect me. Instead she smiled and said nothing.
If a few curious eyes watched them as they returned so quickly from their solitary walk, neither she nor Devenish remarked on it. He walked her to one of the tables and handed her a glass of strong red wine and a sweet biscuit. Taking a glass for himself, he raised it in a toast to her, and had the pleasure of seeing her eyes sparkle again and the colour fully restored to her cheeks.
‘And now I must leave you for the time being,’ he told her, ‘lest I cause you to be gossiped about unduly.’
He bowed his adieux and she gave him her hand—which he held only a trifle too long.
Long enough for a man’s voice to say in her ear, ‘I had no notion that the next time I saw you, dear Drusilla, you would be widowed and in the company of a man as dangerous as the devil.’
Drusilla swung round exclaiming, ‘Toby, Toby Claridge, I thought you were in France.’
Sir Toby Claridge, a handsome man of her own age, gave her the wide smile which she remembered from the days when they had played together as boy and girl. She had not seen him since the summer before Jeremy’s death. At first after she had accepted Jeremy, having already refused Toby, Toby had been jealously at outs with Jeremy—another childhood friend—for quite a long time. It was only during that last year before he had left for France that they had suddenly become like brothers again.
‘No, indeed. I am here, and as an old childhood companion I think that I have a duty to warn you to have as little to do with Devenish as possible. You owe it to Jeremy’s memory to stay away from someone of whom he would never have approved.’
These were strong words indeed. Drusilla thought of the tender kindness with which Devenish had so recently treated her.
‘What should make you speak so of him, Toby? He has a cutting tongue—but otherwise—’
He would not let her finish. ‘No otherwise, Dru. He is a devil with women, my dear, and more than a devil with men. Women he merely ruins—men, he kills. Why, he killed his best friend in a duel—over a woman, they say. And he is a devil with the cards as well. No, steer clear of him.’
‘Gossip,’ said Drusilla bravely. ‘Besides, I don’t believe he wishes to ruin me.’
Toby raised ironic eyebrows. ‘No? That foolish duenna of yours tells me that he is being most particular with you and you with him. She is silly enough to think that he will marry you. I warn you for your own good, you know.’
And perhaps for yours, thought Drusilla a little dazedly. For with Jeremy gone these two years, Toby was free to propose to her again. But he would always be her friend. For all his easy charm she could not imagine him as her lover, but she had never been cruel enough to tell him so.
Devenish, now…
Could what Toby had just said possibly be true? She supposed dismally that it was. A roué and a murderer. No, she could believe many things of him, but not the last. Most men of his station were roués, often after marriage as well as before.
But murder—that was quite a different thing. She was suddenly aware that she was so distraite that she had not been listening to Toby, nor had she answered him. She said, a trifle hastily, ‘Oh, I assure you that neither of us is contemplating marriage—nor the other thing—and as yet one might scarcely call us friends.’
‘The looks he is giving you are not those of a man who thinks of a woman as a friend,’ responded Toby drily.
Drusilla stared at him. This was not the sort of remark which Toby would have made before he had gone to live in France—but she could scarcely tell him so.
Instead she murmured, ‘I assure you that you are mistaken—and even if you are right you must also know that at the moment I am not at all inclined towards marriage with anyone—least of all Lord Devenish.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe for a moment that he is thinking of marrying you—which is why I am offering you this warning. Purely as your friend, you understand.’
Now why did she doubt this? Drusilla asked herself. What she did not doubt was that this line of conversation ought to be brought to a rapid end. So she offered Toby nothing more than banality, saying, ‘You must be hungry, and I see that Mr Harrington has provided us with an excellent array of food. We ought to do him the honour of thanking him by sampling it.’
She followed this by walking towards one of the laden tables, with Toby gallantly following, murmuring in her ear, ‘You do believe that I am your friend, Dru, don’t you? As we were years ago.’
Hardly that, was Drusilla’s inward and amused response. Then friendship consisted of climbing trees and hiding from a governess or tutor—not at all the sort of thing which they might consider doing now!
On the other hand she was sure that what Toby was contemplating doing with her was quite another thing: taking his dead friend’s place now that a suitable time had elapsed!
Nevertheless, talking pleasantly to him, she betrayed nothing of her true thoughts, but, for once, was quite relieved when George Lawson, the parson from Tresham Minor, came over to them and told Toby that Mr Harrington was asking after him.
‘He wishes to speak to you about your travels in France, Sir Toby. I believe he would like to know whether the spirit of revolution is still abroad in that benighted country.’
As usual, there was something unpleasantly mocking in Mr Lawson’s speech, although Toby seemed to notice nothing amiss. His manner, when he turned to speak to Drusilla after Toby had left them, became unctuous in the extreme.
‘Allow me to tell you how charming you look today, madam. You always seemed to be accompanied by the spirit of summer—today, even more so!’
What could she say to this other than, ‘I fear you flatter me, Mr Lawson,’ something which provoked him to even further excesses.
‘No, no,’ he exclaimed, bowing towards her and putting his hand out to touch her arm, ‘not at all.’
The effect he had on Drusilla was quite otherwise from that which he had expected. At the moment that his fingertips touched her wrist, Drusilla suffered a recurrence of the odd black horror which had struck her earlier in the garden.
For a brief second she feared that she was about to faint. Her colour disappeared and, to Mr Lawson’s alarm, her eyes closed and she began to fall against him.
He put out his hand to support her, but she swayed away from him, fearful lest his touch distress her again, saying as calmly as she could, ‘No, no, a passing megrim. I had one earlier. It is a thing from which I normally suffer. It is perhaps the heat. I will repair indoors immediately.’
She turned to leave, but Mr Lawson, all gallantry, exclaimed, ‘Pray allow me to assist you. I fear that you may take harm if no one acc
ompanies you.’
For some strange reason this kind offer distressed Drusilla further. She wanted him away from her but could not say so—nor think how to deter him from his well-meaning kindness.
Help came from an unexpected quarter. As Mr Lawson put out his arm to support her again, a cold voice said, ‘Forgive me, sir, but as an old friend of Mrs Faulkner’s I think that she might be more comfortable if I were allowed to assist her indoors. Besides, you have your duty to Mr Harrington’s other guests, and as your patron I must direct you to assist them.’
It was Lord Devenish, and a less likely Good Samaritan Drusilla could not imagine. She allowed him to supply the kindness which she had rejected from the unfortunate Mr Lawson who dare not refuse to obey his patron’s orders. He bowed and reluctantly moved away while Devenish led her through the open French windows into the Abbey.
Once inside he said, ‘Would you like me to fetch Miss Faulkner to assist you to your room?’
‘No, indeed,’ replied Drusilla, recovering some of her normal briskness. ‘She would fuss me to death and that is the last thing I need. Pray be as severe with me as you please—and, by the by before I forget, when did you and I become old friends? It is little more than a week since we first met!’
‘Oh, I thought a little judicious fibbing was in order when I saw that you were resisting that oily fellow’s attempt to manhandle you. It may be officious of me but, by your looks, I thought that you were suffering from another attack of what distressed you in the garden.’
‘And so I was. You will think me but a poor thing, I fear. And I fibbed, too, when I informed Mr Lawson that I was subject to such fits, for I have never suffered from them before.’
‘No?’ Devenish was looking around him. ‘I wonder where we could be private. The library, perhaps. One of the flunkies pointed it out to me earlier. I think that it’s this way. We are sure to be undisturbed there. None of our fellow guests appear to me to be great readers—quite the contrary—ABC looks beyond most of them.’
The Devil and Drusilla Page 7