The Devil and Drusilla

by Paula Marshall

  On the contrary, apparently, for she immediately began an animated conversation with him. But he also noticed that she was careful to hold herself away from Lawson a little to avoid any chance of him touching her, or her him.

  The supper room was a large one which had been used as a refectory in the days before the Abbey was dissolved and partly destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII. It was cold and draughty even though the evening was warm and a huge fire had been built in its hearth. Its high ceiling and thick stone walls seemed to have retained the frosts of winter.

  Drusilla, with George Lawson on one side of her, Rob Stammers on the other, and Devenish and Lady Cheyne opposite to her, was not the only woman who began to shiver.

  Leander Harrington, who was himself warmly dressed, apologised for the cold, and suggested that one of the footmen be sent to inform the ladies’ maids that their mistresses would need warm shawls.

  ‘I had thought that the fire and the heat of the day would warm the room sufficiently, but it seems not,’ he offered. ‘These old buildings are difficult to heat and one would hardly wish to install one of Count Rumford’s grates: it would quite spoil the room’s beauty. Think how the poor monks must have suffered in winter, eh, Devenish?’

  Devenish, thus appealed to, found himself saying, quite why he did not know, ‘Very odd, don’t you think, Harrington, that the houses of the religious were always so cold when we are reliably informed that the Devil was the master of the cold? One might have supposed that their prayers would have kept him away.’

  He was astonished at the reception of what he had meant as an idle witticism. Lady Cheyne gave a hysterical titter and hit at him with her fan. Giles Stone, seated at a little distance from his sister, exclaimed merrily, ‘You must have been reading Monk Lewis’s masterpiece, Devenish!’

  Leander Harrington, however, frowned, and George Lawson who had just lifted his glass of wine in order to toast Drusilla, gasped, and dropped it. The red liquid ran along the white damask of the cloth like blood gushing from an artery.

  ‘Pray forgive me,’ he almost stuttered. ‘But you startled me, m’lord, by speaking of the Devil so lightly.’

  Devenish raised the quizzing glass which he always wore but rarely used, and stared at him through it.

  ‘Why, sir,’ he drawled, ‘as a man of the cloth I would have expected you to startle the Devil, not the opposite.’

  This witticism, at least, found its mark. Toby Claridge laughed uproariously and exclaimed, ‘Caught you there, Lawson. Get out your bell, book and candle, eh.’

  ‘Hardly a remark in good taste,’ retorted Lawson. Devenish was fascinated to see that his face had turned paper-white, nay, almost green, and wondered why his and Claridge’s idle remarks should have disturbed him so.

  The sense of unease which had plagued Devenish since he had set foot in the Abbey grew stronger still. He had named the Devil, and by doing so seemed almost to have conjured him up. He had become used to jokes on his own nickname, and the reaction of some of his hearers surprised him.

  Leander Harrington said, ‘Which supernatural being controls the cold is of no import, since unfortunately, the responsibility for the warmth of this room rests with me, and I have failed you by not controlling it.

  ‘Ah, here come the maids with the shawls and the soup is ready to serve. Between these two phenomena we will, I trust, soon be warm again.’

  His little speech ended the awkward silence which had fallen on the company and conversation became general again. Drusilla, mechanically taking her shawl from her maid, was careful to avoid Cordelia Faulkner’s troubled eye, as well as George Lawson’s.

  For a brief second when Devenish had mentioned the Devil she had been fearful that she might feel again the dreadful cold which had twice overcome her that day, but fortunately, no such thing had occurred, and equally fortunately the rest of supper passed without further incident.

  Later, in the drawing room, Devenish, with Lady Cheyne still firmly attached to him, was apologised to by Leander Harrington for the lack of warmth in the supper room. Before he could reply, Lady Cheyne carolled at her host, ‘Why, Mr Harrington, you come apropos, Lord Devenish and I have decided that we wish to visit the Abbey crypt in order to discover whether it is as horrid as Mrs Radcliffe says they are!’

  ‘No, not horrid at all, ma’am,’ replied Mr Harrington hastily. ‘Boring, in fact—and dark. No one has set foot in it for years. You would not like it at all.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I should, shouldn’t I, Lord Devenish? One expects a crypt to be dark, but you would be able to provide us with lights, would you not? What else are footmen for?’

  For whatever reason, it was plain to Devenish that Mr Harrington had no wish for anyone to visit the crypt.

  ‘It’s damp,’ he muttered, ‘there would be rats—and smells, perhaps.’

  ‘Rats and smells, eh! Do you hear that, Lord Devenish? I thought you said that there were no ferocious animals in Surrey! I am more than ever determined to see this horrid place. A few pistol shots would suffice to dispose of the rats before we go down. I am not a woman to allow such small drawbacks to stop me from such an adventure.’

  The look on Mr Harrington’s face was an agonised one. So agonised that the strange something which took Devenish over occasionally had him vigorously seconding Lady Cheyne’s tactless efforts to make Mr Harrington do something which he most palpably didn’t want to do. Why in the world did he not want anyone to visit his damned crypt? It was only a cellar, after all.

  ‘Oh, come, Harrington,’ he drawled. ‘If the lady asserts that she is prepared to brave the worst which you can suggest to her, it is surely the part of a gentleman to allow her to indulge herself.

  ‘Besides, I have a sudden burning desire to see the crypt myself. Most odd. I have never been interested in them before.’

  Beleaguered, Mr Harrington reluctantly gave way. ‘Oh, very well, but you will both have to wait a little. I must send some men down to make sure that all is safe there.’

  ‘Oh, capital,’ exclaimed Giles, who had been an eager listener—with several others—to this discussion. ‘I have often wanted to visit a crypt—ever since I read Monk Lewis’s book, in fact. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.’

  ‘Now, Giles,’ said Drusilla anxiously, ‘are you sure that you will be able to manage the stairs in the semi-dark?’

  His face fell so much that Devenish drawled, ‘Have no fear, Mrs Faulkner, I myself will lend an arm to see he makes the descent safely.’

  Lady Cheyne was not best pleased by this offer, saying ungraciously, ‘I was depending on your arm to assist me, Lord Devenish.’

  ‘Never fear,’ said Devenish smoothly. ‘Mr Stammers will be only too happy to assist you, I’m sure.’

  Drusilla’s cough to conceal her amusement at the sight of Rob Stammer’s stunned face as Devenish made this handsome, but unwanted, offer on his behalf, was the only response other than that of Miss Faulkner’s.

  She said, her voice as disapproving as she could make it, ‘I’m sure that when Mr Lewis wrote The Monk he could not have known what a brouhaha it would cause, inconveniencing Mr Harrington and giving us all nightmares. I wonder at you allowing Giles to read it, Drusilla.’

  ‘Oh, she didn’t, aunt,’ responded Giles cheerfully. ‘I borrowed it from a friend and read it in the Folly. I never brought it into the house at all.’

  ‘Very enterprising of you, Giles,’ drawled Devenish, ‘There’s nothing for it, Harrington. You’ll have to escort all these enthusiasts into the crypt as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’m sure I shan’t go,’ Miss Faulkner muttered at Drusilla. ‘I recommend you not to, either. There might be horrid things lying about.’

  ‘Not after three hundred years,’ returned Drusilla, who had been amusedly watching Devenish’s devious efforts to rid himself of the leech-like Lady Cheyne. She hoped that he would soon be free of her for she wished to twit him about his sudden desperate desire to visit the crypt.

>   Had he seconded Lady Cheyne in order to inconvenience Mr Harrington, or was it for some other reason? She doubted that he was an enthusiast either for Mrs Radcliffe or Monk Lewis. She had no desire to visit the crypt herself for she was fearful that it might set off another strange attack. She would ask Devenish about it when he returned.

  This thought amused her. Since when had she become so familiar with him that her first thought these days was always of him and his doings?

  Fortunately both Devenish and Rob Stammers were relieved of Lady Cheyne’s company by their host who, fearing that he might have offended her by his reluctance over the crypt, felt that it was his duty to give her a guided tour of the ground floor of the Abbey. This enabled Rob to hiss at Devenish, ‘What the devil were you up to, Hal, saddling me with that painted gossip?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t think that I deserved to be the only sufferer,’ retorted Devenish. ‘I thought that you would be pleased to learn that she was one woman whom I didn’t want to seduce!’

  Only the nearby presence of Drusilla and Giles prevented Rob from doing his friend and patron some violence. To steady himself he turned to Drusilla and said, a trifle savagely, ‘I would imagine, Mrs Faulkner, that you were a little surprised to learn that Devenish here was such an enthusiast for the Tales of Terror that he could not wait to visit a crypt.’

  Drusilla’s smile was poisonously sweet. ‘Oh, nothing Lord Devenish did would ever surprise me, Mr Stammers, and ought not to surprise you, seeing that you have known him since you were boys together, I understand.’

  Devenish’s laugh was a genuine one. ‘Bravely said. You see, Rob, others know us better than we know ourselves.’

  Rob gave Drusilla an ungrudging smile. ‘You rebuked us both equally, and I think that we both deserved it. You know, Mrs Faulkner, I think that it would do Lord Devenish a power of good if he had someone like yourself to bring him down to earth occasionally.’

  ‘Occasionally?’ Devenish’s beautiful eyebrows rose and he bowed at Drusilla. ‘Nonsense, she never stops. Her conversation with me is one long reprimand—charmingly delivered. Yes, I was wrong to foist Lady Cheyne on Rob, but he deserves a little punishment for constantly misreading all my better motives.’

  ‘Which are?’ asked Drusilla, raising her own eyebrows.

  ‘You may ask, but I shall not answer. I do have them, you know.’

  Giles, puzzled a little by the turn which the conversation had taken, said in his forthright manner, ‘Take no notice of Dru, Devenish. She means well—I think,’ he ended dubiously and set the company laughing.

  After that there was nothing for it but to persuade Mr Harrington when he returned that there was no necessity for him to clean the crypt—most of the company were determined to visit it as soon as possible on the morrow and would brook no delay.

  To which demand he had no option but to agree—with reluctance.

  ‘I see, m’lord, that you are suitably dressed for this excursion. I might have guessed that you would not go down into the bowels of the earth in dandy fashion.’

  Devenish bowed in acknowledgement of Drusilla’s mild teasing of him—he was growing used to it. He and the rest of Leander Harrington’s guests were standing in the ruins of the Abbey church near to the trapdoor in the stone pavement which led down to the crypt. They were passing the time while waiting for their host’s arrival by gossiping mildly.

  Lady Cheyne had Rob firmly in her toils and was regaling him with the convoluted plot of The Necromancer of the Black Forest. Beside her stood George Lawson, a long-suffering expression on his face.

  ‘Indeed, Mrs Faulkner,’ Devenish replied as he straightened up from his bow, ‘as you see, I have come prepared. I expect to find cobwebs, dusts and spiders, and perhaps a few pools of water awaiting us. Boots and gaiters and a dark frock-coat seemed to be the order of the day, not my usual finery.’

  ‘You should have warned Lady Cheyne, Devenish. Her turnout seems to be more suitable for a garden party,’ was Giles’s immediate and irrepressible remark.

  ‘Hush, Giles,’ ordered Drusilla. ‘She will hear you.’

  ‘All the better for her, then,’ he riposted. ‘It might serve to persuade her that her pink silk frock and white kid slippers ought to be exchanged for something more practical.’

  Devenish came to Drusilla’s rescue. ‘Come, Master Giles,’ he said in his most honeyed voice, ‘has no one ever informed you that no true gentleman ever makes personal remarks about those around him?’

  Very little could silence Giles. ‘But you make them all the time, Devenish,’ he protested.

  Drusilla rolled her eyes heavenward. Devenish adjusted his minimal cravat—no waterfalls or Napoleons for him this morning—and drawled, ‘But I am not a gentleman, Master Giles, I am a nobleman and may do as I please—short of murder, that is. Ah, here comes our host, and the footmen with flambeaux to light our way.’

  ‘You will be careful, Giles,’ begged Drusilla. ‘Do not allow yourself to become over-excited.’

  ‘Really, Dru, you are nearly as much of an old fusspot as Aunt Faulkner these days,’ said Giles crossly. ‘I am eighteen you know.’

  ‘Quite an elderly gentleman,’ said Devenish reprovingly. ‘Take my arm and try to behave like one. We shall shortly set off on our expedition. The trapdoor is open, the footmen have gone down, and all that we have to do is negotiate the stone stairway. You are sure that you will not come with us, Mrs Faulkner? I am quite capable of looking after both you and Giles.’

  ‘I dare not risk making a fool of myself for two days in succession,’ was her reply. ‘You may tell me of it when you return.’

  ‘If we return,’ he said with something uncommonly like a grin. ‘Who knows what may be waiting for us down there?’

  Lady Cheyne heard him and shrilled, ‘Oh, something horrid, I do hope. I shall scream, I know I shall. You must be sure to catch me if I faint, Mr Stammers. I should not like to dash my head on the stone floor.’

  No, but Rob might, was Devenish’s inward and unkind comment, but he said nothing, concentrating on assisting Giles to descend safely underground.

  The steps were uneven and Drusilla’s misgivings proved to be reasonable. Giles, for all his determination to live as though he were not crippled, made heavy weather of them—as did Lady Cheyne who was immediately ahead of them.

  They found themselves in a large chamber with a surprisingly high roof. At the east end of it the remains of a stone altar stood upon a low dais. Each side of the long room was filled with ledges on which stone coffins—now empty—stood. Their stone lids had been thrown down, broken, and heaped around the door by which they had entered.

  The footmen’s flambeaux threw flickering and grotesque shadows on the walls, floor and the faces of the company. The corners of the crypt were hidden in pools of darkness. A musty smell, the smell of long ages gone by, filled the air.

  Even Lady Cheyne was silenced. She said no more after breathing the one word ‘Horrid.’

  It was left to Devenish to break the silence. ‘They must have conducted services down here,’ he remarked. He had helped Giles to sit and rest upon one of the larger pieces of stone, and now strolled towards the altar.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Harrington. ‘The Abbots were brought down here after death. The coffins were opened, their bodies were removed and thrown into the lake at the back of the Abbey at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. The valuables in the coffins and the church were looted by the locals, I understand, before King Henry VIII’s Commissioners arrived to deal with the property.’

  ‘Like France in 1789,’ commented Devenish, who alone of the party appeared not to be affected by his dark and gruesome surroundings. ‘The crypt is not used now, I suppose.’

  ‘No, indeed. I really should have impressed on you how very little there is to see,’ frowned Mr Harrington. ‘I hope that you are not disappointed. I think that we ought to return now.’

  Lady Cheyne found her voice again. ‘Oh, I am not disa
ppointed, Mr Harrington, not at all. This exceeds all my expectations. So romantic, so horrid. And the smell…’ She sniffed the air like a pointer. ‘I do believe that I can still smell the incense which they used so long ago.’

  Giles’s sniff was one of disbelief. Rob Stammers, always practical, murmured, ‘How safe is it down here? Our ancestors’ grasp of architectural principles was not as strong as ours.’

  ‘Oh, quite safe,’ said Mr Harrington, moving towards the door. ‘I think that we may leave now. You have seen all that there is to see.’

  Devenish, listening to him, caught a note of desperation in his host’s voice. He seemed resolutely determined that the party’s stay in the crypt should be as short as possible. Now, why should that be? As he had expected, the crypt had turned out to be merely a glorified cellar. Like Lady Cheyne he was intrigued by the smell. He, too, could have sworn he smelled incense.

  Which was nonsense, of course. The party was now filing back upstairs and he was the furthest away from the door. His duty to Giles meant that he ought to prevent him from trying to essay the stairs on his own. He turned towards the exit just as the footman nearest to him moved away and left him in the dark.

  Unlike Lady Cheyne he found nothing romantic in this. He walked forward—and caught his foot against a broken piece of stone left behind when the remains of the coffin lids had been moved. He stumbled and, to prevent himself from falling, caught at the stone altar, but even then, landed on one knee.

  He began to rise, kicking away the piece of stone as he did so. His eyes had adjusted rapidly to the dark once the light had gone, and he saw that moving the stone had revealed something on the ground which had been trapped and hidden between the stone and altar.

  He bent to pick it up. It was a gold signet ring.

  He stared at it, and some instinct—the same instinct which had often warned and protected him—had him slipping it into his breeches pocket without examining it further, or saying anything of it.