At the touch of her hand he rolled over, sat up and, breathing as though he had just run a race, said, ‘Forgive me. I quite forgot myself. I had not meant to leap on you and try to ravish you so suddenly.’
Drusilla tried to offer him a light laugh—and failed. It sounded more like a sob.
‘Ravish me, indeed! Any ravishment was mutual. If you were trying to tear my dress off then I was equally as urgent with your breeches flap! Or hadn’t you noticed?’
He stared down, to find it hanging loose. He began to button himself up again.
‘Oh, by God, so you were! A fine pair, are we not! I did not mean to demean your passion for me, when I broke off so suddenly. You must admit that I was its instigator even though I have been telling myself every time that I see you that I must behave myself. You are no lightskirt and I must not behave as though you are. Nor are you the sort of woman with whom I might enjoy a passing hour—and then never think of again.’
‘What sort of woman am I, then?’ asked Drusilla, whose whole body was aching as a result of fulfilment denied.
Devenish, his clothing decently rearranged, changed his posture again in order to kneel before her, his head slightly bent. ‘A good woman whom I respect, and must not treat lightly.’
He wanted to say more but the words stuck in his throat. Was ‘I love you’ so hard to say that he could not come out with it? The habit of a lifetime’s dedication to bachelorhood was keeping him silent.
‘I am not to enjoy myself?’
This came out almost as a plea. Drusilla would not, for very shame, beg him to make love to her, even though in some odd way it irked that he respected her so much that he forgot that she had needs and passions to be satisfied, too.
She pulled her skirts primly down—in their abortive love-making they had somehow risen around her waist.
Devenish could not immediately answer her. He was watching her endow all her movements with a natural grace beyond that of any other woman he had ever met. Was that the truth? Or was it love speaking? He did not know.
‘I would not ruin you,’ he came out with at last. Later, alone in his room, he was to think what a fool he had been not to throw away his confounded principles and tell her that he loved her, come what may. Even if in honour, he must marry her after making love to her to save her reputation, not his own, for he had none.
Would marriage to Drusilla Faulkner be so very dreadful?
Might it not, on the contrary, be his salvation?
Reason, always strong in him, checked this suddenly tempting thought a little by reminding him that, whilst he was in the middle of what was turning out to be a dangerous enterprise he ought not to involve her with him more than was necessary—for her own sake.
Later—well, later might be different.
But at the time, ‘I would not ruin you,’ was all he could find to say to her.
‘Well, that’s a cold comfort,’ returned Drusilla bitterly. ‘It’s enough to make me not want to be a good woman if being the other kind would have you in my arms!’
Devenish could not help himself. He began to laugh. It was very much the kind of thing he might have said himself if he had ever found himself in such a situation.
Momentarily Drusilla glared at him—and then joined him in his amusement. He moved over towards her and, defying temptation held her tenderly in his arms.
He pulled his handkerchief from his breeches pocket and wiped her streaming eyes. ‘My dearest dear, I must not betray you, however powerfully we are drawn to one other. Let me help you to your feet and walk you back to the house. I was wrong to bring you out here alone, feeling for you as I do.’
It was the nearest he could get to saying, I love you, and would have to do for the moment.
Drusilla took comfort from him—as he had intended. She had often deplored Miss Faulkner’s tendency to turn into a watering pot the moment life became difficult. She must not fall into the same trap herself.
It seemed strange to be walking back to the house so formally, as though nothing in the world had happened. Later, when, like Devenish, Drusilla thought of that afternoon’s work, she came to a conclusion which she hoped was a correct one: that Devenish’s holding off, far from proving that he did not love her, seemed, on the contrary, to prove that he did.
That being so, what was preventing him from declaring his love and marrying her?
It could not be that her birth was low, nor that she lacked wealth. Both the Stones and the Faulkners had been gentry families since Elizabethan times and might even consider themselves superior to the Devenishes, whose title and position only dated back to the end of the seventeenth century. She was well aware that the families of such as Devenish, although rich themselves, invariably wished to marry money and her own financial situation was more than comfortable.
So, what could it be? Reason said perhaps, after all, she was nothing but a passing fancy for him, something to combat rural boredom. Emotion said no, not at all, everything he says and does betrays the opposite.
In the end she came to the conclusion that it was useless to fret: time might tell in the end, even if it told her something which she did not wish to hear!
Chapter Ten
The library at Tresham Hall was a large one. Devenish’s grandfather had been a bibliophile who actually read his books and did not simply collect them. Since then the post of librarian had been an honoured and relatively well-paid one.
Devenish’s first instinct was to consult the current occupier of the post, Dr Jonas Southwell, as to whether the library held any books on the occult in general, and the celebration of the Black Mass in particular.
On second thoughts he decided not to. The fewer who knew what he might suspect, the better. He remembered how surprised Rob Stammers had been when they were adventuring in Europe during the late war to discover exactly how cautious his romantic-looking friend was.
Always guard your back was Devenish’s motto.
He left Drusilla with a chaste kiss on her cheek to return home to Tresham Hall and visit the library as though he were looking for casual reading matter. In reality he was looking for evidence to confirm his growing belief that Marsham Abbey was being used to stage the Black Mass.
He roved around the shelves—a somewhat fruitless task since the books did not seem to be arranged in any order that he could discover. It was when he came to half a shelf devoted to the letters of Madame de Sévigné, a famous gossip of the court of Louis XIV, that something casual said to him long ago in this very room came to his aid.
When he had reached the age of sixteen his grandfather had provided him with a French tutor, ‘French being the language of gentlemen and diplomats,’ he had proclaimed. Devenish had had no intention of being a diplomat, but French fascinated him, and Monsieur de Castellane, a French émigré aristocrat trying to earn a living, had found him an apt pupil and encouraged him to read widely.
De Castellane had stood before this very shelf, had pulled one of the volumes of Madame de Sévigné’s letters out and said, ‘You will find them a mine of delectable French and equally delectable scandal. You are old enough, I think, to read her letters about the brouhaha around Louis XIV’s mistress, Madame de Montespan, when she resorted to the Black Mass in secret to try to rekindle his interest in her. I will not say further, only that, as a result, half the aristocracy and a large number of the common people went to their deaths.
‘Such,’ he had added, ‘has always been the consequence for those who practise it. Some of the French Radicals were reported to have done so in order to bring about the Revolution since legal and Christian methods had failed.’
For some reason which he could not recollect he had never read the letters—perhaps it was because Monsieur le Marquis de Castellane had left, suddenly and mysteriously, shortly afterwards, running off with the pretty youngest daughter of the then Lord Cheyne.
His departure had also coincided with Devenish’s grandfather deciding that he was ready to go to Universi
ty, where he had been sent with another tutor, Patrick MacAndrew, a harsh man who had orders to see that Henry Devenish should spend his time working and do nothing to disgrace the Devenish name—unlike his worthless father.
He pulled out the last volume to check the index for the name of Madame la Marquise de Montespan. Oh, she was there, her infamy waiting to be discovered over two hundred years after her death.
And so were all Madame de Sévigné’s eagerly recorded details surrounding the scandal. Devenish read them at speed—another of his talents—and having done so, walked to the books on theology, to inspect them closely, much to the surprise of Dr Southwell who had emerged from his study to find m’lord’s interest settled on something new.
‘May I be of assistance, m’lord?’
‘Perhaps,’ returned Devenish. ‘Much was spoken of the Devil at Mr Harrington’s recent house party. I wondered what current theology made of him?’ It was as near as he dare get to the subject which was occupying his mind.
‘Current theology does not concern itself overmuch with him,’ said Dr Southwell drily. ‘Unlike our ancestors to whom he was as real as God, and as powerful. In a different way, of course,’ he added, lest he be misunderstood.
‘Of course, safer not to provoke him. After all, one might end up like Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus—carried screaming off to Hell.’
‘Best not to mock him, either,’ said Dr Southwell, dourly.
‘Just to be on the safe side?’ replied Devenish as frivolously as he could, playing the idle nobleman to perfection.
‘Exactly.’
‘And did my grandfather, who, I believe, bought most of the books in the library, buy anything about the Devil?’
‘I am not sure, m’lord. I don’t think so. I could look about for you, but I don’t offer much hope.’
Devenish not only minded his back: he guarded his front as well. After Dr Southwell had begun his search of the library he asked himself why he should have lied to him. For there, on the lowest shelf of all, which he had just been inspecting before the good doctor had left his study to join him, was a copy of the Grimoire, a book which concentrated on the occult and in which the Devil played a part.
To suppose that Dr Southwell was part of the conspiracy might make him like the man in Shakespeare who found it easy to suppose a bush to be a bear. On the other hand, he must be surrounded by conspirators who knew only too well what had happened to the girls and why.
Two difficulties confronted Devenish. The first being that he was in the dark about who the participants in the Mass were, and secondly, that he had absolutely no proof sufficiently convincing for any action to be taken by the authorities.
He could guess, but not prove, that many of the local nobility and gentry must be involved. He had no doubt, from what he had overheard at Marsham Abbey, that their leader, who probably played the part of the Satan who presided over the Mass, was Leander Harrington.
Parson Lawson was the minister who performed the Mass, and some of their senior servants, like Dr Southwell, who were themselves the children of gentry, might also be part of the congregation.
Had the whole thing begun as a kind of game, a perversion of the activities nearly fifty years ago of Sir Francis Dashwood’s so-called Hell Fire Club? That, despite its name, had been little more than an aristocrats’ drinking den, with a few of the willing local girls thrown in for their carnal pleasures.
Lord Byron, it was said, had organised something similar at his home, Newstead Abbey, but neither of these activities had resulted in the deaths of men and women.
Devenish thought again of Monsieur de Castellane of whom he had not thought these many years. Of his sudden disappearance—and that of a local young woman of good birth. Was that disappearance mysterious? Could it tell him anything that might be useful to him in his present dilemma?
He decided to visit Rob Stammers in his little office.
As usual, Rob was hard at work. He looked up when Devenish entered and said in his usual dry, but perceptive, manner. ‘What is it, Hal? You look as though you have the cares of the world on your shoulders.’
‘Not quite that. I was in the library and remembered a conversation I had with Monsieur de Castellane, years ago. What exactly happened to him, Rob? One moment he and I were enjoying the life of the mind together and then he was gone—without a word of explanation. When I asked Grandfather where he was, he roared at me for my impudence and told me it was no business of mine.
‘Whose business was it, then? Do you know? Did your father, who was agent at the time, ever say anything about him to you?’
Rob put down his quill pen, leaned back and sighed. ‘I only remember that about the time de Castellane left there was trouble at Tresham Hall. You knew nothing of it because…’ He paused.
‘Because I was confined to the attics and only let out once a day either to work in the library or be taught to ride…No need to tell me what I know. Tell me what I don’t know.’
This was pure Hal, as bitter as acid. Rob ignored the slight, and continued. ‘I remember your grandfather being closeted with my father, de Castellane and old Beaufort Harrington, Leander’s father. They were shouting at each other.’
He smiled reminiscently. ‘I was listening at the door, but I could hear very little. Finally my father threw the door open and strode off down the corridor, de Castellane following. They didn’t see me, because I was behind the door when it was thrown open. I heard your grandfather raging at old Beaufort, and then I ran away in case my father came back and found me eavesdropping. The next day de Castellane left—I saw him enter your grandfather’s coach and watched it all the way down the drive.
‘They said that the youngest Cheyne girl ran away from home at the same time. I know that they were sweet on each other.’
‘And that was all?’
‘Not quite. Your grandfather and Beaufort Harrington, who had been extremely friendly, had little to do with one another after that.’
‘Have you any idea where de Castellane went?’
Rob stared at him. ‘Why, Hal? Why do you want to know now, so many years later?’
‘Never mind that.’ Hal was suddenly as autocratic as his late grandfather, no longer Rob’s old friend to whom he usually spoke on equal terms. ‘Just answer my question.’
‘I’m not sure. From something my father once said I believe that they corresponded with one another for some time. If you want to know what his address was then, I have your grandfather’s post book to hand. He was most meticulous in keeping his records. You would like me to inspect it?’
‘Immediately.’
Rob rose and walked over to where shelves stacked with ledgers and papers rose from floor to ceiling. If the late Earl Devenish and Rob’s father had been meticulous in the organisation and running of the estate, he and Hal were no less so.
He pulled down a shabby red leather-bound book with gilt trim and turned its pages rapidly.
‘Ah, yes. Here we are. It was shortly before your grandfather died. He had been writing to de Castellane to offer him financial assistance in setting up an Academy. The Marquis wrote back from an address just off Piccadilly—4, St James’s Court—to thank him for his help.
‘I’m pretty certain that was the last time we at Tresham Hall corresponded with him. Certainly I’ve had no dealings with him in my time.’
Devenish picked up Rob’s pen and a piece of paper and made a note of what he had just heard. ‘Thanks, Rob. I’m sorry I was a little unmannerly towards you just now. Mrs Faulkner has reprimanded me more than once for my rudery to my fellows, and she is right to do so. You are always most helpful, and I ought not to snap at you.’
Rob shook his head. ‘And I ought to remind you that that address is thirteen years old—he may no longer live there. Do you wish me to write to him?’
‘I’ll think about it. Let’s leave it at that for the present.’
Now this was not honest of him, Devenish knew. What he wished to ask de Castellan
e could not easily be written in a letter which might go astray. It had to be said face to face.
He would go to London—ostensibly on other business—to see if he could find the man who had driven away from Tresham Hall so suddenly and so mysteriously.
Drusilla was playing backgammon with Giles on the day after Devenish’s visit, but her mind was not on the game and he told her so.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll try to concentrate.’ Which she did so determinedly that she ran out an easy winner.
‘I wish I’d kept my mouth shut,’ grumbled Giles, ‘and beaten you. But you know, Dru, you’re not quite A1 at Lloyd’s these days. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ she said—and knew that she lied. Devenish was the matter, and for two reasons. The first was that she was still not certain what his intentions towards her were. She had once read Les Liaisons Dangereuses and she could not help but wonder whether, like the wicked Vicomte de Valmont in the book, he was engaged in slowly and deviously seducing her whilst pretending to be in love with her.
That was how de Valmont had betrayed the virtuous Madame la Présidente de Tourvel, as part of a vile game which he and the even more vicious Madame de Merteuil were engaged in. She didn’t think that Devenish was conspiring with the equivalent of Madame de Merteuil, but she did think that there was a chance that he was playing de Valmont’s part.
And la Présidente had been in love with de Valmont as she, Drusilla, was in love with Devenish, but that had not saved her from him.
The second reason was quite different. She thought that Devenish was troubled about something, and that that something was, strangely enough, connected with her late husband. Entwined with this reason were her own misgivings about the strange occurrences in Tresham Magna church.
She had joked with Miss Faulkner and Lady Cheyne about the black candles and their possible connection with the Black Mass, but her amusement had not been genuine. And then she had seen Devenish’s strange reaction when the Black Mass had been mentioned.
The Devil and Drusilla Page 16