Charisa’s eyes lit up.
“You – really and – truly want – me to be your – wife?”
“I will tell you how much I want you and how much I love you as soon as this nightmare is over.”
He moved away from her as he spoke. She had no idea how much he wanted to stay and how much even at this crucial moment she excited him.
He had never imagined that anyone could look as lovely as she did.
Her hair was falling over her shoulders and her hands with their long fingers held the satin cover over her breasts.
As he reached the panel, he smiled and looked at her for a long moment.
She could see the love in his eyes.
For a moment she forgot everything else but the fact that Vincent loved her as she loved him.
It was almost too poignant to believe that they could be together and that once they were married nothing could ever hurt them again.
Then she was afraid that she was asking for too much.
She began to pray frantically that God would make it all happen.
‘Please – God – please – ’ she was saying over and over again in her mind.
*
Moving along the secret passage, Vincent peeped into the room where the Colonel was changing for dinner.
He was not surprised to see that he was lying apparently unconscious on the bed in his evening clothes.
And there was no sign of his valet.
Vincent knew that the Colonel would have told Wilkins to leave him and not to come back before he had supposedly drunk the drugged wine.
‘Gervais has certainly set the stage for his unspeakable crime!’ Vincent reflected.
He walked on down a secret passage that enabled him to look into the Mawdelyn Chapel.
As he had expected, Gervais and his friends had been busy preparing for the Black Mass.
Upside down on the altar was a large crucifix that must have come with the Chaplain from Paris and there were six long black candles.
They were stuck into small skulls, which he did not want to think were the size of very small children.
A cloth embroidered with several occult signs had been put on the altar. It was obviously where they intended to lay Charisa.
On the side table there was a loaf of bread, a knife, a chalice and a decanter of wine.
Vincent was sure it contained drugs that would inflame those who drank it.
Just as he suspected all the Satanists had already been taking drugs before they attended the Service.
He looked through the secret spyhole for only a few seconds before he moved away.
He was sickened at the thought of what would take place.
Now all he could do was to wait until the Colonel joined him.
*
It seemed to Charisa that a very long time elapsed before she heard the key turning in the lock.
She closed her eyes knowing that her arms were lying limply under the bedcover.
She heard several people come into the room and then Madame Dubus said in a thick rather unsteady voice,
“Pick her up carefully, mes braves! We don’t want any accidents.”
She was speaking in French and the man who answered her, Charisa thought, was the Comte.
"No, of course not. We will be very careful with anything so precious.”
He too sounded as if he had been drinking heavily.
As she felt his hands under her bare shoulders, Charisa wanted to scream.
She was aware as another man lifted her feet that they left the bedcover over her body.
They moved towards the door and Madame Dubus gave instructions as they did so and they proceeded down the main staircase.
Charisa wondered what had happened to the footmen who were usually in attendance.
As there was no sound from them, she guessed that Gervais had given orders that they were to remain in their own quarters.
It was growing quite late by now because they had taken a long time over dinner.
Then suddenly Charisa was aware of voices chanting.
And she knew that the sound came from the Chapel.
She could not understand the words and the sound made her shrink within herself.
She was now desperately afraid.
The voices grew louder and louder.
Now she realised that those who were carrying her had entered the Chapel and there was a strong smell of incense.
As the voices rose higher and louder, she realised that they were chanting some sort of prayer.
They were not speaking in French or in English, but in Latin.
As she was carried up the short aisle, she could recognise several names.
Nisroch, the God of hatred, Moloch, the fatalist who devours children and Adramelech, the God of murder.
She had read their names years ago in a book on witchcraft.
Now the voices of Gervais’s guests cried out in French,
“Beelzebub, Adramelech, Lucifer, come to us! Master of Darkness, we implore thee! Satan, we are thy slaves! Come. Come! Illuminate us with thy presence.”
Charisa realised by this time that she was lying on the altar.
The smell of incense was becoming overpowering.
Then a man, and she guessed that it was the Chaplain, began a prayer in Latin.
He was saying the words backwards.
She was thankful that they had not yet removed the bedcover from her body.
She was trembling and afraid they might realise that she was not unconscious, as she was supposed to be.
The first prayer was followed by another.
Now the congregation, if that was the right word for those present, joined in.
Charisa realised that they were once again calling up Satan into their midst and invoking devils.
“Belial in eternal revolt and now anarchy – Ashteroth, Nehamah, Astarte in debauchery.”
It was then that she became desperately afraid that the evil that she could feel emanating all around the Chapel would somehow affect her.
She began to pray to herself.
The words of the evening Collect she had learnt as a small child came to her.
“Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of Thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
She said it once.
Then, as the real horror of what was happening swept over her, she began it again.
“Lighten our darkness – ”
It was then that a voice rang out from the back of the Chapel.
“Stop this blasphemy!”
It was the voice of her father, strong and commanding, as he would have spoken as a soldier in the face of the enemy.
Immediately there was silence.
Now Charisa realised that her father and Vincent were marching up the aisle side by side.
It was then that the Chaplain gave a cry of horror and, even as he did so, Gervais pushed him to one side.
Charisa could not help opening her eyes to see what was happening.
Gervais was wearing a vestment embroidered with mysterious signs.
The garment was open down the front and beneath it he was naked.
He was now towering over her.
Before he spoke she saw the sharp-pointed knife that he had taken from the table in his right hand.
With his left he swept the cloth from her body, leaving her naked as he said,
“Come one step nearer and I will kill this woman, piercing her through the heart!”
He spoke in a voice that did not sound like his own.
His white face was contorted as he snarled like a wild animal.
“She is dedicated to Satan! She is his! Do not dare to disturb us or I will kill her!”
He raised the knife.
As Charisa gave a murmur of horror, a Policeman who had appeared through the door at one side of the altar shot him in the arm.
Another
Policeman coming in on the other side of the Chapel shot him in the chest.
Gervais gave a screech of pain and fell backwards, the knife clattering to the floor.
There was a shriek of consternation from the men and women in the pews.
For the moment they had been silenced by what had happened and, as they all began now to scream hysterically, Vincent rushed forward.
He picked Charisa up in his arms and wrapped the satin cover round her.
He carried her out through the side door from where the first Policeman had shot Gervais in the arm.
It all happened very swiftly and, almost before she realised it, Vincent was carrying her along the passage and up the stairs.
The voices of the screaming Satanists gradually receded into the distance.
It was only as he reached her bedroom and carried her in that she burst into tears.
“It’s all right, my precious. It is all over!” he said in a soothing voice.
She was crying too tempestuously to hear him.
He lifted her onto the bed and covered her with the sheet and blankets.
Then he bent down to kiss the tears from her eyes before stilling the trembling of her lips with his.
A surge of ecstasy swept through him like a ray of sunlight.
When he raised his head, he said,
“It is finished and it is entirely due to you, my darling, that I am a free man. How soon will you marry me?”
“Oh – Vincent – I love you,” Charisa murmured. “But – supposing – they – ”
“Leave everything to your father and the Chief Constable. We have to be very grateful to them for no one had any idea that the Policemen had slipped into the house or that the Chapel was surrounded.”
“And now – you are – really safe?” Charisa asked him.
He kissed her again before he answered,
“You saved me and now you have to look after me. We have a great deal to do together, so just forget what has happened and think only of how busy we are going to be.”
Charisa gave a little choked laugh.
“I don’t – believe that anyone has ever had such a difficult time in claiming – his title and estates!”
“The only thing I want to claim,” Vincent replied, “is you, my dearest. If you had not been here, anything might have happened. And I am quite certain that I would not have survived.”
“But you have!” Charisa cried. “And, oh, darling, it is so wonderful to know that The Priory will be itself and Holy again.”
Vincent smiled.
“Could it be anything else?” he asked. “I expect, if we knew the truth, throughout the ages there have been much worse things than French Satanists.”
Charisa looked up at him.
“You are – quite certain that they have – not invoked – devils to – remain here and – frighten us?”
“If there are any devils left behind,” Vincent said, “I am quite sure that the spirits of the monks and the Abbot himself will deal with them.”
Charisa gave a little cry.
“That is the right answer! How could I have been so stupid as not to be aware that they would not let the Priory be hurt by Satan, if he really – does exist.”
“All we are concerned with is our God, and we know He does exist!” Vincent asserted.
He kissed her again very gently before he said,
“And now, my darling, I must go downstairs to find out what is happening. Gervais is obviously badly injured. But he must leave The Priory at once and I am sure the Police will see to that.”
“You – will come – back?” Charisa asked plaintively.
“You know I will,” Vincent said. “Would you like to have Bessy with you?”
Charisa shook her head.
“Nobody but – you,” she murmured.
He kissed her again.
Then, reluctantly, as he knew that he must do his duty, he walked towards the door.
She thought as she watched him going out through the secret panel that he walked taller and his shoulders were squarer.
He looked exactly as the Marquis of Mawdelyn should look.
After he had gone she could not help crying again but this time with happiness.
God had heard her prayers.
*
It was a week later that Charisa in her own bedroom at home was dressing for her Wedding.
So much had happened that she could hardly believe it was actually her Wedding Day.
It was wrong to wish anyone dead, but it had actually been a great relief when she learned that Gervais had died on his way to the doctor.
His friends had all been transported back to France.
But they had, however, been warned that if they ever set foot in England again they would be arrested.
The Chaplain was wanted by the French Police for murder involving the sacrifice of a baby at a Satanist ceremony.
When Madame Dubus arrived in Paris, she learnt that her brother had died.
He was found in a public convenience after injecting himself with an overdose of morphine.
Vincent, as the new Marquis, had taken immediate charge of the household and estate.
It was to the delight of all those who had served his uncle before him.
‘Master Vincent’, as many of the old servants could not help calling him, was returning everything to normal.
Charisa thought that Dawkins and Mrs. Bush both looked ten years younger.
Her father was only too willing to help Vincent in any way he could.
But she knew that as soon as they were married, her large fortune would be at his disposal.
They would then employ more people on the estate, while the household would return to the perfection it had known when she was a little girl.
Most important to Charisa, however, was that every day they spent together Vincent’s love for her grew.
It was perfectly clear that his desire to marry her had nothing to do with the fact that she was rich.
He loved her because she was the one woman he had always hoped to find somewhere in the world.
Also because, as he said himself, she was such an essential part of The Priory.
He could not imagine it as his home without her being there with him.
Now she looked in the mirror at her beautiful white Wedding gown that had come from Bond Street in London.
Her maid put the lace veil over her head and added her mother’s diamond tiara.
As she did so, Charisa thought that all her dreams had come true.
‘I shall be Vincent’s wife,’ she told herself, ‘and we will be so happy at The Priory that we shall never want to go anywhere else.’
She knew that London held no charm for her when she could be riding the excellent horses they kept in the stables.
She loved moving through the great rooms and she knew that each one was sanctified by the monks who once again had fought against evil and cruelty and won.
Gervais, to their relief, had not sold the jewelled cross or the candlesticks from the Mawdelyn Chapel and they were now back in their rightful places.
The Vicar had performed a very moving Ceremony of Exorcism to sweep away the last remnants of evil that might be lingering there.
The congregation had consisted only of Vincent, Charisa, and her father and they made their responses to the prayers.
Then, as the Vicar blessed them with the jewelled cross shining behind him, she felt that the monks were praising God and the angels were singing.
She knew that all the household from her own home as well as The Priory would want to be present at their Wedding.
The Service, therefore, was to be in the big Chapel of The Priory.
To please her, the Vicar borrowed the jewelled cross from the Abbot’s Chapel for the ceremony.
“You will not be able to see it, my darling, for the flowers,” Vincent told her. “The gardeners have been working round the clock to ensure that the Chapel is a worthy background
for your beauty.”
“All I want is that you should think I am – beautiful,” Charisa answered.
“How could I think anything else?” he asked. “But it is not only your beautiful face that I love, it is your heart and soul.”
He kissed her forehead and went on,
“Like a star you have guided and inspired me ever since I crept home, frightened that at any moment I would feel Gervais’s knife between my shoulder blades.”
Charisa put her arms round his neck.
“Don’t frighten me, darling,” she begged. “I can hardly believe that there is not another wicked cousin trying to claim your title and estates!”
“There is one way for you to make certain that there are no contenders of that kind,” Vincent replied.
“How can I do that?” she asked.
“By giving me a son.”
“Of course! Why did I not think of it?” Charisa asked.
She put her arms round his neck as she said very softly,
“The Priory should be filled with children. Remember how happy we were when we were young?”
Vincent did not answer.
He only kissed her passionately and demandingly and she knew that he was excited by what she had said.
Now, as she looked at herself in the mirror, she hoped that he would always think her lovely. Then he would never want to run after any other woman.
She had heard how in London many men were unfaithful to their wives or wives to their husbands.
She had been shocked and it had worried her that any man she married might, once he had grown used to her, look around for somebody new.
It was something that her father had never done.
Now she felt sure that Vincent loved her as she loved him, not only with his heart but with his soul.
A voice from the door asked,
“Are you ready, Miss Charisa? The carriage is at the door and the Colonel’s waitin’ in the hall.”
“I am coming,” Charisa replied.
She took one last look in the mirror.
‘Please, God,’ she prayed, ‘make him always think that I am as lovely as I look today.’
Then she turned and walked down the stairs to where her father was waiting for her.
The carriage was drawn by a new team of perfectly matched black horses that the Colonel had given to Vincent as a Wedding present.
Love Strikes a Devil Page 12