The Devil and Drusilla Read online

  Had she done so Devenish would have told her that in this matter he dare trust no one—not even Rob. The conspiracy was wide-ranging, and considering the seriousness of the crimes which had been committed, the members of it must be desperate men. And they would undoubtedly form a large number of his male guests at Tresham Hall.

  He released her hand, and watched her slip his letter into her embroidery bag. She saw his eyes follow her action, and said softly, ‘Do not trouble yourself, Hal. I shall take good care of it and see that it is stowed away in my portable writing desk of which only I possess the key. God grant that I may never have to send it on.’

  ‘Oh, I second that most fervently,’ he told her, something of his usual, slightly mocking, manner returning. ‘Now let us talk of pleasant things. I look forward to seeing you at Tresham. And Miss Faulkner, of course. Giles said earlier that she is due to return this afternoon.’

  ‘Yes, and it is good of you to ask her, knowing how much she disapproves of you.’

  ‘Oh, I am used to being disapproved of—what I would object to is being disposed of.’

  This rather grim joke did disturb Drusilla’s calm. ‘Oh, how can you jest so if you are really in danger?’

  ‘Well, weeping about it won’t help. Cheer up, my love. I have been in danger before and I have survived—as I hope I shall survive this.’

  Drusilla could not prevent herself from saying, ‘Has it anything to do with the Black Mass?’

  Now what had made her say such a thing? He answered her question with another. ‘Why, Drusilla? Do you know something of which you ought to tell me?’

  ‘Not really—only what I told you on your last visit—and because I keep having strange dreams about Jeremy in which he is pursued by something evil. Forgive me, I vowed that I would not question you, and here I am breaking my word. You will think me a ninnyhammer.’

  ‘No, indeed. You will have me breaking my word, too, and making love to you instanter, here in the open, on the lawn, if you look at me like that.’

  ‘Like what, Hal? Whatever can you mean?’ This came out demurely, but her expression was both naughty and provoking.

  It provoked him.

  ‘You know. You do not need me to tell you. As though you could eat me whole.’

  ‘Well, that is not surprising since that is how you look at me—when we are alone, that is.’

  ‘Vixen,’ Devenish said, and made to embrace her passionately, but, for safety’s sake, he changed his mind at the very last moment and all that Drusilla received was the usual chaste kiss on her cheek.

  He recognised her disappointment even though she tried to mask it. ‘No, not now,’ he said, ‘but later…ah, yes, later will be a different thing. For the present we must behave ourselves. For your safety—and for mine—we must not appear to be too involved. I alone must be their target, and you must not be a hostage to fortune through whom they might strike at me, destroying you in the process.’

  Drusilla wanted to ask him who they were, but desisted. He had become grave again. Miss Faulkner had once told her that when he looked so he was very like his formidable grandfather whose stern severity had been legendary in the district.

  So she said no more, but after he had taken her hand to kiss it, she would not let it go, but clutched at it desperately, saying, ‘Oh, you will take care, Hal. Promise me that you will take no unnecessary risks.’

  ‘Dearest girl,’ he whispered, taking her hand and placing it against his heart, so that she might feel its steady beat—as he had earlier felt her pulse. ‘All risks, I fear, are unnecessary, or they would not be risks. I will be as careful as events will allow me to be, and you must promise me that you will never walk abroad without one of Giles’s hulking footmen accompanying you. And that applies even if Miss Faulkner is with you.’

  ‘I promise,’ she whispered.

  ‘That, at least, relieves me a little, and when you visit Tresham I shall make sure that you are safe. And now I must leave you, for there is much to do at Tresham before it is ready to receive my guests.’

  He paused, and turned his head away from her for a moment, before saying quietly, ‘It is a beautiful place and it grieves me a little that I have allowed it to be neglected. It was childish of me to punish a building in order to hit back at a dead old man. I have told Rob that it is our duty not only to restore it, but to embellish it to make up for its lost years.’

  There was no one else but Drusilla to whom he could explain this and be understood. ‘I must not drench you in remorse,’ he said, ‘it’s a childish passion for it mends nothing. The thing to do is to behave better in future.’

  Drusilla said, again without willing it as she so frequently did when with him, ‘Oh, I know that feeling; after Jeremy died I thought of all the things I might have said to him and did not. I even blamed myself that he must have died so far from home, which was foolish, I know.’

  ‘But human,’ he said, giving her hand one last kiss, before releasing it and saying, ‘Adieu, my heart.’ And so he left her, striding across the lawn towards the house as though he were setting off for battle.

  Which in a way he was, and Drusilla wished, too late, that she had given him some favour to take with him such as ladies used to bestow on knights of old.

  The weather, which earlier that summer had been both cold and wet, had improved as August ran towards September and, on the day the guests assembled at Tresham Hall, was almost Mediterranean with a brilliant sky of Wedgwood blue.

  The harvest, Rob had told Hal earlier that day, whilst not good, would be better than they might have expected, which would have the advantage of allaying some of the discontent which the two previous bad summers and consequent poor harvests had created.

  Not that most of the guests allowed such mundane considerations to distract them from their pleasures. They arrived in their fine carriages to be met by bowing servants who showed them to their rooms, where everything had been arranged for their comfort.

  Drusilla found herself in a suite at the side, away from the bustle of the stables and possible noise from those using the front doors. From what Devenish had told her she had thought that she would find the house a little shabby, but there was no sign of this. Quite the contrary, its magnificence seemed to be undimmed.

  She remarked on it when she met Leander Harrington in the large drawing room where portraits of earlier members of the Devenish family covered the walls above glass-fronted cabinets filled with the finest China.

  ‘Oh, he must have spent a fortune over the past few weeks in order to achieve its present splendour,’ Mr Harrington assured her. ‘It was in a parlous state the last time young Stammers allowed me in so that I might use the library. That room, at least, was kept up, and stocked with all the latest books, Devenish being a bibliophile, as you doubtless know.’

  No, Drusilla did not know, but the news did not surprise her. Nothing about Devenish would ever surprise her, she thought. He was such a strange mixture of contrarinesses and paradoxes, but she was becoming convinced that a good heart lay beneath them.

  Their host arrived while they were talking and said, ‘Did I hear the word library spoken? Knowing you, Mrs Faulkner, I cannot believe that it would be long before you discovered its whereabouts. Harrington I believe, already knows them—or so Rob Stammers tells me.’

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Mr Harrington smoothly, ‘he has been kindness itself in allowing me to consult some of your rarer texts, although he has never allowed me to borrow them.’

  ‘And quite right, too,’ smiled Devenish. ‘You know the old saying: “A book lent is a book lost”—is not that so, Mrs Faulkner? I understand that you are something of a bibliophile yourself.’

  It doubtless amused him to speak to her so formally in front of others, and added a touch of innocent conspiracy to their relationship.

  She responded in kind by saying, ‘Oh, no, m’lord, I dare make no such excessive claim. Books fascinate me, but I doubt that I have the right to be described as a
bibliophile. I am, of course, very willing to learn from both of you.’

  Devenish looked around the room, noting that the company were talking gaily among themselves over the tea-boards which had been set out on every flat surface and which were being presided over by a bevy of sturdy footmen.

  ‘I don’t think that we shall be missed, Harrington, if the three of us repair to the library so that we may show Mrs Faulkner some of our rarer treasures. Tresham boasts a Caxton—one of the earliest of printed books—and a Shakespeare First Folio among others, not so old but equally as fine.’

  After he had been introduced to Drusilla, Dr Southwell duly fetched out the First Folio. He laid it carefully out on the big library table to be admired. He extolled the beauty of the binding and the print before adding to it the promised Caxton. ‘A miracle of black letter’ he called it. He told her that she was very welcome to use the library as often as she wished whilst she was staying at the Hall.

  ‘We have, of course, other treasures,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I am not sure, m’lord, whether you are aware that your late grandfather possessed a remarkable collection of works on the occult. They are not on the public shelves, being kept in a locked cupboard in my study. Mr Harrington, I know, has frequently found them of interest, although for my part, I look on this whole business as being one of black superstition rather than black magic—if you will forgive my little joke, sir,’ he said, bowing to Mr Harrington.

  ‘Indeed, I was not aware of any such thing,’ returned Devenish a trifle drily. He did not point out to Dr Southwell that he seemed to have forgotten that he had specifically informed him recently that the library possessed no such volumes! He tried to avoid Mr Harrington’s eye and to appear totally uninterested in any thing black.

  ‘Being a convinced sceptic in such matters,’ he continued, ‘I have no desire to waste my time inspecting them. I agree with you, Dr Southwell, that they belong to the ages of superstition which, I am happy to say, are long behind us.

  ‘I trust, sir,’ he said turning towards Mr Harrington, ‘that I do not offend you by being so frank if they are an interest of yours, but that is my honest opinion.’

  Mr Harrington’s response was to bow greasily in the direction of both the good doctor and Devenish.

  ‘Not at all, m’lord. My interest was purely superficial, I assure you, a matter of simple curiosity. Like you, I am a devout son of the Age of Reason—if I may use the word devout in that connection.’

  To say that Devenish did not believe a word of this charmingly spoken explanation would be an understatement. He knew that Mr Harrington must be lying in his teeth if what de Castellane had told him was true.

  Drusilla, who had remained silent whilst the gentlemen indulged themselves, said, ‘It may be simple-minded of me, but is there not some danger attached to studying such arcane and evil matters? Might it not be possible that we could be unwittingly corrupted?’

  Mr Harrington metaphorically patted her hand. ‘Now, now, my dear, the strong-minded among us are perfectly able to resist such temptation if we approach them in the theoretical sense only.’

  His tone suggested that only weak-minded women were liable to be affected. Dr Southwell said hastily, ‘I am sure that the late Lord Devenish’s interests in such matters were purely theoretical—and he was very strong-minded, m’lord, as you well know.’

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Devenish grimly, for who should know better than he how strong-minded his grandfather had been! He also knew that the late Lord’s interest in the occult was more than purely theoretical, something which he shared with Mr Harrington. He would not have wished to discuss with him anything which bore on his secret practices, but now that the matter had been raised in conversation he was not averse to continuing the discussion. Mr Harrington might yet say something incriminating which could be helpful to him.

  If Dr Southwell appeared only dimly aware that there were strong and strange undercurrents in this innocent-seeming conversation, Drusilla, knowing him, was sure that Devenish was speaking with a double tongue and she thought that Leander Harrington might be doing the same.

  She was beginning to suspect that this discussion might have something to do with the letter which he had given her for Lord Sidmouth—although how, she could not yet guess.

  Dr Southwell hastily changed the conversation by pulling an old atlas from the shelves in order to show them its beautiful plates. At this point tea, ordered by Devenish before they had adjourned to the library, arrived. It was laid out on a beautiful marquetry-topped table which stood in a giant bay window near to the library’s entrance which overlooked the elegancies of Tresham Hall’s park.

  ‘I had not known that Tresham and its grounds were so beautiful,’ Drusilla said, admiring the romantic-seeming lawn, bordered by cypresses, with a small gazebo on its two far corners.

  ‘That is my fault,’ Devenish told her. ‘I gave orders when I succeeded that the Hall should be shut up and no visitors allowed. I spared the grounds because they are so beautiful and I used to admire them from my bedroom window.’ He did not tell them that his bedroom had been in the attics, and was more sparsely furnished than any in the servants’ quarters.

  It was Leander Harrington who revived the discussion on the occult, by remarking as he replaced his tea cup in its saucer. ‘I am surprised, m’lord, that you are not interested in the occult. You have the reputation of a many-sided man who judges matters only after great consideration. If you are not prepared to study the occult, how can you make a just decision as to its merits—or lack of them?’

  ‘Oh, there are many matters on which I have an opinion, and which I have not studied. Life is too short. The laws of chance, for example, which could be useful when one gambles, I am told. I prefer to trust my instincts.’

  Now this was a thundering lie, but it was a bait put forward to tempt Leander Harrington and his possible fellow conspirators—principally Toby Claridge—to the gaming tables.

  ‘I had heard that you were a great gambler, m’lord, a heavy plunger, but that you did not, unlike many, often play, and that when you did, you invariably won. Is that true?’

  ‘Ah, that is a question which should not be put, and which I shall not answer, other than to say that if many of the gentlemen present would care to join me at the tables tonight, I shall be pleased to arrange for them to do so.’

  He turned to Drusilla and added, ‘Lest the ladies of the party should feel themselves neglected, I have arranged for the largest State Room to be cleared so that we may have a ball tomorrow evening. A party of musicians from London has already arrived to do the honours.’

  Drusilla was not pleased to hear that gaming was being proposed, and was surprised that Devenish should suggest it. ‘I have one proviso to make,’ she told him, ‘and that is that you will not allow Giles to form one of the party.’

  ‘No, indeed. The gambling fever, if caught early, can be a dangerous one. The circumstances of my life meant that I came to the tables late. The later the better.’

  ‘And if one never arrives there, the best of all,’ murmured Drusilla provokingly.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, smiling at her to show that he was not offended, ‘but gambling lends spice to otherwise dull lives.’ He could scarcely tell her that the only reason he was suggesting that the party should indulge in play was because it was part of his plans to corner Leander Harrington and his murderous fellows.

  And so it was arranged. Harrington had provided him with an opportunity, and he had taken it. So far he was certain that his prey had no notion that he had become prey, and from a quarter which he could not have suspected.

  If the women—most of whom had never shared in the life of the ton—had mixed feelings about an evening of gaming, the men were delighted. Their only complaint was that their host had only decreed one, in deference to the wishes of the ladies. Or so he said. In truth it was because he valued the opinion of one lady, Mrs Drusilla Faulkner.

  If he had not planned the gami
ng evening specifically to further his aim of trapping Leander Harrington and his associates, he would not have proposed it at all.

  In the event the ladies of the party had to be content to leave the men first to their port—as was customary—and then to the card tables which had been set up in Tresham Hall’s Venetian room—the creation of Devenish’s great-grandfather.

  He had come back from his Grand Tour of Europe loaded with loot to adorn his noble house and to demonstrate to the world his wealth and power as well as his taste. On the room’s walls hung Canalettos and Guardis showing Venice before its fall to Napoleon had finally deprived the city of its centuries-old power. Below them stood glass-fronted cabinets filled with precious porcelain and objets d’art. His grandson’s guests were gaming the night away in a treasure house.

  Dawn was gleaming through the gaps in the brocade curtains when Devenish, who had won constantly throughout the night, finally broke Sir Toby Claridge whose IOUs stood in a great pile before him.

  Toby was the last left in the game and, having drunk heavily, had rashly gambled that Devenish’s run of luck could not last. He was wrong. At half past three on a fine morning in late summer he had lost all he possessed.

  He sat there, surrounded by those who had won a little and lost a little, and did not fully understand that he was up the River Tick without a paddle. In his fuddled state he had thought that he might overcome Devenish at the gaming tables even if he had to give him best in the lists of love so far as Drusilla was concerned. Doing so would also solve his dire problems—or at least postpone the day of reckoning with his duns.

  He said nothing for the moment as, the game over, the other players began to yawn and make for bed, leaving Devenish and Toby alone together, the pile of IOUs between them. Only Devenish knew that where Toby was concerned luck had played no part in his defeat.

  Devenish had cold-bloodedly cheated him—and no one else—to bring about a situation where the man before him was at his mercy. He defended his conduct by arguing that it was the only ploy he could think of which would supply him with the information which he needed to bring Harrington to justice.