The White Witch Read online

  Now as they entered the Chapel, she became aware that six other people were present and they were all men.

  They began to intone a chant which Flora thought sounded like prayers, but if they were, they were unlike any prayers that she had ever heard except that they were in Latin.

  Then to her horror she recognised several of the names they were saying. She had read of them in her father’s books.

  Adramelech, the God of murder, Moloch the fatalist who devoured children and Nisroch the God of hatred.

  Flora closed her eyes but she could feel that the man carrying her had reached the altar – the beautiful marble altar which had come from Italy.

  Now he was laying her down on the altar.

  When he had done so, he pulled away the piece of cloth Locadi had given her.

  She was lying naked on the altar.

  As the horror of her plight swept through her, she knew if she looked round what she would see.

  The men in the Chapel were now speaking in English and she heard them chanting,

  “Beelzebub, Adramelech, Lucifer, come to us! Masters of Darkness – we implore thee! Satan, we are thy slaves! Come! Come! Illuminate us with thy presence!”

  Before they uttered the last words, because she needed to know the worst, Flora opened her eyes and now she could see all too clearly what she had suspected.

  Above her was the beautiful gold cross which had always stood on the altar, but it was upside down.

  There were six black candles immediately over her and almost touching the ceiling was the image of a huge bat with its wings outstretched.

  She could see its beady eyes, its pointed nose and the hooks at the end of its great wings.

  Flora knew at once that it was the emblem of Satan and that she was taking part in a Black Mass.

  She felt it could not possibly be true.

  She had read about the Black Mass in the history books and in her father’s writings.

  Catherine de Medici had used black magic in an attempt to capture the love of her husband, the King of France, who she believed was under a spell put on him by Diane de Poitiers.

  Quite recently in France, Flora remembered her father telling her that there had been Papal denunciations against those who dabbled in the occult and especially in black magic.

  How was it possible and how could it be true that a black magic service was taking place at the castle?

  She was to be the sacrifice to Satan.

  She had read all about it in her father’s book that human sacrifices were made by those who worshipped the Devil.

  Flora had thought vaguely that the victim was usually a child or an animal. Her father had hinted that there were other rituals that were perpetrated on a woman, but she was not certain what they were.

  Now the prayers, if that was what they were, had started again.

  Moving only her eyes but not her head, Flora could see arms covered in robes embroidered with strange Satanic symbols and those arms were beseeching the bat hanging above her.

  There came to her mind something that her father had written,

  ‘Before a Black Mass starts, contrary to the custom of Christians who fast, those taking part eat and drink excessively.’

  Flora wondered if the men were all drugged as was Locadi.

  Because she was desperately afraid of what the wicked woman would do to her, she opened her eyes once again.

  Locadi was standing at the side of the altar, and she too was praying in the same manner as the men.

  Flora understood that they were calling down Satan into their midst and imploring a host of devils. She recognised some of the names they were chanting and that they were all the embodiment of evil.

  “Beliah in eternal revolt and anarchy! Ashtaroth,

  Nehamah, Astarte in debauchery!”

  Now she was really terrified.

  Once again the men and Locadi were calling to Satan to join them.

  In her terror Flora wondered if Satan really appeared to those who called on him.

  Then she remembered she was in a Chapel dedicated to God and it was only God who could help her.

  ‘Help me – please help me God,’ she cried out in her heart.

  Then she called out to the Marquis.

  She thought, just as she could read his thoughts, if she cried out to him he might just be able to hear her.

  She was desperately afraid of what would happen to her when she was to be sacrificed to Satan.

  She felt that at any moment the man standing over her might touch her, as he was very obviously the High Priest.

  Very soon now she would feel his hands on her naked body.

  Every time she opened her eyes even a fraction, she could see his hands projecting from his Satanic robe.

  ‘Help me – come to me – save me. Oh, Ivor – Ivor, save me!’

  She almost felt as if she was saying the words aloud because they flowed so intensely from her heart and her soul.

  She was praying to God.

  “Please God – let him hear me. Please – God send him – to me.”

  She became even more frightened because she could hear that the chanting was growing louder and louder.

  It was as if the men had lost control and in their intensity were almost shouting.

  “Come to us O, Master of Darkness – come to us. We are waiting.”

  It was at this moment that Flora was sure that they intended to kill her.

  She saw, because she could not help looking, that the High Priest was holding his hands over her once again, but now they were turned downwards.

  She knew they were exercising mesmeric and hypnotic power over her body and this was the signal for them to offer her as a sacrifice.

  “Ivor – Ivor!”

  Despite her fear of Locadi, the words came audibly from between her lips.

  Then suddenly there was the crash of a door bursting open and she heard the Marquis’s voice demanding furiously,

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  His voice rang out to the rafters and at that moment one of the policemen strode into the Chapel just in front of the Marquis.

  Locadi raised her revolver and shot at him.

  There was a loud explosion.

  The bullet missed the policeman by an inch and buried itself in the lintel of the door.

  There was another shot as one of the other policemen who was behind him shot directly at Locadi.

  He aimed for her arm but she had moved forward as if to gain advantage over her opponent.

  The bullet entered her breast.

  She fell over with a scream and pandemonium broke out.

  The men who had been chanting were all screaming as the police rushed towards them.

  The Marquis ran with them.

  The High Priest standing over Flora seemed bemused by what was occurring all around him.

  The Marquis swiftly caught him a hard blow on the point of his chin which knocked him over backwards and he fell to the floor with a groan.

  The Marquis did not wait to see if he was conscious or unconscious.

  He picked Flora up off the altar and carried her through the door into the room from which she had just come.

  All the policemen and the Chief Constable were by this time grappling with the Satanists in the centre of the Chapel.

  As the Marquis carried Flora into the room, he pressed his back against the door and closed it.

  Then he asked her,

  “Are you all right?”

  “I – prayed to – you to come – and save – me,”

  Flora murmured incoherently.

  “I heard you,” the Marquis replied. Thank God you have not been harmed by those monsters!”

  He could feel her naked body trembling against him.

  There were tears in her eyes but she was not crying.

  He looked at her for a long moment as if to make sure that she was not injured in any way.

  Then very gently his lips touched h
ers.

  It was a very soft and gentle kiss.

  He saw Flora’s eyes open and a light in them which had not been there before.

  “You have been so brave in resisting their evil, but now we must get out of here as quickly as possible,” the Marquis urged. “No one must know what has happened here.”

  “No – of course – not.”

  He saw her clothes lying on the bed. “Can you dress yourself,?” he asked. “Or shall I help you?”

  “I – can – manage,” Flora replied.

  She was thinking of his kiss and the strange feeling it had given her. It had somehow swept away the nightmare of everything she had just been through.

  “Hurry,” the Marquis said as he put her down very carefully on the floor.

  She moved towards the bed.

  As she did so, the Marquis pulled one of the chests in front of the door so that no one could come in unexpectedly. It was a heavy chest, carved locally at the time the Chapel was built and inset with stones.

  When he had finished the Marquis asked without turning round,

  “Are you nearly ready?”

  “Perhaps you could – do up my gown please.”

  He walked towards her realising that she had dressed as quickly as he had hoped, but her gown did up only at the back.

  He attended to the buttons and arranged the wreath tidily on her head.

  “We must go back now,” he said, “and no one will know all this has happened. The Chief Constable will see to that.”

  “Was he – with you?” Flora asked.

  “He was indeed and he entered the Chapel at the same time as I did and might easily have been shot.”

  Flora said nothing and the Marquis walked towards the door and pulled it open.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  “I will try.”

  The Marquis did not ask any more questions but merely picked her up in his arms.

  As he did so she thought how very different it felt being carried away by him from the way she had been bundled by the repulsive High Priest.

  Now in the Marquis’s arms she felt secure and safe.

  The horror and fear of what had just occurred was slipping away as if it had been a bad dream.

  He walked down the narrow path which led to the lawn and then across the grass.

  Flora thought perhaps he would take her back to the fireworks, as she could still hear explosions and the cheers of the crowd as each new display glittered over the lake.

  The Marquis however took her in by one of the doors at the back of the castle.

  He opened it without putting her down. Still carrying her he took her down a dark passage with the only light coming from the broader corridor at the end.

  Flora wondered where they were going, but somehow it did not seem to matter.

  Then they were in a very dark passage where she felt that only the Marquis would know his way.

  He pushed open another door and they entered a room which was dark although there was a faint light coming through an uncurtained window.

  The Marquis put her down gently on what she felt was a bench.

  “There is something I want to show you,” he said quietly.

  She wondered what it was, but for the moment she felt too limp to ask questions.

  He had found her and he had saved her. That was all that mattered.

  The miracle had been that he had heard her calling him when she was encompassed by evil.

  ‘He might have been an Archangel from Heaven,’ Flora thought to herself.

  Then she remembered that he had kissed her.

  She thought it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her and she knew now that she loved him.

  She had loved him for a long time, ever since she had discovered that he was so kind, sympathetic and understanding.

  But she had not realised it was love.

  She loved him and, because she was now in the darkness, she was suddenly afraid that he had left her.

  Then she became aware that he was lighting a candle at the end of the room.

  He lit another and Flora realised that she was in the Chapel in the castle which she had not visited for some time.

  The Marquis lit six candles.

  Now she could see how beautiful the castle Chapel looked with its gold cross the right way up.

  There was no hideous bat hovering above it, only the stained glass windows through which just a little light was shining from the moon and the stars.

  There was the scent not of incense but of flowers, which decorated the altar and there were large vases standing on either side.

  The Marquis came back to her and when he reached her he pulled her gently out of the chair until she was standing.

  “You have been through a most unpleasant and wicked experience,” he said, “and I thought you would like to come here as it would help you to forget it. We can also say a prayer of thankfulness to God that I reached you in time.”

  “I am – so very – grateful,” Flora stammered. At the same time it was difficult to speak because what the Marquis had said had touched her heart.

  Tears had come into her eyes.

  ‘Could any man,’ she asked herself, ‘be so wonderful and so understanding? Could any other man have remembered that the only antidote to evil is good?’ The Marquis took her up the short aisle.

  Then they knelt down on the steps which led up to the altar.

  He did not relinquish her hand and Flora held tightly on to his as she shut her eyes.

  ‘Thank you God – thank you,’ she prayed silently. ‘You sent Ivor to – save me and I – thank you from the depths of my soul.’ She sensed that the Marquis was saying the same prayer.

  Then as he rose and pulled her up beside him he put his arms round her.

  He felt her quiver and she looked up at him questioningly.

  His mouth came down on hers and he kissed her.

  At first gently and then as he felt the softness and innocence of her lips, his kisses became more demanding, more possessive.

  To Flora it was as if the Heavens had opened and the angels themselves were singing with joy and happiness.

  She knew now that the ecstasy she was feeling was unlike anything she had ever known before.

  This was the love which she had wanted all her life but had feared that it would be impossible to find.

  ‘I love you, I love you,’ she wanted to say.

  The Marquis was saying it with his kisses.

  The tightness of his arms which held her close against him made it real and not a dream.

  She thought that nothing could be more glorious, as if God Himself was smiling on them and giving them His special blessing.

  After what seemed a long time, the Marquis raised his head.

  “I love you, my darling,” he declared.

  “As I love you,” Flora whispered. “I did not know – it was love, I just knew that you were – wonderful.

  ”The Marquis smiled.

  “That is just what I want you to go on thinking. How soon will you marry me, my precious? Because I cannot live without you.”

  Flora stared at him.

  “Are – you,” she paused for a moment, “asking – me to be – your – wife?”

  “I want you to marry me at once, as quickly as possible,” the Marquis stated. “We have so much to do and we must do it together as I no longer wish to be alone.”

  He felt as he spoke that just as he had saved Flora from an unspeakable and ghastly experience, she had equally saved him from Locadi.

  She was his destiny as a pure catalyst for the triumph of good over evil and Flora’s magic could only come from God, Mother Nature and the spirituality of her own soul.

  She deserved the title of the White Witch by the locals, but her goodness shone like the stars and would always overcome the wicked scheming of Locadi and her black magic.

  There might be other evils threatening him, but if she was with him he knew
he would be safe.

  The two leaves from the mandrake plant were still in his pockets and he wanted them to remain there forever – they had protected him against Locadi and guided him to save Flora from a terrible fate.

  “And when will you marry me?” he asked.

  “At once – tonight – this very moment,” Flora cried.

  The Marquis laughed.

  “That is what I want to hear, my lovely one. We will not wait and our wedding will be the Vicar’s first service when he returns to the Vicarage next week.”

  “Can we be – married here in this – beautiful Chapel?” Flora enquired.

  “It is what I would love, but perhaps you want a grand wedding.”

  “I would love a very quiet wedding with just you and Papa there.”

  “And I want just my grandmother to be present,” the Marquis said, “so that is all settled!”

  He kissed her again before asking her,

  “Are you brave enough to come back to the party? I think it is essential that we should be seen in case there are any rumours or speculation about what has happened.”

  “Yes, of course we must go back,” Flora agreed.

  They walked down the little aisle hand in hand and out through the door which led to the side of the courtyard. As they did so they heard a wild cry of excitement.

  The fireworks on the other side of the lake spelt out ‘Goodnight and Good luck’.

  It was the end of the party.

  The Marquis noted to his satisfaction that no one would have noticed that he and Flora had been away for any length of time.

  As the fireworks died out, the band played ‘God Save the Queen’, and everyone stood to attention.

  By this time the Marquis and Flora had almost reached the bandstand.

  As the last note died away from the singing of the National Anthem, someone at the back of the crowd shouted,

  “Three cheers for his Lordship!”

  Everyone cheered and the Marquis stepped up onto the bandstand.

  “I want to thank you all,” he said, “for coming here tonight. I want you to understand that this is the beginning of a new era on the estate. It is to be one of hard work, progress and, I hope, happiness for everyone.”

  He paused before continuing,

  “We can only be successful if you all help me to develop new ideas and new interests in order to bring prosperity us all of us.”