70 A Witch's Spell Read online

  Then the birds would begin to build their nests in the trees overhead and the rabbits would move about in the undergrowth.

  Red squirrels would scurry away at her approach and then stop to stare at her curiously, as if they wondered how she dared to intrude on what was their secret domain.

  It was all so beautiful that she had no wish to believe in anything ugly or frightening.

  Then she thought of the man who had kissed her this morning and wondered if perhaps he had ridden into the heart of the wood on his fine horse and disappeared because he was not a human being.

  To think of him made her anger well up inside her as she remembered that in the pocket of her gown there was still the golden guinea he had given her.

  She had forgotten about it when she had been laying the table for luncheon and when they had laughed and talked while they had eaten.

  Now, after she had given old Mrs. Buries her ‘magic cough lotion’, she walked back towards the Church.

  It was very near the Vicarage, in fact just on the other side of the road, and she slipped in through the porch that needed repairing and walked onto the ancient flagged floor.

  The Church was very old, having stood there for nearly three hundred years and every time Hermia attended a service she could feel the vibrations and prayers of those who had worshipped here and had left a part of themselves behind.

  Her father believed the same.

  “Thoughts are never wasted and never erased,” he had told her once.

  “What do you mean by that, Papa?”

  “When we think of something and, of course, when we pray,” the Vicar replied, “we send it out as if it had wings on the air. It is carried up by our vibrations, or perhaps by something stronger that we don’t understand, into eternity.”

  “I think that is a terrifying idea!” Hermia protested. “I shall be very careful what I think in the future!”

  He father had laughed.

  “You cannot stop thinking any more than you can stop breathing,” he said, “and I am honestly convinced that wherever we have been, we leave our thoughts and the life force we give them.”

  Hermia had understood that he was thinking as he spoke of the atmosphere in the Church, which she had always known was so vivid and so strong that she never felt as if she was alone there.

  There were always other people with her, people whom she could not see, but who had lived in Little Brookfield.

  They had taken their sorrows and their happiness into the Church and their feelings had been bequeathed to the small building forever.

  They had given the Church, she thought, exactly the sanctity that people expected in a House of God and she could feel it now as she walked in through the door.

  It was there to welcome her and to make her feel that she was not alone, but enveloped by a love that could protect, help and inspire her whenever she had need of it.

  As she drew the guinea from her pocket, she felt as if there were unseen people around her who understood why she was putting it in the poor box.

  She knew how good her father would do with it.

  She slipped it through the slit in the box and heard the sharp sound it made as it fell to the bottom.

  Then, as she knelt in one of the ancient oak pews to pray, she looked up at the altar.

  The flowers that her mother had arranged the previous Saturday were still a brilliant patch of colour and Hermia felt a strange joy sweep over her.

  ‘Make something happen for me, God,’ she prayed. ‘I want to have a fuller life than I am living at the moment.’

  As she prayed, she almost felt as if she grew wings that would carry her away as her thoughts did and she could visualise herself flying out into the great world outside of which she knew so little.

  There would be mountains to climb like those in her stories, rivers to negotiate and seas to sail over.

  ‘Give me all that, please, God!’ she finished.

  Then, as she rose to her feet, she thought it was too demanding a request and God, like her father, would tell her to be content with her lot as it was.

  ‘I am so lucky that I have – so much,’ she tried to tell herself philosophically.

  But she knew it was not enough.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Hermia arrived back at the Vicarage, it was to find the house empty.

  She knew that Nanny had gone shopping and her father and mother were both visiting people who had asked for their help.

  It was actually quite surprising that she had not been left a mass of instructions concerning other things to do.

  With a feeling of delight she thought that this was an opportunity to continue reading a book that she was finding absorbingly interesting. Usually the only time she had to read was when she went to bed at night, but as she was often too tired to do anything but sleep she had so far only read one chapter.

  Now she brought her book down from her bedroom and, curling herself up in the window seat in the sitting room, she found her place and started to read.

  She was concentrating so intently on the book on her knees that she started when the door of the sitting room opened.

  She turned her head impatiently thinking that it was Nanny who would undoubtedly want her to fetch something like mint from the garden or perhaps cut a lettuce for supper.

  Then she saw to her astonishment her cousin Marilyn come into the room.

  She was looking exceedingly smart in a gown, which Hermia knew was in the very latest fashion.

  Gowns during the war had been very plain and straight and most people, however rich they might be, wore white muslins.

  This material in fact sometimes verged on the indecent because it was inclined to cling to the figure, revealing not only the wearer’s curves but sometimes how little was being worn underneath.

  Now far more luxurious materials were available and the bodice and sleeves of the gowns were either embroidered or trimmed with lace.

  Marilyn’s gown had three rows of lace round the hem.

  Her bonnet had the high tilted brim that Hermia had seen illustrated in The Ladies’ Journal and the satin ribbons under her chin and round her high waist could only have come from Paris.

  For a moment she could only stare at her cousin thinking it strange that she should call at the Vicarage herself rather than send a message, which was almost a command, for her to come to The Hall.

  Then she scrambled to her feet saying,

  “Marilyn! What a surprise! I have not seen you for such a long time.”

  Marilyn did not look in the least embarrassed, although she was well aware that she had not bothered to speak to Hermia since Christmas and she merely replied,

  “I have been very busy, but now I want your help.”

  “My help?” Hermia repeated in astonishment.

  Of all the people who came to the Vicarage for help she would have thought the last person to ask the assistance of either her or her father or mother would have been Marilyn.

  The Countess had always made it very clear that she thought that what she called ‘slaving after the lower classes’ was a waste of time.

  “You don’t suppose they are grateful to you,” Hermia had heard her say once to her father. “From all I hear of such people is that they take everything for granted and complain that one does not do more for them.”

  “That is not true of my flock,” Hermia heard her father object. “In fact, when Elizabeth was ill last year, we were both tremendously touched by the little presents brought her every day and the way they prayed for her recovery.”

  The Countess had merely sniffed, but Hermia knew that her mother had been deeply moved at the way the whole village had worried over her.

  They had so little themselves, but they wanted to share what they could with her.

  Sometimes it was only a fresh brown egg they thought that she would like for her breakfast, a bunch of flowers from their gardens, or from those who were more practical, a comb of golden honey.
/>   Hermia had known, although her father could never have made the Countess understand, that it was not the material things which mattered so much as the understanding and sympathy which came from the heart.

  Now, as she walked towards her cousin, Hermia thought a little apprehensively that, while Marilyn was looking very attractive in her elegant clothes, there was a contemptuous expression in her eyes.

  She did not attempt to kiss Hermia, but merely looked around the room, selected the most comfortable chair and sat down in it a little gingerly as if she felt its legs might be unsound and would collapse under her.

  Hermia sat down on a stool that stood in front of the fireplace, moving as she did so some sewing her mother had been working on before she went out.

  She knew that Marilyn thought it was untidy of her to have left it there.

  Almost as if she was looking through her cousin’s eyes, Hermia was suddenly aware that the carpet was threadbare, the curtains were faded and one of the brass handles which had come off the soft table in a corner of the room had not been replaced.

  Then she lifted her chin proudly and told herself that whatever Marilyn might be thinking she would not exchange the shabby Vicarage that was filled with love and happiness for all the luxury of The Hall.

  Then she looked at her cousin wondering what she had to say.

  “I suppose I can trust you,” Marilyn began and her voice had a harsh note in it that Hermia did not miss.

  “Trust me?” she questioned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I have to trust somebody to do what I want,” Marilyn replied, “and I cannot believe that being a Parson’s daughter you would do anything underhand or what Papa would call ‘unsportsmanlike’.”

  Hermia stiffened.

  Then, as she was about to defend herself, she bit back the words to say quietly,

  “We have known each other for eighteen years, Marilyn. If you don’t know what I am like by this time, then there is nothing I can say to convince you I am anything but what I am!”

  As if she did not wish to annoy her, Marilyn said quickly,

  “No, no, of course not! I am only a little apprehensive about what I want to ask you to do.”

  Hermia thought she could understand that.

  She had not seen her cousin since five months ago and then it had only been for the family Christmas dinner.

  If there was one thing the household at the Vicarage all disliked, it was the Christmas dinner that took place every year at The Hall.

  Although it was the season of goodwill, Christmas Day celebrating the birth of Christ, was always a very busy one for the Vicar, involving a great number of Services in his Church.

  He also visited several people in their homes if they were too ill or infirm to come to Church.

  “I am dead tired,” Hermia had heard her father say last Christmas when it was time to go out for dinner. “What I would like to do, my darling, is to sit with you and the children in front of the fire and drink a glass of port.”

  Her mother had laughed.

  “There will be plenty to drink at The Hall.”

  “And plenty of snide remarks to listen to,” her father replied.

  Because of the way he spoke her mother had risen to sit on the arm of his chair and smooth his hair back from his square forehead.

  “I know it’s a bore, darling, that we have to go there and Edith is certain to make things difficult for both of us, but I think in his heart that your brother looks forward to seeing you.”

  “John is all right,” the Vicar replied, “but I find his wife intolerable, his son a stuck-up young cockscomb and, although Marilyn was a sweet little girl I was very fond of, she has grown into a very conceited young woman!”

  Because of the critical way he spoke, which was so unlike him, his wife had laughed as if she could not help it.

  Then she said,

  “‘What cannot be cured must be endured’, as Nanny would say, and we will not stay long. But don’t forget that you are hunting tomorrow and, as it is on one of your brother’s horses, you have to pay for the privilege.”

  “I love you!” the Vicar replied. “You always put things in the right perspective and I will put up with a lot of disagreeableness from Edith so long as Peter and I can be mounted on those excellent horses of his.”

  As she went up to change for dinner, Hermia had thought her mother had been right in saying that one never got anything for nothing in the world.

  Like her father she had found the Christmas dinner since she had grown up a very uncomfortable evening.

  She knew that her aunt, and Marilyn for that matter, would look her up and down in her cheap evening gown, which was the best her father could afford.

  They would contrive to make her feel as if she was the goose girl who had got into the King’s palace by mistake.

  Then, as if Marilyn wished to impress upon her how important she was now that she had been to London, she had reeled off her successes one by one.

  Like a child showing another how much bigger her toys were, she was determined that Hermia should be suitable impressed.

  Because she had never heard of the grand people Marilyn spoke about, it was not a particularly edifying conversation and, while she appeared to listen, her attention was wandering to where she knew that Peter was suffering in the same way from his cousin William.

  The Viscount, dressed as a very ‘Tulip of Fashion’, would be endeavouring, as Peter had expressed it savagely on the way home, to turn him into a country yokel.

  “The only consolation,” he said to Hermia, “is that while I am absolutely certain that I shall gain my degree at Oxford, William is so busy drinking at all the Clubs that he will undoubtedly fail. What is more, he was very nearly sent down last term.”

  Hermia slipped her hand into her brother’s.

  “You must not worry about what he says to you,” she answered. “He is jealous because you look better and you ride better than he does and, if I was one of the beauties he tells us he pursues in London, I should find him a dead bore!”

  Peter threw back his head and laughed, but Hermia knew that she had spoken nothing but the truth.

  Compared with Peter, William was a plain young man with eyes too close together and a long upper lip, which he had inherited from his mother’s family.

  He was not a particularly good horseman and he found it distinctly annoying that when they were hunting his cousin Peter was always in the front of the field and sailed over the highest hedges with ease.

  William was often left behind despite the fact that he had the pick of his father’s best horses.

  Hermia remembered that last Christmas had been the least enjoyable of any dinner they had ever had at the hall.

  Because Marilyn had been particularly unpleasant towards her that evening, it was all the more surprising that she should be here at this moment asking for her help.

  She sat on the stool waiting and had the idea that her cousin was finding it rather difficult to put what she wanted of her into words.

  Then, as if she felt that first she must make herself more pleasant than usual, she remarked,

  “I can see, Hermia, that you have grown out of that gown you are wearing! It is too tight and too short. I suppose I might have thought of it before, but I have quite a number of gowns that I can no longer wear which I might as well pass on to you.”

  For a moment Hermia stiffened.

  It flashed through her mind that she would rather wear rags and tatters than be an object of Marilyn’s charity.

  Then she told herself that was a very selfish attitude.

  It was a struggle for her father and mother to afford the material for one new gown between them when any money that could be spared for clothes was spent on Peter.

  Only last night Peter had said to her mother when her father was out of the room,

  “Do you think there is any chance, Mama, of my having a new riding coat? I am ashamed of the one I am wearing now,
and since I have the chance to compete in the steeplechase that is taking place at Blenheim Palace, I have no wish for you to be ashamed of me.”

  Her mother had smiled.

  “You know I would never be that and I noticed the other day how worn your coat was. I am sure Papa and I can manage to find enough money for a new one.

  Peter put his arms round his mother and kissed her.

  “You are a brick!” he said. “I know how little you and Papa spend on yourselves and I feel rather like the importunate widow.”

  Her mother had laughed.

  “You will have your riding coat, dearest. We will find the money for it one way or another!”

  Hermia had known that this meant the gown her mother had been planning for herself would not materialise nor would the new bonnet she had been promised as soon as they could afford it.

  It all flashed through her mind and she said quickly,

  “It would be very very kind of you, Marilyn, if you would send me anything you have no further use for. You know quite well it is always a struggle for Papa and Mama, even though they are as economical as possible.”

  “I will tell my lady’s maid to pack up everything I no longer want,” Marilyn promised. “Now, Hermia, let me tell you what I want from you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I must explain first that we have a very important guest staying with us.”

  Hermia’s eyes were on her cousin’s face as she went on,

  “It is the Marquis of Deverille and to express myself frankly – I intend to marry him!”

  Hermia gave a little cry.

  “Oh, Marilyn, how exciting! Are you very much in love with him?”

  “It’s not a question of whether I love him or not,” Marilyn replied. “The Marquis of Deverille is without exception the most significant matrimonial catch in the whole of London!”

  “Why is he so exceptional?” Hermia asked curiously,

  “Because he is rich and because of his position. He has houses and estates which, like his racehorses, are better than anybody else’s.”

  “I think I have heard Papa speak of him,” Hermia said, wrinkling her brow.