The White Witch Read online

  He could imagine, if he sought advice in White’s Club, how he would arouse the laughter of his friends and they would tease him unmercifully.

  ‘No one in this country,’ he thought, ‘would take me seriously. They would never consider it possible that black magic could be a menace to me or anyone else.’

  Amongst the country folk there would certainly be an acknowledged witch, who could have cursed the farmer if a calf was born dead. She would be consulted by the village girls when they wanted to be married.

  The gypsies, he remembered, offered special cherry stones. If a girl wore them round her neck the man she had chosen would ask her to be his wife.

  But Locadi was using something much more deadly than cherry stones.

  The Marquis suddenly thought he had no wish to leave the sinister stone anywhere on his estate, even under water.

  He remembered they would be crossing a river very shortly. To his groom’s surprise he drew his team to a standstill just before they crossed the bridge.

  He handed the man the reins.

  “I want to go and take a look at the river,” he informed him briefly.

  He walked ahead onto the narrow red brick bridge which had spanned that particular river for at least a hundred years.

  There had been a certain amount of rain the previous month and the water was fairly high. The Marquis leaned over the bridge and looked down into the water.

  He drew Locadi’s magic stone from his pocket. He took another look at it and was quite certain that it came from Haiti.

  The eyes which seemed to stare at him had been packed with a powder which he was sure contained special ingredients for making a man who carried the stone fall deeply in love.

  He surmised, although he was not sure, that the plants from which the powder came were somehow connected with Venus, who was invariably used when it was a question of unrequited love.

  The Marquis also mused that the mandrake plant had always been believed to be endowed with mysterious powers for good and evil.

  Perhaps there was something else that was hidden behind the eyes, which still seemed to stare at him.

  Whatever the object was, whatever it contained, he only knew that he must be rid of it. Raising his arm he threw the stone into the very middle of the river.

  It sank with hardly a splash as it was so small.

  He felt as if he had cleansed himself of a heavy burden and was for the moment free.

  ‘If I go on thinking like this,’ he told himself angrily, ‘I shall soon become as mad as Locadi who believes that this stone would achieve her nefarious ends.’

  He turned away from the river and walked back to his carriage, and without saying a word he climbed back into the driving-seat and took the reins from the groom.

  Then as the horses started off he said to himself,

  ‘Now I am going home to my castle to everything that is familiar and sane.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Marquis pulled his horses to a standstill with a flourish and handed the reins to the groom. He stepped out and walked slowly up the steps to the front door of the castle.

  It was a most impressive entrance with the steps ending at the Wynstanton crest carved in marble. The house itself was enormous and magnificent. The original castle with its tower, which was built in Norman times, formed one wing of the centre block.

  The other wing had been added in the reign of George I and balanced the whole structure. The castle had been in the family for many generations.

  The Marquis had spent his childhood here, but when he grew up he had preferred his other houses.

  He was far happier in the house he owned in Leicestershire where he hunted with the very best packs in the County.

  He also enjoyed staying at Newmarket where his racehorses were trained on his own estate which was in sight of the Racecourse.

  He pulled at the bell and it seemed to him there was a long delay before the doors opened. He appreciated that this was because he was not expected. At the same time it irritated him that any caller should be kept waiting.

  When the door finally opened he saw the old butler, Bowles, who had been at the castle ever since he could remember.

  “Good afternoon, Bowles,” the Marquis said, “I know you are not expecting me, but I have come to see how you all are, and Wilkins is just behind me with the luggage.”

  Bowles gasped with astonishment before he said,

  “It’s very nice to see you back, Master Ivor – I means my Lord – but us weren’t told you was coming.”

  “I am fully aware of that,” the Marquis replied, “but I understand my grandmother is here?”

  “Yes indeed, my Lord. Her Ladyship is upstairs and Miss Flora be with her.”

  “I will tell her myself about my arrival,” the Marquis said. “I suppose she is in one of the State bedrooms?”

  “Queen Anne’s, my Lord. We thinks her Ladyship be more comfortable there and the room has the morning sun.”

  “That was very sensible of you, Bowles,” the Marquis said as he started up the stairs.

  The staircase was magnificent and the pictures which hung on either side were all of the Marquis’s family. Every Earl and later every Marquis, who inherited the title had been painted by the most famous artist of his day, starting with Holbein, followed by Van Dyck, Sir Joshua Reynolds and a series of other Masters up to the present day.

  The Marquis was thinking as he reached the top of the stairs that he would be wise to be painted himself while he was still young.

  Some of his ancestors had waited until they were almost in their dotage, but the ladies had been far wiser. They had been painted at the height of their beauty.

  He appreciated one especially beautiful Countess as he walked along the corridor.

  He then remembered that Locadi was determined to join them.

  With a shudder he hurried on to the State room where his grandmother was to be found.

  She had been acknowledged a great beauty in her youth. She was still, the Marquis remembered when he had last seen her, very beautiful.

  He knocked on the door.

  It was opened by an elderly lady’s maid and the Marquis asked,

  “Is her Ladyship prepared to see me?”

  Before he had finished speaking, there was a cry of “Ivor!” from the bed.

  He walked forward to see his grandmother looking very regal against a pile of lace-trimmed pillows.

  “My dear boy!” she exclaimed, “how delightful to see you! I had no idea you were coming home.”

  “I had no idea myself until a few hours ago,” the Marquis replied. He reached the bed and bent to kiss his grandmother before he added,

  “I only found out as I was leaving that you were staying here.”

  “I came because I was suffering so desperately with rheumatism,” the Dowager Marchioness explained.

  “Although I have been here only a short time, Flora has done wonders for me and I feel so much better than I have for a long time.”

  As she spoke the Marquis glanced at a young woman who had moved to one side as he approached the bed.

  He saw that she was young and was wearing a white apron. It made him think she was one of the servants.

  “I am so glad you are feeling better, Grandmama,” he said. “It is delightful to find you here when I expected I would be alone.”

  “I am waiting to hear all about your travels,” the Dowager answered. “They tell me that you have not been here for a very long time.”

  “I am sure that will be said to me over and over again,” the Marquis replied with a twinkle. “So please, Grandmama, do not reproach me and let us enjoy ourselves now that I am definitely back in residence.”

  The Dowager gave a laugh.

  “I am feeling so much better thanks to Flora,” she said, “so I may even be able to join you at dinner.”

  “I should give it another day or two,” the girl called Flora counselled quietly.

  The Marquis th
ought that this was the sort of interference that annoyed him.

  If his grandmother felt well enough to come down to dinner, then that was what she should do. It would be a great mistake to listen to gloomy servants who always made out someone who was ill to be worse than they actually were.

  To his grandmother he said, “we will talk about it later when we are alone.”

  “I am leaving now,” Flora remarked before the Dowager could speak. “And of course I will return this evening to make you comfortable for the night.”

  “Thank you, dear child,” the Dowager responded. “You know how grateful I am.”

  Flora smiled at her and taking off her apron moved across the room towards the door. She opened it and was in the passage before on an impulse the Marquis followed her.

  When they were both outside he said,

  “I wanted to ask you if my grandmother is really ill and, if so, why you are treating her rather than the doctor.”

  Flora, who now held her white apron over her arm, answered quietly,

  “My treatment is rather different, my Lord, from anything that a doctor would give her Ladyship.”

  “Different?” the Marquis queried. “In what way?”

  “I tend a herb garden, my Lord, and it is with the right herbs for the rheumatism that your grandmother is suffering from, that I have been treating her.”

  “Herbs!” the Marquis exclaimed. “Do you really believe they are effective?”

  “Very effective indeed, my Lord, as anyone who lives locally will tell you.”

  The Marquis thought of the orchids that Locadi had fastened in his buttonhole and of the herbs which were used by the Priests in Haiti.

  For a moment he considered accusing this young woman of deceiving the people she treated.

  It was obviously a load of skulduggery as herbs contained no real healing powers such as the pills and potions provided by the medical profession.

  Instead he asked her a question,

  “I suppose you are paid for what you are doing?” He thought as he spoke that the whole idea was just another way of extracting money from the rich who could afford to pay.

  “Of course,” Flora said, in the same quiet voice she had used before. “I ask people to contribute as much as they can afford.”

  The Marquis looked at her in amazement. She was at least frankly admitting that what she was doing was crooked.

  “The money I obtain,” Flora continued, “goes, my Lord, for pay for a teacher to come to the village three times a week now that the school has been closed.”

  The Marquis gazed at her.

  “The school is closed?” he repeated, “Why?”

  “We were told it was on your Lordship’s instructions. You said it was a waste of money.”

  There was no doubt now of the hostility in Flora’s voice.

  The Marquis was staring at her in sheer astonishment.

  “That is untrue,” he retorted.

  “You can hardly expect me to believe that,” Flora replied, “when you also dismissed the Vicar and he left in tears. I felt that no one could be so cruel.”

  The Marquis was for the moment speechless.

  She added as if the words burst from her lips,

  “I think you are a – disgrace to – your family.”

  She turned round as she spoke and ran down the stairs.

  Before the Marquis could stop her, she had slipped out through the front door and disappeared.

  He thought he must be dreaming.

  Never in his life had any woman spoken to him in such a manner and he could only imagine that she must be deranged to attribute such actions to himself.

  He considered returning to his grandmother to discuss this outburst with her, before deciding that as she was old and obviously pleased with the treatment she was receiving, whatever it was, he therefore could hardly say that he thought the girl was a lunatic.

  *

  Instead he walked slowly downstairs and when he reached the hall the old butler came towards him.

  “I was wondering, my Lord,” he asked, “if you’ll be requiring luncheon?”

  “Yes of course I shall, Bowles,” the Marquis replied.

  “It’ll be difficult, as the Missus has just pointed out to me, my Lord, but we’ll do our best to provide you with something.”

  He spoke in such a worried tone that the Marquis looked at him.

  “What is worrying you, Bowles?” he enquired. “I have never known the castle lacking food and sustenance. There should be baby lamb at this time of the year and some of those delicious hams that I remember Mrs. Bowles used to cure so tastily.”

  “Yes, my Lord, I remembers them too,” Bowles said shaking his head. “But things be very different now, very different indeed.”

  “In what way?” the Marquis queried.

  There was a pause before Bowles replied.

  “Mr. Potter allows us very little money with which to feed ourselves, and when her Ladyship arrived I had to beg the butcher and the grocer for food and the bills all need to be paid at the end of the week.”

  “I do not understand what you are talking about, Bowles. I recall that our provisions always came from the Home Farm and they provided us with chickens, eggs, milk, cream and anything else we required.”

  “Mr. Potter stopped all that, my Lord.”

  “Stopped it!” the Marquis exclaimed, “but why?”

  There was a silence until Bowles said,

  “I thinks Mr. Potter thought it were too expensive like.”

  “I do not know what is going on,” the Marquis said sharply. “Where is Potter?”

  “He is ill, my Lord, and we’ve not seen him for some time.”

  “Ill? Is he in his house?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “And you are saying that it has been difficult to buy food because Mr. Potter refuses to pay for it?”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  The way Bowles spoke told the Marquis that there was more to this problem than met the eye. Without saying any more he walked out through the front door and down the steps.

  Potter’s house where he lived as manager of the castle and estate was only a short distance from the East side of the main building, whereas his office was in the castle itself.

  The Marquis wanted to find out for himself what was going on, as he still could not believe what the girl Flora and Bowles had told him.

  He thought that she must have some particular grudge against Potter.

  ‘I expect Potter will give me some reasonable explanation,’ he thought to himself.

  It took him only five minutes to reach the small but pretty house which was only a little larger than a cottage, and Potter had been there in his father’s time and the Marquis remembered him as a rather pompous little man.

  The Marquis thought he rather enjoyed ordering about the servants who were under his control.

  When the Marquis reached the house he saw that the door was open.

  He knocked but there was no reply.

  He tried to remember whether Potter was a married man or not. If he was, there was no sign of his wife nor of anyone else.

  After waiting a short while, the Marquis walked in.

  The cottage which had been built about thirty years ago was identical to others his father had constructed in the village.

  The staircase ended in what was a minute hall and there was a small room on either side of it and a kitchen at the far end.

  The Marquis opened the door on the right into a room which was fitted up more or less as an office. There were a number of books, papers and tin boxes marked with the names of farms or other parts of the estate.

  He thought that all these should have been in the estate office in the castle and he wondered why Potter had removed them to his own house.

  He then opened the other door and found what he was seeking.

  Seated in an armchair in front of the fireplace, although there was no fire, was Potter.

&nbs
p; The Marquis supposed that he was asleep, but as he entered the room and drew nearer, he became aware of a very strong smell of whisky. There was a half empty bottle on the table beside Potter’s chair.

  The Marquis looked down at him and noted that he was indeed asleep, but it was a sleep of drunkenness. There was no doubt about it that Potter was extremely drunk.

  He had raised one leg up onto a stool and from its appearance the Marquis was sure he was suffering from gout.

  He looked round the room. There were two empty bottles of whisky on the table within reach of his chair and there was a case of full bottles by the window at the far end of the room.

  The Marquis stood looking at Potter for a few moments and realised that it would be impossible to shake him into wakefulness.

  He therefore walked towards the door, but instead of leaving the cottage he turned into the room he had visited first.

  There was a large ledger on the writing-desk which stood by the window. The Marquis opened it and recognised that it was an account of the rents which had been paid on the estate.

  He checked all the rents and soon noticed that they had all been increased during the last year while he had been away from the castle.

  A little lower down there was a note of the amount of money that had been paid to his solicitor at the end of the month.

  It only took the Marquis a brief glance to appreciate that it was very much less than that which had been collected in rents.

  There was no necessity for him to read any more. Now he knew he needed to find someone who could tell him the truth about what had been happening on his estate.

  Instinctively, until he was quite certain of the facts, the Marquis did not wish to discuss the matter with his servants.

  He had left Potter in charge.

  The man had the right to justify his actions before being accused of embezzlement.

  He walked back to the castle and when he reached the hall it was to find Bowles waiting for him.

  “Luncheon is served, my Lord,” he announced, “I’m afraid you’ll find it somewhat scrappy as the Missus says she cannot make bricks without straw.”

  “What you are saying, Bowles, is that as Mr. Potter is ill you are short of money?”