The Devil Defeated Page 7

  Although there was much rejoicing now that peace had come, there was also a deep depression in England, not only over the men who had lost their lives in battle, but because of the financial difficulties that were besetting not only the farmers but almost everybody else.

  Dorina knew that the old Earl had been glad to die. He was too ill to face the new problems of everyday life on his large estates and, having lost his two sons who had meant everything to him, he had no wish to go on living.

  In the Church she found herself wondering what the new Earl would be like and if he would be able to take his uncle’s place and be as loved and respected as William would have been had he lived.

  Then somehow, and she could not explain it to herself, she was suddenly and acutely aware of her cousin Jarvis.

  She did not know why, but she had always disliked him ever since they had met as children.

  Since she had grown up, she had thought that he went out of his way to be condescending and often rude to her when they met.

  He gave the impression that he sneered at her father for being a Parson and considered him and his family unimportant because they were poor and of no social consequence.

  She told herself that she was being un-Christian and yet, when she looked at Jarvis, sitting just across the aisle from her in the front pew, she was sure that he was almost mocking the Service, which was being taken by her father and was somehow bringing a hostile attitude into the Church.

  ‘It’s ridiculous for me to feel like this!’ she had told herself.

  Yet she remembered that, when she had a kind of intuition about people or a perception, she was nearly always right.

  She said ‘goodbye’ to the last guest, an elderly cousin who had wept throughout the Funeral Service, but who, as far as Dorina could remember, had not been to Yarde for at least ten years.

  Now she told herself that she could go home, and went upstairs to the State room where she had left the black coat she had worn at the funeral.

  It was lying on the large four-poster which at luncheon time had been heaped with the coats of the other guests, some of them being rich and expensive, others as poor and almost as threadbare as her own.

  She picked it up thinking it was growing chilly now that the sun had gone down and she would certainly need it as she walked home through the Park to the Vicarage.

  Then she heard a strange sound which at first sounded like the buzzing of a bee and then it seemed to her something like an incantation.

  She wondered what it could be and thought it came from a room not far away. But that seemed impossible, as she was sure that the guests had all gone.

  Also the servants would by now have returned to the kitchen quarters, doubtless to finish up what was left of the food at luncheon.

  She walked out of the bedroom and was aware that the sound which was now louder came only a little way down the passage from the Master bedroom where the Earl had died.

  She walked towards it and now distinctly she heard a word spoken several times,

  “Nisroch – Nisroch!”

  She thought she must be mistaken for she remembered that Nisroch was the God of hatred.

  Then still in a strange incantation she heard two more names,

  “Moloch – Andramalech!”

  She knew that the first was the dreadful God who devours children and Andramalech, unless she was mistaken, was the God of murder.

  ‘I am imagining this, it cannot be true!’ she told herself.

  By this time she had reached the door of the old Earl’s bedroom and could see it was ajar and the voice came from within. Quite suddenly she felt frightened.

  She had never been afraid in Yarde, which was to her like her own home, but insidiously, like a bitter wind, she now felt fear creep into her body and knew that she was trembling.

  Suddenly a low strange voice cried out clearly,

  “Beelzebub, Andramalech, Lucifer – come to me! Master of Darkness, I implore thee, Satan, I am thy slave! Come! Come! Honour me with thy presence!”

  Dorina drew in her breath.

  Now she recognised the voice and through the crack in the door which she did not dare to touch, she could see, even though the blinds were drawn and the room was in semi-darkness, that her cousin Jarvis was standing at the end of the huge four-poster in which so many generations of Yardes had been born and died.

  Now he was saying almost in a confidential tone as if speaking to a person,

  “Destroy him, Lucifer! Kill him as you killed William and Charles! Prevent him from returning to England and I swear I will be your slave for ever and will repay you for what you have done for me. Hear me, Lucifer! I will give you any sacrifice you demand – a new-born baby or a pure and innocent young virgin – they shall be yours if Oscar dies!”

  Jarvis’s voice seemed to ring out and then he flung out his arms before he fell onto his knees to say again,

  “Satan, I am your slave! Do what I ask of you and I will never fail you!”

  Almost as if she feared Satan might appear to Jarvis in response to his plea, Dorina turned to run along the passage and down the front stairs and out through the front door.

  All she wanted to do was to get away, to flee from something so evil, so obscene, that she could not believe that what she had heard was not a figment of her imagination.

  Or was she having a nightmare, strange and terrifying, from which she could not wake up?

  Only when she reached the quietness of the Vicarage did she feel as if she could breathe normally and was no longer afraid.

  She had gone up to her bedroom to throw herself down on her bed and try to tell herself that what she had heard and seen was sheer imagination.

  And yet she had known that there was a kind of madness in Jarvis’s voice that seemed to linger in her ears and she felt as if she could still hear him chanting his low incantation of evil names and pleading with Satan.

  For a long time she lay on her bed until she heard Nanny calling her and knew it meant that dinner was nearly ready and she must go downstairs and help her.

  Because her father had thought that there was no necessity for Rosabelle and Peter to be distressed by attending the funeral, they had been sent to spend the day with a neighbouring farmer and his wife who allowed them to ride the farm ponies and play about in the hayricks.

  Dorina had thought his decision wise because Rosabelle had been so miserable and unhappy after her mother’s funeral that she was afraid that another one in the same Church, even though it was for an old man, would reaggravate her misery.

  If it did once again, she would cry as she had cried for her mother saying that no one else could ever take her place.

  When Dorina went downstairs, she thought that, since she and her father would be alone in the dining room because the children were not returning until later, she should perhaps tell him what she had overheard.

  Then she knew she had been so frightened that she would rather try to forget the evil Jarvis was partaking in.

  She had the feeling that if her father knew that her cousin was indulging in Black Magic, for that was what it surely was, he might feel that it his duty to remonstrate with him.

  She was quite certain that in that case Jarvis would not only be very rude, but also take some revenge on her.

  ‘I am ashamed of being frightened of him,’ she thought.

  At the same time there was something menacing and very horrible in the way he had called for the help of Satan.

  If he hated her, she feared that, although she believed God would protect her, he might try to put some evil charm upon her.

  By the time she reached the kitchen, where Nanny was waiting, she had made up her mind to say nothing to anybody.

  ‘Forget it! Forget it!’ she told her mind, but knew it would be very difficult to do so.

  Yet now, because she was frightened for Rosabelle, although she tried to convince herself it was ridiculous, she had inadvertently made the new Earl believe that she knew
some secret about Jarvis that she would not tell him.

  She had the feeling he would be so curious that he would continue to try to extract from her what she had no intention of relating.

  ‘I must have been mistaken at the time because I was upset by the funeral,’ she tried to tell herself.

  And yet, almost like a banshee echoing round the house, she could hear Jarvis’s voice saying,

  “Hear me, Lucifer! I will give you any sacrifice you demand – a new-born baby or a pure and innocent virgin – they shall be yours if Oscar dies!”

  All that evening Dorina was very quiet – so much so that even her father noticed it.

  *

  The following day she was still wondering whether, if the Earl came to see them, she ought to tell him that Jarvis, far from being friendly and welcoming him, as he thought, was longing for his death so that he could become the eighth Earl of Yardecombe.

  Strangely enough, although the children talked about him incessantly, the Earl did not call at the Vicarage the next day.

  Peter went up to the stables and came back full of enthusiasm about the new horses that were there and how Hawkins had said that he was welcome whenever he wished to ride.

  Dorina listened to his excitement a little absent-mindedly and Rosabelle, who had only gone into the Park with Rover, said enviously,

  “You are having all the fun, Peter! I will come up to the stables with you tomorrow!”

  “There is no work for girls there!” Peter said. “But I expect Hawkins will let you ride one of the horses.”

  “I am sure that you should ask the Earl first,” Dorina intervened.

  “I will ask him if you like,” Rosabelle replied, “but I know he will say ‘yes’ and I cannot think, Dorina, why you keep trying to prevent him from being kind to us.”

  He was certainly trying to be kind, Dorina thought, when at midday a cart arrived from the Big House containing, to her astonishment, food, fruit and six bottles of an excellent claret for her father.

  There were chickens, a leg of lamb and a ham, besides peaches, grapes and greengages from the hothouses.

  “I have no intention of accepting charity!” she said to Nanny. “You can send this back.”

  “Charity!” Nanny exclaimed. “It’s nothing of the sort, Miss Dorina, and you know it!”

  “Of course it’s charity,” Dorina replied, “and at least we should have the pride to realise it.”

  Nanny put out her hand towards the food as if she would prevent her from taking it from the table and said,

  “Read your Bible, Miss Dorina, and see that the people always took offerings to the Priests. There’s nothing wrong in his Lordship giving the Master gifts of the same sort and you should be grateful he’s kind and generous enough to think of us. Even the old Earl had no idea how hard it was to make ends meet!”

  This was certainly true and Dorina, knowing how much her father would enjoy the claret, began to weaken as Nanny went on,

  “I, for one, am sick to death of seeing the children looking half-starved and feeling that hungry myself that at times I could eat an ox!”

  Dorina laughed because she could not help it. Then she said,

  “Very well, Nanny, and as the Earl says he is going to raise Papa’s stipend, I suppose we can count this as the first instalment.”

  Nanny’s eyes brightened.

  “Increase the Master’s stipend?” she repeated. “Well, that’s a start in the right direction! Whatever they may say in the village about the trouble there’s been this past year, it’s obvious his Lordship is trying to put things to rights and, as we are Christians, there’s nothing we can do but help him!”

  Dorina was forced to admit that the Earl’s behaviour was certainly a point in his favour.

  Equally she could not completely forgive him for the house party that had caused so much trouble the moment he arrived.

  Even if she conceded that the man who had wanted to assault Mary Bell was a friend only of Cousin Jarvis’s, she had seen the way Lady Maureen Wilson had behaved.

  She had known then that such behaviour would have shocked her mother and was definitely not that of a Lady of Quality, however much things might have changed in the social circle that surrounded the Prince Regent in London.

  ‘If that is the sort of woman he likes,’ she mused, ‘then not only should Rosabelle not associate with his friends and Cousin Jarvis, but the less she has to do with the Earl himself the better!’

  Once again the thought about her cousin Jarvis and his sinister behaviour and she wondered if she could somehow hint to the Earl that he was dangerous without having to reveal the details of why she thought so.

  Then she told herself that she was being hysterical.

  How could Jarvis hurt the Earl by a lot of mumbo jumbo of Black Magic? She was quite certain her father would say it was something believed in only by very simple and primitive people or those who were mentally deranged.

  She was well aware that in the countryside there were still old women who were reputed to be witches and could paralyse a man’s arm with a curse, turn the butter rancid when a woman was churning it, or worse still, prevent a prize cow from calving.

  Had they really any powers? She wondered now as she had wondered once or twice before when girls in the village sought out the witch for a love potion. She knew that they also sought them out for help in having their revenge on a rival who had stolen their favoured man.

  “Evil can hurt only evil people!” her mother had said once when she was told of some curse that had resulted in dire effects according to village gossip.

  Mrs. Stanfield was certain that what had happened could be explained as due to quite ordinary circumstances.

  ‘I am sure Cousin Jarvis would not be able to hurt a man like Papa by Black Magic,’ Dorina reasoned. ‘But if the Earl is not a good man, then he might be able to strike him dead, in which case, if I don’t warn him, I will never be able to forgive myself.’

  Yet every instinct in her body shrank from going to the Earl and telling him what she had overheard Cousin Jarvis doing.

  ‘He was making a pact with Lucifer,’ she could hear herself telling him, then she would see the incredulity in the Earl’s eyes and amusement that she should be so childish and so foolish as to believe such an act possible.

  He would think it incredible that any such thing could happen to him and to tell it might be to show that she was just a ‘country bumpkin’ with no sophistication.

  He would laugh at any idea of the supernatural, as she was sure Lady Maureen would.

  ‘I cannot tell him – I cannot!’ she decided the next day when she awoke.

  Realising it was late because she had overslept, she hurried downstairs to help Nanny with breakfast for the children before they went off for their lessons.

  “As soon as Miss Soames has finished with me today,” Rosabelle announced defiantly, “I am going straight to the stables with Peter!”

  Before Dorina could open her lips to protest, Rosabelle went on,

  “I know why you don’t want me to go there! You feel jealous because the Earl has not asked you to ride his horses nor has he invited you to the Big House, even though you have helped him with the servants!”

  “That is not true – ” Dorina began to say, but, before she could finish the sentence, Rosabelle had flung her arms round her sister’s neck to cry,

  “I didn’t mean it! That was horrid of me and I am sure the Earl would like you to ride with us on his fine horses, which would be as wonderful for you as for Peter and me.”

  Dorina held her sister close and Rosabelle went on,

  “I am sorry, I am sorry! You are so good to us and sometimes I am a pig to you.”

  “It’s all right, darling,” she said, “and I am not angry. Go to the stables with Peter, but just promise me one thing – ”

  “What is that?” Rosabelle asked apprehensively.

  “If Cousin Jarvis is there, you will come back at once!”<
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  Rosabelle looked surprised and then quickly said,

  “I don’t mind promising you that! I dislike Cousin Jarvis! There is something about him that makes me feel ‘creepy’!”

  “Then just come home if you see him, and you can go another day when he is not there,” Dorina suggested.

  The two children hurried off to their lessons and the Vicar reluctantly remembered that he had a sick woman to visit in the village and the arrangements for a Christening to make before he could return to his beloved cacti.

  He departed and Dorina with a little sigh was just beginning to clear away the breakfast things when there came a knock on the front door.

  She opened it and found to her surprise that there was a handsome young man standing outside, holding his horse by the bridle.

  “I think you must be Miss Stanfield,” he began. “I am staying at Yarde and my name is Harry Harringdon. I need your help.”

  “Of course!” Dorina answered. “Perhaps you would not mind putting your horse in the stable, as there is no one here to do it.”

  She led him to the stable at the side of the house and, having shown him where to put his fine horse in an empty stall, she said,

  “Perhaps now you would like to come back to the house?”

  She was wondering as she led the way what he could have called to see her about and thought it rather strange of the Earl to send his friend instead of coming himself.

  They went into the drawing room and Harry said,

  “I rode to the village to find the doctor, only to discover that he is away.”

  “Yes, that is so,” Dorina said. “His mother has died and he will not be back for at least three days.”

  “I heard that from his housekeeper and I wondered, Miss Stanfield, if you or your father could recommend any other doctor in the vicinity.”

  “Is somebody at the house ill?” Dorina enquired.

  Harry nodded.

  “It is your cousin, Oscar. His valet fetched me as soon as he had called him this morning and when I saw him, he told me that he had been violently sick in the night and he looks now as if he is sinking into a coma!”

  “It must be something he ate?” Dorina queried.