70 A Witch's Spell Page 8

  Her father sat down in his usual chair near the fireplace.

  “De Ville is spelt the French way and is his family name,” he explained. “I believe they originally came from Normandy at the time of William the Conqueror.”

  “And you think that this man Roxford de Ville has murdered the Marquis?” Mrs. Brooke asked with an incredulous note in her voice.

  “Personally I cannot believe it,” the Vicar answered. “It would be too obvious. But there is no doubt, according to John, that there is a great deal of animosity between the two of them. The Marquis has paid de Ville’s debts dozens of times and recently refused to do any more for him.”

  “So, if he disposes of the Marquis, he will inherit the title and his fortune?” Hermia asked.

  “If he is not arrested for murder and hanged for it,” her father replied.

  “But surely, if he was bound to be the chief suspect, that would be a very silly thing to do?” Hermia persisted.

  “You are quite right, my dearest,” her father agreed, “and that is why I don’t believe that the Marquis has been murdered. He must have fallen somewhere and so far they have not been able to find him. John will be sending everybody out to search for him again as soon as it’s dawn.”

  He rose from his chair as he spoke saying,

  “I imagine I shall be expected to go with them, so I am now going to bed and thank you, my darlings, for waiting up for me.”

  They all went up the stairs together and Hermia kissed her father and mother an affectionate goodnight and went to her own bedroom.

  It was small, but her mother had made it very pretty and she had around her all her special treasures, which she had collected ever since she had been a child.

  Some of the china ornaments had been given to her by Marilyn and, as she looked at them, she thought that she was sorry for her cousin.

  ‘She must be anxious that she may have lost the man she wants to marry,’ Hermia muttered to herself.

  At the same time some intuition that she could not deny told her that the Marquis had had no intention of marrying Marilyn and was quite aware that she was trying to trick him into proposing to her.

  She did not know how she knew this, but it was just as clear to her as if somebody had proved to her that it was the truth.

  ‘Poor Marilyn,’ she thought sympathetically. ‘She will be very disappointed. But doubtless when she is in London and looking so pretty there will be heaps of other gentlemen to offer her marriage.’

  They might not be as important or as rich as the Marquis, but there was every chance that she would be happier with a man who was not so contemptuous of everything in life.

  Hermia climbed into bed, having pulled back the curtains from the window before she did so, and lay watching the stars come out and the moon creeping up the sky.

  The moon was full and she remembered that the villagers thought that was the time of the Witches’ Sabbat when they flew towards it on their broomsticks.

  The moment she thought of it she imagined that she could see one silhouetted for a moment against the moon overhead.

  Then suddenly she gave a little cry and sat up in bed.

  If her uncle was right and the Marquis’s wicked heir had murdered him, she knew where those who were employed to do anything so evil would have hidden the body.

  Nobody who lived in the village and on the estate would, she knew, dare to search old Mrs. Wombatt’s cottage, which was situated in the centre of Witch Wood.

  They were so frightened of their own tales about it that they believed that, although she was dead and buried, her ghost haunted the place where she had lived.

  What as more on moonlit nights she could still be seen revelling with Satan.

  Even somebody as sensible as Wade the Head Keeper would not go near the cottage in the wood.

  ‘That is where he will be!’ Hermia told herself.

  Although she was so sure that she was right, she knew that she would have to find out for certain.

  She thought perhaps she should tell her father, but if she did so he would insist on coming with her and she would look very silly if she was proved wrong. He might then question her as to why she was so interested in the Marquis.

  It would be much easier to suggest in the morning that he should look there.

  But for some reason Hermia could not explain to herself, she felt that she must look for him now at this very moment and that it was essential not to wait.

  She jumped out of bed and dressed herself, putting on the first gown that came to hand.

  She tied back her hair with a bow of ribbon and slipped round her shoulders a little woollen shawl in case she felt cold outside.

  In fact that was unlikely because it had been so hot all day and now it was still warm and there was no wind.

  When she was ready, Hermia very cautiously opened the door of her bedroom and crept down the stairs in her stockinged feet holding her shoes in her hands.

  She let herself out through the kitchen door at the back, so that she would not be heard by her father and mother who slept in the big bedroom overlooking the front of the house.

  Putting on her shoes she started to walk through the garden which adjoined the main road where she was out of sight of the windows.

  It was not likely that anybody would see her.

  At the same time she knew that Nanny as well as her father and mother would have been astonished had they known that she was walking about at this time of the night.

  There was no need to use one of the entrances that led into her uncle’s Park.

  Instead, as she had done often before, she climbed over the wall and dropping down onto the soft ground started off in the direction of Witch Wood.

  The wood was the nearest one to the village, which was why, Hermia thought, all those years ago Mrs. Wombatt had built herself a house there.

  It had been in her grandfather’s time, whom from all she had heard had been very much like her father, good-natured and kind to everyone who lived on his land.

  He had made no objection when Mrs. Wombatt, with the help of two young men she had bewitched, built a house partly of bricks, partly with the trunks of trees and lived there alone.

  Now, as Hermia entered the lower end of Witch Wood, she wondered if the tales the villagers told were true.

  Perhaps in the moonlight she would see strange sights and hear the music to which the witches danced echoing among the trees.

  Then she told herself that even if they were there they would not hurt her, while the elves and fairies who had been her friends ever since she first learnt about them would protect her from coming to any harm.

  The wood itself was very beautiful in the moonlight and it was impossible to believe that any evil could mar such loveliness.

  The moon shone silver through the branches of the trees and made strange patterns on the path that Hermia walked along.

  She could see the stars brilliant as diamonds in the Heavens above her and if there was music it came from her heart and from the trees.

  She had always believed as a little girl that, if she listened against the trunk of a tree, she would hear it breathing and sometimes singing a little song to itself.

  Any other sounds she imagined were made by the goblins who lived under the roots or by the squirrels who built their nests high up in its branches and were afraid of nothing except human beings.

  It was a long way to the centre of the wood, but, even as she drew nearer to Mrs. Wombatt’s cottage, she was not afraid.

  She saw first the forest pool where she knew the old woman had washed and also drank the water.

  It was a very beautiful pool surrounded by irises and kingcups and the still surface of the water looked in the moonlight as if it held mystical secrets.

  Then just beyond it, half-hidden by the bushes that had grown up over the years, she saw Mrs. Wombatt’s house.

  It was in surprisingly good repair considering that it had not been lived in for so long. The
roof was intact and the chimney was still there.

  Then, as she reached it, Hermia could see quite clearly that the two small windows on each side of the door had been boarded up and she wondered who had taken the trouble to do this.

  She stood looking at them, thinking that somebody who had not been afraid of the witch’s curse must have come here since her death and protected the house against intruders.

  There were not likely to be any and she could only imagine that it had been done on her uncle’s instructions and then thought that this was unlikely.

  She was quite sure, knowing him, that he would merely say that as far as he was concerned the house could fall down and the sooner the better.

  Then, because the same instinct that had brought her here, told her now that she must look inside, she put out her hands towards a heavy wooden bar that lay across the centre of the door.

  It was lodged firmly into two iron cradles, which looked, although it was difficult to see clearly, as if they had been added recently.

  The bar of wood was heavy and it took all Hermia’s strength to lift it, but she managed at last to do so and dropped it down onto the ground.

  Then, as she was ready to pull the door open, she felt afraid for the first time.

  Suppose she found something horrible inside?

  She felt a tremor of fear strike through her. Then as she trembled, she heard the soft hoot of an owl in one of the trees.

  It was such a familiar sound and so much part of her life that it was reassuring, just as if her father or somebody she trusted was with her.

  If the creatures of the forest were not afraid, then she had nothing to fear either.

  She half opened the door and for a moment she could see nothing.

  Then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she could see something lying on the floor in the middle of the small room.

  At first she thought it was just a pile of clothing or perhaps some leaves.

  Then her intuition told her that it was a man and she knew that she had found the Marquis.

  She opened the door as wide as it would go and now the moonlight made it easy to see that she was not mistaken.

  There was a man’s body lying still on the floor and the first thing Hermia saw was the shine on his boots and then the white of his breeches.

  She knelt down beside him, thinking with a sudden constriction of her heart that he was dead.

  But, as she put her hand on his forehead, feeling for it rather than seeing exactly where it was, she knew that he was alive but unconscious.

  To be quite certain she was not mistaken, she undid the buttons of his waistcoat and put her hand inside to feel his heart.

  Through his fine linen shirt she could feel it beating faintly and now as she began to see more clearly in the darkness she saw that his eyes were closed and there was blood on his forehead and on the side of his cheek.

  It flashed through her mind that he had fought against those who must have brought him here!

  Perhaps finally they had either shot him or hit him with something heavy which had rendered him unconscious as he was now.

  She took her hand from his heart and very gently felt his head.

  She thought that there was blood congealed in his hair and she was certain, although she dared not investigate further, that there was an open wound where he had been hit perhaps with a blunderbuss or a heavy stick.

  ‘I must go and fetch help,’ she thought.

  Then, as she would have risen to her feet, the Marquis opened his eyes.

  As he did so, he made a movement with his hands and she was aware that he was struggling back to reality.

  “What – has – happened?” he asked.

  “You are all right and quite safe,” Hermia replied, “but I think somebody has struck you on the head.”

  She was not certain if he had understood or not, but he made an effort as though he would sit up and she helped him.

  She realised as she did so how big and heavy he was, but somehow she managed to assist him into a sitting position.

  He groaned and tried to put his hand up to his forehead as if he felt dizzy.

  “You are all right,” she said again, “but I want, if possible, to get you away from here.”

  She had a sudden fear that whoever had brought him to the witch’s house and flung him down on the ground might return to finish him off or to make sure that he was still imprisoned and nobody had rescued him.

  Now, as he was sitting up, she could see that the sleeve of his riding jacket had been torn away from the shoulder and his cravat was untied and crumpled.

  She looked at the hand he was attempting to put to his forehead and saw that the knuckles of his fingers were bleeding.

  It was obvious that he had put up a tremendous fight against his assailants, whoever they were, but the blow from a heavy weapon was what had finally defeated him.

  She let him rest for a moment.

  Then she said softly,

  “Will you try to get to your feet while I help you? I don’t want to leave you here alone while I fetch help.”

  The Marquis did not reply, but she felt that he understood what she had said to him, for he reached out his hand to try to find something he could pull himself up to his feet with.

  Putting her hand under his arm and straining every muscle in her body to assist him, Hermia thought that it was only by a miracle and what she knew was his indomitable willpower that finally he stood upright.

  She placed one of his arms over her shoulder so that he could use her as a crutch and put her other arm round his waist.

  Then step by step, afraid every moment that he would fall down, she got him to the doorway.

  She put her free hand up to prevent him from hitting his head on the lintel of the door and he winced as if the part of his head that had been struck felt very tender.

  But still he did not speak.

  Then they were outside in the moonlight and moving at a snail’s pace down the path she had come through the wood.

  *

  Afterwards Hermia asked herself how she had ever managed to take the Marquis so far, when she had all his weight leaning on her and only by directing his every step was she able to keep him on the path.

  She felt at times that he must have closed his eyes and just let her lead him as if he was blind.

  Because of the way she was supporting him, she could not look at his face, but could only drag him to safety, knowing that if the men who had left him imprisoned in the cottage returned there was nothing she could do to save him.

  It must have been over an hour before they reached the point in the wall where she had climbed into the Park.

  There they stopped and, when at last she was able to look up at the Marquis, he collapsed onto the ground.

  As she released her hold on him, he lay stretched out with his eyes closed and once again for one terrifying moment she felt that he might be dead.

  Then she realised that he had just willed himself to follow her lead and was now too utterly exhausted to go on any further.

  She felt very much the same herself, but she knew it would be easier now to fetch her father and it was also unlikely that anybody who was looking for the Marquis would find him here while she hurried home.

  She climbed over the wall, feeling that the Marquis’s weight on her had left her almost crippled.

  But because she was frightened that he might disappear again while she was gone, she ran back the way she had come through the overgrown garden to the kitchen door.

  Inside the house she hurried up the stairs and without knocking burst into her parents’ room.

  They were both asleep and, as Hermia stood there gasping for breath, her mother awoke first to ask,

  “What is it, darling? What is the matter?”

  “P-Papa – I want Papa!” Hermia grated in a voice that did not sound like her own.

  Her father sat up.

  “What has happened? Who wants me?” />
  “I-I have found the – Marquis!”

  For no reason she could understand tears began to run down her cheeks as she spoke.

  “You have found the Marquis?” the Vicar repeated in astonishment. “Where was he?”

  “He was in – Witch Wood, Papa, and I have – brought him – along the path as far as the wall – but he is badly – injured.”

  “In Witch Wood?’ her father said. “I cannot understand why he should be there.”

  “He was put there by men who must have – attacked him. He has been hit on the head – but he is – alive!”

  As if her father understood the urgency of what she was saying, he started to climb out of bed.

  “Go and fetch Nanny,” her mother said, “while Papa and I dress. If his Lordship is wounded, tell her that we shall need hot water and bandages.”

  Hermia disappeared to do what she was told and, by the time she had woken Nanny and explained what had happened, her father was coming down the stairs.

  “Show me where you have left him,” he said. “I suppose I can manage to bring him back on my own?”

  For the first time Hermia smiled.

  “I brought him from the witch’s house to the wall”

  “Obviously by magic,” her father replied, “but I shall have to manage by more human means!”

  They both laughed and then Hermia was running ahead of her father back to where she had left the Marquis.

  It took both of them to carry him back through the Park gates and into the Vicarage.

  He was unconscious and Hermia thought afterwards that it was only because her father was so strong that with her help he could manage.

  By the time they arrived at the Vicarage her mother and Nanny had made up the bed in Peter’s room.

  They also had the kettle boiling, fresh bandages ready torn from old sheets and her mother’s salves made from herbs and honey to treat the Marquis’s wounds.

  Hermia was sent away while they undressed him put him into bed.

  Then, when she was allowed to see him, he looked very different from how he had appeared to her before.

  Wearing one of her father’s nightshirts with his eyes closed and a bandage round his head, he looked very much younger and neither cynical nor bored.

  He might in fact have been one of Peter’s contemporaries.