The Devil And Drusilla

Devenish shivered. He thought of Rob Stammers’s surprise when he had ordered that the cottages on his estate should be rebuilt and the men’s wages increased so that they might live above the near-starvation level which was common in the English countryside.

It was when he was in this dark mood which sometimes visited him at inconvenient times that John Squires approached him and asked diffidently, ‘If I could have a serious word with you for a moment, m’lord, I should be most grateful.’

‘As many serious words as you like,’ he responded. ‘But what troubles you, that you wish to be serious on a fête day?’

Squires coloured. He was a heavyset fellow in early middle age, ruddy of face, a country gentleman who was also a working farmer.

‘It’s this business of the missing wenches, m’lord, but if you prefer not to talk about it here, we could perhaps speak later—’

‘No, speak to me now. I have had one conversation about a missing wench since I arrived in the district, and another will not bore me.’

‘Very well, m’lord,’ and he launched into a lengthy story of the miller’s daughter in Burnside village who had disappeared six months ago.

‘A good girl, her father said, until a few weeks before her disappearance, when she became cheeky and restless, and not hide nor hair of her seen since. Just walked out one evening—and never came home.’

His words echoed those of Hooby. Devenish decided to test him.

‘And why should you—or I—trouble ourselves about missing girls?’

Squires stared at him as though he were an insect, lord though he might be.

‘They are God’s creatures, m’lord, and I have learned this afternoon that others are missing. It troubles me, particularly since one of them, Kate Hooby, was the miller’s daughter’s best friend.’

‘Strange, very strange,’ Devenish remarked, as though he were hearing that there was more than one lost girl for the first time. ‘I share your worries about this. They cannot all have decided to run away to London to make their fortune on the streets.’

John Squires decided that he might have been mistaken in his first judgement of m’lord. ‘Then you will cause an enquiry to be made, m’lord.’

‘Indeed, I shall ask Mr Stammers to make a point of it.’

‘My thanks then. The miller is a good man, and what troubles him must trouble me.’

Devenish watched him walk away, and decided that since the matter had been raised now by two others he might safely speak of it without any suspicions being aroused as to why he was doing so. He looked around for Drusilla and found her immediately. Despite the fact that she was carrying a fat baby boy, he decided to make a beginning.

‘You are encumbered,’ he drawled. ‘Pray sit down, the child is too heavy for you, and sitting will be easier than walking.’

He waved her to one of the stone benches which stood about the lawns, and saw her settled before he sat down beside her.

‘You know,’ Drusilla observed quietly, watching him as she spoke, ‘you are quite the last person, m’lord, whom I would have thought would wish to sit next to a woman holding a baby boy dribbling because he is teething. It only goes to show how mistaken one can be and should teach us all not to jump to over-hasty conclusions!’

‘If you did not look as demure as a Quaker saint, I would think that you were bamming me, Mrs Faulkner.’

‘Oh, dear, no, m’lord, just wondering what you have to say to me that is so urgent that you cannot wait until I shed my burden. And, by the by, do the Quakers have saints? I rather thought that they didn’t.’

Robert, watching them from a little distance while he talked to Miss Faulkner, was surprised to hear Devenish’s shout of laughter and wondered what Mrs Faulkner could have said to cause him to behave so informally.

‘If they didn’t, they ought to have,’ Devenish finally riposted. ‘I never thought that I should have to come into the wilds of the country in order to find a woman who would give me a taste of my own verbal medicine.

‘Let me confess that I do have an ulterior motive in sitting by you. John Squires has just been telling me the surprising story that several of the local wenches have disappeared mysteriously. Have you mislaid any? Or is the Faulkner estate so considerately managed that no one from it has absconded to London to make their fortune?’

‘Now, m’lord,’ responded Drusilla seriously, wiping the little boy’s dribbling mouth with her lace-edged linen handkerchief, ‘this is not a matter for levity. The parents of the girls are most distressed, and no, none of my people has disappeared.’

‘I stand corrected, or rather, I sit so. I see by your reply that I must take this matter seriously. Does that child have an endless supply of water in his mouth? Both you and he will be wet through if he continues to dribble at this rate.’

As though he knew that Devenish was referring to him, the little boy leaned forward, put out a wet and sticky hand, and ran it down the lapel of his beautiful coat before either he or Drusilla could stop him.

‘Oh, dear!’ Drusilla pulled him back with one hand and put the other over her mouth. ‘I should never have consented to sit by you whilst I held Jackie. He is quite the liveliest child in the Milners’ family, and I have been looking after him to give his poor mama a little rest.’

And then, without having meant to, quite the contrary, she began to laugh as Devenish fished out his beautiful handkerchief and started to repair the damage, his face an impassive mask—although his mouth twitched a little.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, but, oh, dear—your face.’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ said Devenish agreeably. ‘But then, as you have just rightly pointed out, I am responsible for my ruined coat by having first waylaid you and then allowed you both to sit by me. You do realise that he’s about to be sick all down you at any moment?’

‘No!’ Drusilla leapt to her feet and, quite instinctively, thrust Jackie at Devenish so that she might begin to mop herself.

Devenish didn’t need to mop himself because, having caught Jackie, he dextrously up-ended him and held him at arm’s length so that he christened the grass instead of his already ruined jacket.

‘Goodness me!’ Drusilla exclaimed, scrubbing herself. ‘I might have guessed that your invention would be as sharp as your tongue.’

The fascinated spectators to this unusual scene included a startled Robert and Miss Faulkner who stood aghast, her mouth open in shock, as that aloof Lord of Creation, Henry Alexander Devenish, Fourth Earl of Devenish and Innescourt, turned the squalling Jackie right side up and began to wipe him clean with his handkerchief.

Jackie, who had started to cry when subjected to this briskly sensible treatment, ceased his roaring immediately when Devenish told him sharply, ‘Now, my man, stop that at once, or I shall be very cross.’

Drusilla said faintly, ‘How in the world did you manage that? No one has ever been able to quieten him before once he has begun to cry. You really ought to offer yourself to the Milners to replace the nursemaid they have just lost. She was fit for Bedlam, she said, if she did not resign on the instant.’

Devenish, who had pulled his gold watch from his pocket with his right hand whilst he held Jackie in the crook of his left arm, and was circling it above his absorbed face, said abstractedly, ‘I had a baby brother once.’

The Milners, who had just been informed of the brouhaha which their infant had caused, arrived on the scene to find their usually rampant offspring blowing bubbles of delight at Devenish as he tried to grasp the swinging watch.

‘Oh, m’lord,’ gasped Mrs. Milner. ‘Oh, your beautiful coat, you shouldn’t, you really shouldn’t—’

‘Not at all,’ remarked Devenish coolly. ‘Since I have been informed that this is the first time today that he has behaved himself, I think that I really should, don’t you? For all our sakes.’

And since the Lord of All, as Drusilla privately called him, made such a statement, no one present dared to contradict him.

For some reason poor Miss Faulkner was the most disturbed by Devenish’s behaviour. Later, her niece could only think that she had the absurd notion that it brought dishonour on the Faulkner name that he had arrived at such an unlikely pass.

She said sharply to Drusilla, ‘My dear, I told you no good would come of your assisting the Milners’ monstrous child. Look at you both! Your dress is ruined, and as for Lord Devenish’s coat—’

‘Very helpful of you,’ remarked Devenish smoothly, ‘to be so wise both before and after the event. You are quite right. Both Mrs Faulkner and I will be happy to be relieved of continuing to look after the incubus, and I’m sure that you will be delighted to care for him instead, seeing that his poor mama is already in the boughs over him—or so I am informed,’ and he thrust Jackie into the astounded Miss Faulkner’s arms.

‘You may borrow my watch if he starts to cry again,’ he offered helpfully. ‘It seems to do the trick.’

‘Oh, Devenish, you really are the outside of enough,’ gasped Drusilla through laughing sobs. ‘Give him to me, Cordelia, he cannot ruin my dress any further and I’ll return him to his mama when she feels able to look after him.’

Mrs Milner had, indeed, sunk on to the stone bench where Drusilla and Devenish had been sitting, and was moaning gently while being comforted by her husband.

‘She is increasing, you know,’ Drusilla informed Devenish severely, in as low a voice as she could manage, ‘and she needs a rest from him every now and then.’

‘Really,’ returned Devenish, quite unruffled by the commotion which he had created. ‘I should have thought everyone needs a rest from him all the time. Pity we don’t sacrifice to Moloch any more.’

‘Devenish!’ Drusilla and Robert exclaimed reproachfully together, whilst Cordelia Faulkner asked faintly, ‘Why Moloch?’

And then, ‘Oh, the God to whom they sacrificed children. Oh, Lord Devenish, you surely cannot mean that.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Drusilla and Robert together, and ‘Yes, I do,’ drawled Devenish, but he winked at Drusilla to show her that he was not serious.

She responded by kissing Jackie to show that she loved him if no one else did, and shaking her head at Devenish to reprove him for being flighty.

Giles, a fascinated spectator of the antics of his elders, said, ‘I think babies are disgusting. If they ain’t dribbling from one end, they’re hard at it from the other. Can’t think why anyone wants them.’

‘Well, someone wanted you,’ drawled Devenish. ‘A bit of a mistake, d’you think?’

Drusilla said, ‘I think it’s time everyone behaved themselves. You know, Devenish, you’re a really bad influence on us all. I quite agree with what you said earlier, you have no soul.’

But she was laughing when she said it. Giles looked after her as she removed Jackie from Devenish’s corrupting presence by handing him to his now recovered mama and escorting them into the house where they might be private, and Drusilla might change her dress.

He said confidentially to Devenish and Robert—Miss Faulkner was panting in Drusilla’s ear—‘You know, sir, I don’t think you’re a bad influence on us at all. Why, since poor Jeremy died I haven’t heard Dru laugh like that once!’

It was Robert who laughed at this artless remark and not Devenish, who said, as grave as any judge, ‘Might you not consider that to make your sister laugh like that confirmed my bad influence on her rather than refuted it?’

‘Not at all, sir.’ Giles’s response was as serious sounding as Devenish’s. ‘Why, when Jeremy was alive, she used to laugh all the time.’

He paused, a puzzled look crossing his open, handsome face. ‘Except,’ he said slowly, ‘during the last few months before Jeremy was killed. She grew uncommon moody, as I recall. Jeremy told me that it was because she was unhappy at not providing him with an heir—although judging by the way that most babies behave, I can’t understand why that should make her sad.’

‘You will,’ said Devenish, filing away Giles’s strange piece of information in his retentive memory, ‘until then, I shouldn’t worry. You’ll want your own heir one day.’

‘I shall?’ This seemed such an unlikely remark that Giles decided to ignore it. After all, Devenish didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to provide an heir for himself, but he wisely decided not to say so.

Instead, he invited him to take part in the archery competition—’all the gentleman are expected to do so, and the prize is a silver medal which Dru will present at the end of the day.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ Devenish told him, which had Robert saying to him in the carriage on the way home, ‘You were in an uncommon good mood today, Hal. I would have thought that it might be the kind of bread-and-butter occasion which would have brought out the acid in your speech.

‘And, forgive me for asking, what was that about your having a baby brother? I always supposed you to be an only child. At least, your grandfather always spoke as though you were.’

‘So he did, Rob, but then, seeing that he was invariably wrong in all his judgements, it’s not surprising that he was wrong in that, too.’

He made no attempt to speak further on the matter, leaving Robert to expand instead on the charms of Mrs Drusilla Faulkner and the surprising fact that it had been Devenish to whom she had presented the silver medal for winning the archery competition.

‘Another thing I didn’t know about you—that you were a fine shot with a bow, except—’ and he looked sideways at Devenish ‘—that you seem to excel at everything you do, however unlikely.’

‘Don’t flatter me, Rob, it doesn’t become you,’ Devenish returned shortly. ‘Any success I may have is only because I choose never to do anything at which I don’t excel.’

He seemed to be in an odder mood than usual so Robert remained silent for the rest of the short drive back to Tresham Hall. Something, he was sure, had occurred, or been said, that had set Devenish thinking, and thinking hard.

His face had taken on an expression which he had not seen since the days of their adventures on the Continent, and it was one which had only appeared in times of trial and danger.

Which was passing strange, because what times of trial and danger could there possibly be in sleepy Surrey?

Chapter Four

The day’s events had so excited Drusilla that she found it difficult to sleep that night—especially since the night was warm, even for summer.

For some reason she could not get out of her head the sight and sound of m’lord Devenish. One moment she was remembering his mocking voice, and the next she had a vivid picture of him holding little Jackie in the crook of his arm, displaying a strange tenderness of which she had not thought him capable.

Worse, he stirred her senses after a fashion which no one had ever done before—not even Jeremy. She was reluctantly beginning to understand that what she had felt for Jeremy was nearer to friendship than to passionate love.

And why was she thinking of Lord Devenish and passionate love in the same sentence? Could she passionately love such an apparently cold-blooded man? Especially since it was not his beautiful face which attracted her, but his beautiful voice saying shocking, unexpected things.

The kind of things which quiet, respectable Mrs Drusilla Faulkner had often thought but had never dared to say!

This insight into her deepest mind set her wriggling in the bed, her cheeks hot and her body strangely alive. She decided against calling for her personal maid, Mary, who had slept in a room near to hers ever since Jeremy’s sudden death. Mary deserved her night’s rest—and of what use could she really be? There was a pitcher of water and a glass by her bed, and she could surely pour a drink for herself without disturbing another’s sleep.

A sound outside around eleven of the clock—a bird or a wild animal calling, perhaps—had her sitting up and deciding to open one of the windows to let in a little air.

Without using her tinder box to light a candle since it was the night of the full moon, she rose and threw back the curtains and opened the window just as the noise came again. It was neither a bird nor a wild animal, but stifled human voices, one of them laughing, the other murmuring ‘Hush’.

Drusilla looked down. She saw, briefly in the moonlight, a man and a woman, fully dressed and holding hands, running across the back lawn, down the steps from it, and into the avenue below. She was unable to see their faces or identify them in any way.

Silence followed, broken only once by the cry of an owl. The man and the woman did not reappear. Who could they be? Servants, perhaps, but doing what—and going where? And who else would be in the grounds of Lyford House in the middle of the night. She would speak to Mrs Rollins, the housekeeper, in the morning.

This strange disturbance, added to her mind’s refusal to let go of her memories of Lord Devenish, made sleep impossible for some time, but she heard nothing more.

A long time later she fell asleep for a few short hours before morning arrived all too soon. She ordered breakfast to be brought to her room and drank chocolate and ate buttered rolls in blessed silence.

Why did she think blessed silence? Because her mind was still in turmoil after yesterday’s strange events. Cordelia Faulkner begged to be admitted, but Drusilla fobbed her off with a fib, saying that she had a megrim and would go to church only for the evening service.

One person whom she did admit was Mrs Rollins, the housekeeper. She was a tall, austere woman in early middle age, the terror of the under-servants. The Mrs was an honourary title for she had never married.

She had terrified Drusilla in the early days of her marriage, until she discovered that Mrs Rollins possessed a sense of loyalty to the Faulkners which was almost fanatical. That loyalty was now transferred to her.

Drusilla began without preamble, speaking of what she had seen the night before and asking if it were possible that she had witnessed a pair of servants who had left the house after nightfall without anyone’s knowledge or permission.

Mrs Rollins heard her out before saying, ‘It is quite impossible, ma’am, for any of the servants to leave the house at any time, particularly at night, without the knowledge of Britton or Letty Humphreys.’

Britton was the under-butler, a young man who had a room off the menservants’ dormitory in the attic, which was locked by him at ten o’clock at night. The same arrangement held good for the maids who were similarly supervised by Letty, the chief parlour-maid, a stern elderly woman.

The senior servants had rooms of their own, but they were all of mature years and Drusilla was sure that the pair she had seen were young.

‘Someone from one of the villages, ma’am,’ Mrs Rollins suggested. ‘Larking about the grounds at night.’

‘But we are such a long way from either Tresham Magna or Tresham Minor,’ Drusilla said, frowning. ‘And why should they come here? It might be more sensible of them to lark in the grounds of Tresham Hall.’

‘Harder to break into them,’ suggested Mrs Rollins practically.

Drusilla had to let that be the last word, but for some reason the little incident had disturbed her—and why it should was mysterious. She told herself not to be troubled by such mental cobwebs, brought on, no doubt, by a poor night’s sleep. She went downstairs where she found an anxious Miss Faulkner about to set off for morning service at Tresham Magna, Lyford Village possessing no church of its own.

‘You look pale, my dear,’ she told Drusilla agitatedly, ‘It must be all the excitement yesterday. Lord Devenish may be a great man, but he is scarcely a restful person.’

Drusilla thought that Lord Devenish’s sharp tongue must be catching for she found herself saying, ‘One imagines that great men are rarely restful, Cordelia, but in any case I find his manner refreshing. We practise a deal of hypocrisy, you know.’

Consequently she said nothing of what she had seen the night before to Miss Faulkner for she did not wish to disturb her further.

She might have saved herself the trouble; when Miss Faulkner arrived back in the middle of the morning instead of at the end, her face was pale and she was trembling violently.

‘Whatever can be the matter?’ exclaimed Drusilla. ‘What brings you back so early?’ She poured out a glass of wine and handed it to her companion, ‘Here, drink this, it may help you to compose yourself.’

‘Nothing can do that,’ gasped Miss Faulkner, ‘nothing,’ shivering as she drank the wine down in one unladylike gulp. ‘I shudder to tell you, but I must. Of all dreadful things when Mr Williams arrived at the church this morning he found—oh, I cannot tell you, it is too dreadful.’

‘My dear,’ said Drusilla gently, ‘I fear that you must.’

‘Yes, I must, mustn’t I? Oh, my love, of all things he found a dead sheep on the altar and the bishop must reconsecrate the church—Lord Devenish had been sent for, and I regret what I said of him earlier this morning. He was so kind. We are to use the chapel at Tresham Hall, he says, to save us having to go all the way to the church at Tresham Minor. So very gracious of him!’

Drusilla sat down, plainly shocked. ‘Who could have done anything half so dreadful—and why?’

‘No one knows. It seems that Farmer Ramsey had an argument with Parson Williams over the tithes—which he lost. But one cannot imagine such a jovial fellow as he is doing such a thing in revenge.’

‘No, indeed,’ said Drusilla faintly, thinking of the jolly red-faced man who had often given her sweet milk to drink, fresh from the cow, when she had been a little girl.

And so she told Devenish when he visited them that afternoon to reinforce his invitation to use his chapel.

‘I thought that I ought to come to inform you that we shall make every effort to identify and punish the miscreants,’ he told them.

Giles said eagerly, ‘Vobster, our head groom, believes that it may have been Luddite sympathizers at work. Even down here, he says, there are those who talk and plan sedition.’

Devenish had surprised himself—and Rob Stammers—by finding that he needed to reassure the two ladies and young Giles that the authorities were not taking this matter lightly. He had ridden over to Lyford House as soon as he decently could, to be received with tea and muffins.

He said soberly, ‘Oh, everyone has a different explanation, from Farmer Ramsey’s annoyance over his tithes to a prank by unnamed villagers.’

‘And which do you favour, sir?’ asked Giles who had, much to Devenish’s secret amusement, adopted him as a kind of honourary uncle of whom advice might be asked.

‘I?’ said Devenish coolly, accepting a cup of tea from Miss Faulkner, ‘Why, I favour none of them until some kind of evidence emerges which might support any of the explanations offered. So far all we have is hot air and supposition.’

He looked across at Drusilla who was staring thoughtfully into space, ‘You seem a little engrossed, Mrs Faulkner. Forgive me for questioning you, but is that because you have something of matter to import relating to what we are discussing?’

He was reading her mind again. Drusilla lifted her head and gave him a splendid view of a pair of candid grey eyes.

‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘that what I am about to say may be of the order of hot air and supposition. On any other day I might have dismissed what I saw late last night as mere innocent playfulness, but after this morning’s events—who can tell?’

Devenish leaned forward. ‘You intrigue me, madam. What exactly did you see last night?’

Without embroidery, Drusilla told him, as soberly as she could, of the two strangers in Lyford’s grounds on the previous evening. She added, equally soberly, ‘When I questioned her this morning, my housekeeper was firmly of the opinion that I had not seen two of my servants who had broken the staff rules by leaving their beds after lights out.’