The Devil Rides Out Read online

  ‘Liar,’ she pushed him away suddenly. ‘There must be some reason for this extraordinary wire, and poor Simon ill too What can it mean?’

  ‘God knows! Anyhow it seems that virtuous and upright wife orders preparations of rooms for guests while miserable worm husband goes down into dark, dirty cellar to select liquid sustenance for same.’ Richard paused for a moment. A wicked little smile hovered round his lips as he looked at Marie Lou curled up on the sofa with her slim legs tucked under her like a very lovely Persian kitten, then he added thoughtfully: ‘I think tonight perhaps we might give them a Little of the Chateau Lafite ‘99.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ she cried, springing to her feet. ‘You know that it’s my favourite.,’

  ‘Got you-got you,’ chanted Richard merrily. ‘Who’s a glutton now?’

  ‘You beast,’ she pouted deliciously, and for the thousandth time since he had brought her out of Russia her husband felt himself go a little giddy as his eyes rested on the perfection of her heart-shaped face, the delicately flushed cheeks and the heavy-lidded blue eyes, With a sudden movement, he jerked her to him and swinging her off her feet, picked her up in his arms.

  ‘Richard-put me down-stop.’ Her slightly husky voice rose to a higher note in a breathless gasp of protest.

  ‘Not until you kiss me.’

  ‘All right.’

  He let her slide down to her feet, and although he was not a tall man, she was so diminutive that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach her arms round his neck.

  ‘There,’ she declared, a trifle breathlessly, after he had crushed her soft lips under his. ‘Now go and play with your bottles, but spare the Lafite, beloved. That’s our own special wine, and you mustn’t even give it to our dearest friends-unless it’s for Simon and he’s really ill.

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘But whatever I give them, we shall all be tight if we’re not to be allowed to eat anything. I wish to goodness I knew what De Richleau is driving at.’

  ‘Something it is worth our while to take notice of, you may be certain. Greyeyes never does anything without a purpose. He’s a wily old fox if ever there was one in this world.’

  ‘Yes-wily’s the word,’ Richard agreed. ‘But it’s nearly lunch-time now, and I’m hungry. Surely we’re not going to take serious notice of this absurd telegram?’

  ‘Richard!’ Marie Lou had curled herself up on the sofa again. But now she sat forward suddenly, almost closing her big eyes with their long curved lashes. ‘I do think we ought to do as he says, but I was looking round the strawberry house this morning.’

  ‘Oh were you!’ He suppressed a smile. ‘And picking a few just ‘to see how they were getting on, I don’t mind betting.’

  ‘Three,’ she answered gravely. ‘And they are ripening beautifully. Now if we took a little cream and a little sugar, it wouldn’t be cheating really to go and have another look at them instead of having lunch-would it?’

  ‘No,’ said Richard with equal gravity. ‘But we have an ancient custom in England when a girl takes a man to pick the first strawberries,’

  ‘But, darling, you have so many ancient customs and they nearly always end in kissing.’

  ‘Do you dislike them on that account?’

  ‘No.’ She smiled, extending a small, strong hand by which he pulled her to her feet. ‘I think that is one of the reasons why I enjoy so much having become an Englishwoman.’

  They left Marie Lou’s comfortable little sitting-room and, pausing for a moment for her to pull on a pair of gum-boots which came almost up to her knees while Richard gave orders cancelling their luncheon, went out into the garden through the great octagonal Library.

  The house was a rambling old mansion, parts of which dated back to the thirteenth century, and the Library, being one of the oldest portions of it, was sunk into the ground so that they had to go up half a dozen steps from its French windows on to the long terrace which ran the whole length of the southern side of the house.

  A grey stone balustrade patched with moss and lichens separated the terrace from the garden, and from the former two sets of steps led down to a broad, velvety lawn. An ancient cedar graced the greensward towards the east end of the mansion where the kitchen quarters lay, hiding the roofs of the glass-houses and the walled garden with its espaliered peach and nectarine trees.

  At the bottom of the lawn tall yew hedges shut in the outer circle of the maze, beyond which lay the rose garden and the swimming-pool. To the right, just visible from the library windows, a gravel walk separated the lawn from a gently sloping bank, called the Botticelli Garden. It was so named because in spring it had all the beauty of the Italian master’s paintings. Dwarf trees of apple, plum, and cherry, standing no more than six feet high and separated by ten yards or more from each other, stood covered with white and pink blossom while, rising from the grass up the shelving bank, clumps of polyanthus, pheasant’s-eye narcissus, forget-me-nots and daffodils were planted one to the square yard.

  This spring garden was in full bloom now and the effect of the bright colours against the delicate green of the young grass was almost incredibly lovely. To walk up and down that two hundred yard stretch of green starred by its many-hued clumps of flowers with Richard beside her was, Marie Lou thought -sometimes with a little feeling of anxiety that her present happiness was too great to last-as near to Heaven as she would ever get. Yet she spent even more time in the long walk that lay beyond it, for that was her own, in which the head gardener was never allowed to interfere. It consisted of two glorious herbaceous borders rising to steep hedges on either side, and ending at an old sundial beyond which lay the pond garden, modelled from that at Hampton Court, sinking in rectangular stages to a pool where, later in the year, blue lotus flowers and white water-lilies floated serenely in the sunshine.

  As they came out on to the terrace, there were shrieks of ‘Mummy-Mummy,’ and a diminutive copy of Marie Lou, dressed in a Russian peasant costume with wide puffed sleeves of lawn and a slashed vest of colourful embroidery threaded with gold, came hurtling across the grass. Her mother and father went down the steps of the terrace to meet her, and as she arrived like a small whirlwind Richard swung her up shoulder high in his arms.

  ‘What is it Fleur d’amour?’ he asked, with simulated concern, calling her by the nick-name that he had invented for her. ‘Have you crashed the scooter again or is it that Nanny’s been a wicked girl today?’

  ‘No-no,’ the child cried, her blue eyes, seeming enormous in that tiny face, opened wide with concern. ‘Jim’s hurted hisself.’

  ‘Has he?’ Richard put her down. ‘Poor Jim. We must see about this.

  ‘He’s hurted bad,’ Fleur went on, tugging impulsively at her mother’s skirt. ‘He’s cutted hisself on his magic sword.’

  ‘Dear me,’ Marie Lou ran her ringers through Fleur’s dark curls. She knew that by ‘magic sword’ Fleur meant the gardener’s scythe, for Richard always insisted that the lawn at Cardinals Folly was too old and too fine to be ruined by a mowing machine, and maintained the ancient practice of having it scythe-cut. ‘Where is he now, my sweet?’

  ‘Nanny binded him up and I helped a lot. Then he went wound to the kitchen.’

  ‘And you weren’t frightened of the blood?’ Richard asked with interest.

  Fleur shook her curly head. ‘No. Fleur’s not to be frightened of anyfink, Mummy says. Why would I be frightened of the blug?’

  ‘Silly people are sometimes,’ her father replied. ‘But not people who know things like Mummy and you and I.’

  At that moment Fleur’s nurse joined them. She had heard the last part of the conversation. ‘It’s nothing serious, madam,’ she assured Marie Lou. ‘Jim was sharpening his scythe and the hone slipped, but he only cut his finger.’

  ‘But fink if he can’t work,’ Fleur interjected in a high treble.

  ‘Why?’ asked her father gravely.

  ‘He’s poor,’ announced the child after a solemn interval for deep thought. ‘He-ha
s-to-work-to-keep-his-children. So if he can’t work, he’ll be in a muddle-won’t he?’

  Richard and Marie Lou exchanged a smiling glance as Simon’s expression for any sort of trouble came so glibly to the child’s lips.

  ‘Yes, that’s a serious matter,’ her father agreed gravely. ‘What are we going to do about it?’

  ‘We mus’ all give him somefink,’ Fleur announced breathlessly.

  ‘Well, say I give him half-a-crown,’ Richard suggested. ‘How much do you think you can afford?’

  I’ll give half-a-cwown too.’ Fleur was nothing if not generous.

  ‘But have you got it, Batuskha?’ inquired her mother?

  Fleur thought for a bit, and then said doubtfully: ‘P’r’aps I haven’t. So I’ll give him a ha’-penny instead.’

  ‘That’s splendid, darling, and I’ll contribute a shilling,’ Marie Lou declared. That makes three shillings and sixpence halfpenny altogether, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But Nanny must give somefink,’ declared Fleur suddenly turning on her nurse, who smiling said that she thought she could manage fourpence.

  ‘There,’ laughed Richard. ‘Three and tenpence halfpenny! He’ll be a rich man for life, won’t he? Now you had better toddle in to lunch.’

  This domestic crisis having been satisfactorily settled, Richard and Marie Lou strolled along beneath the balustraded terrace, past the low branches of the old cedar, and so to the hot-houses. Their butler, Malin, had just arrived with sugar and fresh cream, and for half an hour they made a merry meal of the early strawberries.

  They had hardly finished when, to their surprise, since it was barely two o’clock, Malin returned to announce the arrival of their guests. So they hurried back to the house.

  ‘There they are,’ cried Marie Lou as the three friends came out from the tall windows of the drawing-room on to the terrace. ‘But, darling, look at Simon-they have gone mad.’

  Well might the Eaton’s think so from Simon’s grotesque appearance in shorts, cycling cape and the absurd mauve and orange cricketing cap. Hurried greetings were soon exchanged and the whole party went back into the drawing-room.

  ‘Greyeyes, darling,’ Marie Lou exclaimed as she stood on tiptoe again to kiss De Richleau’s lean cheek. ‘We had your telegram and we are dying to know what it’s all about. Have our servants conspired to poison us or what?’

  ‘What,’ smiled De Richleau. ‘Definitely what, Princess. We have a very strange story to tell you, and I was most anxious you should avoid eating any meat for today at all events.’

  Richard moved towards the bell. ‘Well, we’re not debarred from a glass of your favourite sherry, I trust.’

  The Duke held up a restraining hand. ‘I’m afraid we are. None of us must touch alcohol under any circumstances at present.’

  ‘Good God!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean that-you can’t. You have gone crazy!’

  ‘I do,’ the Duke assured him with a smile. ‘Quite seriously.’

  ‘We’re in a muddle-a nasty muddle,’ Simon added with a twisted grin.

  ‘So it appears,’ Richard laughed, a trifle uneasily. He was quite staggered by the strange appearance of his friends, the tense electric atmosphere which they had brought into the house with them, and the unnatural way in which they stood about-speaking only in short jerky, sentences.

  He glanced at Rex, usually so full of gaiety, standing huge, gloomy and silent near the door, then he turned suddenly back to the Duke and demanded: ‘What is Simon doing in that absurd get-up? If it was the right season for it I should imagine that he was competing for the fool’s prize at the Three Arts’ Ball.’

  ‘I can quite understand your amazement,’ the Duke replied quietly, ‘but the truth is that Simon has been very seriously bewitched.’

  ‘It is obvious that something’s happened to him,’ agreed Richard curtly. ‘But don’t you think it would be better to stop fooling and tell us just what all this nonsense is about?’

  ‘I mean it,’ the Duke insisted. ‘He was sufficiently ill advised to start dabbling in Black Magic a few months ago, and it’s only by the mercy of Providence that Rex and I were enabled to step in at a critical juncture with some hope of arresting the evil effects.’

  Richard’s brown eyes held the Duke’s grey ones steadily. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I am far too fond of you ever to be rude intentionally, but hasn’t this joke gone far enough? To talk about magic in the twentieth century is absurd.’

  ‘All right. Call it natural science then.’ De Richleau leaned a little wearily against the mantelpiece. ‘Magic is only a name for the sciences of causing change to occur in conformity with will.’

  ‘Or by setting natural laws in action quite inadvertently,’ added Marie Lou, to everyone’s surprise.

  ‘Certainly,’ the Duke agreed after a moment, ‘and Richard has practised that type of magic himself.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Richard exclaimed.

  De Richleau shrugged. ‘Didn’t you tell me that you got a Diviner down from London when you were so terribly short of water here last summer, and that when you took his hazel twig from him you found out quite by accident that you could locate an underground spring in the garden without his help?’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard hesitated. That’s true, and as a matter of fact, I’ve been successful in finding places where people could sink wells on several estates in the neighbourhood since. But surely that has something to do with electricity? It’s not magic.’

  ‘If you were to say vibrations, you would be nearer the mark,’ De Richleau replied seriously. ‘It is an attunement of certain little-understood vibrations between the water under the ground and something in yourself which makes the forked hazel twig suddenly begin to jump and revolve in your hands when you walk over a hidden spring. That is undoubtedly a demonstration of the lesser kind of magic.’

  ‘The miracle of Moses striking the rock in the desert from which the waters gushed forth is only another example of the same thing,’ Simon cut in.

  Marie Lou was watching the Duke’s face with grave interest. ‘Everyone knows there is such a thing as magic,’ she declared, ‘and witchcraft. During those years that I lived in a little village on the borders of the Siberian Forest I saw many strange things, and the peasants went in fear and trembling of one old woman who lived in a cottage ail alone outside the village. But what do you mean by lesser magic?’

  ‘There are two kinds,’ De Richleau informed her. ‘The lesser is performing certain operations which you believe will bring about a certain result without knowing why it should be so. If you chalk a line on the floor and take an ordinary hen, hold its beak down for a little time on to the line and then release it, the hen will remain there motionless with its head bent down to the floor. The assumption is that, being such a stupid creature, it believes that it has been tied down to the line and it is therefore useless to endeavour to escape. But nobody knows for certain. All we do know is that it happens. That is a fair example of an operation in minor magic. The great majority of the lesser witches and wizards in the part had no conception as to why their spells worked, but had learned from their predecessors that if they performed a given operation a certain result was almost sure to follow it.’

  Rex looked up suddenly and spoke for the first time. ‘I’d say they were pretty expert at playing on the belief of the credulous by peddling a sort of inverted Christian Science, faith healing, Coueism and all that as well.’

  ‘Of course,’ De Richleau smiled faintly. ‘But they were far too clever to tell a customer straight out that if he concentrated sufficiently on his objective he would probably achieve it-even if they realised that themselves. Instead, they followed the old formulas which compelled him to develop his will power. If a man is in love with a girl and is told that he will get her if he rises from his bed at seven minutes past two every night for a month, gathers half a dozen flowers from a new-made grave in the local churchyard and places them in a spot where the gi
rl will walk over them the following day, he does not get much chance to slacken in his desire and we all know that persistence can often work wonders.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Richard agreed with mild cynicism. ‘But would you have us believe that Simon is seeking the favour of a lady by wandering about in this lunatic get-up?’

  ‘No, there is also the greater magic which is only practised by learned students of the Art who go through long courses of preparation and initiation, after which they understand not only that certain apparently inexplicable results are brought about by a given series of actions, but the actual reason why this should be so. Such people are powerful and dangerous in the extreme, and it is into the hands of one of these that our poor friend has fallen.’

  Richard nodded, realising at last that the Duke was perfectly serious in his statement. ‘This seems a most extraordinary affair,’ he commented. ‘I think you’d better start from the beginning and give us the whole story.’

  ‘All right. Let’s sit down. If you doubt any of the statements that I am about to make, Rex will guarantee the facts and vouch for my sanity.’

  ‘I certainly will,’ Rex agreed with a sombre smile.

  De Richleau then told the Batons all that had taken place in the last forty-eight hours, and asked quite solemnly if they were prepared to receive Simon, Rex and himself under their roof in spite of the fact that it might involve some risk to themselves.

  ‘Of course,’ Marie Lou said at once. ‘We would not dream of your going away. You must stay just as long as you like and until you are quite certain that Simon is absolutely out of danger.’

  Richard, sceptical still, but devoted to his friends whatever their apparent folly, nodded his agreement as he slipped an arm through his wife’s. ‘Certainly you must stay. And,’ he added generously without the shadow of a smile, ‘tell us exactly how we can help you best.’

  ‘It’s awfully decent of you,’ Simon hazarded with a ghostly flicker of his old wide-mouthed grin. ‘But I’ll never forgive myself if any harm comes to you from it.’