The Devil And Drusilla

‘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.’