THE COVEN
Graham Masterton
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About The Coven
They say the girls were witches. But Beatrice Scarlet, the apothecary’s daughter, is sure they were innocent victims…
London, 1758
Beatrice Scarlet, the apothecary’s daughter, has found a position at St Mary Magdalene’s Refuge for fallen women. She enjoys the work and soon forms a close bond with her charges.
The refuge is supported by a wealthy tobacco merchant, who regularly offers the girls steady work to aid their rehabilitation. But when seven girls sent to his factory disappear, Beatrice is uneasy.
Their would-be benefactor claims they were a coven of witches, beholden only to Satan and his demonic misdeeds. But Beatrice is convinced something much darker than witchcraft is at play…
Contents
Welcome Page
About The Coven
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
About Graham Masterton
About the Katie Maguire Series
About the Scarlet Widow Series
Also by Graham Masterton
From the Editor of this Book
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
1
When Beatrice carried the basket of wet laundry out to the yard to hang it up, she saw that Noah’s hobby horse was lying on its side close to the pigpen, but there was no sign of Noah. She had seen him riding around not ten minutes earlier, waving his pudding cap and shouting to his imaginary militia to follow him into battle. Now he was gone.
She laid down her basket and went over to pick up his hobby horse. It had been made for him for his fifth birthday by William Tandridge the carpenter and painted shiny white, with huge staring eyes and its teeth bared as if it were snickering. William Tandridge had asked for no money for it, and Beatrice suspected that he had been trying to win her favour. She was a widow, after all, and he was a widower. His wife had died of typhoid fever three winters ago, along with three other wives in the village, and five children.
‘Noah!’ Beatrice called out. ‘Noah, where are you? It will time for your supper soon!’
She lifted the hem of her dark brown dress a little so that she could walk out across the grassy slope that led down towards the river. The afternoon was bright and windy, with white clouds tumbling overhead. She called out Noah’s name again, but all she could hear was the rustling of quaking aspen trees and the whistling and chipping of vireos.
‘Noah!’ she called again, and this time her voice was shrill with anxiety. How could he have disappeared completely in such a short time? Perhaps he was playing hide-and-seek to tease her, but she doubted it, because he had become very serious and protective since Francis had died, even though he had been so young. He teased his sister Florence, of course, but with Beatrice he behaved almost like a miniature husband.
She hurried further down the slope, stumbling two or three times. The river was narrow and weedy and shallow – so shallow that it barely reached up to Noah’s knees when he paddled in it – but she had forbidden him to play in it unless she was there to watch him. She prayed that he hadn’t disobeyed her, and been floating his toy boat or trying to catch pickerel.
Twenty yards from the river’s edge she saw his horsehair-stuffed pudding cap lying on the ground, and her chest tightened in panic. He loved that hat, and would never go off anywhere without it. He had even wanted to wear it to bed. She went over and picked it up, looking around desperately to see if he was anywhere in sight.
‘Noah, where are you? Noah! I hope you’re not playing games with me, young man, because this is not at all amusing! Noah!’
There was still no answer. Beatrice went right down to the river’s edge, and walked along its margent until she reached the grove of aspen trees, peering down into the rippling water to make sure that Noah wasn’t lying underneath the surface, drowned. She saw a few silvery pickerel swimming between the weeds, but that was all.
Eventually she stopped, calling out his name again and again.
Please, dear Lord, don’t let anything terrible have happened to him. I couldn’t bear to lose Noah. He looks and speaks so much like his father, and he may be all I have left of my dearest Francis.
She climbed back up the slope towards the parsonage. Just to make doubly sure that Noah wasn’t playing a game with her, she walked up and down all the long rows of beanpoles in the vegetable garden, and in between the apple and plum trees in the orchard at the side of the house. She opened up the green-painted shed where all of the gardening tools were kept, and she even let herself into the pigpen where her three Red Wattle pigs were snuffling around, bending down so that she could see if Noah were hiding inside their sty.
Of course the chance that he was hiding from her was remote, but then so was the chance that he would drop his beloved pudding cap and leave it lying in the grass.
As she walked back to the house, Beatrice could hear Florence crying. ‘Coming, Florrie!’ she called, and hurried inside, making her way through the kitchen and up the narrow stairs.
Florence was standing up in her wrought-iron crib, her cheeks red and her blonde curls damp from sleeping. Beatrice picked her up and hugged her, and brushed away her tears with her fingertips.
‘There, there, Florrie, don’t cry. You can have some milk now if you’re thirsty. But then we’ll have to get you dressed and go out to look for your big brother. I don’t know where he’s disappeared to. I just pray to God that he’s safe, and hasn’t been hurt.’
Florence frowned at her and said, ‘Where’s No-noh?’
‘I don’t know, my darling. But we’ll have to find him before it gets dark.’
She unbuttoned Florence’s white cotton nightgown and lifted it off, gently laying her down on a folded blanket on the table in the corner of the bedroom to change her soaking-wet diaper. Her mind was in turmoil with thoughts about what could have happened to Noah and she changed Florence so hurriedly that she pricked her finger with the long diaper pin, so that it bled and she had to suck it. She prayed that it wasn’t an omen.
*
It was so difficult for her to decide what to do. The long-case clock in the hallway had only just chimed four, so there were still more than three hours of daylight left. Yet how far would she be able to search for Noah by herself, carrying an eighteen-month-old child with her?
Her cousin Jeremy had been living wit
h her, but two weeks ago he had gone to Portsmouth to start work with a shipping company, and there was no way to send him a message in anything less than a day. To find anybody to help her to look for Noah she would have to harness her horse, Bramble, to her shay and drive into Sutton, or else walk there, which would take her at least twenty minutes. Whichever she chose to do, nearly an hour would be wasted, and supposing Noah came home while she was away, frightened or injured and in desperate need of attention?
She dressed Florence in her maroon cotton gown, and tied on her apron and her bonnet. She would try calling out for Noah one more time, but if she still heard no answer she knew that she would have to go down to the village and ask Major General Holyoke if he could raise a search party. It was easy for children to get lost in the woods around Sutton: little Tommy Greene had disappeared last autumn and it was only by luck that a cottontail trapper had come across him three days later, more than four miles away, starving and dehydrated and his curls thick with dried leaves and twigs.
She carried Florence down to the kitchen and sat her in her high chair. She filled her drinking cup with fresh milk and gave her a shortbread cookie, and then she went outside again to shout out for Noah.
The wind was beginning to rise, and the clouds were thickening, and there was a tang of rain in the air.
‘Noah!’ she screamed. ‘Noah, where are you? Noah!’
Eventually she went back into the kitchen. Florence looked at her worriedly and said, ‘Where’s No-noh?’
‘I don’t know, Florrie. I just want him to come home.’
She picked up Noah’s pudding cap from the kitchen table. Maybe she should let her black Labrador, Seraph, out of his kennel so that he could sniff it and pick up Noah’s scent. She was not sure how far this would lead her, though, or how long it would take, and she would still have to be carrying Florence.
She was still trying to make up her mind when she heard a knocking at her front door. A single, hesitant knock, followed almost immediately by another, a little louder.
‘Mama, that’s No-noh!’ said Florence, with her mouth full of cookie.
‘I don’t think so, darling,’ said Beatrice. ‘But let me go and see.’
She opened the door and found Goody Harris standing outside in a long grey cloak with the hood raised, so that she looked like a visiting spectre. Goody Harris was the wife of William Harris, the horse-breeder, who owned the largest stud farm in Rockingham County.
‘Goody Harris!’ said Beatrice. ‘I’m afraid you’ve come at a most desperate moment! My little son Noah is missing and I have to find a way to go looking for him!’
Goody Harris pushed back her hood. She was young, no more than twenty-three years old, and exceptionally pretty, with blonde ringlets tied up with a ribbon, cheeks red with rouge, and enormous blue eyes. Her husband was fifty-four – a big, grumpy, grey-haired man – and Goody Harris was frequently mistaken for his daughter.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I came for your help, Widow Scarlet. But if you need mine, I will do whatever I can.’
‘Is your need urgent?’ asked Beatrice.
‘In its way, yes, but not as pressing as yours.’
‘It’s not life-threatening is what I meant.’
‘It could be, if William were to find out. But it can wait until you have found your son.’
Beatrice saw that Goody Harris had come in a calash, and that a young man was sitting in it waiting for her. As he turned around, she recognised him as John Meadows, the son of Sutton’s gunsmith, Walter Meadows.
‘Would you and John go back post-haste to the village and call on Major General Holyoke?’ she asked. ‘Explain to him please that Noah has disappeared and if he can raise a party to help me to find him, I would be grateful to him for all time.’
‘Of course,’ said Goody Harris. ‘We’ll go instanter.’
Beatrice watched her hurry over to the calash. She climbed back up to her seat and Beatrice saw her speaking to John Meadows. He nodded, and then he raised his whip to acknowledge to Beatrice that they would be going to get help.
As they rattled off along the oak-lined driveway, Beatrice pressed her hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. The sky was even darker now, and the first drops of rain were beginning to fall. She felt that the end of the world was coming.
2
The men arrived within the hour, nearly a score of them altogether, some on horseback but most in their carriages. They had brought lanthorns, too, because the darkness was gathering fast.
Beatrice was waiting for them in her long black cloak. She had been outside several times to call for Noah, but it was drizzling persistently now, and because Florence had recovered only recently from a cold and she didn’t want to risk her catching pneumonia, she had left her indoors.
Major General Holyoke climbed down from his carriage and came stamping across to the porch. He was a short, stout man with wiry grey whiskers and a black eyepatch over his left eye. He was wearing a tricorn hat and a brown oilskin watchcoat which made him look like a walking tent. He had been Sutton’s magistrate for more than seven years now, and although he was known for the severity of the sentences he handed down for thieving and assault, he was also acknowledged for the kindness he showed to anyone in the village who needed assistance.
‘Widow Scarlet!’ he said, in his usual growly shout, as if he were addressing a jury. ‘Goody Harris tells me that your Noah is missing!’
Beatrice nodded. ‘He was playing outside not an hour ago. I went down as far as the river and I found his cap but other than that there is no trace of him.’
Major General Holyoke laid one hand on her shoulder and then he turned around to the men he had brought with him, and shouted, ‘Spread out, fellows! Down to the river and into the woods! And keep on calling out the little man’s name!’
He turned back to Beatrice and said, ‘Let us go inside, ma’am. There is no reason for you to be standing out here in the wet. We don’t want you ill as well as upset.’
Beatrice stayed in the porch for a moment as she watched the men making their way around the side of the parsonage. She knew all of them, of course, and one or two of them tipped their hats to her, although some seemed anxious not to intrude on her distress, and looked away.
She led Major General Holyoke into the kitchen where Florence was still sitting in her high chair pretending to feed her doll, Minnie, with a large wooden spoon.
‘Say “how do you do” to Major General Holyoke,’ Beatrice prompted her. Florence stared at the major general’s black eyepatch but said nothing.
‘Florrie,’ Beatrice admonished her, but Major General Holyoke said, ‘Not to worry, Widow Scarlet. I must present quite a fearsome image to her, poor child. Besides which, I have something of considerable importance to tell you.’
‘Go on,’ said Beatrice. Through the kitchen windows she could see several members of the search party making their way down towards the river and up towards the aspen grove.
‘There is no point in my being anything but direct with you,’ said Major General Holyoke. ‘I was given news yesterday afternoon that a band of Ossipee Indians have been marauding in the area, and that they have burned down two farmhouses in Epsom and stolen horses and guns and other property.’
‘What?’ said Beatrice. ‘I thought the Ossipee were long gone!’ She was dreading what Major General Holyoke was going to say next.
‘The Ossipee are all resettled now in New France, and as far as I know, this was only a small band of them,’ he told her. ‘I don’t know if they have been raiding us out of resentment for occupying what was once their territory, or if the French have sent them in order to cause us alarm and disruption. But apart from stealing and causing havoc, they have also kid-nabbed three women and several children.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ said Beatrice. Women and children from several families in the area had been taken away by Indians, but there had been no abductions for over three years now. Some had managed to escape and retu
rn to Sutton, and the stories they had told of being forced to walk nearly two hundred miles to Canada without food or drink had been horrifying. Most of them had been faced with no choice but to stay, and to be integrated into Indian tribal life.
‘Of course your Noah may simply have wandered off,’ said Major General Holyoke. ‘Let us pray that we find him safe and well, and find him quickly. But I have to warn you that there is a likelihood that the Indians have borne him away.’
Tears were running down Beatrice’s cheeks now, and she had to lift her apron to wipe them away. Florence looked bewildered, especially when Major General Holyoke embraced her, and held her close, and said, ‘There my dear, there my dear,’ gruffly in her ear. He smelled of tobacco and stale beer and oilskin, but Beatrice needed his comforting right then. She knew that he wouldn’t have told her about the Indians unless there was a real possibility that they had taken Noah. He wasn’t the kind to cause a mother anguish unless he knew he had to prepare her for the worst.
Florence obviously sensed that something was badly wrong, because she suddenly started to cry. Beatrice picked her out of her high chair and shushed her, rocking her from side to side.
Major General Holyoke said, ‘It looks as if the rain has eased. I’ll go out and see what progress has been made.’
*
The search for Noah continued long after twilight, when scores of brown bats flocked around the parsonage roof, as they did every night. Beatrice sat at the kitchen table, her hands clasped, and her pain was made worse because there was nothing else that she could do except comfort Florence and wait for news.
Soon after the clock chimed ten, she saw lanthorns swaying in the pitch-darkness outside, and heard men’s voices. There was a knock at the kitchen door, and Major General Holyoke reappeared, along with David Purbright the grocer and Ebenezer Banks the carriage-maker. They all looked exhausted, and their knee boots were wet and muddy.
‘I’m sorry, Widow Scarlet,’ said Major General Holyoke. ‘We have combed every inch from here to the mast road to the west, and as far as the Wilmot farm to the north, and the woods, too, and Abnaki Lake. There’s not a sign of Noah.’
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