The Coven

by Graham Masterton

  ‘The Reverend Parsons believes that Satan did it to discredit you. He wanted to make it appear as if you had invented your evidence. After all, where in the world could those girls have found paint?’

  Beatrice twisted her hands away from his, and said, ‘Let’s just walk. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s all too confusing, and I’ve been badly scared, and so has Florrie.’

  As they continued along the path, they saw that Florence was squatting down beside a small white pug dog, and patting it. The dog was licking her hand and furiously wagging its tail.

  ‘Florrie!’ said Beatrice. ‘How many times have I told you not to touch strange dogs? You never know if they have fleas.’

  ‘I think he wants a drink.’

  ‘Well, where is his master, or his mistress?’

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t have a collar.’

  Beatrice looked around. Among the promenading crowds, one or two women had small lapdogs with them, either carried in their arms or trotting along behind them on long ribbons, but she couldn’t see anybody who looked as if they were searching for their lost pet. The dog was also quite scruffy and dirty, so it was likely that it was a stray. At least it was affectionate, so it wasn’t suffering from rabies. Last year in London there had been a widespread panic about rabies, and the order had gone out that every dog roaming the streets should be shot.

  ‘You’ll have to leave him, Florrie. We have to go back home now.’

  ‘But I think he wants a drink.’

  ‘Florrie, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave him.’

  They started to walk back to the entrance, where the carriages were parked.

  James said, ‘I’m sorry, Beatrice. This day has turned out to be a disaster.’

  ‘James – it wasn’t your fault. We’ll go out another time, perhaps in the evening, without Florrie. We could go to the Three Cranes in the Vintry that you mentioned before.’

  She heard Florence giggling, and looked round to see that the little pug was following close behind her.

  ‘Tell him to shoo!’ Beatrice told her.

  Florence said, ‘Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!’ and waved her arms, but when she started walking again, the pug continued to follow her.

  ‘He won’t shoo!’ she said.

  Beatrice went back and stood over the dog. ‘Off you go!’ she said sternly. ‘Go and find your mistress, or your master, or whoever takes care of you! Go on, be off with you!’

  The pug didn’t move, but looked up at her and let out a squeaky little yap.

  ‘I don’t think it understands English,’ said James.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Beatrice, and they all started walking again. When they reached their chaise, though, the pug was still so close to Florence that it was sniffing at her the backs of her shoes.

  Florence turned around to it and said, ‘I have to go now, doggie. Goodbye.’

  The pug let out another yap, and then a thin, pathetic whine. Florence squatted down again to stroke it, and then she looked up at Beatrice and said, ‘Can I keep him, Mama?’

  ‘Keep him? No, I don’t think so. He’s filthy dirty, and I’m not sure if Mrs Smollett would welcome a dog in the house.’

  ‘But I’ll wash him and give him a drink and look after him. Please, Mama!’

  ‘Florrie, it just wouldn’t be practical. What I mean is, no.’

  Florence put her arms around the dog, and said, ‘We could call him No-noh.’

  Beatrice pressed her hand against her mouth. She felt as if she had dropped down a bottomless well.

  ‘Please, Mama, can I keep him?’ Florence coaxed her.

  ‘Very well. But you must make sure you bathe him as soon as we get home; and before you play with him I will dose him with mercury to make sure that he doesn’t have ringworm, although I can’t see any bald patches on him. And he must be wormed, too.’

  ‘Oh, Mama! Thank you! Thank you!’

  James smiled at her and said, ‘That was a sudden change of heart.’

  ‘Well, she has no children of her own age to play with, even though the girls at St Mary Magdalene’s adore her.’

  ‘There’s an oilskin knee-blanket in the back of the chaise. We can roll the dog up in that while we drive home, to save your cape from being soiled.’

  Beatrice and Florence climbed into the chaise, while James folded the blanket around the pug and then handed him up like a badly wrapped parcel.

  ‘Good boy, No-noh, good boy,’ Florence cooed at him, as they started off.

  Beatrice looked away. She was biting her lip and didn’t want James to see how emotional she felt. She could still picture Noah astride his hobby horse, calling out for his soldiers to follow him.

  They came out of the gardens onto the embankment. As they passed through the gates, she suddenly caught sight of saw the tall hooded figure standing on the corner, his black cape stirring in the breeze. He lifted his hood as they approached, and she saw a flash of reflected sunlight from his mirrored face.

  ‘James!’ she said. ‘Look! There! That’s him! That’s the man who threatened me!’

  ‘Hold on, Beatrice! Whoa!’

  A four-horse cabriolet was heading towards them at a rattling pace from the direction of the World’s End, and James was trying to pull the chestnut horse to a standstill.

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa, I say! Cock and pie, whoa!’

  He managed to pull the chaise to a halt, and then look around. By the time he had done so, though, the figure had disappeared into the crowd of pedestrians milling around the entrance.

  ‘Are you sure it was him?’

  Beatrice nodded. ‘Just take us home, please, James. I think I have had quite enough of the Devil for one day.’

  21

  Ida agreed that Florence could keep No-noh, provided he was washed and wormed and house-trained.

  ‘I’m very grateful, Ida,’ said Beatrice. ‘You’ve just made Florrie very happy.’

  ‘And not only Florrie,’ smiled Ida, as if she could sense that in some way that keeping No-noh was important for Beatrice, too, although Beatrice didn’t think that she had ever told her Noah’s name, or what Florence called him.

  She followed Ida into the drawing room.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you about,’ she said. ‘Something happened today when James Treadgold took us to Ranelagh Gardens.’

  ‘Don’t tell me he proposed to you. I can tell that he’s perfectly besotted.’

  ‘No, nothing like that. While James went off to pay for our cake, a man all dressed in black came up to me and threatened me. He said that I shouldn’t question the existence of the Devil, and he even suggested that he might be the Devil himself.’

  ‘I hope you took no notice of him. London is thronged with idiots like that.’

  ‘That’s what James said. But he knew my name, this man, and I’m convinced that he was referring to my belief about our seven missing girls.’

  ‘He knew your name? Perhaps he was the Devil. What did he look like?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, and I think that’s what alarmed me more than anything. His face was nothing but a looking glass.’

  ‘A looking glass?’

  ‘Yes. Inside his hood. When I looked at him the only face I could see was my own.’

  ‘Perhaps that in itself was a message. Perhaps he was trying to show you that those who deny his existence only make his work easier. In effect, they become his accomplices.’

  ‘I saw him again, outside the gardens, as we were leaving. He was definitely watching and waiting for me.’

  ‘Well, Beatrice, if you are being warned by the Devil himself, my advice to you is to take serious notice of it.’

  ‘I do take it seriously, especially since he upset Florence, too. And I do believe in the Devil. But I still don’t believe that it was the Devil who gave our missing girls the power to spirit themselves away from the tobacco factory; and I refuse to believe that this man with the looking-glass face was the Devil hims
elf, or even the Devil’s messenger. If I thought that I could identify him, I would seek to have him arrested, but of course the only face I saw inside his hood was my own reflection.’

  The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece whirred and struck six.

  Ida stood up and said, ‘Anyway, Beatrice, it’s time for our evening prayers. I’ll add a special prayer today for your protection from the Devil, and with the Lord’s help that should ensure that you and Florence are never threatened again. For your own safety, though, I think it would be wise for you to forget about our missing girls, and how they vanished. They are gone and lost forever, I’m sad to say, and no amount of investigation will ever find them. You are simply causing yourself unnecessary anxiety, my dear, and exposing yourself to unnecessary danger. You know from your own experience how prickly Satan can be.’

  Beatrice was about to say that, in her experience, men could be far quicker to lash out than Satan, especially if they were caught doing something they shouldn’t. At that moment, though, Florence came into the drawing room with Grace, and Grace was carrying No-noh in her arms – a damper No-noh, but much cleaner, with a green silk ribbon around his neck.

  ‘Grace and me washed him with soap,’ said Florence, triumphantly.

  ‘Well, I must say he looks a picture,’ said Ida. ‘If you take him down to the kitchen, cook can feed him some scraps.’

  ‘After that, Florrie, you must go to bed,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Where will No-noh sleep? Can he sleep in our bed?’

  ‘No, Florrie, he can’t. I haven’t treated him for fleas or ticks or ringworm yet, and we will have to clear his tummy of worms, too.’

  ‘He can sleep in the scullery,’ said Grace. ‘There’s a small laundry basket which we never use, and I can fold an old blanket in it for him. I think somebody teach him already to go outside to do the necessary.’

  *

  That night, Beatrice again found it difficult to sleep. Florence was unusually fidgety and kept murmuring and turning over, so that she became tangled in the sheets. Beatrice hoped that she was dreaming about her new pet pug, and not having nightmares about the man with the looking-glass face.

  Outside, a bright gibbous moon hung over the dome of St Paul’s; and she could hear laughter and shouting and singing in the streets, and what she was sure was a pistol shot. She couldn’t stop thinking about their day at Ranelagh Gardens, and about the warning that the man with the looking-glass face had given her, and the seven missing girls. She found it impossible to believe that they had really been turned into witches by Satan and flown away, but their disappearance had still been highly mysterious, like some conjuring trick.

  If she had been in George Hazzard’s shoes, she would have gone immediately to 4 Bow Street and reported their disappearance to the Ordinary, in case an officer should happen to spot one or more of the girls in the street. She also might have considered placing an advertisement in Lloyd’s Evening Post, as people often did when they were appealing for stolen property to be returned, or absconding servants to be tracked down.

  She was on the verge of sleep when she heard a scratching noise. It started off quite soft and hesitant, like a cat scratching at a table leg. She lifted her head off the pillow and listened. After a moment’s pause she heard it again, but it was followed by almost fifteen seconds of total silence.

  Then, with no warning at all, there was a crash against the panels of her sitting-room door, followed by a harsh scraping sound as if huge claws were being dragged all the way down it. It happened again, and again, and each time it was louder. It sounded like some monstrous beast trying to rip its way in. Its scraping soon became so violent that the door began to rattle on its hinges.

  She climbed quickly out of bed and opened the bedroom door. The curtains were open, and so the sitting room was coldly illuminated by the moon, as if it were frozen. The scraping was growing faster and even more ferocious, and the sitting-room door was creaking. Whatever kind of a creature it was, she was terrified that it was going to come bursting through at any moment.

  She picked up the heavy brass candlestick from the toilet and approached the door, holding the candlestick in both hands.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she called out. ‘Who are you? Go away!’

  The scraping continued, even louder, and there was an added screeching sound, which set her teeth on edge, as if it were dragging its claws down the door with all its strength.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Beatrice shouted, almost screaming; and now Florence woke up and started to cry.

  Beatrice went up close to the door, lifted the candlestick in both hands and struck the central mullion as hard as she could.

  ‘Go away!’ she shrieked. ‘Whoever you are – whatever you are – go away!’

  She stepped back, and as she did so the scraping abruptly stopped. Florence was wailing now, and calling out, ‘Mama! Mama!’ Beatrice hesitated for a moment, and when it seemed as if the scraping wasn’t going to start again, she went into the bedroom to pick Florence up off the bed and hug her.

  ‘Mama, why were you shouting?’

  ‘Ssh, darling, don’t worry. I think some silly person thought that these were his rooms, and was trying to get in. He’s gone now.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Florrie. Just some silly man. I expect he’d been drinking too much beer.’

  ‘I was frightened.’

  Beatrice stroked her hot, sticky curls and kissed her forehead. ‘I know you were, but there’s nothing to be frightened of now. Would you like a drink of water?’

  Florence nodded, and whispered ‘yes’. Beatrice sat her down on the end of the bed and went to pour her a glass of water, but as she did so there was a knock at the sitting-room door, and she heard Ida’s voice calling, ‘Beatrice? Beatrice? What’s happened? Are you all right?’

  ‘Coming, Ida!’ she called. She gave Florence her drink and then she went back into the sitting room and unlocked the door. Ida was standing in the corridor in a nightcap and a long damask nightgown, holding a candle. This was the first time that Beatrice had seen her without her white lead make-up. She had puffy bags under her eyes and her cheeks were pitted all over with smallpox scars, like a Cheshire cheese.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she repeated. ‘Are you all right? What in the name of God has happened to this door?’

  Beatrice looked at the door and saw that it had been gouged and splintered with deep parallel ruts, all the way down from the top rail to the lock rail.

  ‘Oh, dear Lord,’ she said. She still felt breathless and shaky. ‘It’s worse than I thought.’

  ‘You look dreadfully pale, my dear. You haven’t been hurt, though, have you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t open the door. I have no idea who could have done this – or what.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘I heard something scratching, quite quietly at first, but then it became so furious that I thought it was going to break in and tear us to pieces.’

  Ida held the candle closer to the door, and said, ‘No man did this, Beatrice. These are the marks of some animal.’

  ‘It must have run downstairs, right past your rooms. Didn’t you hear it?’

  ‘I heard only your screams. I was concerned that your bedding or your curtains might have caught alight.’

  ‘But whoever did this – or whatever did it – where did they disappear to?’

  ‘Well, as I say, I don’t think it was a man who did this. These are claw marks, don’t you agree?’

  ‘They certainly look like claw marks. But even if it was an animal, where did it go? Whatever kind of a creature did this, it must have been enormous. The size of a bear, at the very least. And where did it come from? There are bears in the bear gardens, aren’t there, at Marybone, and Hockley-in-the-Hole, but they’re always chained up, aren’t they? I’ve seen no bears roaming wild since I was in America.’

  Ida said, ‘You ask where it came from, Beatrice, and where it w
ent, but what is much more puzzling is how it could have got in. The doors downstairs are always locked and chained at night, and all the windows are closed and barred.’

  ‘We’d best search the whole house,’ Beatrice told her. ‘If it’s hidden itself somewhere, it could jump out again and attack us. Perhaps we should see if we can find a watchman.’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry about the watch. I’ll gather some of the girls together – the big strong ones like Hannah Wilkes and Anne Fettle. I have a blunderbuss too that George gave me in case of a burglary. But I have to say that I very much doubt that we’ll find anything.’

  ‘Ida – where could it possibly hide itself so that we couldn’t find it? I mean, an animal that can cause this much damage?’

  Ida lifted her candle to the door again, and with her left hand imitated the action of a clawing beast.

  ‘It clearly wasn’t a man... but I’m beginning to doubt if it was an animal, either. And why did it attack your door and nobody else’s?’

  ‘Sorry, Ida. I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘Beatrice – many different animals have claws. But no animal is capable of passing through solid doors that are locked and chained. And even if it could, why would it climb all the way up to the top of the house to go after you, when there are so many other young women sleeping on the floors below?’

  ‘I still don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘You’ve challenged Satan, Beatrice. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It could well have been another warning. If this door wasn’t clawed by the Devil himself, he might have sent a demon to do it – Belphegor or Baal.’ She sniffed the air, and said, ‘Why... you can almost smell the sulphur!’

  ‘I’m flabbergasted,’ said Beatrice. ‘The Devil – or a demon? I don’t know what to say to you.’

  ‘Who else could it have been? Who else but the Devil can materialize himself wherever he wishes, regardless of locks and keys? And who else in this house has questioned that he gave our seven girls the power to spirit themselves away – who else but you?’