The Coven

by Graham Masterton

  ‘The American Indians have their own gods, too,’ said Beatrice. ‘They also believe that everything has a spirit – animals, rocks, rivers – everything.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder why God created people who could think such nonsense,’ said the Reverend Parsons. He looked down at his empty bowl and said, ‘That was a capital oyster soup, I have to say. At least I know why God created oysters.’

  Three girls came in from the kitchen to clear away the plates from the first course. One of them was Grace, who smiled across the table at Beatrice, but Beatrice noticed that as soon as George saw her, he leaned towards Ida and held up his hand to shield his face, as if he were saying something confidential, and didn’t want to risk anyone reading his lips.

  Grace was beautiful, with skin the colour of melted chocolate and a full-breasted figure, and she walked with an engaging sway of her hips. Beatrice could understand why George might be taking notice of her. All the same, she doubted if Ida would let him take her away to work at his tobacco factory. Grace helped to run the household by shopping and cleaning and organizing the laundry and answering the door to visitors, and she also acted as Ida’s personal maid. She dressed Ida in the morning and took care of her clothes and quilled her wigs.

  If she were to leave, Florence would be devastated, because she adored her. Whenever Grace had a few spare moments in her busy day, she would always find Florence and play with her and No-noh, and sing Florence some of the songs that her mother had taught her in Barbadoes, like ‘Da Little Cat’ and ‘Da Cocoa Tea’.

  Now the girls carried in the main course, on four trays with silver dish-covers on them. They placed one of the dishes in front of Ida and George, and lifted the lid to reveal two roasted partridges. In the centre of the table they set down four more dishes, with stuffed cabbage and slices of roasted pork and a boiled leg of mutton with capers. Katharine came in last with a covered silver dish which she put down in front of the Reverend Parsons and Beatrice.

  ‘The pig’s head,’ she smiled.

  She took off the lid, but as soon as she did so she let out a shrill scream and dropped it on the floor. Instead of a pig’s head sitting on the plate, there was the goat’s head from the dormitory at George’s tobacco factory. Its eyes were opaque and its white hair was matted, and what made it appear all the more grotesque was that it had a red apple stuffed in its mouth, as the pig’s head would have done, and strands of watercress wound around its curly horns.

  The Reverend Parsons stood up immediately, so that his chair tipped over backwards. Beatrice stood up, too, feeling numb with shock. As soon as the girls at the table saw the goat’s head, they let out cries of disgust, although two or three of them giggled, as if it were nothing more than a practical joke.

  ‘What in the name of God is the meaning of this?’ demanded the Reverend Parsons. Then, to Katharine, ‘Did you not know what you were carrying on this plate, girl? Surely you must have seen it in the kitchen!’

  Katharine was sobbing and wringing her hands. ‘It was a pig’s head, I swear it. I saw Martha taking it out of the oven, and dressing it.’

  Ida left her seat and came up to join them, closely followed by George.

  ‘That is my goat!’ said George, in a blustery voice. ‘That is the very same goat that the seven girls sacrificed to Satan! I had it buried in the back yard! How could it have appeared on this plate? And look at it! It has not decayed in the slightest. It is in the same condition as the day it was killed.’

  Ida looked at Beatrice and slowly shook her head. ‘Black, black magic,’ she said. ‘This can only be another warning from Satan.’

  Beatrice didn’t know what to say. It was clear from Katharine’s distress that she hadn’t known what was under the dish-cover, but Martha must have known, even if she hadn’t decorated the goat’s head herself and put it on the plate instead of the pig’s head.

  Was this what George had sent down from Hackney this morning, in the hatbox? If it had been a hat, surely Ida or one of the girls would have shown it off before now. And George was right. It was the same goat that had been disembowelled and nailed to the wall of the dormitory, even though it didn’t smell of rotting flesh, as Beatrice would have expected it to. When her pigs had died in New Hampshire, they had started to stink after only a few hours, although it had been summer then, and very hot.

  Ida said, ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to abandon this meal. I don’t think any of us have much of an appetite now, do you? I’ll go to the kitchen and ask Martha how this could have happened, although I’m sure that it was Satan’s work, and that he transformed the pig’s head between the kitchen and here. He is more than capable of such mischief, after all.’

  Ida left the room, and most of the girls followed her. The Reverend Parsons and George started to talk to each other, with the Reverend Parsons telling George about other satanic miracles, or ‘lying wonders’ – especially those mentioned in the Bible in Matthew and Thessalonians.

  ‘This goat’s head, surely this one of the Devil’s false enchantments. It was done for no other reason except to demonstrate that he exists, lest any of us should still doubt it.’

  ‘Well, Reverend, I have to agree with you,’ said George. ‘It’s a great pity that he should have ruined such an excellent dinner just to prove a point.’

  The Reverend Parsons looked mournfully at the pork and the partridges and the stuffed cabbage. ‘We could stay for supper, couldn’t we, and have it served cold?’

  ‘Not me, I’m afraid,’ said George. ‘I have to be back at the factory by five. We’re expecting a large shipment of tobacco leaves from the Carolinas.’

  While they were talking, with their backs half-turned, Beatrice picked up a small pair of sewing scissors from the shelf at the side of the atelier, went across to the dinner table and quickly snipped a tuft of hair from the goat’s wiry beard. She folded it into a napkin and pushed the napkin into her pocket.

  As she passed him on her way to the door, the Reverend Parsons said, ‘You mustn’t blame yourself too severely for this unfortunate enchantment, Beatrice. But there seems to be no question at all that Satan is making sure that you recognize how influential he is, and how much power he invested in those seven unfortunate girls.’

  Beatrice didn’t look at him, but at George instead. ‘Yes, Reverend. I believe I know now what kind of a demon I’m up against. After today, I certainly can’t question that he’s real, can I?’

  George raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he caught the inference in what she was saying. ‘That’s very wise of you, Beatrice. It’s sad but true that those who challenge his satanic majesty often come to an unfortunate end.’

  Although Beatrice realized that he was making a thinly veiled threat, she resisted the temptation to tell him not to try to intimidate her. She wanted him to think that while she suspected him of hiding the truth about the coven’s disappearance, or at least of misleading her, she was going to take no further action to discover what had really happened to them, or voice her suspicions to anybody else.

  She left George and the Reverend Parsons and went along the corridor to the kitchen, where Ida was questioning Martha. Most of the girls were gathered around, and even Florence was there, holding No-noh in her arms, even though No-noh was almost as big as she was, his face crumpled and his back legs hanging down.

  Martha was sitting at the kitchen table looking defiant rather than upset. When Beatrice came in, she stood up immediately and said, ‘Widow Scarlet – I was just a-tellin’ Mrs Smollett ’ere that I don’t ’ave even the faintest notion ’ow a goat’s ’ead could have turned up on that there plate. I swear on my dead ’usband’s grave that it was a pig’s ’ead I put on it, with an apple in its mouth and cress around its ears. ’Ow it got to be a goat’s ’ead between ’ere and the dinner table I ’ave no idea at all. Witchcraft, I calls it. Witchcraft!’

  Beatrice looked around the kitchen. ‘If the pig’s head was somehow removed from the plate and the goat’s head put in its
place, then where is the pig’s head now?’

  ‘It ain’t nowhere,’ said Martha. ‘It’s not like one ’ead was swapped for another. It was like, ’ocus-pocus.’

  ‘There’s a strong smell of burned pork in here now,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Well, of course. I roasted ’alf the pig and ’eated up the ’ead really ’ot, so the ears would be crisp.’

  Florence said, ‘I’m ’ungry! And No-noh’s ’ungry, too!’

  Beatrice was about to admonish for dropping her aitches, but thought it more diplomatic to wait until they were alone – just as it was more circumspect to agree that the pig’s head had been transmogrified into a goat’s head by Satan.

  I believe in Satan, she thought. I believe in Satan as much as I believe in God. Her dear dead Francis had felt so threatened by Satan in his work as a parson that he always wore a medal of St Benedict around his neck, with the initials VRSNSMV around the rim – Vade retro Satana; nunquam suade mihi vana: Begone Satan, suggest not to me vain things.

  But she also thought: Surely Satan must have his hands full stirring up wars and mass murders and terrible catastrophes, like cities burning and passenger ships sinking with all on board. Why would he take the time to frighten me – one young widow, who is no threat to him at all?

  George came into the kitchen and said, ‘I’ll be off now, Ida. I’m sorry this hugely pleasant occasion had to end so abruptly. But we must arrange another dinner very soon. I’m extremely partial to a crisp pig’s ear.’

  ‘What about the goat’s head?’ asked Ida.

  ‘Don’t worry. Giles my coachman has taken it, and we’ll bury it in our cesspit. That’s the only place that Satan deserves to be buried, don’t you agree, Beatrice? The cesspit?’

  Beatrice smiled wanly. The kitchen was still filled with the smell of burned pork and she was beginning to feel as if her clothes and her hair were permeated with it. She could hear Florence crying in the atelier, so she gave George a curtsey and said, ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t think Satan has succeeded in dulling my Florrie’s appetite, even if he’s made the rest of us feel queasy.’

  25

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in prayers and hymn-singing, led by the Reverend Parsons. At six o’clock, they all sat down to a supper of cold meats, with the Reverend Parsons managing to eat almost the whole boiled leg of mutton by himself, cutting slice after slice, and calling on Martha to bring him another boatful of caper sauce.

  Nobody mentioned the goat’s head, but Beatrice couldn’t stop thinking about it, and after the Reverend Parsons had left she excused herself and took Florence upstairs to their rooms. She didn’t know what Francis would have said, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe that at some point between the kitchen and the dinner table, underneath a silver dish-cover, Satan had managed to work one of his ‘lying wonders’.

  ‘Grace was funny at supper,’ said Florence.

  Beatrice was sitting at her toilet, writing her diary. ‘Funny? What do you mean?’

  ‘She wouldn’t talk to me. But she kept hugging me. She hugged me so tight I was nearly sick.’

  ‘I wonder what the matter was.’

  Florence picked Minnie up from the floor and climbed up into her chair, cuddling the doll close. She hadn’t shown such affection for Minnie since No-noh had come into her life. ‘I don’t know. But when I took No-noh into the garden for his poo-poo, Grace was there, and I think she was crying.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Beatrice, and recalled the way that George had been looking at Grace at dinner, and talking to Ida behind his hand.

  ‘I said, “Are you crying, Grace?” but she wiped her eyes with her apron and said no.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask her if she’s worried about something, or not feeling very well,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘I love Grace,’ said Florence. ‘I love Grace and I love No-noh and I love Minnie.’

  ‘What about me?’

  Florence jumped down from her chair, came across the room and stood on tiptoe to give Beatrice a kiss.

  ‘I love you best of all, Mama. And I love my brother Noah, and I love Papa in heaven.’

  Beatrice looked down at what she had already written in her diary.

  Dear God, I pray that my suspicions are unfounded.

  *

  She couldn’t sleep. It had stopped raining and the clouds must have cleared away, because when she turned over in bed she could see stars. Just visible over the window ledge towards the south-east was the bright star Fomalhaut. Her father had told it was always called the Lonely Star of Autumn.

  Florence was deeply in dreamland with Minnie lying next to her, although Minnie was wide awake and staring provocatively at Beatrice as if to say, Go on then, have the courage of your convictions, Widow Scarlet.

  Strangely, she thought that she could still smell burned pork, and quite strongly, too. After she had undressed for bed, she had sprinkled her dress and her petticoats with bergamot and rose blossom water to mask the odour that was still clinging to them. This smell must be drifting upstairs from the kitchen, even up here to the top floor.

  After she had heard the clock downstairs chiming one, she climbed out of bed, went to the wardrobe, and took out her long white day gown. Her heart was beating fast, and although she knew what she was intending to do, she didn’t feel as if she were the person doing it.

  This is another Beatrice, bolder and much more irrational than the usual Beatrice.

  Quietly, she opened the sitting-room door and went out onto the landing. The house was silent, and dark, although there was just enough light from the moon to be able to see where she was going. She waited for a few seconds to make sure that nobody was awake, and then, barefoot, she went downstairs, keeping close to the panelled wall so that she wouldn’t make the treads creak.

  The smell of burned pork had almost faded away now. Perhaps Martha had been telling the truth, and it had been caused by her roasting the pig’s head at high temperature, so that its ears became crisp. But why should it smell as if it had been charred? Beatrice could remember a house fire on the corner of Giltspur Street, where she used to live when she was a young girl. Three adults and five children had been trapped in one of the bedrooms, and she had walked past not long after the first floor had collapsed, and their incinerated bodies had dropped down into the chandler’s shop below. She had never forgotten the smell and this smell was almost the same.

  She tiptoed along the hallway and eased open the kitchen door. The hinges groaned, and again she paused and listened to make sure that nobody had heard her.

  Inside the kitchen, it was still warm from the day’s cooking, although the wood fire in the hearth had died down now into a mound of white ash, with only a few spots still glowing red. Unlike the cast-iron metal Franklin stove in Beatrice’s kitchen in New Hampshire, this was an open brick fireplace, with big-bellied pots hanging down on hooks for boiling, and a gridiron in front of the fire for roasting joints of meat and poultry on a spit.

  She made her way around the kitchen table until she reached the hearth. It was so dark at this end of the kitchen that she could hardly see, but she found three candles on the shelf beside the cookery books, and she lit one by bending down and holding its wick against the red-hot ashes.

  The cooking pots were still hot so she put on a thick padded mitt so that she could lift up their lids and peer inside. They were all empty. There was nothing on the gridiron, either, except for a few blackened shreds of meat, and these wouldn’t have been enough to account for the smell which had pervaded the whole house.

  Beatrice was about to take off the mitt when the ashes in the grate gave a sudden lurch. She picked up the poker from the fire iron stand, and gave the ashes a tentative prod. She felt something underneath them, something curved and hard. She prodded again, and then again, and as the ashes dropped away she could see what it was. A pig’s skull, most of its snout and its cheeks burned away and its bone scorched dark brown. Its ash-filled teeth grinned at her
as if it had been hiding here in the hearth with the deliberate intention of scaring her.

  She hung up the poker, took off the mitt, and stood for a while staring at it. So Martha had been lying. Either she or one of the other girls had arranged the goat’s head on the dish, for no other purpose than to frighten her. They had obviously supposed that they could cremate the pig’s head in the hearth overnight, and then crush the skull into unrecognizable fragments, so that she would never know that they had been trying to deceive her.

  In one way, she felt a sense of relief, because she was sure now that it wasn’t Satan who was warning her off. In another way, she felt even more disturbed, because she no longer knew who to trust. Had Ida been party to what Martha had done, or had she been taken in too? And what about George? How could he be so benevolent and caring, and at the same time seem to be so threatening? Had he threatened her, she asked herself, or had she simply been reading too much into his insistence that the seven girls had summoned up the Devil? Even the Reverend Parsons agreed with him, and the Reverend Parsons was one of the kindliest and most tolerant clerics she had ever met, even if he was the greediest. He believed that every young woman who went astray should be given a second chance to avoid hanging or transportation and ultimately hell. Without his inspiration and George’s money, St Mary Magdalene’s would never have been founded.

  Beatrice blew out the candle, replaced it on the shelf and left the kitchen, closing the door behind her. She climbed the stairs in the same way that she had come down, keeping close to the side-panelling.

  Florence stirred when she climbed back into bed, and murmured, ‘Ashes, ashes...’

  Beatrice lay beside her without sleeping, watching the Lonely Star of Autumn rise to its apogee and then disappear behind the dome of St Paul’s.