The man addressed led his white-robed novice up the aisle, then stood aside. The Abbot threw some herbs on the chafing dishes and they went up in clouds of aromatic smoke. The Abbess took both the novice’s hands in hers, held them in silence for a full minute, then said in a toneless voice that was barely audible to the congregation:
‘My child, you are in grave trouble. Your family is noble, but now poor. They are in very serious financial difficulties. Owing to this they wish you to restore their fortune by marrying you to a rich merchant.’
The girl gave an audible gasp of surprise, then the Abbess went on, ‘You are already engaged to this man. He is much older than you, and you hate him. You are in love with a younger man—a soldier. Normally events would take their course, and a life of misery as the wife of this man you hate be yours. But your good angel has brought you here so that you may be offered a way to save yourself. Our Order has been granted power to alter the course of human lives. If you desire to join it, you must first submit to an ordeal which may seem repugnant to you. But it is of brief duration and, once initiated, we can assure you a happy future. Think well on this, my child, and let me know your decision through him we call here Abadon.’
Releasing the girl’s hands, the Abbess signed to her to go and, turning about, she was escorted by Abadon back to the rear of the temple. As they halted there, the Abbess cried in a loud voice as before:
‘He who on joining our Order was re-christened Nebiros shall now bring forward the seeker after truth that he has brought to us.’
The other couple advanced up the aisle. Again the man stood aside and the Abbot threw herbs on the chafing dishes. The Abbess took the novice’s hands, remained in deep thought for a moment, then said:
‘My child, you are fortunate. You are surrounded by love and wealth. No-one will force you to do anything against your wishes. But I see sorrow ahead for you. It arises from a breach which has very recently occurred between you and a young man who loves you and whom you love dearly. The Powers tell me that separation from him threatens you, a separation that may last for years. It may even be permanent. Our Order can call upon forces that will alter the course of events. They could protect you from this grievous loss if you are willing to submit to an ordeal you may think unpleasant. By no means every novice finds the initiation ceremony hard to bear, but should you do so, a period of distress soon over is no great price to pay in order to prevent the man you love being taken from you by circumstances over which you have, at present, no control. Think well on this, my child, and let me know your decision through him whom we here call Nebiros.’
While the second novice and her escort returned to their place at the back of the temple, the Abbot disappeared behind the curtain on the left of the altar, to re-emerge a moment later carrying a great two-handled urn. At the same moment a huge negro, wearing only a loin cloth, came out from behind the right-hand curtain carrying a similar urn.
As though at a signal, the whole congregation came to its feet and, in pairs, forming a long queue, walked up the aisle. From his initiation ceremony Charles knew that the urn held by the negro was empty. Into it every Brother would drop a purse holding twenty guineas, and members of both sexes who wished to secure information about the future would drop notes asking their questions. The notes were signed with the names by which they had been re-christened on initiation, but the Abbot and Abbess knew their real names and, in a few days’ time, they would receive written answers. The urn held by the Abbot contained wine, heavily loaded with a powerful aphrodisiac, a few sips of which were enough to double the potency of those who drank it.
The only future matter about which Charles would have liked to know was whether Susan would carry out her threat to take a lover, or if, on second thoughts, restrain herself out of love for him. But he had not dared put his question on paper and bring it, for fear that the answer would be the one he dreaded, and so add to his torment on every occasion when she had the opportunity to be alone with one of her beaux. When the Abbot presented the Hell-broth loving cup to him, he took only a single sip for form’s sake, because the thought of what was soon to come had already aroused his passions to fever pitch.
While the proceedings with the urns were taking place, the Abbess threw more handfuls of herbs on the chafing dishes. The flaming oil that rose from the centre of the dishes swiftly turned the herbs into clouds of pungent smoke, filling the temple with the scent of musk and incense, calculated further to excite the lust of the monks and nuns.
As they returned to their places among the cushions, they began to embrace, kiss and fondle one another. With the impatience of youth, the moment Lady Luggala reseated herself, Charles threw his arms about her and pressed his mouth to hers. She opened it readily and sucked in his tongue. Next moment he had pushed her over on to her back and, despite her mock chiding, thrust one of his hands up beneath her robe. Under it she had on only a silk shift and his eager fingers slid swiftly up between her thighs. Closing her legs tightly, she pushed him back and said with a low laugh:
‘You wicked boy. If you go too fast you will spoil things for us later. Desist now, I beg. We must wait until the Reverend Mother has performed her ritual. Then we’ll be free to rid ourselves of all our clothes and I’ll let you do what you will with me.’
As Charles withdrew his hand, a bell tinkled, the Abbot and the negro disappeared with their urns behind the curtains either side of the altar, the company fell silent, ceased embracing and all eyes became fixed on the Abbess. With a swift gesture she plucked her coif from her head and threw it aside. A mass of dark, curling hair fell to her shoulders. With equal swiftness she pulled undone a silk bow beneath her chin. Her robe slid down onto the floor and she stepped out of it stark naked.
Holding her arms aloft, she stood motionless for a moment, her eyes wide, staring straight in front of her. Although the majority of those present had seen her naked before, a little gasp of admiration paid tribute to her beauty. Her figure formed a perfect adjunct to her lovely face. She was close on six feet in height. Her shoulders were broad, her breasts stood out round and firm, with no sign of the sagging usual in women over forty. Her waist was slender and her hips curved out from it down to powerful thighs. The whiteness of her skin was accentuated by big, brown circles surrounding her red nipples, and the Vee of dark, crisp curls that covered her strongly-developed mons veneris.
Having allowed her congregation to gaze their full, she turned about to face the altar. Raising her arms again, she cried in a loud voice:
‘Oh, mighty Bast, sister of Set and daughter of Lucifer, we pray thee intercede with him—the most beautiful and most gifted of all the Archangels: the Sun of the Morning, the Lord of This World, the Giver of all Power, Wealth and Joy here in the Principality bestowed upon him by the Almighty—that he may grant our desires. In devotion to you, dear Bast, and to Him, I will now receive into myself two libations of the essence that creates flesh.’
Turning about, she clapped her hands three times, then threw herself face down on the curiously-shaped padded stool. Her full breasts fitted into the downward curve on the left side and her buttocks were raised up over the hump on the right. In response to her claps, the curtains bearing the Yang and the Yin again parted. From the left the Abbot emerged and from the right the huge, coal-black negro. Both were now stark naked and erect. Stretching out a hand the Abbess grasped the member of the Abbot and drew him toward her. The negro flung himself upon her from behind.
The silence was suddenly broken by a girl’s voice gasping, ‘Take me away.’
It came from one of the white-clad novices. Charles swivelled round on his cushions to stare at her. The mask and veil entirely hid her face and hair, but he could have sworn that the voice was Susan’s.
Her escort whispered angrily, ‘Be silent!’
Again the girl’s voice came, louder this time. ‘Take me away at once! I refuse to witness this disgusting spectacle.’
As she spoke she had turned towards t
he stairs. The man grasped her arm to pull her back. In a low, harsh voice he said, ‘Shut your eyes if you will. But you must remain till the ceremony is completed.’
When the girl had spoken the second time, Charles could no longer doubt that she really was Susan, and now he recognised the man’s voice as that of Captain Hawksbury. Jumping to his feet, he covered in a matter of seconds the short distance that separated him from the arguing couple. Addressing Hawksbury, he whispered fiercely:
‘Unhand this lady! I intend to take her out.’
‘Hell’s bells! What has this to do with you?’ Hawksbury exclaimed in surprise.
‘No matter,’ Charles snarled. ‘She is coming with me.’
Hawksbury had let go Susan’s arm and turned to face him. Cockfighting and contests between pugilists were the favourite sports of the day, and many a young man of gentle birth prided himself on his performance in the ring. When at Eton Charles had learned to box and had proved himself a formidable opponent against others of his weight. Now, with the precision of a professional, he lashed out and landed a terrific punch under the side of Hawksbury’s jaw. The Captain went over backwards, landing with a heavy thud at full length on the floor of the aisle.
All this had happened very quickly, but those nearby among the congregation had heard the fierce whispering and several had called, ‘Hush! Hush!’ or ‘Be quiet there!’ in low, angry voices.
As Hawksbury was bowled over, Susan let out a scream. Within a minute everyone present sprang to their feet. The nearest men scrambled over the cushions and ran at Charles. He turned to defend himself and knocked down the first to come within striking distance. The next landed a blow on his ear. A third struck him hard in the stomach, momentarily winding him. Others seized his arms and, strive as he did to free himself, he was soon overpowered.
His mind was in a whirl. What they would do to him he had no idea, but he felt certain that they would regard as an appalling sacrilege his violent interruption of their satanic ceremony at its highest point. It was possible that they might content themselves with expelling him from their Order. But, if the Abbess proved vindictive, she might put some terrible curse on him, perhaps even render him impotent. Between the faces staring at him he glimpsed her now. She had risen from the stool and was standing, still in her splendid nakedness, between the Abbot and the negro. Her dark eyebrows, which met over the bridge of her imperious nose, were drawn down in a ferocious frown, and her mouth was set in grim lines that showed her to be in a most evil temper. Scowling, she began to walk forward.
Charles’s mind flashed to Susan. It was she who had been the cause of the ugly scene that had ruined the tribute to the dark gods. He was now powerless to get her away from this company of rakes and licentious women into which, all too late, he now realised he had allowed himself to be drawn by fascination with the occult and his urge to satisfy his lust in exciting surroundings.
Had he been brought up to be religious, he would never have done so, but neither his mother nor ‘Uncle’ Roger, for whom he had an unbounded admiration, ever went to church. Both of them had told him that they believed every person to have many lives, and that the original teaching of Jesus Christ had been perverted almost from the beginning by the fanatical St. Paul, followed in the early centuries by ignorant and often evil priests.
Susan, he knew, had absorbed the same ideas: a belief that no man could absolve another from his sins, and that the only sin one could commit was deliberately to cause others to be unhappy. Such a belief could explain why she had allowed herself to be brought here, but she could have had no idea of the rituals performed at Satanic ceremonies, otherwise she would not have attempted to leave the temple.
Yet the fact remained that it was her attempt to do so which had led to this abrupt disruption of the night’s proceedings; so Charles was filled with fear that the Abbess would regard Susan as the principal offender and vent her wrath even more severely on her than on himself.
He was now powerless to protect her, and it was certain that no-one else there would. She was helpless in their hands, and was incapable of resisting anything they decided to do to her. They were gathered there to slake their lusts on one another. The Abbess’s ritual was to have been followed by an orgy. They would not be content to go home without it taking place. The Abbess might decree that Susan was to be stripped, and that any number of men who liked should possess her forcibly. At the awful picture this possibility conjured up, sweat broke out on Charles’s forehead.
Suddenly a tall man near the altar cried in a loud voice, ‘Unhand that young fellow and let him take the novice hence. ’Tis not fitting that anyone should be brought here who is not a willing participant in our revels.’
‘Aye, aye!’ several other voices supported him, and a woman’s treble called out, ‘We want no squeamish young prudes in our joyous company.’
But the majority of those present howled down the protestors, and one man shouted above the rest, ‘She’d not be out with our Brother who brought her at this hour of night if she were all that innocent. She’ll make good sport for us. Strip her and let’s see if she is a virgin.’
‘Well said,’ yelled another. ‘And if she is, let Aboe make a woman of her on the altar.’
Charles’s heart lurched in horror. Aboe was the giant negro.
During this altercation the two men holding Charles had released their grip on him. With a sudden plunge forward he broke free. For him to reach Susan and get her away was impossible, but he swiftly backed against a pillar, his fists clenched, ready to fight again.
The Abbess had halted, undecided, half-way up the aisle. A lull in the clamour enabled Charles to make his voice heard, and he appealed to her:
‘Reverend Mother, I pray you let me take her away. On her account as well as my own, I swear that neither of us will say aught to anyone about what takes place here.’
‘No! No!’ came an angry chorus, and someone called, ‘She should pay for having interfered with our lady Abbess’s receiving the libation to Lucifer. Give her to the negro.’
The tall man who had first intervened shouted, ‘I’ll not have it! And you know who I am, Katie O’Brien. ’Twill pay you ill to cross me.’
The Abbess did know. He was a Duke and one of the wealthiest men in England. She was greatly averse to offending him, but loath to disappoint the many opposed to him, so she sought refuge in a subterfuge and cried:
‘Brothers and Sisters, we are all equal here. We will put it to the vote. All those in favour of letting them go, put up their hands.’
A dozen hands were raised. Then she called, ‘Now those who would have her pay a forfeit.’
Over twenty hands went up, a clear majority. ‘So be it!’ she cried, then beckoned to the negro. ‘Come, Aboe, take her.’
Susan was being held, so could not get away. As the negro took a step forward, she screamed. At that moment the masked Duke sprang out of the crowd and dashed at him. To avoid the attack, Aboe stepped back and cannoned into the pedestal just behind him.
It went over with a crash. The oil that fed the flame in the centre of the chafing dish gushed out across the carpet. An instant later the flames caught the curtain with the Yin upon it. As it flared up the nearest cushion caught, then the flames seemed to leap from it to others.
Pandemonium ensued. Everyone was shouting, ‘Fire!’ and scrambling through billowing smoke toward the entrance to the temple. Charles did not lose a second. No sooner were the curtains ablaze than he swivelled about, sprang towards Susan, grasped her by the arm and ran with her toward the stairs. Rushing up them, they reached the hall breathless. The footman there stared at them in astonishment. Brushing past him, Charles wrenched open the front door. Within two minutes of the fire having started, he and Susan were out in the street.
Side by side they hurried to Charles’s coach. He roused the dozing coachman and told him to drive back to Berkeley Square. Susan was weeping and, getting into the coach, huddled back into a dark corner. But Charles
was in no mood to be sympathetic, and demanded angrily:
‘Since when have you become fascinated by the mysteries of the occult?’
‘I am not,’ she sobbed, ‘and know nothing of them.’
‘How then could you be so great a fool as to let Hawksbury take you to the Hell Fire Club?’
‘I … I had no notion that is what it was. He simply told me that … that he would like to take me to an amusing party for … for an hour or two. He said that it was being given by one of his friends and … and that he would bring me home well before the ball was over.’
‘He deceived you, then. But that is no excuse for having gone off alone with a man in the middle of the night. He might well have taken you to his own apartment, or some other place, and there seduced you.’
At that she, too, flared into anger. ‘You are right! As I found him attractive, he might have. But had he attempted me, the odds are that I should have prevented him by saying that I had my affairs, and consoled him by half-promises about the future.’
‘You were then seriously considering taking him as your lover?’
‘Yes; and why not? I told you this morning that, while you sowed your wild oats, I should consider myself free to sow mine if I had a mind to it. But when you said that tonight you intended to disport yourself at a club that provided special diversions, I never dreamt that it would be in such company. Oh, Charles! How could you become a Satanist? The thought appals me.’
‘I am not a Satanist, any more than were those distinguished men who belonged to the original Hell Fire Club. The ceremonies are only a means to render amorous encounters more exciting.’
‘So you say. But you cannot deny that the occult enters into it, and that evil powers are invoked to better the prospects of those who attend these meetings.’
For a moment Charles was silent, then he replied, ‘I believed it to be hocus-pocus. Although most members know only their introducer, the Abbess knows them all, so it would be easy enough for her to find out the state of their affairs through tittle-tattle and shrewd interpretation of their reactions to remarks made by her when conversing with them. I had no means of judging if her predictions are always right, and assumed that, in many cases, they enabled those to whom she made them to avoid threatened calamities or better their prospects by their own efforts. But tonight has proved me wrong. The powers of evil must have been potent in the temple, otherwise the powers of good would not have intervened to save us by causing that fire.’
The Irish Witch Page 5
