5
A Tangled Skein
It was getting on towards mid-January, and a few mornings after Roger had learnt to his fury that, unless the Cape Cod chanced to meet with a British ship-of-war, he and Mary would be carried off to America, that Lady Luggala was sitting up in bed drinking her morning chocolate and Jemima came into her room.
No-one unacquainted with them would have taken the two women for mother and daughter. Maureen Luggala had kept her figure, but her brown hair was streaked with grey, her pale blue eyes had crow's-feet round them and she looked considerably older than Charles had taken her to be when he had seen her masked and rouged at the Hell Fire Club.
Jemima's hair was black, so were her heavy eyebrows, but her eyes were a deep blue, her complexion milk and roses and her full-lipped mouth sensuously attractive. She was tall, with a big bosom and hips, but narrow waist and carried herself well. With a cat-like grace she settled herself on a chaise-longue opposite the bed and flicked the skirts of her chamber-robe across her shapely legs.
The 'little season' was in full swing and the previous night they had both attended a ball given by Lord Ponsonby. Having greeted each other, the elder asked:
'Well, child, did you chance to learn anything of importance last night?'
Jemima shrugged. 'Little of value. Young Gorton told me that his regiment, the 42nd, is to form another battalion and he hopes to purchase a Captaincy in it. A Naval Lieutenant, who had landed at Portsmouth only two days since, bored me to distraction by an account of hardships endured in the Channel these winter months. His name I disremember, but his ship was the Intrepid, so she will be off station for several weeks while refitting. Out of Robert Henage I had hoped to get some tidings of Sweden's changing attitude, as he is in the Northern Department of the Foreign Office. On that account I gave him three dances and, half-way through the last, let him whisk me up to a room on the second floor. But his mind was so filled with the hope of seducing me that he'd give not a moment to serious conversation.'
'He is a valuable source, so I trust that you have kept him on a string by at least letting him hope that on some future occasion....'
'No.' Jemima's voice was sullen. 'I did not even permit him the usual familiarities.'
'That is unlike you,' Lady Luggala remarked acidly.
'I admit it. Since half a loaf is better than no bread, and it is essential that I should protect myself from becoming known as a society whore by letting men go the whole way with me. But I was in no mood to have him frig me.'
'Why this sudden reluctance, and the aggrieved state of mind you still display this morning?'
'Because last night I was mightily disturbed concerning my own prospects. During a dance with Charles St. Ermins he exploded a bombshell beneath me. He told me that only that morning he had seen the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, who has arranged a commission for him in the Coldstream Guards.'
Lady Luggala sat up with a jerk and exclaimed in consternation, 'It cannot be true! And this without a word of warning?'
Jemima nodded. 'I've seen him half a dozen times since Christmas, and he gave me not a hint of his intention.'
'But this is terrible. It means that within a few months he may be sent to the Peninsula.'
'In a matter of weeks, more like. He made it clear that he has not joined the Army simply to strut about in a fine uniform. He is going to the war as soon as he can get there. And, as he has influence, they will not keep him here for long.'
'Then, child, you must work fast, or you will lose him. Let him seduce you at the first opportunity. Then he'll feel in honour bound to become engaged to you. If fortune favours us, we might even rush the marriage through before he leaves for Portugal.'
'Do you think me such a fool that I have not thought of that?' Jemima's voice was angry. 'But my chances of doing so are slender. As soon as he has his uniforms he is leaving London for Canterbury to start his initial training.'
Lady Luggala wrung her hands. 'Oh, my! Oh, my! Just to think that after all we may lose him. I've thought so much on it. Yourself a Countess, and all his riches. His mansion in Berkeley Square and White Knights Park with its thousands of acres. His mother, too, is worth a mint of money. Two husbands have left her fortunes, and her father yet another. Charles is her only child and she dotes on him. When she dies, he will be one of the wealthiest men in the three Kingdoms.'
'Stop!' Jemima snapped. 'I know it all. But for months you have been counting your chickens before the eggs were even warm from the hen's bottom. Charles likes me, finds me amusing and good company. I've given him cause, too, to know that I'd be all that he could wish for in bed. But he has never yet even got as far as hinting that one day he might ask my hand in marriage.'
'Yet recently he has shown his preference for your company over that of all other young women. The frequency with which he escorts Susan Brook counts for nothing. They were brought up together, and the attentions he pays her are no more than those to be expected from an affectionate brother.'
'You are right in that I credited myself with a good lead in the St. Ermins stakes and, given another London season, might have been first past the post. But now all is altered. How in a week or so can I possibly secure him? Unless . . . yes, I have it. You must seek the help of the Irish witch.'
'Alas!' Lady Luggala sadly shook her head. 'She lacks the means to help us. Had all gone well on New Year's Eve we would have had him in our power. We laid a pretty plot. She fixed the draw so that he should be my partner. In my nun's robe I had concealed a small pair of scissors with intent, when we had had a frolic, to snip off a small tuft of his pubic hair. I should have told him that it was my custom to secure such a souvenir from every man who enjoyed me; so he would not have objected. With that in our possession and a tuft from your own bush we could have cast a spell that would have made him crazy to have you; and, naturally, your price would have been marriage.
'But, as I told you afterwards, all was brought to ruin. And by Charles himself, through that fool Hawksbury having brought young Susan there without telling her what to expect, and making certain that she would prove an eager witness to our ritual. Since the little prude objected, and Charles looks on her as a sister, one can hardly blame him for carrying her off. That he should have acted as he did proved disastrous. We were lucky to have saved Bast, and that the men got the fire under control as quickly as they did.'
Jemima was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘I appreciate your good intentions on my behalf, but take it hard that you have always refused to have me made an initiate of the club. That Susan, although she proved unwilling, should have been put forward rankles with me still more, for she is only seventeen, whereas I am twenty.'
‘I had my reasons for refusing you. And why complain ? Ever since I chanced upon you being straddled by that stable boy in Ireland, you have never lacked for lovers.'
'True. But what lovers! To protect my reputation I never dare let a man of quality have me, lest he talk. I am compelled to make do with that bean-pole of a music master once a week, who would never dare tell of it lest he was prosecuted for slander and found himself in the stocks. How infinitely more enjoyable I'd find it to participate in these luxurious orgies you have told me of.'
'That I understand, although I blame myself now for having spoken to you so freely on these matters. Had I in fact been your mother, I would never have done so. But the major interests in both our lives are the same—to free our dear Ireland from the tyranny of the hated English and to enjoy to the full our amorous encounters. There is no-one else I could trust to be my confidante and I'm sure that you, as well as myself, have greatly enjoyed discussing our experiences.'
'I have indeed,' Jemima agreed more warmly. 'Since that day when I was little over fifteen and you caught me being tumbled by young Conan, you have taught me much. Had it not been for your prompt dosing of me with ergot of rye, I'd have had a child by him and, on the few occasions since when over-eagerness ha
s led me to be careless, you have got me out of trouble. But, knowing my love of variety in licentious pleasures, I still cannot understand why you refuse to have me initiated into the Hell Fire Club.'
'It is not I who refuse, but your mother.'
Jemima's blue eyes opened wide.
Lady Luggala gave a gasp of dismay. 'There! Oh, Satan help me! By throwing me into a tizzy about Charles going off to the war and our losing him, you've led me into disclosing that she is not dead, as I'd given you to understand.'
Springing up from the chaise-longue, Jemima cried, 'Who is she? Who is she? I insist that you tell me.'
'No, child! No! That I cannot do. I am sworn to secrecy.'
"Tis too late!' Jemima flared. To me it is a secret no longer. Who could have refused your request that I should be initiated into the Hell Fire Club? Only one person. The Irish witch. It is she who is my mother.'
Tears had filled the older woman's eyes. Stifling a sob she murmured, 'How can I deny it! But long since we agreed that we would always keep it from you lest you inadvertently gave it away, and so spoiled your chances of an advantageous marriage by everyone believing you to be the daughter of myself and an Irish baronet.'
Jemima had gone white, and she was biting her lower lip. Suddenly she broke out, ‘I want the whole story. Everything! Everything about my birth.'
'That I refuse to tell you, girl,' Lady Luggala replied angrily. 'It is not my secret.'
'Very well, then,' Jemima retorted with equal anger. "‘I’ll go to my mother and find out. I'll go this very afternoon.' Then she flounced out of the room.
At three o'clock a hackney coach set Jemima down in front of the house in Islington. When a footman answered the door to her ring, she said, 'I am Miss Jemima Luggala and I wish to see your mistress on a matter of importance.'
The man bowed. 'You are expected, Miss.' Having taken her furs, he said, 'Be pleased to follow me,' then led her to a charmingly-furnished boudoir overlooking a small garden at the back of the house. The witch was sitting there, looking like no witch that Jemima had ever imagined, but a beautiful, imposing lady dressed in a flower-patterned satin gown with white lace fichus over her full breasts.
As Jemima's mouth fell open in surprise, the witch smiled and said, 'Come in, my child, and seat yourself on the other side of the fire. It is surprised you are by my appearance. No doubt you supposed me to be an evil-looking old crone. But Lucifer can prevent the appearance of lines in the faces of his votaries, which come with age in other women.'
‘I . . . ' Jemima stammered. 'I hadn't expected . . . expected to find you so beautiful.'
'It is happy I am to reciprocate the compliment, although I am not surprised by your good looks, for I have seen you many times in my crystal. Now look you in the mirror over the mantel.'
As Jemima obeyed, a thing by which she had already been struck was brought home to her more forcibly. Except that her black eyebrows did not quite meet over her nose and it was less arched, she was extraordinarily like her mother.
'You see now,' the witch went on, 'why I refused to allow Maureen Luggala to make you one of us.'
'You mean on account of my resemblance to you? But she told me that everyone who attends your meetings does so masked.'
'That is true. But whilst in the throes of passion, masks can slip or their strings snap. Such accidents do not occur often, yet they have been known to at times. I meant to run no risk that you would be recognised by some gallant who might afterwards talk and so perhaps spoil the plan I had made with Maureen for you to become the Countess of St. Ermins.'
'Now, by evil chance, my hopes of that are sadly jeopardised. Charles has secured a commission in the Guards and . ..'
'I know it, and we will talk of that anon. Let us first go into the prime reason for your coming to see me. It is the circumstances of your birth that you wish to learn and why, for all these years, Maureen has passed you off as her daughter. Now she has given it away that I am your real mother, I see no point in concealing from you how that came about.'
‘I thank you . . . Mama. I have wondered about my parentage ever since, by another slip, Lady Luggala revealed to me that I was not her daughter. It occurred when she caught me out in my first affair. The youth was handsome and merry, but only a stable boy. She reproached me angrily, not so much for the act as for my choice of a lover, declaring that my lack of good breeding showed in it, for no daughter of hers would have allowed herself to be seduced by a menial.'
The witch laughed. 'My dear, like many a woman of her class, Maureen is a stupid snob. 'Tis a man's physique and mentality that matter, not his blood. But she was right in that you cannot claim yours to be blue, for I was born out of a slut in a Dublin slum.'
'How came it then that you were able to foist me off on Lady Luggala as her daughter?'
'My grandmother was a follower of the Old God and learned in the secret rituals. When I was still quite young, she came from her home in the country to live in Dublin, and passed on to me much of her wisdom. That enabled me to transform myself from a child of the gutter into a seemly young woman, and secure a post as Maureen's lady's maid. By various means I was already able to foretell the future, and she was greatly intrigued by predictions I made for her coming to, pass. They were mostly in connection with men whom she was eager to have as lovers. You must know her well enough to be aware that she is almost obsessed by thoughts of cooling the heat that generates between her thighs. A time came when I induced her to come with me to a meeting of my coven, where I promised that a spell could be put upon a young man she desired but who had so far rejected her advances. The spell had the desired effect, and she became a member of the coven. From then onwards it was in my power she was, because she knew that did she threaten me I could have her denounced as a witch. Then, without involving me, my associates could have brought enough evidence to have had her hanged.'
At the revelation of this terrible blackmail, Jemima paled a little, but she listened eagerly as the witch went on:
'It was about that time that both Maureen and I conceived. She desired a child, hoping that it would be a male and provide an heir for her husband, Sir Finigal. I could have rid myself of mine, but had no wish to, because I was in love with the man by whom I had become pregnant. Maureen gave birth five days before I did. She, of course, had her child in her lovely bedroom with me, a midwife and a doctor fussing round her. I had you in my ill-furnished upstairs room, without anyone in the household knowing. But Maureen, being aware that my time was approaching, had agreed to engage my grandmother as a temporary sewing woman. She looked after me and by her arts rendered the birth almost painless.
'That night I carried you down to Maureen's room and, while she slept, put you in her baby's cradle. Next morning she was amazed to find that the child she believed to be hers had grown and changed from fair to dark, so I had to tell her what I had done. Naturally, it was very angry she was, but she dared not reveal the substitution from fear that I would have a curse put on her, or worse.'
'But did not Sir Finigal notice the difference in appearance of his lady's child after you had changed it for myself?' Jemima asked.
'He was not there to do so. He had died some weeks earlier after being thrown from his horse in the hunting field.'
'And what became of Lady Luggala's infant?'
With a smile the witch drew a slim finger slowly across her throat. 'My grandmother took it away. To achieve some things the personal intervention of Lucifer is required. That entails a Black Mass and the offering up of the blood of a newly-bom babe. The two infants might have been born as much as a month apart. Others than jnyself could have been prevented from seeing at close quarters the child in Maureen's room, but not Sir Finigal. For the deception to succeed he had to be disposed of. My grandmother had promised to offer up an infant in payment for his death.'
Jemima felt her spine creep and stammered, 'Then ...
then you ... you agreed that she should u
se her powers to kill my father?'
Her question was answered with a shrug. 'Child, anyone who seeks the power to ensure that all his wishes in life are fulfilled must put his scruples behind him. The mite was too young to realise what happened to it and, in any case, Sir Finigal was not your father.'
'Was he not?' Jemima exclaimed in surprise. 'Lady Luggala has often spoken to me of him as an insatiable lecher. She once said that when he had tired of her he could not keep his hands from under the petticoats of any new maid who had been in the house more than a week. I am amazed that he did not invade the bedroom of a girl as lovely as yourself.'
'Oh, he did. He had me many a time, but it was not by him that I became pregnant.'
'I see. The reason for substituting your own child for Lady Luggala's is obvious, and I am deeply grateful to you. Had you not, I might well now be a servant girl instead of a society belle. But it surprises me to learn that neither of my parents was of gentle blood; that is, unless the man who begot me on you was of the Dublin aristocracy.'
'Fie, fie, girl! I see you have imbibed something of Maureen's snobbery. That you have health and good looks is all that counts, no matter where they came from. But, if you set a value on lineage, you may well be proud, for in your veins runs some of the noblest blood in all Ireland.'
'It was then an Irish noble who sired me?'
'Nay. 'Twas no empty-headed lordling, but a hero whose efforts to liberate our people cost him his life. No lesser man than Wolfe Tone.'
'Wolfe Tone!' Jemima cried, her blue eyes lighting up.
'Then I am proud indeed. He was the greatest patriot of them all.'
'Child, you never spoke a truer word. A genius he was and had the heart of a lion, yet tender and gay. He was {he very darling of a boy. Do you know much of him other than that he died for Ireland ?'
'Only that he aroused in our people a great enthusiasm for the cause, came over with the French in an attempt to liberate us, was captured by the brutal English and, rather than allow himself to be hanged, cut his own throat while in prison. But that I am his daughter makes me impatient to hear all you can tell me of him.'
The Irish Witch rb-11 Page 6
