“Now, dear,” she said sweetly, “what was it you said? I could not hear a word for those bloody bells.”
“I said,” replied Mrs Framlington after the smallest of pauses, “that I would give anything for a nice cup of coffee.”
“You shall have one. Immediately.” And Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime waved her guest to ascend the twist of narrow, white-painted stairs.
Miss Teatime’s sitting-room on the first floor had a much more spacious air than might have been deduced from looking at the outside of the house. It was light, with big areas of polished wooden floor, a few heavy rugs and a minimum of slender-legged furniture that seemed to stand about in attitudes of well-bred deference. The two armchairs, that now were facing the window and its view of the church and the laburnum trees by the west porch, were small but dumpily hospitable in their petticoats of flowered chintz. Mrs Framlington sat in one of them and began sorting out in her mind the reasons for her visit while Miss Teatime busied herself with the preparation of coffee in the tiny adjoining kitchen.
Just as the laden tray was arriving through the doorway, the pealing of the bells abruptly ceased.
“Thank God for that,” said Miss Teatime. She glanced at her guest. “If you’ll pardon the allusion.”
She put the tray down on a low table and settled herself into the other armchair.
There was a whisky bottle beside the coffee jug. Miss Teatime indicated it as she took up Mrs Framlington’s cup.
“Hemlock?” she inquired waggishly.
Mrs Framlington shook her head. Her earlier ebullience seemed to have evaporated.
Miss Teatime poured straight coffee for her, then dispensed her own fifty-fifty formula.
It was several minutes before Mrs Framlington gave a little shudder, blinked away her dreamy expression and put down her cup.
“There are times,” she said carefully, “when I find myself just the teeniest bit out of sympathy with...you know.”
“Really?” Miss Teatime’s tone implied nothing but a desire to help.
“Well, some of them do go on rather. I am a keen Pagan person myself, but I feel that one cannot be always flying in the face of so-called civilization. There must be give and take in all things, don’t you think?”
“You are so right,” assented Miss Teatime solemnly. “Although it does seem at times that the take tends to predominate somewhat grossly.”
“The trouble with our little group,” went on Mrs Framlington, “is what begins to look like a division of attitudes. I had hoped that a common consciousness of the Universal Spirit—the Earth Force, as I like to call it—would unite us in purpose. But I’m afraid it hasn’t. There is no use in denying that there are factions. And some of us fear that serious trouble will result.”
Miss Teatime thoughtfully uncapped the whisky bottle.
“I did warn you, my dear, did I not, that unwelcome attention would be attracted to your organization if some of the members persisted in their more malodorous practices.”
“Yes, but how can I stop them? They are very much under the influence of Mrs Pentatuke. As you know, she is a strong Brockenist. I remember on one occasion I had to advise some friends of mine privately against accepting her offer of help as a baby-sitter. It was most embarrassing, but one has to draw the line somewhere.”
“An intimidating woman.”
“Oh, yes. And terribly carnal. I think she must have something wrong with her glands.”
Miss Teatime poured more coffee.
“Am I to understand, then, that your being Coven chairman gives you no real authority over these more wayward spirits?”
“Oh, I do not delude myself in that respect, Lucy. I know why I have been favoured with the chairmanship. I happen to have a large, pleasant and secluded house where our meetings can conveniently be held. That I don’t mind so long as there are no rites. Mrs Gloss is welcome to accommodate them. She has more domestic help to clear up the mess.”
“Forgive me, but I cannot quite free myself from the impression that witchcraft is not strictly your thing, as I believe they say nowadays. Cannot you send Mrs Pentatuke and her cronies packing if you see danger in continued association?”
Mrs Framlington stared into her cup.
“When one is a Justice of the Peace, a marriage guidance counsellor and a member of the boards of governors of two schools,” she said quietly, “one has to be careful with whom one associates—but a good deal more careful from whom one then dissociates.”
There was a pause.
“Yes, I do see what you mean.” With a pair of embroidery scissors, Miss Teatime probed the end of a cheroot before lighting it. “Yours is not the happiest of positions.”
“Oh, but you must not misunderstand me,” said Mrs Framlington more brightly. “I would not for the world be anything other than a witch. ‘A witch am I in blood and bone, a steadfast daughter of the moon.’ ”
“I take it, though,” remarked Miss Teatime, drily, “that your enthusiasm would not extend to riding into the magistrates’ court on your broomstick.”
“Well, precisely. Even witches must be discreet. I wish Pentatuke and Parkin and old Mrs Gooding could see that.”
“And Miss Edna Hillyard?” Miss Teatime regarded her guest as blandly as if she had just asked her the time.
“You know about that?”
“I certainly have heard that the girl is considered by the police to be a missing person. I know, of course, as well as you do, that she is a member of the Flaxborough Folklore Society, in the midst of one of whose little revels she is supposed to have disappeared.”
“That is quite true,” acknowledged Mrs Framlington. She sounded tired.
“Is there anything you think I can do?”
“I really don’t know. In any case, I don’t see why you should be plagued with our worries.”
“My dear Hetty, that is nonsense. I owe you and your band of helpers a great deal. We work professionally to considerable mutual advantage, as you know well.”
“The Coven doesn’t know, though,” said Mrs Framlington, uncomfortably.
“It is better,” replied Miss Teatime, “that we should remain unaware of our own virtues; otherwise, we might be tempted to set a price upon them.”
“What do you suppose you can do? It is the possible publicity that I dread, of course. That we all dread. All but”—Mrs Framlington smiled mirthlessly—“the baby blood brigade.”
Miss Teatime watched an expelled stream of cheroot smoke decelerate and form a sun-creamed vortex above a bowl of wallflowers in the window recess.
“Has it occurred to you,” she asked, “that publicity is exactly what some person or other seems determined to attract? I am thinking, in particular, of the not very savoury exhibition in the church over there.”