The Irish Witch

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 use 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.'