The Irish Witch

'What!' Roger exclaimed, his blue eyes flashing with anger. 'By God, I'll kill him for this.'

'You are spared the trouble. He was killed last summer in a brawl. But fortunately Susan came to no harm. Before the orgy was due to start, the witch who ran the place stripped herself naked and began to perform some lecherous act with her high priest and a negro. In horrified disgust Susan demanded that Hawksbury should take her away. He refused. There was an altercation. She was masked, but Charles was near by and recognised her voice. After a fight, by a miracle he got her out of the house.'

'Praise be for that! But what you tell me explains your fear for Charles. He may have told you that he joined the Hell Fire Club only for the excitement of having masked women who neither needed elaborate courting nor were ordinary whores, out of reluctance to admit that he had actually become a Satanist.'

Georgina nodded. 'Yes. That is the thought that so appals me. He may have found the girls with the witch and been persuaded to join them.'

'Think you this Lady Luggala was telling the truth and the whole truth, in the letters she wrote you ? What sort of woman is she?'

'I have no reason to doubt it. She is the widow of an Irish baronet and, I should say, comes herself from a reputable family. She is about my age and quite good-looking, but self-centred, somewhat vain and not overburdened with brains.'

'It seems then reasonably plausible that she would not have concerned herself greatly about the girls' doings, so allowed them to go where they pleased, with no more than an occasional question.'

'I am sure that is so from her attitude toward her daughter. Jemima was much the stronger character, and had quite a temper. Susan once told me Maureen often let Jemima have her own way rather than risk a scene.'

'Then, apart from negligence, it would appear that no blame in this awful affair attaches to Lady Luggala. But I shall want her address, so that I may call on and question her as soon as I get to Dublin.'

From a casket on a nearby buhl table Georgina took a packet of letters, and said, 'Here are those from Susan as well as Maureen Luggala's. You had best read them all.'

Roger did so in the sequence of the dates on which they had been written. As he handed them back, he remarked, 'There is something about Susan's last letter that strikes me as a little queer. It is her usual scrawl, so they were all penned by her without a doubt, but somehow the phraseology strikes me as out of keeping with her character, and she does not show the great affection we know her to have for you.'

'That struck me, too,' Georgina nodded. 'In fact, when I received the last one from her I re-read them all, and I had a feeling that it might have been dictated.'

"Tis just possible. You say this girl Jemima has a very

strong character, and has great influence over her. If they have been monkeying with mesmerism she may have achieved control over Susan's mind. I'd not be surprised if that were not the root of the whole trouble.'

Changing the subject he went on, 'I'd be on the Bristol coach this evening had I not been away all these months from poor little Mary. As things are, I know you'll understand if I delay to spend tonight with her, and set out for Dublin tomorrow. How fares it with her, or have you not seen her recently ?'

Georgina hesitated a moment. 'Until this present trouble arose I've not been in London since January. And I did not run across her during the little season. I gather she goes very seldom into society these days.'

'Ah, well, it will be a fine surprise for her that I am come home at last, and now the war is over soon be able to settle down with her for good. I've kept the coach I hired below, and if you'll forgive me, sweet, I'll now be on my way to Richmond.'

'If you must, dear heart, but you have travelled overnight from Dover, and will be travelling again tomorrow. 'Tis not for selfish reasons I suggest it, but would it not be best for you to dismiss your coach and take mine later? Meanwhile, lie down and nap in a bedroom here for an hour or so, then let me send you on your way fortified with a good meal.'

Although Roger had managed to prevent himself from being seasick during the crossing, he had felt far from well, and the hours of jolting in the hired coach had fatigued him, so he saw the sense in Georgina's proposal and smilingly agreed to it.

No sooner was he stretched out on a bed than he fell sound asleep, and would have slept on had not Georgina come to wake him at three o'clock. Over their early dinner they agreed not to mention Susan or Charles, and he gave an account of his last, hectic days in France before Napoleon's abdication. By four o'clock they had taken a fond leave of each other, and he left Kew House in her coach.

In a little under an hour the coach was within a hundred yards of Thatched House Lodge. Putting his head out of the window, Roger called up to the coachman, 'Drive straight into the stable yard, then you can water the horses and take a mug of ale with my man before you drive back.'

At the sound of the horses' hooves on the cobbles of the yard, old Dan Izzard came running down from his quarters over the coach-house, and as Roger alighted cried happily:

'Why, bless me, 'tis the master! I been hopin' now the war'be over ye'd soon be home agin.'

Roger shook the smiling ex-smuggler warmly by the hand. "Tis good to see you, Dan, and soon now you'll be sick of the sight of me for ever lounging about the place. How is Her Ladyship?'

The smile left Dan's wrinkled face, and his glance shifted slightly as he replied, 'Oh, she be pretty well; but I don't see much o' her these days. She don't ride no more and scarce ever drives out. The horses be eatin' they's heads off.'

During his drive from London Roger's mind had been entirely occupied with worry about Susan and Charier, so he had thought no more of Georgina's vague reply t« his enquiry about Mary. Now, with a frown, he turnei! quickly away, strode across the yard and entered the house by the back door.

A maid was sitting knitting in the kitchen. She came quickly to her feet, and he acknowledged with a nod the bob she made him, then walked through the dining room to the drawing room. There was no-one there. Grossing the hall, he looked into the small sitting room. There was no-one there, either. As he turned away, his housekeeper, Mrs. Muffet, came down the stairs. Her eyes widened on seeing him, then she forced a smile and greeted him pleasantly. He also forced a smile as he replied, then asked curtly:

'Where is Her Ladyship ?'

'Up in her bedroom, Sir’.'

'Is she ill?'

'No . . . No, Sir. But she . . . she spends a lot of her time in bed now.'

Instead of asking what the devil Mary was doing in bed at five o'clock in the afternoon if she was not ill, Roger took the stairs two at a time, strode down the corridor and, without knocking, flung open the door of the bedroom he shared with Mary.

She was half-lying in bed, propped up by three pillows. The dreamy look on her face was replaced by a startled stare as her eyes met Roger's. Jerking herself upright, she exclaimed:

'Why, bless my soul! If it's not the man who calls himself my husband!'

Her words were slurred, and Roger's glance had taken in the fact that a decanter two-thirds full and a half-empty glass of port stood on a table beside the bed.

'What the hell's the meaning of this?' he snapped. 'You're drunk! How can you so shame yourself with the knowledge of the servants?'

Mary lay back and smiled seraphically. 'Not . . . not drunk, darling. Jus' a little tipsy. Tha's all.'

'You're drunk!' he retorted angrily. 'And I gather this afternoon is no exception. You make a habit of it. God alive, Mary! Whatin the world has driven you to become a drunkard?'

'Nothin' else to do. Man I married leaves me after a ... a few months, an' goes galli . . . gallivanting about on... on the Continent.'