The pretty witch Read online

  CHAPTER NINE

  DESPITE Nigel's complaints that he was not yet able to walk more than the length of the garden without discomfort and he liked her to stay with him, Isobel often went for quite long walks alone and, in fact, quite enjoyed the solitude of the meadows that spread out around Kanderby House like a pattern of every shade of green and yellow. Sunday morning was her favourite time for walking and she loved to hear the distant summons of some hidden church bell as she made her way through the warm-smelling fields scattered thickly with buttercups and clover. On previous Sunday walks she had noticed a beautiful old Gotswold-stone house, tucked away behind a cluster of ancient elms and standing in an almost straight line,-as the crow flies, behind Kanderby House. With the little she knew about architecture she had decided that it dated from Tudor times or perhaps even earlier, and it stood, mellowed and quiet, as if it basked in the hot sun. Enthusiastic mention of it had produced the informatiop that it belonged to Vanessa Law and was part of the vast inheritance left to her by her late husband. Learning that had discouraged Isobel from a vague idea she had had of one day walking right up to the old house and openly admiring it. She would never have dared do such a thing with Vanessa Law in occupation. Seeing the house now, in the mellowness of summer, Isobel found it hard to picture it either as Vanessa Law's home or as the headquarters of a rather bizarre club that both she and Lucifer belonged to. Nothing looked less like a home for witchcraft, although she supposed that on a 128 dark night and with a north-east wind howling across, the open land around it, it could look quite alarmingly different. She wondered, too, how many and much more serious witching ceremonies the old house had seen within its walls than the mere curiosity of a group of inquiring minds. Both Lucifer and Mrs. Grayson had assured her that as long as she kept a respectable distance from the house, no one would mind her walking in the fields, and she had done so on several occasions. She always gave the house a wide berth, although she was more than ever curious about it since she had learned to whom it belonged. The tall slim chimneys of the house showed, softly yellow, against the blue sky and above the tops of the trees which were on slightly lower ground, and once again Isobel's curiosity was aroused. Just once she would love to go closer to it and really be able to see it, but the thought of perhaps being caught by Vanessa Law de-terred her today as it always did. The village of Green End itself lay in the opposite direction altogether, so that there was little likelihood of her meeting anyone else, and she walked slowly, enjoying the sun and the smell of the drying grass and clover. It was idyllic, she thought, almost too idyllic, for she could never quite decide what there was about the charming and beautiful countryside that gave her a feeling of unrest. It was almost as if she had strayed into some lovely, alien land and might at any moment come across the unexpected. '' , Adding to the sensation of unreality were seven tall, roughly hewn stone pillars that seemed to grow out of the summery meadow, ugly and somehow menacing. She looked across at them warily as she usually did when she passed them, scolding herself for being ridiculously fanciful, but they always seemed ominous even in the bright T-PW-E 129 sunshine. She remembered- Nigel's reluctant and halfscomful explanation for them being there. They were, he had informed her, supposed to be the seven witches of Greenwick, a village on the other side of the hill, and they had been magically turned into stone when they attempted to initiate the young sister of a good priest into their coven. It was, of course, all utter nonsense and she had laughed when Nigel told her the story, but nevertheless she always kept a wary eye on the huge yellow pillars of stone whenever she passed them, and wondered how they really came to be standing there, solid and gloomy, in that tranquil meadow. She could never quite suppress the shiver that trickled icily along her spine, and she thought ruefully how Lucifer would have laughed at her and pointed out, yet again, how powerful psychology and auto-suggestion could be. She passed the seven witches and went on towards the promising shade of trees only a few yards ahead. If was so quiet and peaceful that the soft sound of voices immediately drew her attention, growing more plain as she walked on. There was, she decided, something vaguely familiar about both voices, although she could distinguish no actual words. The very fact that there was someone else abroad, however, made her cautious and she decided to go no further than the few extra steps that would bring her to the edge of the trees where they curved round as the spinney widened. Then she would turn round and go back before she was seen and perhaps accused of trespassing. Knowing how sound carries in the open country, she had anticipated that the talkers would be some distance off yet, perhaps somewhere deeper in to the spinney, and hidden from her view. Coming upon them suddenly as she 130 did, when she walked to the curving edge of the trees, she blinked in surprise, for there were two people so close that she felt sure they must have seen her. Only the fact that they were so engrossed in their own affairs kept them from paying her more notice. The man Isobel recognized as Gal Ford, the artist who had sketched her portrait at the County Show, and there was certainly no mistaking the sleeky coiled black hair of Vanessa Law. Obviously she had been riding, for a big bay mare stood waiting patiently nearby, but whether the meeting had been accidental or planned was debatable. Certainly it was not the sort of place one would normally expect to meet people except by arrangement, and Cal Ford had frankly admitted to being no country-lover. Their actions, too, spoke of a rendezvous rather than accidental meeting. The man, not so much taller than his companion, held her in his arms, the knuckles of his fingers showing bone-white as he held her tight, his mouth covering hers in a kiss that held them both silent for as long as it took Isobel to register the scene and then draw back hastily behind the trees again. A low, blatantly seductive laugh reached her a moment later and the sound of the man's harsh, erratic breathing, reminding Isobel of Lucifer's half-scornful pity for the man's obvious infatuation for Vanessa. She wished she could turn and go, leave the intimate scene to the participants and forget she had ever seen them, but before she could move off the mare raised her sensitive nose to the wind and whinnied a warning. There was nothing for it but to come out into the open; much better that than have Vanessa Law come over and find her there. Cal Ford's artistic eye at once recognized her and he looked both startled and wary. 'It's - it's Miss Henderson, isn't it?' he asked, now l3l standing a restrained two feet away from his companion. 'I remember seeing you with Lucifer Bennetti at the County Show.' 'Hendrix, Mr. Ford, Isobel Hendrix,' she corrected him, uneasily aware of Vanessa Law.'s strange cat-like eyes fixed on her as she turned her head. 'I'm sorry if I'm trespassing, Mrs. Law,' she said, 'but both Lucifer and Mrs. Grayson said it would be O.K. for me to walk in the fields as long as I didn't go too near the house.' That was very generous of them,' Vanessa drawled, her eyes suspicious. Wondering how much I saw, Isobel thought ruefully. 'But I'd call this too near the house, wouldn't you?' 'I - I'm sorry.' Isobel had scarcely expected a welcome, especially in the circumstances, but the sheer malice with which the other woman looked at her sent shivers down her spine. Then I suggest you go back where you came from,' Vanessa told her. 'Yes. Yes, of course. I'm sorry, I didn't realize.' 'Realize?' The voice was sharp and almost shrill, and she was far more uneasy, Isobel thought, than she would have expected, until it occurred to her that Vanessa would certainly not want the scene she had just witnessed relayed to Lucifer. 'I - I mean I had no intention of intruding on your privacy.' Then don't,' Vanessa said shortly. 'I'll inform Lucifer that I object to having every little chit he employs being given the free run of my land.' 'But I had no ' Isobel began, and was waved to silence by a dismissing hand. 'Oh, spare me the excuses, for heaven's sake,' Vanessa snapped, 'and in future stay away from my property.' It was not just the land 'they stood on either, Isobel 132 thought, that was included in that autocratic order, but if Vanessa's relationship with Lucifer was so precious to her why was she here with Cal Ford? Almost automatically she glanced at the artist where he stood, eyes downcast and half-ashamed of his silence. Isobel shook her head slowly. 'I certai
nly shan't come on to your land again, Mrs. Law,' she said. 'Good morning.' She looked again at Cal Ford. 'Goodbye, Mr. Ford.' She turned around and would have walked off, but Vanessa had apparently read something more into her answer, and she called her back. 'Miss Hendrix!' Isobel turned again, reluctantly, and met the slitted eyes that regarded her suspiciously. 'Just don't get too ambitious,' Vanessa told her, after a brief silence. 'Lucifer Bennetti is far more than a silly chit like you can handle.' The crude, obvious warning made Isobel crawl with embarrassment, but she lifted her chin, her cheeks flushed and angry, almost unconsciously noting Gal Ford's halfhearted attempt to stem any further abuse. 'I only have ambitions to be a good secretary, Mrs. Law,' she informed her. 'I leave anything else to you.' She looked meaningly at the artist, miserably inadequate in the situation he found himself in, and Vanessa Law's strange eyes glittered angrily. 'I don't know how long you've been sneaking behind trees,' she warned, 'but if you're wise, you'll forget you've seen anything here this morning.' Isobel shook her head, anxious to be gone. 'It doesn't concern me.' 'You're right, it doesn't.' She walked towards Isobel, who felt a sudden urgent desire to run as fast as she could away from, there. 'If you mention one word of what you've seen, or think you've seen, to Lucifer,' she said quietly, her voice as hard and chill as steel, 'you'll be 133 sorry. Miss Hendrix, believe me, you'll be very, very sorry.' Isobel's nerves tingled wamingly and she found it difficult to summon even enough courage to turn her back on the menace that looked at her from Vanessa Law's eyes. She began walking away, her chin high, even though her knees felt as weak as water and threatened to collapse under her at any minute. It was cowardly and ridiculous to feel so afraid, shetold herself, out here in the open with the sun shining warmly on her back, but that steady, malignant gaze had held more than a threat of physical danger and, at the moment, she could believe almost anything possible. The smooth silky black head and the strange, disturbing amber-coloured eyes were all too familiar in another enemy of hers, and for one crazy, incredible moment she could have believed that she was again face to face with a big, black, malicious-eyed cat, called" Pyewacket, who sat contentedly enough in Lucifer's arms, but lashed out viciously when Isobel tried to make friends with her. Isobel said nothing to Lucifer about her ignominious retreat from Vanessa's anger, but she did tell Nigel about it when they were alone that evening and sitting on the bench at the-end of the garden. Now free of strapping of any sort on his legs, but still needing a stick to help him to walk, Nigel was getting about much better now, and had even been driven to London once or twice to his office. He had been annoyed because Isobel had refused to ask Lucifer for the time off to go with him, but it would not be right, she explained to him, to expect special privileges Just because he was Lucifer's brother. It would not be very long now, she thought ruefully, before he asked her about moving back "34 to Frome's and leaving her job with Lucifer, and she was determined to be firm about it. 'I never knew Vanessa had an interest in anyone else "but Luke,' he told her, when she mentioned Gal Ford. 'Although I know he's been potty about her for years. I was told so by a mutual acquaintance,' he added, when he saw her curious frown. 'Quite frankly, darling, you surprise me when you say that Vanessa was a willing partner.' 'Can you imagine her being a partner at all if she wasn't willing?' Isobel asked dryly. 'I'm not sure whether I'm surprised or not, although I knew Gal Ford was what you call potty about her.' 'Did you?' He arched a curious brow. 'You're very knowledgeable about such matters, considering. How do you know?' Isobel shrugged. 'Something Lucifer said when we saw Cal Ford at the County Show last month,' she said. 'Lucifer said he was a fool, but it wasn't so much what he said as the way he said it. I just got the impression that he knew the man was in love with Vanessa and he thought him a fool for it. Being Lucifer, of course,' she added, 'he didn't think twice about telling what he thought.' 'No,' Nigel agreed, 'he wouldn't.' He frowned over something else she had said, and looked at her curiously. 'I didn't know you knew Gal Ford,' he said. 'I met him at the show, as I said. I didn't imagine you knew him either, I thought he belonged to Lucifer's world, not yours.' 'He does,' Nigel agreed. 'I met him once, though, and I thought he was rather an odd bird. What was he doing at the show? I thought he was strictly a town-dweller.' Isobel made a wry face. 'As far as I could gather he was killing two birds with one stone,' she told him. 'He was working, doing sketches and selling them, and hoping to 135 see Vanessa while he was there.' 'Oh, I see. I've heard he's a very clever artist, though I've never seen any of his stuff.' He smiled at her. 'If I'd known he was going to be there, and working, I'd have got you to have had a drawing of yourself done.' 'Oh, but he did ' She bit her lip hastily, remembering too late who had both commissioned and kept the rather good sketch of her that Cal Ford had drawn. Nigel's eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'Did he do one, Isobel?' There was no other way but to answer him truthfully, she realized, for if she denied it now he would almost surely ask Lucifer about it, and Lucifer, she felt sure, would have no qualms about admitting to possession of it. 'Yes, he did, actually,' she said, not looking at him. 'And you didn't say anything about it,' he accused. She shrugged, hoping to make it appear far less important than he was bent on making it. 'I didn't think it was worth special mention,' she told him. 'Have you still got it?' She shook her head. 'Why not? Wasn't it any good?' 'Oh yes, it was very good.' Then why ' 'It wasn't mine to keep,' she said, a little impatiently, for she was tired of being questioned. When she looked at him again, his eyes were a deep, dark blue in the evening light and it was difficult to judge what he was thinking, but there was a familiar warning tightness about his mouth. 'I don't need more than one guess to know who has got it,' he told her, and she sighed. 'It was Lucifer's idea to have it done,' she told him. 'I think he felt sorry for Cal Ford one way and another, and he wanted to help.' Nigel's lip curled dubiously. 'Charity isn't Luke's 136 strong point that I know of,' he said bluntly. 'And if he wanted to help Cal Ford, he needn't have kept the drawing. Why did you let him, Isobel?' She looked a little surprised at the question. 'I had very Httle option,' she declared, truthfully enough. 'You know what Lucifer's like, and anyway, he paid for it, so I couldn't very well lay claim to it.' 'What I want to know,' Nigel murmured darkly, 'is why the hell he wanted it in the first place.' She pondered on that question herself for a minute or two. 'I don't know,' she admitted at last. 'Maybe he just liked-the picture.' 'Or maybe he wanted it for some wretched trickery at that idiotic club of theirs.' Isobel looked briefly uneasy. 'Oh no, Nigel, that's silly.' 'Is it?' He shrugged. 'They get up to some pretty silly things as far as I can gather, and I wouldn't put anything past him.' 'Well. I'm quite sure he wouldn't use a perfectly harmless drawing of me to to raise his devils or whatever it is they do. It's ridiculous!' 'I suppose so,' he allowed grudgingly. "But I would like to know why he had it.' 'Well, it was rather a good drawing,' she said, and Nigel snorted his opinion of that idea. 'I've never known him as patron of the arts either,' he remarked, and Isobel felt a flash of rising temper at his determined ill-humour. 'It's quite likely still rolled up into a tube the way he carried it home,' she retorted. 'And I really don't see why you're making so much fuss about a a hasty sketch.' 'It's his reason for having it that I'm questioning,' Nigel insisted. 'And I wasn't aware'that I was making a fuss about it.' 137 'Well, you are.' They were silent for several minutes, a brittle uneasy silence, then Nigel leaned over and took her hand in his, making her turn and face him. 'If I'm fussing, darling, there's good reason for it,' he told her, 'but I didn't want to upset you. I'm sorry.' Isobel sighed. 'Oh, I'm not upset, it isn't worth that, it just seemed a bit like making a mountain out of a molehill that's all.' He kissed her mouth, his eyes apologetic. 'Well, anyway, I'm sorry.' He put an arm round her^ shoulders and hugged her up close to him on the bench seat. 'It won't be long now,' he told her, 'and I'll be back full time at the works and we can both get away from the the rather dangerous atmosphere of this place.' 'Oh, but it's lovely here,' Isobel objected, and leaned away from him to look up into his eyes, feelin
g a strangely uneasy beat in her heart suddenly. 'And I'm not at all sure that I'm coming back to Frome's, Nigel.' He looked at her as if he found it impossible to believe he had heard her aright. 'But of course you will,' he told her. This arrangement was only temporary, you knew that' 'I didn't,' she denied firmly. 'YOU said nothing at all about it being temporary.' 'But surely you understood that,' he insisted. 'It was only while I was here and I wanted you here with me.' 'You didn't point that out to me or to Lucifer,' she told him. 'Lucifer?' he asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. 'What the hell has it got to do with Luke?' 'Everything I should think,' Isobel retorted. 'He happens to be my employer and he pays me very well. Also,' she added, 'I happen to like my job.' 'You you mean you want to stay on?' She nodded 138 firmly. 'Even after I'm gone?' 'Yes. Oh, Nigel, be reasonable. I have a great deal to lose by leaving here.' 'Including me,' Nigel said gloomily. 'That's silly,' Isobel told him shortly, 'and you know it, It isn't as if this is the end of the world, it's only quite a short journey from London by car and you could see me every week-end, if you wanted to.' 'You know I want to.' 'Then why are you making so much fuss about my staying?' she asked reasonably. 'After all, I only ever saw you about two or three evenings a week when I was in town, so if you come here each week-end I shall see you for actually longer than I did then, and I know Mrs. Grayson will be delighted to have you here more often.' 'I know she will,' he allowed, but he still had that discontented look that showed how much he disliked the idea of leaving her behind here. 'But I saw you all day as well,' he said at last, insistently. 'Isobel please won't you reconsider? For my sake?' She shook her head. 'I I told you, Nigel, that I need more time to think about about what you asked me, and I think that being away from you for a bit will give me the chance I need to know how I really feel.' She smiled at him wryly. 'See how much I shall miss you when you're not here.' 'I suppose you're right,' he allowed grudgingly. 'I did promise not to rush you, didn't I?' 'You did.' She smiled at his sober face. 'We'll both have more opportunity to find out whether absence really does make the heart grow fonder, or if it merely breeds indifference.' 'It certainly won't breed indifference as far as I'm concerned,' Nigel assured her confidently, and Isobel wished she could have been so certain. 139