The Triple Goddess (92 page)

A thunderclap rent the air, and, in the confined space of the room, a wave of ear-popping pressure seemed to force the walls outwards. Lightning flashed, the demons went rigid, the flames leaped up, and the imps were fried to a crisp. Next, the entire contents of the fireplace were sucked up the chimney. Then fork-tongued multicoloured flames blew back onto the hearth, and raced in all directions across the room as if they were chasing trails of gunpowder, without setting anything alight.

Then they were extinguished and there was silence. A small amount of soot from the chimney fell onto the grate; but otherwise the hearth was cool and clean, without a trace of ash, the blacking fresh on the fire-brick lining.

Effie and Ophelia, who had been knocked off their seats by the explosion and sonic shock, uncovered their ears and got up from where they had been lying in the foetal position. Setting their chairs upright they sat down again and gripped the arms, white-knuckled, staring dead ahead. When nothing further happened, they untensed sufficiently to turn and ask in a quavering voice if the other was all right. After hoarsely reassuring each other several times that they were, they turned their attention to their hostess.

The devil lady had also fallen to the floor several yards away from the women, where her body was frozen into an inhuman posture as if she were double-jointed all over. Suddenly her face reassumed mobility and began contorting, and there was noise again, unearthly noise, as she began pouring forth ugly and unintelligible sounds through clenched teeth. Her legs started moving in a horizontal frenzy as if she were pedalling a bicycle at top speed, so fast that the silk rug rucked up underneath her. She began tearing at her stomach.

In a split second the DL was picked up by an invisible force and flung upwards and hard towards the ceiling, where her back crashed into the chandelier, which, when she fell disintegrated on top of her in a shower of broken glass and twisted metal. Then her manservant, his face a snapshot of panic, was slammed into the wall so hard that when his body crumpled to the floor an area of plaster came away with it. Fletcher Dark, meanwhile, who had been fumbling desperately with the catch of the central window, threw up the sash with all his might. When the frame juddered free of the fresh paint that adhered it to the sill, with an eldritch cry the reverend hurled himself headlong into the hydrangeas.

The room filled with a gritty pall of smoke. Multiple images appeared, of antic figures running, jumping, howling with rage. To Effie and Ophelia’s horror the demons returned, much larger this time than they had been in the fireplace, together with several huge devils who came up close and yelled and grimaced in the women’s faces. They had an awful, putrid smell that made them gag and retch. In an attempt to block out the pan-daemonium, the two women jumped up and into each other’s arms and hugged as tightly as they could with their eyes tightly closed.

When out of fear and a ghastly fascination they opened them, they saw over their shoulders squirming piles of rotting and blackened—but alive—human bodies being jabbed with stakes and having the skin flayed off them with knives by the demons. The bodies’ flesh was crawling with maggots, and their eyelids were fluttering like crazed moths. As snakes with flickering tongues coiled and tightened around their limbs and necks, worms spilled from mouths stretched wide in suffocating terror.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the bedlam was over, and all the awful things and sights and smells were gone, vanished as if they had never appeared or existed. Quiet fell like a sledgehammer. The thin rays of a natural sun gleamed through the still-open window and hung like gauze in the air.

Tearful and disoriented and still clutching each other, the women headed for a bench where they sat and, disengaging, touched their own bodies and skin. Delicately they tested for pulse and temperature as much as for hurt. To their boundless gratitude they were alive, or experiencing a passable imitation of being so, and seemed to be unharmed.

Of the devil lady and her manservant there were no remains or evidence of their ever having been there; and, when Ophelia got up and stepped gingerly across the creaking floor to the window, she could see only an indented and trampled area amongst the hydrangeas to bear testament to the Reverend Fletcher Dark’s defenestration.

When with a crack like a pistol-shot Effie’s end of the bench collapsed and she slid to the ground, and scrambled up to exchange wide-eyed looks with Ophelia, both of them appalled that the episode might not be over—but then seeing and sensing from the atmosphere that it really was—they noticed that it was not a piece of period furniture they had been resting on, but a plain painted bench with more woodworm holes in it than there was structure.

The place was an extraordinary sight. Gone were the rich décor and elegant furnishings; gone was the Adam chimney-piece; gone were the pianoforte, the portraits, the antiques, the accent pieces; gone the lamps, the vases, the figurines, and the statuettes; gone the Persian rugs, and the polished hardwood flooring. The room was virtually empty. The walls were peeling to reveal archaeological layer upon layer of patterned paper. The parquet floor was buckled under loose threadbare pieces carpet, a Homeric Trojan plain of bluebottle and woodlouse and spider and beetle and wasp corpses. The window frames were rotten and the panes cracked and obscured with mildew. The cobwebs that were in all the corners were torn and black with dust. A naked light-bulb hung from the middle of the Artexed ceiling, its flex looped midway to shorten its length. The chimney-piece was a plywood shelf, and the grate was filled with charred newspaper, circulars and crumpled cigarette cartons.

But as shabby as the room was, it was full of peace.

Returning to the middle of the room, Effie cleared her throat preparatory to speaking, and they both jumped at the echo from the bare surfaces. There was the unmistakeable sound of a scampering mouse, which to the relief of both women came from behind the wainscoting.

‘What just happened, Ophelia…’ said Effie in a tremulous voice—strangely, head Church Rat though she called herself, rodents were one of the few things that she was afraid of, and there was no furniture left in the room for her to stand on if one appeared—‘…was that really all to do with rock cakes? Just rock cakes?’

Ophelia forced a laugh, partly to reassure them both that all was well and partly, because she shared Effie’s antipathy, to keep the mouse at bay. ‘I hope there might have been more to it. Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for sure. We did warn her about them, with good cause as it turned out.’

‘And with good effect.’ Effie smiled. ‘It’s lucky that servant fellow didn’t have time to use the Heineken manoeuvre on her. I tell you, though, it’s going to be some time before I can bake another rock cake, let alone eat one. There’s half of the same batch left at home, but after them the village’ll have to make do with shortbread. Myself, I’m on a flapjack diet.’

Together the women walked outside, and round to the stable block at the back where Effie had parked her horse. They found it eating hay and docile, and there was no sign of the late Lady of the Manor’s highly strung ebony stallion.

‘Her and the horse she rode in on, then,’ said Effie with satisfaction. ‘Come on, Ophelia, the weather’s fine, what say we walk the beggar back along the bridle-path?’

And so like Adam and Eve at the end of
Paradise Lost
, with wandering steps and slow, through the woodland Eden above the village Effie and Ophelia homeward took their solitary way.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The following day Effie and Ophelia were sitting in the kitchen, recuperating over a cup of tea and slice or three of sponge cake, when there was a knock at the door. Effie wiped the crumbs from her mouth, brushed them from her lap onto the floor, and looked inquiringly at Ophelia. ‘Who on earth…or places else…could that be? Are you expecting someone?’

Ophelia tidied the newspaper the newspaper she was reading. ‘No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Most likely it’s for you.’

Effie went to lift the latch and crack the door, but when she looked out there was nobody there. She was about to go inside when she looked down and saw a short male figure—he could not have been more than five feet tall—whom she did not recognize at the foot of the doorstep. She opened the door wider.

Their visitor was an elfin, gentle-looking individual, bald except for two vestigial strands of hair that were plastered across his cranium. He was wearing a tired Harris tweed sports jacket with a green Paisley handkerchief in the breast pocket, and leather patches at the elbows, a knitted tie and check shirt, and round National Health spectacles with wire frames and ear springs. It was clear from the way that the man was shifting from foot to foot that he was ill at ease.

‘Can I help you?’ Effie said, in a tone that conveyed she would rather not. She put her hands on her hips and frowned, thinking that he must be a traveller who had been caught short and wanted to use the toilet.

‘I’m t-terribly sorry to bother you.’ And he did sound truly apologetic. ‘The name’s Carruthers, Samuel J. Carruthers. At your service, ma’am.’ Before Effie could move to block the door the little man peered inside. ‘At both your services,’ he added, squinnying at Ophelia and waving to her in greeting. Ophelia raised her hand in acknowledgment.

Effie waited for further enlightenment, smoothing her apron and pursing her lips. Her tea was getting cold and there was a tray of something, she could not remember what, in the oven.

‘To what do we owe the…pleasure?’

‘I’ll come straight to the point.’

Effie doubted it, for the man started coughing as if his windpipe was blocked, and his eyes filled with tears. She tapped her foot as she waited. When the fit was passed Mr Carruthers said, ‘I do beg your pardon. Please don’t think that I’m trying to frighten you when I tell you that I’m what they call a Specialist. I’m in the area on official business to investigate the affair of the she-devil you are…were acquainted with. Mrs Diemen, you called her, and it’s as good a name as any.’

Effie’s features went rigid, and she sorely regretted having answered the door.

‘Please, don’t be concerned,’ said Mr Carruthers; ‘this is just a formal visit to introduce myself, nothing more. I wish you no harm.’

‘I don’t believe you. Get off my property.’

Looking over his shoulder, Mr Carruthers bent forward and lowered his voice. ‘I wonder, would you mind if I came in for a moment? I hate to disturb you…’

‘Quite,’ said Effie. ‘You heard what I said.’

‘Please, what I have to say is important, very important.’

‘Stay where you are and make it snappy. I’ve got buns in the oven.’

‘Shortbread actually,’ said Mr Carruthers, looking pleased. ‘Very good shortbread, too, I should say, and it’s ready to come out. It smells heavenl...delicious.’ Effie, despite herself and her state of nerves, was prepared to be flattered. She hesitated and the so-called Specialist followed up his advantage. ‘I have a proposition to make to you both,’ he said, ‘and I’d rather do it in private.’ He looked over his other shoulder. ‘There’ll be no tricks, I swear. Cross my heart and hope to…you know what I mean.’

Effie turned to Ophelia, who was listening to the conversation from where she was sitting, for her reaction. Instead of responding her friend pointed to a large tin on the sideboard. It contained the remainder of yesterday’s batch of rock cakes, which had been set aside for putting out at church on Sunday. Neither of them would be touching a crumb. Ophelia got up, took down a willow pattern plate from the dresser, opened the tin, and used a pair of wooden tongs from the drawer to set out several rock cakes.

Effie nodded and stood to one side, and Mr Carruthers, thanking her profusely, mounted the steps and scuttled in before she could change her mind. Effie pushed the door half closed with her foot. Ophelia stood up, and the man bobbed like a robin in the middle of the floor as he shook hands with each of them twice.

Effie said tartly, ‘Sit down, Mr Specialist Carruthers,’ and she indicated the chair at the other end of the table, so that Ophelia and she would be closest to the partially open door. The man headed for it. Sitting down, he continued to betray his edginess by crossing and uncrossing his legs, and humming as he looked about him. Effie removed the shortbread—which was indeed baked to perfection—from the oven, cut it into slices, transferred them with a spatula from the square parchment-lined pan onto a rack to cool, and sat down. The Specialist stopped humming and sniffed appreciatively.

‘You’ll have some tea, surely,’ said Ophelia; and without waiting for an answer she took another cup off a hook on the dresser, and an extra saucer and side-plate and teaspoon from the cupboard and drawer underneath, placed them before their visitor together with a paper napkin, poured from the Brown Betty, replaced the tea cosy, slid a blue-and-white-striped milk jug and a sugar bowl towards the man, topped up Effie’s and her cups, and sat down again.

As carefully as if he were measuring plutonium, Mr Carruthers...who seemed now to have calmed down...took half a spoonful of sugar, shook a few grains back into the bowl, stirred the remainder into his cup, tapped the spoon on the rim, touched the surface of the liquid with the tip to remove the final drip, placed it in the saucer, and took several sips.

‘Oh, that’s good,’ he said. He accepted a piece of sponge cake from the plate that Ophelia held out, and ate it all very slowly, wiping his mouth between bites with the napkin. The two women waited impatiently for him to finish it and be ready to speak again, since he was apparently too polite and appreciative to eat and talk at the same time.