The Demon's Bride (2 page)

Her father pursued it. “Do you doubt that it was a simple mischance, my lord?”

The earl made no other betraying move, but every arrogant line of his body seemed to say
I have been gracious enough to consent to speak to you, and to tell you of the customs on my land. Do you presume to interrogate me?

Such a man could not be pressured for details, but a silence would often bring out information just as well as questioning. Rachel spent the small hiatus flexing her tired fingers and trimming her pen. Then she allowed herself the indulgence of admiring the pleasant room in which they were seated. The earl might be a rake and a wastrel—which is what local gossip said—but his house was very fine.

Instead of somber paneling, the small drawing room was finished in the new style, with white paint and plaster. It gave the chamber a sense of air and light even on a rather gloomy October day. With a large fire in the beautiful marble fireplace and a thick carpet over the floor, it was the epitome of modern comfort.

Rachel was not a young woman who hankered after luxury, but comfort was another matter, and sadly lacking in the vicarage. Their new home was a warren of small, darkly paneled rooms with bare floors and drafty windows.

Her wandering eye was caught by a portrait directly opposite her. It featured a handsome young man somewhat arrogantly posed beside a very fine black horse. His blond hair was carelessly dressed so that strands blew loose in the breeze, and his bright blue eyes shone with the joy of living. The artist appeared to have captured a moment when his subject had just dismounted after an exhilarating ride and was ready for more adventures.

 

 

It was astonishingly lifelike, and Rachel found the subject’s direct look and challenging half-smile compelling. It was as if he were about to invite her to share in his next madcap scheme. . . .

“Miss Proudfoot.” The earl’s voice abruptly captured her attention. “Are you admiring the artist, or the subject?”

Rachel colored, as much at having given the earl an excuse to change the topic as at being caught staring. “It is a remarkably fine portrait, my lord.”

“Indeed it is. The picture was executed by a man who lived locally, a Mr. Gainsborough. He has recently removed to Bath, where I predict a fine future for him. The subject is myself some twelve or more years ago—in my innocent youth.”

Rachel felt her face heat, and was hard put not to stare between the portrait and the earl in astonishment. How had the golden youth turned so to dross?

And yet now it had been pointed out, she could see the resemblance—the same lean, fine-boned features, startlingly blue eyes, and careless energy.

The earl spoke again, and Rachel concentrated on her recording.

“To answer your question, vicar, I have wondered about that tragic event. But Walpurgis Night is celebrated on Dymons Hill every year, and there is no other record of tragedy. The festivities appear innocent, or as innocent as such things ever are.”

The earl looked again at Rachel, but she was ready for him this time and smiled innocently back. She was twenty-four years old and had acted as assistant and amanuensis to her father for eight years. She was perfectly aware that these local revels always included excessive drinking and often grossly lewd behavior.

“Walpurgis Night revels are not unknown in England, my lord,” prompted the vicar. “And despite their roots in the worship of the demon Waldborg and their connection to witchcraft, I have found no case of one that was anything but an excuse for unseemly jollity.”

“Ah,” said the earl with a glint in his eye, “but here we have a refinement.”

Rachel came to full alert.

The earl smiled slightly, and seemed to be speaking directly to her. “There is a local tradition that when Walpurgis Night falls on the feast of the Ascension, it is of special significance. They call it Dym’s Night.”

“But St. Walburga’s Day is May the first,” said the vicar with a frown. “That would make Walpurgis Night April the thirtieth, which is far too early for Ascension Day, my lord.”

“I think you will find that is not, vicar.”

Rachel’s father performed some rapid calculations. “It would mean that Easter would have to be . . . March the twenty-second!” he announced, eyes bright. “The earliest possible day! Rare, but it does occur.”

“The last occurrence being in 1668,” pointed out the earl gently. “The year the girl died in the fire. The next occurrence, I am told, will be in 1761. Next year.”

“By the stars!” exclaimed Reverend Proudfoot, sitting up straight. “This is most fortuitous, my lord. What an opportunity to record a rare ceremony!”

“Burning and all?” asked the earl dryly.

Reverend Proudfoot flushed. “No, no. But . . .” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “My lord, you cannot suppose that we have here a tradition of
human sacrifice
?”

Despite her training, Rachel almost dropped her pen. She stared at the earl. Was it only in her imagination that his sardonic face became macabre? Despite the fire the room was turning decidedly chilly.

Then he looked at her, and she saw that he was enjoying his effect. Was his story even true?

“It does seem unlikely in this age of reason and enlightenment, doesn’t it?” he said. “It bears watching, though.” He turned to her father. “Perhaps by the shepherd of the flock?”

Rachel saw now why they had been so readily afforded this interview, and perhaps why her father had been offered this living. The Reverend Joseph Proudfoot’s interest in superstitions and pagan traditions was well-known.

Her father nodded. “I will keep a close eye on events, my lord.”

“It will have to be very close, vicar. The people here are wary of strangers. Even though my family have been here for nearly two hundred years, we are considered strangers still. And you and your daughter are very new here indeed.”

Again he looked at Rachel, looked her over in fact. She was not the sort of woman men directed embarrassing looks at, and yet she was embarrassed. Perhaps it was just that she was unaccustomed to a man like the Earl of Morden. Despite his dissipated way of life, he was a remarkably handsome man and yes, that vital force she had detected in the portrait still flowed through him. . . .

He spoke abruptly. “There are some records of the events in 1668 in the muniment room. Perhaps you would care to examine them.”

This was a dismissal and Rachel was pleased to escape. The once chilly room was now too hot.

She and her father rose with many expressions of appreciation of the earl’s graciousness in speaking with them. They were shepherded by a footman down one floor and along a number of corridors to the bleak but dust-free room wherein the earldom kept its records.

The journey gave Rachel an opportunity to regain her wits. For pity’s sake, the Earl of Morden would never even give Rachel Proudfoot a moment’s thought!

No matter how rakish the owner, his muniment room was well organized, with record books on shelves, loose documents in boxes, and maps and charts in shallow drawers. It had even been catalogued by a family amateur, and so it didn’t take Rachel and her father long to find the records of the enquiry into the unfortunate death on Walpurgis Night, 1668.

“Her name was Meg Brewstock,” said Rachel, taking notes. “There are still Brewstocks, aren’t there, with a farm out near Haverhill? She was a dairy maid here at Morden Abbey. . . . Goodness! She was only sixteen.”

Her father was flicking through a sheaf of papers which had been found with the records. “This general account of local customs says that a girl is selected every year to play a part in the Walpurgis Night festivities. She is called Dym’s Bride—Demon’s Bride, I fancy. What’s the odds Meg Brewstock was Dym’s Bride in 1668? As usual in these cases, the bride is supposed to be a virgin, so probably they are all quite young. . . .”

“The Demon’s Bride!” exclaimed Rachel. “That’s horrid.”

The vicar smiled. “A fancy only, my dear, I’m sure. I doubt the people here think as much of it as did the writer of these notes. I detect an excessive interest in the strange and lurid, and,” he added, waggling his eyebrows, “in tales of young virgins.”

Rachel chuckled. Her father’s dry common sense could always bring these fanciful matters into focus. “But I still think it unpleasant to be forcing any girl into such a role, especially in the light of what happened to Meg.”

“I’m sure that was pure mishap. See, this writer recorded the Dym’s Brides from 1669 to 1680. All came through the experience hale and hearty. He does note, however, that all these girls married before the end of the summer, and many produced a babe rather sooner than would be proper.”

Rachel was not surprised. “Giving birth to little devils?”

Her father reflected her grin. “Only in so far as it is in the nature of children to be imps. See, here is a note that in 1673 the Demon’s Bride was Pru Thurlow, who in July married Nathan Hatcher, and who gave birth to a son on Epiphany Day 1674.”

“The ancestor of our dour gardener, Tom Hatcher?” Rachel exclaimed in delight. “For all that I find him taciturn, I cannot see him as a descendent of Waldborg the Demon.”

Her father laughed. “Nor can I, pet.” He replaced his papers in the box. “I do wonder what happened to poor Meg Brewstock, though, on Dym’s Night in 1668.”

Rachel gazed at the few dry words which seemed to be the only record of a young girl’s life. “So do I, Father. So do I.”

 

 

Back at the vicarage, Rachel sat at a small table near the fire transcribing her record of the day’s events in her best plate. Her father sat opposite consulting his books and notes in search of similar customs elsewhere. She spared a moment for a fond glance.

He was never so happy as when digging to the bottom of a strange tale. He excused his investigations as a searches for the ordinary explanations for superstitious customs and beliefs. But Rachel knew they were rooted in simple, childlike fascination.

That was the main reason they were in Suffolk, which Rachel was inclined to think a rather boring part of the country, being generally flat and windy. She had lived all her life in the milder climate of Somerset.

After her mother’s death, however, and with her two brothers out in the world, her father had begun to slide into a decline. With intriguing puzzles of their locality having been long exhausted, Rachel had encouraged him to look for a new living elsewhere.

Walberton was serving its purpose admirably. It was fairly riddled with peculiar beliefs and notions. Over the past two months the Reverend Proudfoot had grown as plump and hearty as he’d ever been. In light of this improvement, Rachel could even forgive the local people their secretive natures.

Mrs. Hatcher, their housekeeper, came in with a tea tray, square face set in disapproval. Rachel had found that disapproval quite daunting at first, but now recognized it as the woman’s habitual expression.

“Ah, Mrs. Hatcher,” exclaimed the vicar. “Excellent. Sit down, dear lady. I wish to talk to you.”

The woman was clearly taken aback. She placed the large tray on the central table and said, “I’d rather not sit, sir. What did you wish to say?”

The vicar sighed. “I don’t wish to
say
, Mrs. Hatcher. I wish to ask. I am gathering information on a local matter which is, I believe, called Dym’s Night, or Demon’s Night.”

Rachel wouldn’t have believed that the woman’s face could become even more stony, but it managed it. “Demon’s Night, sir? Sounds right ungodly to me.”

“Come, come, Mrs. Hatcher. No need to be like that! Such strange names occur all over the country. They mean nothing. I know that the people here gather on Dymons Hill on Walpurgis Night.”

“Aye, sir. We do that. It’s just a bit of fun.”

“But what of this matter of Walpurgis Night falling on Ascension Day?”

“I don’t know, sir. What of it?”

“Is not that what you call Dym’s Night?”

“I’ve never heard it called so, sir.”

Reverend Proudfoot becoming exasperated, so Rachel took a hand. “Apparently a girl died during the Walpurgis Night revels some years ago, Mrs. Hatcher.”

The housekeeper’s pale eyes swiveled to her. “Not in my time, miss, no.”

Rachel now shared her father’s impatience. She knew the people here could probably talk of the Conquest as if it were yesterday if they chose to, as if seven hundred years was nothing.

“It happened a century ago, Mrs. Hatcher, but I doubt the memory of such a tragedy has faded. The poor girl burned to death.”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “Oh, that. Yes, well, it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened more, the way young people will frolic near the flames, drinking and all like they do.”

“I suppose that’s true. Was Meg Brewstock Dym’s Bride that year?”

The woman’s eyes widened with a flash of alarm. “I wouldn’t know, miss, would I?” She turned firmly to the vicar. “Will that be all, sir? I’ve bread rising.”

The vicar sent her off and grimaced at his daughter. “All the informativeness of a turnip.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Father,” said Rachel as she poured their tea. “I thought her discomfiture very informative.”

The vicar took the cup. “She wasn’t at ease about it, was she? First the earl keeping something back, and now Mrs. Hatcher.” He stirred a lump of sugar into his tea with relish. “This could prove to be a most enjoyable investigation.”

 

 

Rachel was pleased that her father had a juicy puzzle to solve, but she found the death of poor Meg Brewstock more haunting than intriguing. She desperately wanted to know what had happened to the girl. She kept her ears alert for any mention of Dym’s Night, and whenever possible she questioned the local people. She found out nothing.

It wasn’t that everyone in Walberton was as dour as the Hatchers. Most were quite pleasant. They smiled and joked and passed on local gossip, but no one would even admit the idea of a Demon’s Night, or knowledge of Meg Brewstock’s death.