Читать книгу The Devil's Mistress - J W Brodie Innes - Страница 7

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THE familiar gleam of light only partially roused her to a dim memory of the past night. It seemed a mixture of reality with a very vivid dream, but therewith was a horrible sense of apprehension and dread, which the half-awakened brain was powerless to shake off. Her thoughts moved automatically, and her will for the moment was powerless to control them.

Luridly, recollections came in terrifying pictures.

'What have I done? O God, what have I done?' she said to herself. Then again, 'It was only a dream. But what made me dream it?' Then as it came back in distinct detail, 'O God! I have given myself to the Devil for ever and ever, to burn in hell everlastingly. What shall I do? What can I do?'

Then the conviction that it was all a dream. She remembered the rush of rain, the sounds of the thunderstorm. How could she have come through it? If it had been a reality she must have been drenched to the skin, yet she had no memory of being out in the wet, or even having got the least muddied or damp. There hung the green gown she had laid out with such pride and joy the night before. Had it ever been worn? Certainly not in rain or storm. It hung there fresh as when she took it from the kist; but to her sleep-dimmed eyes it looked like a fantastic simulacrum of herself, as though she were looking at herself standing by the door. Then it wavered and grew dim. Consciousness flickered, revived for a moment, then a warm indolent wave passed, the relaxed limbs sank heavily, and she was asleep again.

When she woke an hour later it was already full day. The phantoms of the night had fled away, the dread and apprehension were gone. She felt a remarkable clearness of perception, and a self-confidence to which since her marriage she had been wholly unaccustomed. No longer was she, as she had described herself to the stranger, like a mouse caught in a trap, but more like the golden eagle sailing free and unfettered through the sky. Whatever she desired was in her power to attain, the force of her will could bring things to pass.

As to the events of last night she reasoned calmly and dispassionately. There had been a storm undoubtedly, for the whole land lay in stagnant pools which were not there yesterday. Equally certain her green gown had not been out in it; there was no speck of mud, no trace of damp on it, though she examined it with minute care. So the memory of the stranger she had met and of Sir Robert Gordon's visit had started a dream, the sound of the storm had worked into it, and produced the culmination. She had read of such a theory of dreams. Then a slight pain below the shoulder took her attention. She hurried to the little blurred mirror; there on the shoulder, and just above the swell of the white breast, was a distinct scar, dark with a rosy aureole round it, and on her forehead a spot of blood--more than a spot now that she looked at it closely, a trace of something. Was it an inverted horse shoe? or two horns? It was too faint to see. She washed it off; but this was discomposing. The experience must have been real then after all, in spite of the green gown; she must have gone to the kirk and been marked. But then, in what possible gown could she have gone? not the green one, and there was no other that had any trace of wet.

Another possible solution occurred. She might have wounded herself in her sleep somehow, perhaps got up in a dream and scratched herself on a nail. This must clearly be the explanation.

Then she remembered how the stranger had trysted her to meet him at the Wards of Inshoch next Sabbath during kirk time. She must make some excuse to John Gilbert, in spite of his definite command that she should accompany him. She could get up and then pretend to faint, something or other she would do, and send him off alone. She felt now that she could do this without any question, and she would go and meet the stranger. There was an extraordinary hunger in her blood to see him again. Come of it what might, she must see him. The memory of the thrill of that last whisper, when he told her where to come, remained with her yet. But, and this came with a sick feeling of apprehension, what if this too were a dream like all the rest?

No! in spite of every evidence to the contrary, it must be real. Rather all should be real than that there should be any doubt of this tryst. Whether he were man or Devil she cared not, she longed for him with a feverish longing.

She wished very much now that she could go and see Sir Robert Gordon. That wise old man would resolve all her doubts and explain things. But that was clearly impossible. It must be some fifteen or twenty good Scots miles away. There was no means of getting thither, though Sir Robert had so courteously invited her.

Then she remembered Margaret Brodie. Margaret would know if it were dream or reality. She it was who had first told her they would meet at the kirk; she it was who had welcomed her there, who seemed familiar with all the wild mad doings. She had felt Margaret's arm supporting her through all the strange scene. Also, and this was the most vital, Margaret would know something of the stranger; she would be able to tell where he might be found, if indeed he were to be found; but, and here a bit of human nature strongly asserted itself, even to Margaret she would say nothing about that tryst in the Wards of Inshoch. That, if it were indeed aught but a dream, lay between the stranger and herself, and all the wonder and glory, all the romance and the sweetness she imagined to herself for that interview she could not share with anyone whatsoever.

The old shabby gown of faded russet was good enough for this expedition, it was the one in which Margaret had seen her before. But first she would take a look into the byre to see how the sick cows were. The men were all away. None noticed her as she went in. Over the stalls, and over the heads of the two cows, there brooded a sickly, poisonous-looking yellow mist. Through it there looked faintly and hardly to be seen, rather to be imagined, a cruel evil face, a face she did not know.

'Who are you?' she said aloud, for she was startled. 'Ye have no business here, Get ye gone--in the Devil's name!'

It was only a common turn of expression used in those days and often since, and she used it without thinking.

Instantly like a cloud before a wind the yellow mist curled up, writhed and wavered a moment, and disappeared.

She went forward and laid her hand lightly on the head of the nearest cow.

'Poor Whitefoot! Ye are well now, I think.'

Instantly, somehow, she knew that the cows were cured, and she knew that she was able to cure sick beasts, but how it could be she knew not, nor did it trouble her, for it all seemed so supremely natural. It was like moving or speaking, a thing she could do of course; the surprising thing would be if she were not able to do it.

Margaret Brodie stood at her door, pleasant-faced and welcoming. 'I knew ye would come the day, my dearie,' she said, 'or I should have been down at your house to talk with ye when all the folk were away. I think maybe it were not altogether well for ye that I should be seen thereabouts. The people say this and that about my mother. They have nothing against me, though they might have gin they knew everything; but they call me the witch's daughter, and I think they are feared.

'Well, I knew I'd meet ye at the kirk, but I did not know it would be so soon. Come away ben and tell me. To think that he should go himself to seek ye. And most folk have to wait long, and beg and pray, and do all manner of services, and even then perhaps they never see him.'

'Ye know him then, Margaret?'

'What! the Dark Master, as we call him, Ay, my dearie, I know him fine and well. Did not I myself bring ye to him at the kirk.'

'Who is he, Margaret? What is he? Was it all a dream, or was it real? It all seemed so real to me, and you brought me up to him even as ye say. But how did I get home through all that storm last night, and never a drop of wet on me?'

'Oh, that's easy. Look at me a moment.'

Isabel turned round, but Margaret was nowhere to be seen. A laugh sounded up in the air over the cottage roof, she looked up in amazement, and that instant Margaret came round the corner from behind the house.

'What is it? How is it?' gasped Isabel, at a loss for words. 'Are you then--?'

'A witch, ay, dearie, that's what they would say if they knew. But they don't know, and they never will. He can take care of his friends. Ye ask me who he is, and sorrow a bit can I tell ye, Whiles I think he is a man, only great and strong, more than any man ye ever saw. He can take other forms too, or it seems as if he did. He says he is that one whom men call the Devil. My mother says the Devil is black and awful, with horns and fire all about him, and none can touch him, for he is red hot. The Dark Master is not like that. And he is very good to his friends.'

'But tell me, is it all real, or do we just dream it?'

Isabel's mind kept running on some of the romances she had read long ago, the power of the imagination was no new thing to her.

'I've often wondered,' Margaret answered after a pause while she seemed to be thinking what to say. 'We do queer things sometimes. For instance, ye know Maggie Wilson in Aulderne. Well, she has her old man to consider. But she comes with us when we are out for revelling. She just puts a besom in the bed, and the old man thinks it is herself, and never misses her. But whether it is her that's at home, or her that's with us, none knows, or whether she is two women on that night. And she doesn't know. She swears she is with us, and the old man says she is at home. Well, ye ken whiles I have thought it may be the same with the Dark Master. Perhaps he is just a man who has learned many things, and makes us think he is the Devil, as Maggie makes her man think that the besom is her. Or he may indeed be the Devil and makes us think whiles that he is just a man. Or perhaps he isn't there at all, but we just fancy he is. But there, dearie, it's no good wondering. Life is fine, and we are the queens of the country; while he helps us we can do what we will, and the country doesn't know it. So we've only got to hold our tongues, lest they burn us some day, and just enjoy our time while we have it.'

'But ye do things, ye say. How do ye do them?' said Isabel, whose curiosity was now keenly alive. 'Can I do them?'

'Oh, ye'll learn fast enough, no fear. See, lassie, ye are a prime favourite. I never knew the Master take to anyone so sudden like before. He'll teach ye. There's spells, ye ken, words ye have to say. But I doubt the words are not much without he puts his power to them. I mean another person might say them and nothing would happen. Always in rhyme they are; there's something queer about rhyme. I've tried it, and the same words seem to lose their power if ye miss the rhyme.'

'Well, there's something come to me since last night. I seem as if I could understand things I never understood before, and as if I could do anything I wanted to.'

She stopped a moment thinking how far she might confide in Margaret, then she went on to tell about the sick cows, and how she had cured them.

'That's queer,' said Margaret, 'They were bewitched, those cows. But who was it that put the spell on them? I wonder if that was one of my mother's cantrips. Whiles she does things. She is very stupid now. See, mother--och hey!' she called loud and clear, 'Beelzebub calls, the Puddock's loose. Come out, ye auld she-deevil!'

'Would ye speak to your mother like that,' said Isabel; 'are ye no afeared, and she a witch too?'

'Afeared, is it?--and indeed I am not. She's ay sitting glowering ben there in her own den, and thinking naught but mischief. There's naught but hatred left in her. Oh, they're a fearsome lot the gipsy witches, but they have not much power. Just a few things handed down from one to another in families. He will have nothing to do with them. I believe she loved my father, the laird, until he left her for his young wife, and then she hated him. I know she tried to poison him once, and she hated his wife, and hates her now. Ye ken she's married on to Dunbar, the Sheriff, since my father died; and so she hates the Sheriff and all his family, and she hates me because the laird was my father; but she can't hurt me, ye ken, because the Dark Master is o'er strong for her. There's no one she doesn't hate; she just lives on it. Ye ken we're on the Moray's land here; gin it had been Brodie's I wot they'd have putten us out langsyne. Och hey! mother, cannot ye hear me, ye auld faggot!'

There was a stir in the back room, and a scraping of a chair. The door opened cautiously, and the black raven flew out and circled round their heads, settling by the ingle nook. The horrible old woman's face peered out, the bright eyes glowing like coals with concentrated malignity.

'Who calls?' she mumbled through her toothless gums, 'Ye ill tawpie! what for do ye disturb me?'

'See here, ye auld witch, was ye pulling an ill will on John Gilbert's cows?'

'Och hey John Gilbert indeed! What was he to call me an auld witch and set his dogs on me? It'll be worse than that he'll get. It'll not be cows the next time. Eh! but I'll teach him to miscall his betters--me that's been wed by true gipsy law to the laird of Brodie. Curse him for a faithless Georgio! Didn't we leap over the broomstick thegither. Curse them all!'

'Haud your whisht, ye auld deevil! And harken ye now! Ye'll not interfere with John Gilbert, or his family, or aught that is his. I forbid it. See! Now ye ken me, and ye ken full well I mean what I say.'

'Eh! curse ye, daughter of an ill race that ye are! And ay must ye thwart your auld mother. Och hey! Ye must have your will, I suppose. Come away, Nickum.'

The raven rose and flew heavily round, finally settling on the old woman's shoulder, as with a glare of hatred she retreated to her den again.

Strange to say, Isabel felt not the slightest fear of the terrible old woman, only a disgust, and a certain half-conscious longing for the stranger whom Margaret called the Dark Master. If he would but put his arm round her she felt she could face anything.

As if in answer to her thought, Margaret said:

'Ay! Trust in him, lassie, He'll not let any harm come to ye. Gin he were a man, I would say he was in love with ye. I warrant he'll let any of us suffer before ill befalls ye; and whatever he is, ye may ken he is strong. And gin there's anyone that does ye despite, ye can be even with them. Woe to any who shall injure any of our coven, and I say it is most of all so for yourself.'

Isabel's thoughts turned instinctively to the laird of Park, but she said nothing.

'And tell me,' she said, 'if there's one whom ye love. Can ye do good to them?' She was thinking of Jean Gordon.

'That I cannot tell ye. We can lift the spell if any inferior witch has overlooked anyone, as my mother did your cows, or has caused a sickness, and we can get great good for ourselves. But more than this I do not know. Ye see, there's no one for me to love, there's none been particularly kind to me, until I was brought to the Dark Master. Oh no! He never sought for me. But all of our coven have been good to me. But now, mind ye this, lassie, your man will be home tonight, and ye'll find him different. Don't ye be afeared for him.'

A sick dread came over Isabel as she spoke. Gilbert to be home that night, and on Sabbath she was to meet the stranger at the Wards of Inshoch, but John had bidden her to kirk with him. She could not ask Margaret of this. It was a secret between her and the stranger, but how she longed for the time. No, she would not forgo that, whatever chanced. In love with her, Margaret said, and she knew something of the Dark Master. It was more than she dared to dream of. Who was she that she should be thus honoured? Nay! She would not be afeared for John. She felt within herself that she could manage anything now; and if the Dark Master really wanted her at the Wards of Inshoch, he would take care she was able to be there.

Somehow she was happier and more at ease as she walked home, though her doubts had not been resolved, and Margaret Brodie seemingly knew really no more than herself. 'Perhaps he's just a man,' she had said; and Isabel could not hide from herself how much she wanted him to be just a man. 'Gin he were a man, I would say he was in love with ye.' Her heart beat wildly, the earth seemed to sing; what was this that was coming to her at last, a something she had never felt, never dreamed of before. A wonder and a delight beyond all imagining.

The radiance of that dream stayed with her all day; and in the evening Gilbert came back. But in a measure a changed Gilbert, even as Margaret Brodie had said would be the case. Glum and dour as ever. Unkempt, unshaven, and dirty as ever. But he was not now bullying or abusive. He regarded her with a new-born respect, almost it seemed with a sort of awe, as a peasant might look on the lady of the manor who had come into his house on a visit or for shelter. It was a queer attitude that appeared to be forced on him against his will. He was apologetic for his long absence, and for not telling her the time of his return, and he slunk almost shamefacedly out to the byre.

A new feeling altogether was coming on Isabel, a sense of self-confidence to which she had long been a stranger. She was no longer the chattel belonging to a dour old peasant farmer, no longer a poor mouse in a trap with no prospect but gradually to grow older, dropped from sheer weariness into the sods of Aulderne Kirk. She was a person belonging to herself, with life and joy before her, and above all with power to do or undo, to help those who were good to her, to get even with those who insulted or injured her. And all this since her meeting with the stranger, and the weird experience in the kirk of Aulderne. Barely forty-eight hours! He must be a man of extraordinary powers. Was he a man? So much she wanted him to be 'just a man' that she refused to think anything else. A man and a lover. As such she could manage him; she felt no doubt of her power in this respect. He could do wonderful things, and he should do them for her.

She saw herself in fancy teasing, provoking, exciting, exasperating him, cajoling him with smiles and honeyed words till he was her slave, and did whatsoever she desired.

She slept that night, weary but elated; already she saw herself grasping the power so long desired, she saw herself with the Dark Master the secret king and queen of the countryside, swaying the destinies of everyone according to their pleasure. Now at last her dreams had come to her. A life of love and joy and power, a life worth living, after all these weary years of waiting. She would make him king of the world, but she would be the queen, and to her he should be her obedient vassal. So ran her dreams.

Gilbert lay on the settle by the kitchen fire. He seemed not to dare to come near her, nor did she invite him. She dreamed of the Wards of Inshoch.

Next day came Janet Broadhead, full of gossip and tales as usual.

'And have ye heard, Bell, what yon blackguard Hay of Park said of ye?'

'Nay, I have not. No good, I'll warrant. Tell me.'

'He's been telling everyone that ye made shameless love to him, that ye desired him to come to the farm when your good man was away, and that ye wished to visit him at his mansion-house of Park, and when he bade ye to desist for shame, that ye slapped his face; and when he sought to repair the roof of your house, ye flew at him like a wild cat, and told him it was himself ye wanted, and not his money. Oh, it's the fine character he's given ye.'

'Oh, the beast!' said Isabel. 'No matter, I'll be even with him.'

She thought with some pride in her heart how she would tell the Dark Master of the ill doings of Hay of Park, and how he would take up her cause, and avenge her on this man.

'I'll help ye,' said Janet. 'I have a crow to pluck with him too. He came round once to my house at Belmageith, on the same errand, and mind ye, I can do something. My man, that's John Taylor in Belmageith ye ken, he learned me. But I wet ye'll ken far more than me now, for the Dark Master favours yet. He just puts up with me because my man brought me to him.'

Isabel started, she had not thought to hear that Janet too was of the Dark Master's company. Janet continued:

'I trow ye'll be the queen of us all now. Well, I'll help ye, and be proud to do it, and so will my man. We know when we've gotten a good master.'

Something, she knew not quite what, held Isabel back from questioning Janet concerning the stranger. Evidently Janet did not look on him as a man, and Isabel longed so feverishly that he should be a man and a lover that she would run no chance of hearing anything else. Moreover, there seemed a certain disloyalty now in discussing him even with one who was in his company. It was like discussing the character of a king. She was the queen, and would speak of him to no inferiors.

Then as time went on, the very vehemence of her desire that he should be 'just a man' began to produce its reaction and its doubt. Suppose he actually were, as he had said in the kirk at Aulderne, that great one whom men call the Devil. He could be no human lover, nor could she rule him and use his power. On the contrary, he would own her, use her, do what he would with her. She would not belong to herself.

Here was a new consideration--

What if she went to the Wards of Inshoch only to be dominated and enslaved? to change one slavery for another? to take the Dark Master instead of John Gilbert? For one wild moment she said to herself, 'Yes! ten times yes! To lie at his feet for a mat for him to walk on, to be trampled and beaten by him, to be killed if he desired to kill me. I want nothing better than to lose all my being in him.'

Then in a calmer, saner mood she thought, 'No, I will not go. If he is the great being he pretends, and that they seem to say, he will come and find me anyhow. No! I will see if he comes.' But no sooner had she made this resolve than she repented. What if she were throwing away the one chance that might never come again? Sir Robert Gordon had said that fear was failure; he told her to dare, when her chance came to be brave and take it. And, after all, she had promised to go, and what could harm her, she would soon see if he were a man. If he were, then she could manage him; she was quite confident of her power so far. If he were not, well! she would know what to do then. If she had denied one baptism of the Kirk, she could equally deny the other one at the midnight ceremony. He could not hold her to that. So on the whole it was clearly right to go. And how much her own half-acknowledged fierce desire to go, her own wild longing for the stranger, underlay her reasonings with herself, none can tell. She was unconscious of this, save to the extent of a profound satisfaction when she reached the conclusion.

The Sabbath morning was clear and calm. The firth sparkled blue and silver under the autumn sun, and the western end of the old bar looked strange and bare denuded of the great sandhills that had been emptied on to the farm of Culben.

Isabel lingered over her dressing, she had taken a bannock and a glass of milk before she got up, she was doing all she could to put off the time. Planning what she should say when John Gilbert called her to go to kirk. She heard him moving about in the kitchen, then she heard him tramp to the door, go out, and close it behind him. She heard his heavy step on the road outside, and peered through the blind. Yes, there was no doubt he was taking the road to kirk alone. He had his rusty black coat, and his great Bible, and the clean handkerchief he always placed on the top of it, and even the sprig of southernwood, which was part of his ritual.

She panted with eagerness and apprehension. Was the story so elaborately prepared not to be needed, all the subterfuges to be superfluous? So it seemed; she trembled with anxiety so that she could hardly lace the bodice of her gown. A green gown and bodice laced with gold, with a black hood trimmed with lace. She found it in the old kist. She had not known she had it. But it seemed suiting the occasion; she must look her best for the Dark Master. As she sallied forth, there was no soul about, man and maid all were gone to the kirk. One moment she thought with a sinking of dismay, how should she get rid of her finery on her return? all would be then returning or back. Could she frame some excuse and stay out till it was dark, and all were in bed? Should she even now steal back, and carry the old homespun dress, and hide it in a wood somewhere, and change into it after she left the Dark Master? Would she ever leave him? Would she return to the farm of Lochloy ever again? No, she must now trust to chance. Not five minutes would she waste of the time she might perhaps have with him.

On she sped southward away towards Inshoch, till the ruins of the old castle rose before her. Well as her own farm almost she knew that grey ruin. Often she had sat there and dreamed of the past, and of the knights and ladies who might have lived there. None of them all with such a romance as hers. But today it looked curiously unfamiliar. Almost it seemed an inhabited house, yet it was the same ruin. And in the doorway stood the stranger with doffed bonnet and deferential air of welcome.

'Ye have come,' he said, 'I thank ye, Mistress. 'Tis good of ye to put such trust in an unknown poor scholar. I grieve indeed that I have here no worthier place wherein to bid ye welcome.'

'I would come anywhere to meet you. Ye have been strangely kind to me.' She spoke instinctively, and as it were without her will.

'Again I thank ye. And I will prove my thanks. I have heard, no matter how, that there is a man who hath dared speak slightingly of ye, whose shoe-lace he is not fit to tie. I have, as I told ye, a little power from my studies, and I will deliver him into your hands, to do with him whatsoever ye will.'

'But tell me. Ye speak thus. Are ye truly a man as ye seem, or what are ye?'

'Ay, sweetheart! Truly a man, and a man to love ye, for of a sooth never have I seen woman worthier to be loved. Dost doubt me?'

His arm was round her, as he drew her gently through the door into the courtyard of the ruin.

'Nay, I doubt ye not. But ye are so strong, so great. Ye are too great almost for man.'

'Not too great to be thy humble slave, All the greatness that the greatest of us men can achieve is nothing to the magic of a beautiful woman; and you are beautiful, sweetheart! And if I am strong, it is but to provide a setting worthy of so rich a jewel.'

He drew her towards a rich bed of golden brackens in the corner of the courtyard.

'Still art thou timid, sweetheart! Nay, I love thee all the more. See, I am but a man, humble to thee. Thou art my queen! Let me but worship thee!'

With his left hand he swept back the hood from her head, and stroked the rich, luxuriant hair that, loosened from the snood she had once more put on, flowed wildly over the green bodice. With a gentle pressure he turned her head upwards towards him, and gazed into the great dark eyes. She looked into his piercingly bright ones, and it seemed as though all will gradually oozed away from her, and therewith all memory and consciousness of everything save only herself and him; the past and the future were gone, non-existent; the castle itself was gone.

They were in some great hall with trophies and splendid ornaments, and in one corner was a heap of wondrous cushions, spread with Oriental robes and silken coverings of orange and scarlet and amber. And all the time those marvellous eyes were searching hers, and it seemed as if the whole of his being were dominating 'her, till she knew and desired nothing else in all the earth. Her head lay on his shoulder, her face upturned to his as she received his long, sweet, shuddering kiss on her lips, and closed her eyes in an ecstasy of bliss. Then he drew her to the corner, to the pile of cushions that made a sort of divan, and it seemed to her as though all material things melted and dissolved. She was floating in a golden haze, without sense, without volition. Then consciousness itself faded, and she knew no more.

A cold breeze on her forehead roused her, and she opened her eyes slowly. She felt some hard, rough substance under her arms. She looked out on the familiar Sutors of Cromarty. She was leaning over a wall beside a gate on the road from Aulderne to Lochloy. She had been asleep then. But how she came there she had no knowledge at all, she had no recollection of walking out. She had had a headache, and had not gone to the kirk. She must have wandered out in her sleep, and just wakened here. As she wondered, she heard voices. The folk were coming back from the kirk. She stood beside the gate, and several passed by twos and threes. Then John Gilbert came along, walking alone. Moved by some sudden impulse, she stepped out into the road and walked along beside him, thinking to tell him that her headache was better and she had come out to take the air, and to meet him. Then he turned round and said:

'Was not that a fine discourse we had the day from Mr. Forbes? Indeed, I am right glad ye were there.'