The Comforters

with such a watchful air.

Caroline appreciated flattery, the more so when it was plainly excessive and well laid on, for then she felt that the flatterer had really taken pains to please. So she smiled languidly and waited for the rest, not at all surprised that these remarks were a prelude to one of those ‘confidences’ which the Baron so greatly longed to make. For, since she had forbidden the subject of black magic, the Baron had been manifestly unhappy. She realized that he had chosen her as a repository for his secret enthusiasm because of that very edginess and snap with which she responded. If like his other friends, she could have been merely sociable about his esoteric interests, making a gay palaver of them — ‘Do describe the formula, Willi, for changing oneself into a fly. One could watch all one’s friends… . Suppose one got stuck in a pot of jam’ — if only she could have played buoyant and easy with the Baron, he never would have plagued her with his ‘confidences’.

Having lubricated the way with his opening speech he proceeded instantly, ‘I must tell you, Caroline, such a strange thing happened in the car as we came down. This woman, Mrs Hogg —’

Caroline tried to be pleasant ‘Helena has already told me of the incident. Obviously, Willi, you’ve been infecting Helena with your fancies. Obviously —’

‘I do assure you, Caroline, I have never discussed any occult subject with Helena. I am very careful in whom I confide these matters. There is no other way of accounting for the strange phenomenon in the car but to accept the fact that this woman Hogg is a witch.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Caroline said, ‘even if she did disappear. I think she’s too ignorant to be a witch.’ And she added, ‘Not that I believe in witches particularly.’

‘And I have made a curious discovery,’ the Baron continued relentlessly. ‘Don’t you see — this woman Hogg is, I am certain, the witch to whom Mervyn Hogarth was married. The facts meet together — he has been known to use the name Hogg, as I told you. My informants say he always used it in his younger days. This Georgina Hogg is his witch-wife.’

‘Nonsense. She’s an old servant of the Manders. I believe she married a cousin. She has a crippled son somewhere.’

‘Has she? — Then it is certain she is the one, the witch, the wife! It is her son who was cured a few months ago by Hogarth’s magic. It must be the same young man!’

‘Awfully far-fetched,’ Caroline said. ‘And, Willi, all this bores me. In fact it agitated her, as he could see. ‘That Hogarth crest,’ she was thinking, ‘on Eleanor’s cigarette case. Laurence identified it, the same as Mrs Hogg’s… .’ She decided to speak of this to Laurence later on.

Just then Helena shouted, ‘Caroline, will you fetch my book — I threw it in at the back of the boot with my little head cushion. Will you fetch that too?’

‘Hell!’ Caroline breathed.

It meant unloading the entire contents of the boot. The Baron helped Caroline to ease them out of the tiny space, while he talked as fast as he could, as if to get in as much as possible of his precious confidences in the next few moments.

‘It is the same young man,’ he said, ‘and you will see that I am right.’

‘You must be wrong,’ said Caroline, out of breath with the effort of shifting the boxes, old petrol cans, and other clutter. She was reminding herself that only the other day Helena had said, ‘Fancy, I told Mrs Hogg about that wonderful miracle that happened to the Hogarth boy. I thought it might give her some hope for her own son who’s a cripple. But do you know, she wouldn’t believe it was a miracle — she said if it had been a real miracle the young man would have become a Catholic. Unfortunately this Hogarth boy has gone off with some woman — a rich Theosophist, I understand. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told Georgina that bit.’

‘You must be wrong,—’ Caroline told the Baron. ‘Helena knows Georgina Hogg’s affairs. Ask Helena, she’ll confirm that Mrs Hogg has nothing to do with Hogarth.’ Again, she wondered about that crest.

‘Helena does not know,’ said the Baron. ‘And another thing, Caroline. So exciting, Caroline. I am going to see Mervyn Hogarth this afternoon. I have been informed that he is staying at an Abbey a few miles from this spot. Now why should he be staying at a religious house? He must be posing as a Catholic retreatant. I daresay that these are the means he uses for stealing the consecrated elements for use in the Black Mass. After all, he must get them from somewhere —’

Caroline caught his sleeve and nodded towards the hedgerow a few yards from where the car was parked. He looked in that direction. The black hat had just bobbed out of sight.

‘Mrs Hogg has been listening,’ Caroline said in a loud voice.

‘Did you call me, Miss Rose?’

Mrs Hogg came out of hiding as if she had never been in it. ‘Lovely round here,’ she said with her smile. ‘Did you call? I thought you called “Mrs Hogg”.’

Caroline walked away quickly, followed by the Baron, while Mrs Hogg made off along the towpath.

Caroline handed Helena the book. ‘It had slipped down at the very back,’ she said, ‘I had to move everything. I feel as exhausted as if I’d done a hard day’s work.’

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have — I thought Willi was doing all the heaving. Willi, why didn’t you do all the heaving?’

‘I did so, my Helena,’ said the Baron.

‘Mrs Hogg was bent behind the hedge listening to our conversation,’ Caroline said.

‘I take an oriental view of manual labour myself,’ said Laurence. He was stretched in the dappling shade of a tree.

‘She has nothing in her life,’ Helena said, ‘that’s her trouble. She always has been a nosey type. Simply because she hasn’t any life of her own. I’m sorry I brought her. I dread taking her back.’

Laurence gurgled. ‘I think that’s sweet.’ Helena had not told him of their creepy experience with Georgina that morning.

‘I’ve sent her off for a walk,—’ said Helena, looking round. ‘I wonder if she’ll be all right.’ Georgina was nowhere