The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘If we assume that Bella read the Vaughan legend, what would have stood out?’

‘The baby,’ Jane whispered.

‘And she now had one of her own. A little Vaughan. A genuine heir to all this — the whole huge tradition. A tiny descendant of the Princes of Brecknock. And she could never admit it. I don’t know anything about Walter Chancery, but taking over the house built by your tame architect is one thing… living in your wife’s lover’s mansion with his child… very different.’

‘This is totally mind-boggling,’ Jane said.

‘And may not be true,’ Beth Pollen said, rather desperately now.

‘But she was a serious follower of the big new fashion for spiritualism.’ Merrily took a long breath, wishing it carried nicotine. ‘I think when she read about the baby, she conceived the idea of somehow — and we can’t know the details — of somehow presenting the child, Hattie, to her heritage. And more specifically, to her father. The medium…’

‘Wouldn’t the medium have given it away, Mrs Watkins? If her father had spoken through Erasmus Cookson?’

‘No.’ Jane was on her feet. ‘Because Cookson was from London. Bella had him brought in. He just had to have been a mate, someone she could trust not to pass on anything indiscreet until afterwards.’

‘But the priests…’

‘Window dressing, I suspect,’ Merrily said. ‘This is a woman who was secretly bereaved, desperate for psychic contact with her lover. Suppose she’d planned, at some stage, to leave Walter for Rhys Vaughan? Perhaps he’d told her that when the house was finished… I don’t know. We can’t know.’ She glanced at Alistair Hardy. ‘And where Conan Doyle comes in, I’ve no idea at all.’

Beth Pollen sighed. ‘We might as well try and finish the story. My researches suggest that it was Walter who invited Conan Doyle. I think… I think it was probably true that Doyle, a man with a strong sense of what was right and wrong, would have been appalled to find a baby brought into something like this. And I suppose that, being the man he was, he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d found out what was behind it. Perhaps Bella begged him to keep quiet, and so…’

‘That was why he switched The Hound to Devon?’ Jane said.

‘Impossible to say, isn’t it? It could have been something fairly shocking that happened at the seance.’

‘The baby starts croaking in Welsh?’ Jane smiled malevolently.

‘I suppose we were all hoping something might be confirmed this weekend,’ Beth said.

Alistair Hardy was sitting upright, like Dr Bell, with his arms folded. ‘You didn’t tell me any of this, Beth.’

‘No,’ Beth said, almost distantly, and Merrily guessed that this had been a test for him. That Beth’s commitment to spiritualism was less unquestioning than her colleagues in the White Company had supposed. That Alistair Hardy had perhaps conveyed messages from her husband that she wanted to believe and yet…

Poor woman. If Hardy, as Dr Bell, Conan Doyle or even himself, had been able to reflect any aspect of a story which was unsupported by anything in print, his stature would have been confirmed, at least in Beth Pollen’s estimation. As it was, he remained iffy.

‘That’s all I know,’ Merrily said.

Beth Pollen said, ‘Perhaps it’s best if we leave it there.’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘No. We can’t, can we? There’s a woman behind that door over there who’s either a totally evil human being or a human being to whom evil was… bequeathed. We can’t alter what happens to her, but we can try to stop it here.’

Merrily nodded.

‘Hattie was unbaptized,’ Beth said. ‘I’m sure there’s a psychiatrist or a geneticist somewhere who can put it into terminology that wouldn’t cause anyone any embarrassment, but it seems likely that that night she acquired what we poor country folk can only describe as The Curse of the Vaughans.’

Merrily looked across the room at Jeremy Berrows, who knew.

‘Why don’t we see what Arthur Conan Doyle had to say? Go back to the Baskerville curse. Who invited evil into Baskerville Hall?’

‘Hugo,’ Jane said. ‘A wild, profane and godless man, in the seventeenth century, at the time of the Civil War. Hugo promises to “render his body and soul to the Powers of Evil” if he can catch up with the wench. No real parallel there, Beth.’

‘Oh, I’ve tried jolly hard to come up with one. The nearest I can get is Ellen Gethin. I often wonder if Ellen didn’t offer herself to the Powers of Evil if she was granted the opportunity — and the physical strength — to avenge her brother.’

‘But did she?’ Merrily wondered. ‘I mean, did she? That’s a very familiar story. I bet you’ll find slightly different versions all over the country.’

‘Well, yes, and Ellen does seem generally to have been a good and faithful woman, who mourned for her husband, buried his headless body, never married again. Nonetheless, what we’re looking at, surely, is a curse, a genetic disposition, what you will, following a female line. Hattie killed her husband, Paula killed herself and… Natalie…’

‘Natalie may also have been involved in the death of her cousin,’ Merrily said. ‘We can speculate for ever about where it came from, but three generations that we know of…’

‘So. What do we do, Mrs Watkins?’

The big question. Alice: We needs it now, more than ever — the big white bird.

Ancestral healing. The healing of the dead.

Dexter: Should never’ve gone round askin’ questions, rakin’ it all up.

Jeavons: It’s how we develop within ourselves — by suffering through our failure and trying again and suffering some more. We suffer, Merrilee.

The globe of the table lamp was shining like a full moon. Merrily walked over to it.

‘We can only apply actual exorcism to something demonic and believed to be… not of human origin. Perhaps that’s why, in the old story, Vaughan describes himself as a devil. Makes it legit. Hattie Chancery, however… I mean, she might not have been a terribly nice person for part of her life, but…’

The TV producer, Antony Largo — egalitarian denims, wide and sceptical smile — said from behind his camera, ‘This sounds like what my old man would’ve described as namby-pamby liberalism.’

‘No… basic Christianity.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘However, I don’t want to underplay it. What I had in mind was to wait until first light and then hold a Requiem Eucharist, for Hattie Chancery. For anyone who isn’t conversant with this, it’s basically a funeral service, with Holy Communion. And the aim, essentially, is to bring peace to Hattie and bring Jesus Christ into this place.’

Antony Largo smiled at Amber. ‘Story of your life here. Never get the ones who pay for the rooms.’

Merrily sighed. ‘Just a guess, Mr Largo… you’re not a Christian, right?’

‘Astute of you to notice, Mrs Watkins.’

‘And honest of you to admit it—’

‘Oh, I’m actually quite proud of it.’

‘—Because it kind of rules you out.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Largo frowned. ‘Rules me out?’

‘And, in fact, anyone else who isn’t a Christian. We can’t afford to take this lightly. It’s not like the Chancerys’ exorcism, with fake priests. Has to be the real thing or it’s not worth doing.’

‘The real thing?’

‘Normally, with a history like this, I wouldn’t even attempt it without back-up… maybe two other priests. There at least has to be what you might call a solid front. No weak links in the room. Anybody else unhappy about commitment? Mrs Foley?’