Paula Marshall - The Devil And Drusilla

Devenish laughed. He picked up the pile of IOUs and riffled carelessly through them before he spoke.

‘Never believe on dits about me, George, they are invariably wrong. Besides, I could never marry a woman who has no conversation, and the Beauty is singularly lacking in that. Unfortunately in my experience the beauties have no conversation, and the conversationalists have no beauty, so I suppose that I am doomed to bachelorhood.’

‘My experience, too,’ returned George gloomily. ‘Look, Devenish,’ he added as he turned to leave, ‘you will think of what I said about young Allinson, won’t you? It cannot profit you to ruin him: your reputation is bad enough already without his committing suicide. He was threatening to shoot himself after you had left this morning.’

‘Oh, as to that,’ riposted Devenish, raising one quizzical eyebrow, ‘it is also my experience that those who talk loudly and dramatically in public of such an extreme measure rarely put it into practice. No, he’ll go and get drunk first and when his head’s cleared he’ll visit me to beg for mercy.’

‘Which you will grant him?’ said George eagerly.

‘Who knows? It depends on whether my chef is on form at dinner that day. I really do have more to do than think about young Allinson, you know. My speech, for instance. Do be off with you, George. Go and visit the Turkish baths or lose a few hundred yourself somewhere.’

‘Oh, I never gamble.’

‘Yes, I know. It’s a weakness of yours not to have any weaknesses!’

George’s shout of ‘Devenish, you’re impossible,’ floated through the double doors as he left.

Devenish raised his eyebrows again and laughed. However much he grumbled, George would be back again to reproach and chivvy him. He threw the IOUs on to his desk, and debated whether to send for his secretary, Thorpe.

At least he wouldn’t have the impudence to complain about his non-existent moral sense as George always did. He noted idly that Thorpe had been in earlier and had left a small pile of correspondence on his desk for him to deal with.

Devenish picked up the first letter. It was from his agent, Robert Stammers, who ran Tresham Hall, on the edge of Tresham Magna village in Surrey, and the estate around it. He had never been back there since he had succeeded to the title ten years earlier when he had just turned twenty-three. He had preferred to go instead on a belated Grand Tour of Europe, even though Great Britain was in the middle of the war against Napoleon.

Robert had accompanied him as his secretary, and twice a year he visited Innescourt House as a favoured guest, somewhat to George Hampden’s bemusement.

That the Grand Tour had turned into something more exciting and important was known to few—and certainly not to George. Even after that, when he had returned to England Devenish had never revisited Tresham Hall: it held too many memories which he had no wish to awaken.

And now Robert was urging him to go there. ‘Your presence is needed at Tresham, m’lord,’ he had written, ‘and for more reasons than I care to commit to paper.’

Now that was a remarkable statement from an underling, was it not? Calculated to rouse a man’s curiosity—which was doubtless why Robert had so worded it! If anyone else had written him such a letter Devenish would have dismissed it, but he had appointed Robert to be his agent because he had the best of reasons to trust him.

Devenish sighed. He sighed because Robert was one of the few people in the world who had a right to make a claim on him, so he must agree to what Robert wished. He did not call Thorpe in to dictate the letter to him but began to write it himself.

‘Damn you, Rob,’ he began without preamble. ‘You, of all people, must understand how little I wish to return to Tresham and therefore I have to agree to what you ask, if only because, knowing you, I must believe that you have good reasons for making such a request of me—’

He got no further. There was the sound of voices in the corridor outside, the door was flung open, and Tresidder, his butler, entered, but not in his usual decorous fashion. He was being pushed in backwards by, of all people, young Allinson. He was not only shouting in Tresidder’s face but was also threatening him with a pistol.

‘M’lord,’ gasped Tresidder, made voluble by fright, ‘I dare not stop him. He insisted on seeing you, even when I told him that you had given orders not to be disturbed, and then he pulled out a pistol and threatened me with it if I did not do as he wished.’

‘Quite right,’ raved Allinson, releasing him. ‘And now I am here, you may go.’ He waved his pistol at Devenish who had risen, had walked round his desk and was advancing on him.

‘Tell him to leave us, damn you, Devenish. My quarrel is with you, not with him. And if you come a step further I’ll shoot you.’

Devenish retreated and leaned back against the desk, his arms folded, the picture of undisturbed indolence.

‘Yes, do leave us, Tresidder,’ he drawled. ‘I am sure that you have no wish to take part in this unseemly farce which Allinson thinks is a tragedy! Really, you young fool, you should be writing this fustian for Drury Lane, not trying to live it!’

‘Damn you, Devenish,’ shrieked Allinson, waving the pistol dangerously about. ‘First you ruin me, and then you mock me. I came here to make you give me back my IOUs, but I’ve a mind to kill you out of hand if you don’t mend your manners to me! You’ve ruined me, so I’ve nothing to lose.’

If he had thought to frighten the man before him by threatening his life, he was much mistaken. However dangerous the situation in which he found himself, Devenish was determined not to allow the young fool to intimidate him.

‘Oh, I might take you seriously, Allinson, if you were prepared to admit that you ruined yourself. Do stop waving that firearm about. Did no one ever teach you that it’s bad form to point a loaded pistol at people? I suppose it is loaded—or did you forget before you embarked on these histrionics?’

Devenish’s insults set Allinson choking with rage. He recovered himself with difficulty and ground out, ‘Of course it’s loaded—something you’d do well to remember. So, do as I ask, hand over my IOUs and I’ll not shoot you, although it’s all you deserve—’

‘Oh, very well. Anything to oblige a man who’s threatening my life. I’ve no desire to bleed to death on my best Persian carpet. It came from Constantinople, you know. It’s supposed to be nearly five hundred years old. My heir—God knows who he might be, I’ve never taken the trouble to find out—wouldn’t like it to be ruined,’ Devenish remarked chattily, making no move to do as he was bid. ‘It’s one of the house’s greatest treasures, you know.’

His frivolity nearly had Allinson gibbering. ‘Stow that nonsense at once, and give me my IOUs. I mean it.’

Still waving his pistol about, he advanced on his enemy until they were almost face to face.

Devenish said with a weary smile, which merely served to enrage Allinson the more, ‘Bound and determined to swing for me, are you?’

To which Allinson made no answer: only bared his teeth at him, and waved the pistol about threateningly.

‘Oh, very well,’ Devenish drawled, ‘I see that I shall have to oblige you. Needs must—if only to save the carpet.’

He slowly turned toward his desk as if to pick up the IOUs lying there. And then, like lightning—or a snake striking—he swung round with the heavy glass paperweight he had snatched up in his hand, and struck Allinson full in the face with it before his tormentor could grasp what he was doing.

Startled, and letting out a shriek of pain as he threw his arms up in an instinctive gesture to ward off what had already hit him, young Allinson’s finger tightened on the trigger so that he fired his pistol into the air.