Dark Enchantment by Dorothy Macardle;

Author:Dorothy Macardle;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE CONGREGATION WAS a small one and very mannerly.

Footsteps were quiet, genuflections slow and complete, all movements subdued. The glances cast at her and Martine were brief. The pews at the rear of the church had been left empty and when, just as the curé and his acolyte came to the altar, someone was heard taking a place there, the wave of movement and whispering that passed over the people was no more than a breeze stirs in a field of wheat. Juliet looked around. Martine, who was kneeling, had not moved.

‘Is it Terka?’ she whispered, and Juliet answered, ‘Yes.’

The priest, Juliet thought, looked very ill, as if he had prayed and fasted too much. She recalled their talk and how greatly it had troubled him. And indeed, he must be troubled, she reflected – a shepherd whose flock was distraught and threatened: who believed that their very souls were in danger from diabolical powers. Devotion and wisdom shone in his face. Was it possible that such a man could be so profoundly deceived?

Gradually the tension within her and around her relaxed.

The calm, ordered movements before the altar; the clear note of the bell; the rhythmic prayers and responses in sonorous Latin – all the power of that ancient, sanctified ritual, enfolded the congregation in an atmosphere in which they felt safe. Juliet grew less conscious of her separateness, more aware of the mood which united the worshippers. There was a sense of surrender, and, with surrender, release; an illusion, too, as the mass proceeded, that the flaunting, defiant presence in the shadows at the back grew dim, shrank and weakened, losing its potency.

She knelt with the rest while the priest, in a fervent voice, prayed that the blessing of the Lord might be in his heart and on his lips; she rose and stood while he read the Gospel of the day, and sat still, looking up, while he ascended to the pulpit slowly, as if with reluctance.

In an abstracted tone he read announcements about changes in the hours of mass; mentioned a collection for a chapel to be built in a mountain parish; read the banns for an affianced couple. A long pause followed. With troubled eyes he searched the faces of his congregation, as if seeking reassurance from them. When he spoke it was in a low, impressive tone, as though he were weighing each word.

He spoke of charity and patience; of tolerance and self-control, urging his flock to remember that vengeance lay not with them but with God; that theirs was a Christian community on whom the blessings of civilisation and education had been bestowed.

‘I have taken the decision to trust you,’ he said. ‘It is because I lacked the – courage to trust you sufficiently that I hesitated to take a certain action which I should otherwise have taken more than a year ago. I hoped that it might prove unnecessary. I have sought, by private warnings and admonitions, to avert the danger from your souls, but, by many of you, my warnings have been disregarded.

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