To the Devil a Daughter by Dennis Wheatley

Author:Dennis Wheatley [Wheatley, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A&A, dark, fantasy, historical, horror, magic, occult, satan
Published: 1953-10-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The Black Art

The rain was still falling in a steady downpour, and now that the light was failing the little turrets surmounting the steep gables presented only a blurred outline. As C.B. squelched his way up the garden path the coppice twenty yards away on his right was already pitch-dark, but to his left the tall, ancient yews of the churchyard still stood out, like sombre sentinels guarding the dead, against the heavy grey sky that presaged a night of inky blackness.

Under the Gothic porch there lingered enough light for him to make out a scrolled iron bell-pull beside an arched front door of solid oak, and studded with massive nail heads making a curious pattern. He jerked it vigorously and heard the bell clang hollowly in a distant part of the house. No approaching footsteps told him that anyone was on the way to answer it, but after a moment the door swung silently open on well-oiled hinges.

Framed against the dim light from a Moorish lantern that hung in the centre of a small square hall stood a manservant of a type that one would hardly have expected to find in an Essex village. He wore a red fez and was robed in a white burnous. His skin was very dark, but only his thick lips suggested negro blood; and C.B. put him down at once as an Egyptian. Crossing his black hands on his chest he made a deep bow, then waited silently until C.B. asked: ‘Is Canon Copely-Syle in?’

The man salaamed again and replied in excellent English, a slight lisp alone betraying his foreign origin, ‘My master has just settled down to his writing, and at such times he is averse to being disturbed. But if you will give me your name, sir, I will enquire if he is willing to receive you.’

‘My name is Verney; but that won’t convey anything to him. Just say that I arrived from Nice this afternoon.’

As C.B. spoke he stepped into the hall and the Egyptian closed the door. His felt slippers making no sound on the tiled floor and his white robe billowing out behind him, he seemed almost to float away down the corridor. Two minutes later he returned; his white teeth flashed in a smile, he bowed and murmured, ‘Allow me, sir, to take your things. Then if you will follow me …’

Having divested himself of his wet coat, C.B. was led to the back of the house and shown into a room that, unlike the appearance of the house itself and the Egyptian servant, had nothing even suggestive of the sinister about it. In fact it might well have been the workroom of a wealthy but unimaginative clergyman. Wealthy, because of the great array of valuable books that covered all its walls from floor to ceiling: unimaginative, because its owner was evidently content to have left unchanged its Victorian décor and hideous furnishings of elaborately-carved light oak. Nevertheless, it had an air of solid comfort. It

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