THE DEVIL IN CLEVELY By
Norah Lofts
From The Cover:
Sir Charles Augustus Shelinadine was an
autocrat. He ruled his village with a firm
but kindly hand — instructing his tenants on
their crops, their children,
and their love-affairs.
And when he died and the new Squire came,
the village stirred uneasily. For the new Squire had strange ideas — and even stranger friends — friends like Mr Mundford who never seemed to grow any older and whose name so
rumour had it — was linked with the terrible Hell Fire Club. And Mr Mundford was interested in too many things that should not have concerned him, . . like the ruins of the old Roman temple … and what happened in the village on All-Hallows’ night… and in the silent, amber-eyed young woman called Damask Greenaway…
The latter part of the 18th century was a time of conflicting ideas, of rural upheaval and irresponsible whims. And the village of Clevely reflected— completely—the symptoms of the times.
For the poor there was the round of village life… of harvest… and birth… and death… and there was the threat of land enclosure … of economic disaster that could rob them of what little wealth they possessed.
And for the rich, for Richard Shelmadine and his long-suffering wife, for the eccentric Miss Amelia, for the sinister Mr Mundford, there were the sometimes cruel, sometimes fantastic indulgencies of extravagant people.
And in Clevely, the conflicts of rich and poor, of loved and unloved, of simple and sinister, culminated in a weird and terrible celebration on the Eve of All Hallows …
Also by Norah Lofts
JASSY
THE BRITTLE GLASS
A CALF FOR VENUS
SCENT OF CLOVES
THE LUTE PLAYER
BLESS THIS HOUSE
OUT OF THIS NETTLE
THE ROAD TO REVELATION
HESTER ROON
MADSELIN
I MET A GYPSY
HERE WAS A MAN
BLOSSOM LIKE THE ROSE
WHITE HELL OF PITY
THE LOST QUEEN
HOW FAR TO BETHLEHEM
REQUIEM FOR IDOLS
HEAVEN IN YOUR HAND
HER OWN SPECIAL ISLAND
ESTHER
is there anybody there? the story of maude reed rupert halton’s tale silver nutmeg checkmate
walk into my parlour the fall of midas michael and all angels copsi castle the concubine queen in waiting day of the butterfly
The House Trilogy
THE TOWN HOUSE
THE HOUSE AT OLD VINE
THE HOUSE AT SUNSET
Norah Lofts writing as Peter Curtis
DAY OF THE BUTTERFLY DEAD MARCH IN THREE KEYS YOU’RE BEST ALONE THE LITTLE WAX DOLL
and published by Corgi Books
The Devil in Clevely
Norah Lofts
PART ONE
Afternoon of an Autocrat
CHAPTER ONE
On the third Saturday afternoon of October, in the year 1795, Sir Charles Augustus Shelmadine set out on what—though he naturally had no notion of it—was to be his last ride.
Stubbornly old-fashioned, he still ate his dinner at midday and made of the meal, as of everything else he undertook, a thoroughly good job. The first pig-killing of the season had just taken place and the walnuts were at their best, though the crop was poor this year; he had dined well, and as he proposed, this evening, to entertain some friends for cards and supper, that meal, usually a frugal affair of two or three courses, would be supplemented by as many again, so if he were to do justice to his own table some exercise was desirable.
As recently as eighteen months ago he would have made his round of the village on foot, but he had lately come to the conclusion that walking provoked his gout. Moreover, today he intended to make a visit to the cobbler’s which was across the Stone Bridge on the other side of the Waste; his new boots, ordered three weeks ago, had not yet been delivered and it was clear that Amos Greenway needed a prod. So at half-past two his stout grey horse was brought to the door, and with some assistance from the mounting-block, and some from the groom, he heaved himself into the saddle and set off along the avenue. It was a fine autumn day, golden and mellow with sunshine and with just that hint of chill in the air which was conducive to appetite. The chestnut leaves were sharp yellow and bright amber, the hawthorns crimson
and bronze; the old man took, in the weather and the scene, a pleasure undiminished by the repetition of more than seventy years.
As he neared the gate Bessie Jarvey, the lodgekeeper’s wife, broke off her work in the potato patch and hurried clumsily to throw open the gate for him. In the family way again, he noticed, he’d thought so last time he saw her, now he was sure. That would be seven youngsters, all under working age; how they fitted into the Lodge, which consisted of two octagonal rooms, one on each side of the gateway, was a puzzle; a puzzle to which there was no solution, for it was obviously impossible to add to either room without spoiling the perfect symmetry of the entrance. And in any case, he remembered, Jarvey’s father had reared ten children there—all fine healthy brats too.
‘Potatoes done well this year, Bessie; better-looking than mine,’ he said, looking down at her as she bobbed, holding the gate wide.
She received the compliment with a smile, closed the gate and went back to her digging. Sir Charles, on the patch of smoothly raked, weedless gravel which divided his gates from the highway, halted for a moment and looked out over the scene which never failed to give him pleasure. The Manor gate stood at the lowest point of the village, just where the main road and what was known as the Lower Road, and the river, all ran together. From this point the land sloped gently upwards, so that looking straight ahead of him he could see the green of the common pasture, the vast expanse of the two common fields and beyond them the blazing autumn glory of the trees of Layer Wood which stretched on all the way to Nettleton. When he turned his head to the left he could see all along the main road which ran straight up the slope, past the church and the Rectory and the inn and the main part of the village, until it turned at the Stone Bridge and disappeared over the Waste. It was all beautiful, all pleasing.
He was—he thought—no sentimentalist, and he would have repudiated the word ‘love’ as a description of the emotion he felt for Clevely village; yet the passionate
interest, the possessiveness, the complacent approval with which he regarded it came near to justifying the term. Here and there, of course, there were things—and people —that went wrong from time to time, but that was what he was here for—to put things right; and, above all, to see that nothing changed for the worse. He knew villages whose squires failed in their duty and went running off to London, or Bath, or even, until lately, to the Continent, and naturally in such villages most scandalous things happened, most pernicious ideas took root. And he knew other villages where squires on the spot encouraged and even initiated most revolutionary changes—they dared to call them progress. There’d be no such changes in Clevely, not as long as …
‘Come up, Bob,’ he said to the horse. They bore left and trotted briskly through the village, past the flat-faced Rectory where the reddened creeper glowed in the sun, past the ancient church with its round Saxon tower, in whose shade so many Shelmadines took their last rest among so many Cloptons, and Greenways and Jarveys and Fullers under their unmarked mounds.
As he neared the inn he slackened pace. He was no Puritan and would have been the last to deny that any man who had done a sound day’s work had the right to as much sound liquor as he could pay for, but no one—that is no villager—who wasn’t a loafer and a rogue should be drinking at this time of day. Almost as though expecting this visit of inspection, the little inn stood with both doors open, so that at a glance Sir Charles could see into the taproom with its sanded floor and barrels and the room which had, until an occasional coach started coming through, been Mrs Sam Jarvey’s parlour; they called it the coffee-room now, though what they drank there he wondered—not coffee, he hoped, for Mrs Sam had never made a decent cup of coffee in all her ten years’ service at the Manor. Both rooms were empty; no labourer, no superior person was drinking this afternoon. Sir Charles nodded to himself; that was as it should be. In the orchard at the side of the inn Sam Jarvey was gathering … what?
Damsons, by God! Late—much, much too late.
The forge was next, just at the corner where Berry Lane led off to Flocky Hall Farm. Strong Un, the smith, the third of his line whom Sir Charles had known by that name, was busy, fixing a new rim to the wheel of Matt Ashpole’s cart—and not before it was needed. As usual Sir Charles paused to have a word with the smith, who remarked that what was needed was not a new rim but a new wheel. The remark made Sir Charles smile, not because it was witty but because it was in tradition; all workmen always, when called upon to make a repair, said that what was needed was a replacement—too simple to see that if replacements could be made at will they’d be hard put to it to find a job.