Florence Stevenson - Household

[dem bones]

Florence Stevenson - Household (Leisure, 1989)

Blurb:
TWICE BLESSED ....
with money and raffish good looks, Richard Veringer abandoned holy orders for the unholy life as an 18th century rakehell — a decision that brought down upon him and his family three hundred years of supernatural horror.
THRICE CURSED ....
by a scorned witch, the sins of the father were visited upon Veringer's sons and daughters, turning them into unspeakable creatures of the night... devourers of human flesh, drinkers of blood. Driven out of England by terrified townspeople, they roamed the earth for three centuries, searching for an end to the curse and their eternal torment. Little did they dream they would find the answer to their unsanctified prayers in the glittering Hollywood of the 1920s. Only in this unreal city could help be found —and the very real terror be stopped forever.

First read this epic over a decade ago and absolutely loved it. How will it bear up to rematch? So far, so good.

We join the action in 1758. On the murder of his despised, thoroughly corrupt brother, Fulke, Richard Veringer gleefully quits the church and returns home to Veringer's Hall to claim his inheritance. Richard only took the vow out of family duty (and even then reluctantly: his father had to beat him all the way to the Abbey) but this is more like it. As the fabulously wealthy Sixth Earl of More he can finally have some fun, so "London here I come!" The problem is that Richard is hopelessly naive, so when he falls in with a stranger at a public hanging, the name Sir Francis Dashwood means nothing to him. Still, a very pleasant chap, and Sir Francis was very amused to learn of his recently abandoned "vocation".

Richard takes to visiting the Little Theatre in the Hay nights to catch the beautiful young Irish actress Catlin O'Neill in something called The Lover's Stratagem. He attempts to bribe her portly coachman to allow him access to this gorgeous creature, only for the ruffian to take his money and deposit him in the mud. Sir Francis, who just happens to be passing, offers to intervene on his behalf. If Richard will join him at his retreat in High Wycombe, he, Dashwood, will arrange for Catlin to be there to receive his amorous advances. Of course, Richard will first have to swear allegiance to Satan, but given his atheism that should present no problems. Richard, all loved up, agrees.

One thing that neither Veringer nor Dashwood had anticipated is that Catlin - an actress, after all! - is still a virgin. 'How terrible!' thinks Richard when he's led to a cell to find his beloved tearful, bound, and almost-dressed in wimple and transparent habit. 'How bloody wonderful!' rejoices Dashwood, especially when Richard refuses to take advantage of the situation and sets the girl free. A few glasses of wine - liberally laced with an aphrodisiac - soon sets the couple at ease, but Sir Francis, ever vigilant, has his men drag them apart before they can get down to a grapple on the rug.

That night Richard is dragged down into the Hellfire Caves to participate in a Satanic Mass with poor Catlin serving as the altar. After serving "Communion", Dashwood, all terrifying in a goat mask, massages his member in readiness for the orgy. A mysterious young "nun", Erlina Bell, offers to help Richard rescue Catlin in return for a derelict cottage on his estate. He knows the hovel in question on account of it's shunned by the yokels on account of some ignorant superstition or other. She's welcome to it, by Satan! True to her word, Erlina guides them to safety and within a month Richard and Catlin are married. Hardly is the ring on the finger than Catlin begins babbling of a family curse. Not only does she believe herself damned for her participation in the Medmenham blasphemy but it transpires that her ancestor's burnt a witch named Molly and she and her evil pet cat, Grimalkin, are sworn to destroy the O'Neill line. Already we sense that this marriage is not going to be a bed of roses ...

[Johnlprobert]

I have to say I love that cover.

[dem bones]

Apr 3, 2015 21:09:44 GMT Johnlprobert said:

I have to say I love that cover.

Best of all, it's actually appropriate to the book.

We rejoin the action nineteen years later with Richard and Catlin still married if not happily so. Catlin, now so grossly overweight as to resemble a carnival oddity, is bedridden and halfway to lunacy. They have four beautiful children (Catlin lost as many again in childbirth) who each take after their mother in that they are haunted by the family banshee and her infernal cat. So, not exactly the ideal set up, but things take a turn for the worst when, in spite of his oath, Richard evicts Erlina from her cottage when he learns that she and her coven have been performing nude rituals in the woods and abducting local girls. It wouldn't be quite so bad if one of these hadn't been his eldest daughter, Kathleen, of the mysterious pregnancy. Erlina, who doesn't look a day older than she did in the Hellfire Caves, curses the Veringers. On the night of her coming out party, Juliet, the youngest child at seventeen, is feasted upon by the undead Sir Simon Weir. Juliet returns from the grave in vampire form to warn her brother, Colin, with whom she's enjoyed an incestuous relationship for years, against Sir Simon and his cronies at the Green Dragon Inn. Colin locates Weir to his latest grave and drives a stake through him, but at huge cost to himself. Now there are two vampires in the family, and who knows what Kathleen has given birth to?