“Any more interesting Elizabethan theories?” she began.
“Plenty,” he replied. “At present I am interested in Elizabethan devils.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Well,” he hesitated, and then went on, just like a professor! “King James claimed that flying devils tried to upset his boat in the North Sea, and he personally attended the trial of a lot of old bedlams, who confessed and were burned. But in some old documents in the University I have found something even more exciting. One of the genuinely thrilling things that I’ve come across is Dr. Dee’s diary, scribbled on the margins of old almanacs. He was an astrologer, alchemist, mathematician, spiritualist, physician, in other words, a 16th century scientist. Elizabeth consulted him for propitious days; that is, she had her fortune told.”
Kate snuggled up to listen. He went on thoughtfully.
“Dee records his cases. Susan G. came to see him about her devil. He tries to exorcise it by the laying on of hands and much imperative Latin. Then she goes away relieved. A servant in the house has an incorrigible evil spirit. There is much praying over her case and a deal of incantation without permanent cure. One day she slips by him on the stairs. His professional eye has seen symptoms of the inward struggle between imp and human. He follows quickly. She slides behind a door at the bottom of the stair. He hears a gurgling sound and the fall of a heavy body. Behind the door lies the poor maid. The devil had tempted her to cut her throat, he says, so that she could die in sin and be his in æternum.”
“I suppose you believe in the Elizabethan devil?”
“Doesn’t everybody? We’re coming back to witches and devils. The Psychological Research Society is only 19th century for Dr. Dee; and what with telepathic influence urging to crime, and multiple personalities, I don’t see anything in Elizabethan so-called superstition that we moderns haven’t improved upon.”
“So love is a contagious disease,” Kate ruminated, “and most of us are possessed of devils. Charming thoughts! At that rate, one might marry a devil.”
“Many do,” he laughed.