"Then what will you do?"
He looked goaded and uncertain and made no reply, but Sarah, who had been staring at him, nodded her head as if some message had passed between them. The maid's eyes were fixed upon her master with compelling intensity.
"Perhaps if she were called, Maud might come again. The cottage below the house at the edge of the coomb is empty still. No one would take old Maud's cottage, nor would the People let it fall into disrepair. It is ready and waiting. And you need not appear in this at all."
"Who is Maud?" Pamela asked.
She was instantly sorry she had drawn St. Just's attention. His expression grew even more uncertain, and then his mouth set in a determined line.
"You had better go," he said.
A flush of rage colored Pamela's face, making her eyes so bright they glittered. "Do you mean to dismiss me, my lord, so that you can better allow a child to be sacrificed in some foul rite in order not to inconvenience yourself? Do you think I will go without taking precautions, warning a justice?"
"Don't you go vaporish on me, Pam," St. Just snapped impatiently. "I have worries enough without you acting the fool. I did not mean to dismiss you. I simply feel that the less you know about this whole affair, the less danger there will be in it for you."
What he said was reasonable, but Pamela could not be content with the explanation.
"My lord, Mrs. Helston brought this problem to me, and I brought it to you. There can be no secret that I am involved." She still suspected that St. Just and Sarah might agree to do nothing. "Whether or not I know of the action you take, I will be held responsible for it, at least in part. If there is danger here, I had rather know what I am getting into. In any case, what must I think of myself if I should desert in the face of danger? I will not go."
They faced each other, Pamela stubbornly determined and St. Just gnawing his lips in an agony of desire. He had only once known a woman of such strength, such beauty, such courage. He would have her. With a strangled sound, St. Just rushed from the room, slamming the door behind him. Pamela stared, openmouthed, and Sarah clucked her tongue irritably.
"Now you've overset the fat into the fire," the maid said sharply.
'What is it? What happened?"
Sarah shrugged. "He's gone to run his head into more trouble. Never had patience to wait, not Master Vyvyan. Well, who knows what's for the best? I told you, that wife of his doesn't belong here. You do, and Master Vyvyan knows it. You think about it."
"You don't know what you are saying!" Pamela recoiled from knowledge and reached for the door to escape.
"I know Master Vyvyan. I know what he wants before he knows it himself. I didn't think you were the kind to lie to yourself, Miss Pam."
Without waiting for a reply, Sarah walked out of the still room, leaving Pamela gazing blankly after her. Lie to herself? Had she? Promptly the memory of the sense of loss when she had thought St. Just dead, her reluctance to leave this place, came to answer the question.
Pamela blushed, but not with shame at her love for another woman's husband. In this day of marriages made for name or money, such a love was so common as scarcely to be a matter for shame. She was appalled at what she considered her deliberate blindness to her own motives.
There was no help for it. Now she must leave at once. But how? She had about ten shillings, scarcely enough to hire a carriage to take her to the village; certainly not enough to pay her fare to London, not to mention paying for food and lodging on the way. To whom could she appeal for money?
St. Just owed her two months' wages, but it was impossible to ask him now. Besides, what excuse could she give Hetty for wanting to leave? And that wretched girl and her baby… How dreadful to be driven away now!
George, she thought, I can ask George. She walked slowly to the small drawing room, wondering how to get George alone. Finesse was not necessary, however, for George was the room's sole occupant. Before she could broach the topic, George raised a quizzical brow and laid aside the newspaper he had been idly perusing.
"Too late," he said with an ironic twist of the lips. "Took her off upstairs. Vyvyan's a fool sometimes. Put Hetty into a pet, dragging her off like that. Whatever he wants, he won't get it now. Hetty's not a bad sort. Vyvyan handles her wrong."
Pamela went white. She had not understood what Sarah meant when she said St. Just had gone to run his head into more trouble. Rage replaced every other emotion. There was no need to say anything to George. Doubtless her wages would be forthcoming from Hetty. St. Just was a fool.
The earl had goaded Hetty into a fury quite deliberately, however. First he had told her in the voice one uses to an erring servant that he had something private to say to her. When she, naturally enough, protested against his manner and replied that she would be happy to speak to him when he was more civil, he had grasped her by the arm and dragged her roughly up the stairs. In the process, St. Just had collected several nasty scratches and a number of painful kicks on the shins, but considered that a small price to pay for Hetty's nearly incoherent rage.
"Damn you, you're my wife. When I want a word with you, you come with me. You don't tell me to be civil."
"Get out!" Hetty screamed. "I shan't speak to you. I shan't listen to you. I shan't."
"You'll do as I tell you—whatever I tell you. I'm tired of your airs and your graces, and I'm tired of having you throw your money in my face."
"But you aren't tired of using it, are you? You greedy filthy beast, you—"
"Yes, I am! I don't even want the money any more if I've got to have you along with it. I want a divorce. I'll give you cause—any cause you name—and you can divorce me."
St. Just was not certain what his wife's reaction to this would be. He was prepared for hysterics, for countering accusations, for instant relief and acceptance. The only reaction he did not expect was the one he got. Hetty stopped gasping with rage. Her empurpled face faded slowly to its natural color. And she smiled—sweetly.
"No, Vyvyan, oh, no. Don't you remember why I married you? Did you think I was ever taken in by those high-and-mighty manners of yours? Did you think I ever wanted any part of you? You are ten years younger than I, Vyvyan—did you know that? Did you know how many men there were before you? You and your infantile sense of importance—you made me laugh. At least, I would have laughed had I not found you so revolting. A big, clumsy animal—you even smell like an animal, because you never use scent like a civilized man. But I married you anyway. And what I married you for, you've still got." She laughed lightly. "You've got more of it, in fact. I'm not the wife of an honorable, I'm a countess—Lady St. Just—and a countess I'll stay. Oh, no, Vyvyan, I'll never divorce you."
He stood speechless, glaring, and Hetty laughed again.
"And I'll never give you any reason to divorce me, either. I've had all the men I've ever wanted. Don't waste your time spying on me."
"I'll kill you," he choked.
The laughter disappeared from Hetty's face, and she took a step backward, away from her husband. There was caution overlying a weary contempt in her voice.
"Be reasonable, Vyvyan. To divorce you would ruin me. Women don't divorce their husbands, not nice women. I'll behave better. I won't interfere with your…pleasure. I'll be blind and deaf and mute too. Let us call a truce."
The color drained from St. Just's complexion as he looked at his wife. Hetty watched him keenly; she needed time. Her examination told her nothing, however. All play of emotion on his face had stopped, and his queer green eyes were hidden behind their heavy lashes. Without another word, he turned and left the room.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Hetty sank onto the chaise longue, trembling and whimpering, and a young woman with a dark, sullen face came out of the shadows behind the door of the bedchamber.
"You heard, Mary?" Hetty quavered. "Did you hear him?"
"Yes, my lady. Your ladyship should take care." The words were more than a servant's practiced agreement with her mistress's whim.
"Oh, yes, I will have to, won't I?"
"Yes, my lady. You lie back and rest now. I'll bring your ladyship's drops."
The clatter of booted feet on the stairs gave George and Pamela a moment's warning. They had been seated in uneasy silence, straining to hear. George, half-smiling, did not try to conceal his interest, and Pamela was too furious and at the same time too worried to consider the implications of hers.
"Told you," George said mildly as St. Just erupted into the room. "Wrong way to go about asking a lady for something. Best thing to do now—"
"Get out!" the earl snarled.
Unable to think of anything else, and hoping that even a few seconds' delay would give St. Just a chance to regain his control, Pamela rose to her feet as if the remark had been addressed to her.
"Not you," St. Just snapped. "You, George, get out."
George's eyes, normally fishlike in their round expressionlessness, narrowed, giving a singularly wicked look to his face. "Sometimes you go beyond the bounds of what is permissible even between relations, Vyvyan."
"Will you get out, or must I throw you out?"
"St. Just!"
Unheeding, the earl advanced on his cousin. George rose, and Pamela leaped forward to interpose herself between the two men.
"George, please," she cried, "please do not quarrel with him. He will hurt himself."
Even with an injured hand and a sprained wrist, there was about as much chance of St. Just being hurt in a set-to between him and George as a lion being seriously mauled by a rabbit. It was excuse enough, however, to permit George to retreat with some remnant of dignity.
"That was disgusting, St. Just," Pamela gasped. "How could you!"
"I asked Hetty for a divorce. She refused."
For the moment the lesser but more immediate outrage blanked Pamela's mind to what St. Just had said.
"I don't care what Hetty did," she cried. "You have no right to treat George that way."
St. Just's hands shot out, seized on Pamela's shoulders with bruising force, and shook her until her teeth rattled.
"Did you hear what I said?" he bellowed.
Exerting all her not inconsiderable strength, Pamela wrenched herself free and landed a resounding slap on the earl's distorted face. He gasped and brought a hand up to his maltreated cheek.
"You are perfectly correct," Pamela said coldly. "A slap in the face is an excellent remedy for hysterics. Will you stop acting like a spoiled child instead of a grown man! I must assume, since you are telling me this, that I am the reason you broached this topic to your wife. You should have consulted me first. I could have saved you the trouble on two counts. First of all, I could have told you Hetty would not consent to a divorce. How you could have thought she would is utterly beyond me. And as for myself—"
He did not allow her to finish, but sneered bitterly, "It does not matter. I have permission to take my pleasure when and where I will."
Instead of being insulted, Pamela had to suppress an urge to laugh. If St. Just thought he was proposing an illicit relationship to her, she could not conceive of a more inept way to do it.
"You are an inconsiderate beast, St. Just," she remarked dispassionately. "Does it not occur to you that, even if I were so lost to the world for love of you as you think, the present circumstances might make it awkward for me to make light conversation with Hetty?"
The sneer was gone, and there was only a gray, blind look to his face. "You know I did not mean that. I can buy amusement, and I do," he said bleakly. "I do not need to offend a woman like yourself to obtain that."
Then the full meaning of what she said penetrated his dulled senses. "For God's sake, I said nothing of my feeling for you. I am sure Hetty does not suspect that. There are troubles enough between us to account for my request without implicating any woman. Pamela, you will not leave us? Hetty will go mad here alone. In common mercy…"
"I will not leave this afternoon or tomorrow," Pamela said slowly. "If Hetty does not connect me with this sudden desire of yours for freedom, I should not like to add that to the other causes of friction between you."
"Curse me for a stupid lout," he burst out. "You liked me before this. You were willing to be my friend, and I had to try for more. Well, what are your terms? Am I merely never to exchange a word with you in private, or will it be necessary for me not even to speak or look at you in company?"
This was the moment to ask for her money and set a definite date for her departure in a week or two. Pamela could not do it. St. Just's situation was heartbreaking. His wife hated him; there must still be a seed of doubt in his mind as to whether his cousin had tried to kill him. Pamela longed to take him in her arms and assure him that someone cared. She could not do that, but she could not leave him either.
"You are entirely too given to overdramatizing a situation, St. Just. I make no terms. I merely remind you that I will not be Hetty's companion for very long. I will stay a little while because I do not see what excuse I can give Hetty for leaving without ruining myself as well as hurting her." Pity and rage brought tears to her eyes. "Why did you do such an insane thing?"
"I'm like a trapped animal," he said softly. "I endured it quietly when there was no way out. Then someone came, and I thought I saw an escape, so I struggled. The worst of it is that I cannot blame Hetty. She has her faults, but a clear bargain was made, and she has kept her part of it. I have the money. For the rest, probably I made most of the trouble between us. I did not enter into our relationship in the proper spirit. I was young and resentful."
"And knowing yourself to be in the wrong makes you even more unpleasant and unreasonable. How well I know it. It has a similar effect upon me. What a very lovely, pleasant house this is going to be to live in. And now you have even alienated George! I declare, if I were not backed into an impossible situation, I would take to my heels."
St. Just did not seem to have heard. He had walked to the window and was staring out at the rising ground. "I threatened to kill her," he said suddenly.
Pamela's breath caught. She knew how often a man with a violent temper would say those words, but St. Just sounded as if he were surprised, as if he had suddenly realized that he meant them. He had called himself a trapped animal, and desperation could unhinge a man's mind.
Her father had been a trapped animal too, and he had killed himself—for all they covered it with nonsense about an accident. Would he have killed someone else if it could have saved him? A vicious man, but very kind to me… That was what Johnson had said about a Hervey, but perhaps it did not apply only to the Herveys. Any man, tried far enough, could turn vicious. St. Just must be diverted from this particular line of thought at once.
"Do you intend to use the same method to pacify George?" Pamela asked acidly.
"George?" he asked vaguely. "Why should I need to pacify George? Oh, lord! Well, it's no matter. George is used to me."
"Nonetheless, I doubt that he finds it enjoyable to be made to look nohow in front of a comparative stranger. That really was a revolting exhibition, my lord. A man of your size had no right to threaten someone like George."
"Oh, all right, all right! I will make my peace with George."
"Yes, but you must beg his pardon as publicly as you insulted him—and not in such a way that it is a further insult—and you must thank him for his consideration in not pressing the point, too."
St. Just turned from the window and leaned back against its frame. He was smiling, as if he had realized why Pamela was baiting him about George. "Will you call me Vy?" he asked softly. "My mother used to call me that. No one else ever did."
Cautiously Pamela shook her head. It would be dangerous to yield an inch. "It would be too hard to explain."
"Not even that?"
She bit her lip but would not answer. However clumsy St. Just might be in dealing with Hetty, his touch with her was sure.
"I have succeeded in making us both thoroughly miserable, have I not? That is reasonable enough. It is
an art with me. Everything I touch, I destroy."
With a sense of desperation, Pamela laughed aloud. She had to stop this scene before she ended up in St. Just's arms. "Surely not," she gasped. "I suspect we will both survive."
Fury distorted his expression as the notion that she had been laughing at him all along sprang to his mind. An instant later, he was laughing himself. "Damn you, Pam. Don't you know better than to laugh at a man when he has been blighted in love and is wallowing in self-pity? If I don't come to wring Hetty's neck, I shall certainly wring yours."
Chapter 8
"You can say what you like about the advantages of English servants," Hetty remarked with a playful shake of the head, "but I cannot discover a thing to recommend them."
George lifted his eyes from the two swatches of cloth he had been comparing. "Why, m'dear? Thought you had everything settled all right and tight between that new groom and new maid of yours. Not working out?"
"The maid is a treasure, but the groom, for whom I had the highest hopes, has disappointed me sadly."
"In what way, Hetty?" Pamela asked without hesitating over the beading she was sewing onto the bodice of an evening dress.
"I don't precisely know," Hetty said merrily. "That's the trouble. I have the feeling that I have been taken in by a Banbury tale, but if I have not, then I am a good, kind mistress instead of a silly fool."
"Hetty," George said with mock severity, "you are trying to make a May-game of us again. Declare, I don't know what has happened to put you into such spirits."
It was true, Pamela thought, that Hetty was in the most delightful temper, and had been for days. About an hour after the discussion she had had with St. Just about the divorce, Pamela had gone into the garden hoping the air would clear her head. There she had met Hetty and her maid obviously coming back from a walk. Hetty had been so sunny and cheerful that Pamela had scarcely recognized her, and the mood had persisted.
It was a most welcome proof that St. Just had indeed concealed the reason he had asked for a divorce and that Hetty did not relate his desire to be free with Pamela. Perhaps the shock had made Hetty realize that she could not go on tormenting her husband without some dangerous reaction. In any case, Hetty's good humor made life so much more pleasant that Pamela had temporarily reconsidered her decision to leave Tremaire.
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