"No, really." Hetty giggled. "He told me this farrago about being a witch's son and having to go away for a few days because of that. Well, Vyvyan told me most specifically that I must not annoy the witches—and you warned me too, George—so I told him to go. The more I think of it, though, the less likely it sounds. I am sure I have been taken advantage of sadly."
"He's a witch's son, all right," George said, his staring eyes quite expressionless. "Don't know why he should need to take off work, though."
"Really!" Hetty exclaimed. "How…how interesting. I suppose I have done just right, then, in giving him time off. Do you think he would tell me what he was about? I did not wish to ask him, you know, but now that I have shown myself to be sympathetic and obliging, perhaps it would be safe."
''Wouldn't have anything to do with the thing m'self. Fact is, don't like it. Something going on. Noticed… Never mind."
Pamela's lips felt dry. She had noticed too. There was a growing tension in the house among the servants, and there had been other odd goings and comings. Sarah had not come to wake her yesterday morning, and when Pamela questioned her, the maid had replied enigmatically that she had been away for the night.
Mrs. Helston had been distressed too, because on Sunday night, the first night of moon-dark, the pregnant maid had been found trying to open the kitchen door to go out. The girl had seemed dazed and offered as explanation only that she had heard someone calling her. None of the menservants would leave the house during the dark of the moon, and Mrs. Helston would not consider waking George or St. Just to investigate, so it was impossible to discover the truth of the matter.
"Oh, George," Hetty protested, laughing, "you are as bad as Vyvyan. I daresay you believe this nonsense too."
"Don't know what I believe. Seen some pretty odd things." George laid the swatches he was still holding down on the table. "Use the yellow and gray if you take my advice, m'dear. Brighten up the northern aspect. Very pretty, yellow. Don't soil quickly out here. Gray rug, yellow chairs, striped curtains. Smart." He rose from his chair. "Ride out, I think. Got a thought."
Pamela's lips parted, and she clamped them firmly together, repressing the pang of fear that stabbed her. She wished she could forget the accident in the gully and the ridiculous reason she had been given for George's actions. St. Just had been out since early morning. If George had wanted to follow him, he could have done so less obviously before Pamela and Hetty came down to breakfast.
"Will you pass through the town, George?" Hetty asked.
"Don't mean to be disobliging, but if it's fish or something else smelly, I won't bring it back for you."
Hetty looked horrified. "As if I would ask! Pam is the one whose mind is full of fish and other housewifely things. I have ordered some gloves and stockings from the draper. Now, do not frown at me," she added, smiling. "I know they will probably be ill-made, but I wished to seem to give my custom in the town. It is the best way to get on good terms with these people."
"Good thought," George approved. "Not but what the draper here has obtained excellent goods. M'aunt, the late Lady St. Just, bought everything from him. Never left Cornwall. M'uncle went to London. Took us all with him. M'aunt wouldn't go. Bring the things back. Gladly."
"George is most obliging and very much the gentleman," Hetty said when the door had closed behind him.
Pamela murmured an absentminded agreement. She was thinking that Hetty was really trying to adjust at last. Vaguely she heard Hetty continue to praise George, while her mind drifted to her own situation and whether it would be possible for her to stay at Tremaire. She loved the place and running the house, and Hetty was very pleasant now, and St. Just stayed out of her way….
"Pam, you are woolgathering," Hetty said sharply. "I asked why you think George is not married."
"Most likely because he cannot afford it, He has no money at all. Perhaps if the late earl had lived, a suitable girl with money would have been found. In fact, it does not seem to be a marrying family. Even St. Just's eldest brother was not married, and one would have thought as the heir he would have married young."
Hetty giggled, but the sound had unpleasant undertones. "Oh, that was my papa's doing. There was something in our contract, and it cost a great deal of money. Vyvyan did not know about the agreement, and when he found out, he said he'd see the title go to George before it went to my child." Suddenly, irrelevantly, Hetty laughed aloud, a single, almost hysterical peal, but she controlled it at once. "He thought that would hurt me, but I did not care in the least. It…er"—Hetty tried to look roguish and only managed a rather obscene leer—"relieved me of a burden I was most unwilling to bear."
"Are you going to order the yellow chairs that George suggested?" Pamela asked stiffly.
'Have I said something improper, Pam?" Hetty purred. "I thought it would be safe to confide in you. You must have wondered why Vyvyan and I had no children."
"It is best for a companion to know as little as possible about the relationship between the people she is employed by," Pamela replied coldly.
Hetty burst out laughing. "But you are my friend, Pam dear," she protested merrily. "Oh, very well, I never knew you were such a prude. You seem to be free enough in joking with the men."
Jesting was one thing, but revolting revelations about private life were another, and Hetty could never see it. Once more Pamela explained, but she despaired of teaching Hetty where the line between fun and vulgarity must be drawn. They went back to a discussion of the chairs, but Hetty seemed to find the subject less absorbing now that George was gone, and Pamela too found it difficult to concentrate. Hetty threw the swatches down.
"We both need diversion, Pam. Tremaire doesn't provide much, but I think I will take you visiting around the estate with me today. You must wonder what I do there."
Pamela accepted placidly. She had wondered how Hetty got on with the independent yeomen and their wives. The little outing was very revealing. Hetty played the lady bountiful with good grace, but the cottagers were apparently divided as to their reactions. Some accepted her advice and her little gifts politely; among others there were uneasy glances, not of resentment, Pamela thought, but of suspicion.
What was more surprising was the avid curiosity with which Pamela herself was examined by all. They see few strangers, Pamela decided, and dismissed the matter. All in all, Pamela enjoyed herself. If it would not have infringed further on Hetty's territory, she would have done some visiting herself. They were on their way home, both pleasantly refreshed, when Hetty pulled her mule up suddenly.
"Look, Pam, there's smoke coming from that chimney."
"Smoke comes from every cottage chimney all year round, Hetty. Why should you be surprised?"
"But that cottage was empty only yesterday. I am sure of it. I walked in the garden, and you can see its roof from there. Yesterday there was no smoke at all. It is the strangest thing. I asked about it, because it is odd to have a cottage so close to the house empty, but no one could—or would—tell me anything. One woman said it was old Maud's cottage. Only, when I asked who old Maud was, she gave me the strangest look and would say no more."
The name old Maud brought back, vivid and frightening, the scene in the still room. There was a tight feeling in Pamela's throat, but she managed to speak with a trace of boredom. "And quite right of her, I daresay. I cannot feel that I care much who she might be. It is nearly time for dinner, Hetty. We had better get back."
"Oh, no, we must stop in and see who is there. After all, we cannot have people moving into the cottages without permission."
She tethered the mule, and they walked toward the door. Hetty had no chance to knock on it or to walk straight in, however, because it opened when they were about five feet away. The entrance was blocked by a figure so obviously hostile that Hetty's assurance faltered a little.
"I am Lady St. Just," she said. "Who are you, and by what right do you occupy this cottage?"
"It's my cottage," the woman replied.
Pamela's heart sank. If this was the old Maud whom Sarah believed could help them, there was reason for St. Just's defeated attitude.
The woman was totally unprepossessing. She was so gross that she literally blocked the doorway. Her eyes, nearly obscured by the fat that bloated her cheeks and pushed them upward, were muddy and expressionless. Her mouth was sunken and toothless, giving an impression of senility to the whole face. The remark she had made, in a dull, flat voice, could have been taken for insolence. Hetty took it so. Pamela could see the way she stiffened, but Pamela herself thought it might be stupidity.
"You are mistaken," Hetty said disdainfully. "The cottage belongs to my husband. Do you have his permission to be here? If you do not, he will evict you at once."
"Master Vyvyan? He'll have naught to say to me." The fat fingers seemed to make a sign, and then interlocked upon the woman's paunch. "He knows best when not to meddle, being born to it. Witch-born and witch-bred, he is, and knows enough to come to old Maud only when he's asked."
"Hetty, come away," Pamela said.
Her original opinion of the woman was undergoing a change. She liked her no better than at first sight, but something emanated from her that could be felt almost as a physical force. That Hetty felt it too, there could be little doubt. The countess was pale, and her breath was coming quickly. Nonetheless, she shook Pamela's hand off her arm.
"So you are a witch," she said with an effort at pleasantness, although her pale eyes were bright with anger. "I would like to come in and see a witch's cottage. Perhaps I will buy a…a love philter from you."
Old Maud remained unmoving and immovable in the doorway. Some effort depressed the fat-swollen cheeks so that her eyes became larger. Pamela now saw that they were of that changeable shade of hazel that could, according to the light, become almost any color. At present they were green, possibly reflecting the woman's dress; not the clear green of St. Just's eyes, though, but a color that reminded Pamela of the slime she had seen floating on a stagnant pool.
"I have nothing to sell."
All pretense of civility left Hetty. "I said I wished to come in. Move aside. As a matter of fact, do not bother. I do not want you here at all. Get out."
"When I am ready, I will go. But you will go before then. I do not sell, but I give advice. Go away. You are meddling with what you do not understand. Evil sent against one who is protected returns threefold upon the sender."
"If you are not out of here in two hours," Hetty blazed, "I will set the men on the estate to drive you out by force."
The sausagelike fingers unlaced. One hand traced a complicated sign in the air. "This threshold is forbidden you—you and your creatures." And with a movement so swift that it was incredible in someone so fat, old Maud twisted inside the door and shut it in Hetty's face.
Hetty gasped with rage, her face purple. "I will get her out if I have to burn the cottage down," she spat. "I will give orders at once that she be driven out—naked."
"Don't Hetty."
"What!"
"Listen to me," Pamela pleaded. "I don't like her any more than you do, but from what I have heard, ordering the men to drive her away would be useless. They will not do so."
"Then I will see that not one of them remains on this land. I'll sell them."
"Hetty! These people are not slaves. They have leases on their land. They are protected by law."
"I need not renew leases, however. And they will soon know it."
Pamela said no more. If Hetty was so enraged that she forgot that only St. Just could make or break leases, it would certainly do no good to remind her of it. They mounted the pony cart and drove toward the house. When they had passed through the park gates, Pamela sighed. Hetty was still furious, but it was impossible to let the matter rest. To have the countess threaten what she could not perform would make her ridiculous, set the people against her, and deprive her of the only real pleasure she had here—that of playing the lady bountiful.
"Hetty," Pamela said softly, "should you not discuss this with St. Just before you do anything? It is barely possible that he has some use for this woman. Also, you know how defensive he is about his people. Most of the tenants have farmed the same land for generations. It might not be easy for him to break leases or refuse renewals, even if he wished to."
There was no reply until the countess halted her mule at the front steps and cast Pamela a venomous look. "Tell them to hold dinner back until I come." She barely waited for Pamela to step down before she slapped the reins on the mule's back to start it up again.
To remain looking after the pony cart would be unwise, Pamela decided, and she hurried into the house. In the hall, she almost ran into George, who had apparently just come in himself. His hat, gloves, and whip were on the table, and he was beating a rapid tattoo on it with the fingers of one hand. His expression was as bland and meaningless as ever, but the restless fingers indicated some tension of the nerves. Pamela's fears for St. Just, which had been pushed into the background, returned in a flood.
"Have you seen St. Just?" she asked anxiously. "Has he come back yet?"
George turned his head and blinked as if he had just noticed her. "Didn't see him. Not back yet, either—at least, his horse isn't."
The remark had no special significance. George had just come from the stable and had given Pamela the best evidence he had that St. Just had not returned. Nonetheless, Pamela could not help being reminded of the last time St. Just's horse had come back without him. Could George have said it that way to prove he had forgotten the incident? What a farfetched idea, Pamela thought. Soon I'll be like that kitchen maid, moaning about a cursed household.
"Dinner will be a little late," Pamela said, striving for some semblance of normality.
George's protuberant eyes, which had drifted away to stare at nothing, returned to her. "Oh?"
"Hetty…" Pamela bit her lip. If she told anyone of Hetty's wild intentions, it must be St. Just. "She had an errand that she forgot. I must go and tell cook to hold back dinner."
An eyebrow lifted in response to the obvious lack of truth in Pamela's statement. Hetty never ran errands. But George remarked blandly, "Good. Give me time to dress without rushing."
Having given her message to the cook and summoned Sarah, Pamela dressed for dinner with one eye on the road and one ear cocked for footsteps in the corridor. She did not know whether she was more worried about Hetty or St. Just.
Visions of Hetty in the middle of a riot of angry farmers made her wish she had followed her, whatever the result, and these alternated with visions of St. Just as the victim of another "accident."
The sound of a man's booted feet in the corridor made her start nervously, but she did not want to rush out and then discover it was George. When the steps stopped at St. Just's door, Pamela flung herself out of her room. She wanted to explain about Hetty and Maud, but she wanted to catch St. Just in the corridor so that she would not have to enter his room.
Lord St. Just, however, was in no hurry. He had not gone to the entrance of his sitting room, as was his usual habit, but had paused outside the little-used door of his bedchamber to stare hungrily at Pamela's. As a result, her precipitous exit from her room flung Pamela right into his arms. St. Just maintained his balance with commendable agility and uttered no more than a faint "oof" under the impact.
"I am glad to see you safe and sound," Pamela said, withdrawing herself from his embrace with what dignity she could muster.
His arms had opened very reluctantly, and his eyes lit at Pamela's remark. She blushed, realizing how completely she had given herself away, and she prepared for a rapid retreat. St. Just made no attempt to take advantage of either the involuntary embrace or the inadvertent confession, however.
"Well, I was," he said in response, "before you hit me like a cannonbaIl. Is there some reason you should think I was not?"
"No, only that you are so late."
"I met William Allenby. There was measles at the Austell house, and th
at was why George left. And why were you waiting my return so anxiously that you noticed I was late?"
There was the tiniest note of teasing malice in his voice, the faintest hint of a smile curving the corners of his well-shaped lips. St. Just did not expect Pamela to confess that she had worried because she loved him, but he wanted her to know that he was sure.
Resentful, Pamela squashed his confidence with a statement that she was afraid that Hetty was in trouble. She then described their meeting with Maud, and Hetty's decision to have her evicted by the men of the estate. As St. Just's expression grew blacker and blacker, Pamela softened the tale as much as possible, but she was not sorry about telling it, because with each passing minute she grew more and more worried about Hetty.
"Please go after her, St. Just. If the men will not obey her orders, heaven alone knows what threats she will make. If she should strike one of the men… These people are not accustomed to being used in such a fashion. She might be hurt."
St. Just merely shook his head. His eyes were veiled, his expression withdrawn. "No one on this land would raise hand or voice to my wife."
"But they will be angry and be unpleasant when she visits them. She has so few pleasures here."
"I do not care what trouble Hetty mixes for herself," he said in a bitter voice. "The more miserable she is at Tremaire, the less likely she will be to return to it. After a taste of London, and you may rest assured I will do my best to have her accepted by society, I plan to make a permanent residence at Tremaire the condition of our continued union. Perhaps that will change her mind about divorce."
"So she may," Pamela retorted furiously, "but why you should continue to think the matter of any interest to me after what I have already said, I do not know."
"I am perfectly sure you love me as much as I love you." But he was not sure; his voice was uncertain, and his eyes held pain. "By hook or by crook, I shall have you, Pam, even if I must drag you to the altar by the hair."
Sing Witch, Sing Death Page 10