Sing Witch, Sing Death Page 12

  The crisis over, Pamela found her distaste for the old woman returning. She rubbed her scorched fingers with the hand she had freed from Maud's grip.

  "Whatever I did, I did for Lord St. Just."

  The glutinous chuckle mocked her. "So you did, but not in the way you thought. Master Vyvyan has been protected against such spells from birth. The son of my own—" Maud stopped abruptly, and some emotion flickered behind the muddy eyes. "My own mistress," she continued with twisted lips, "would not be left naked to the shafts of envy which might be aimed against him."

  "Would it not be helpful to him to know that?" Pamela asked coolly. "He was much shocked by seeing that…that thing in here."

  The old woman was fumbling in a pouch suspended from the cord that served her as a belt. "He knows," she replied briefly, and extracted a dirty twist of leather. This she undid, and from it scooped a fingerful of brownish grease. Without warning, she seized Pamela's burned hand and smeared it with the unguent.

  By the time Pamela's surprise at the swift action receded enough to make it possible to protest, the salve was already taking effect. The smart of the burn was considerably reduced.

  She uttered a rather resentful, "Thank you."

  Maud did not answer, although she laughed unpleasantly again, and with another movement, incredibly quick for one so fat, disappeared out of the bedchamber into the corridor.

  Pamela stood staring stupidly at the closed door. Too many things had happened too suddenly. Her brain felt numbed by the quick successions of fear and relief. She did open the door, but there was no sign of Maud in the corridor.

  Now, in the backwash of her emotions, she was desperately tired. If it had not been for the memory of St. Just's anxiety, she would have slipped through that back door herself and gone to bed. As it was, she closed it gently and returned to the sitting room.

  "Maud?" St. Just asked.

  "Gone."

  Pamela described the suddenness of the old woman's departure. St. Just's lips tightened, but he made no comment, and then Pamela noticed that George, too, was absent. A question elicited only a shrug at first.

  "Was he not interested?" Pamela asked then.

  "He said it was silly to lose sleep over what he could not help. He left as soon as you and Maud went in."

  "Your anxiety seems to be considerably reduced also," Pamela commented caustically.

  St. Just looked at her sharply, then dropped his eyes. "I don't know that I really was anxious. 'Shocked' expresses my feelings better. I thought I had settled it, and then this!"

  He rose from his chair and came toward her. "I am sorry, Pam. I am a fool to keep you talking. You are quite white with exhaustion. And I was worse than a fool in the corridor before dinner," he added in a soft, defeated voice. "I still beg you not to leave Hetty, but there is no reason why both of you should stay here. Go with her to Plymouth or Torquay."

  It was possible that embarrassment at the memory of that scene made him keep his eyes fixed on the carpet, but Pamela had never noticed the smallest sign that emotional scenes embarrassed St. Just, either at the time or later.

  The fear that had left her after the pentacle was destroyed returned to tighten Pamela's throat. Hetty was in no danger; St. Just would scream at her, might even strike her when she tried him too high. He would do no more than that, ever. But he was in danger. And I love him, Pamela thought defiantly. I love him. I will not leave him until he is safe.

  "I will suggest it to Hetty," she said, "but I do not think she will agree to go without you. She has the greatest aversion to being thought unprotected. Will you come?"

  "I cannot, until the business with the witches is settled," St. Just replied with a peculiar grimace.

  "I am relieved to hear you say that. Truthfully, until I am sure that girl and her baby are safe, I have the greatest reluctance to leave here myself."

  "They are safe," St. Just said impatiently. "She is being watched, and she has made no further attempt to leave the house. I know I should make you go, Pam, even if Hetty will not leave."

  "But can you? You cannot dismiss me, you know, because Hetty could pay my salary from her pin money. Surely you would not be so crude and ungentlemanlike as to hint your wife's guest was unwelcome in your home. And if you were, you know I might well be unladylike enough to ignore the hint."

  "It is not a laughing matter anymore, Pam."

  She raised a hand as if to touch him, then let it drop. "Don't, my lord. I am frightened enough. Don't make me talk or think about this seriously tonight."

  "If you are frightened, you must go, and at once. If you are afraid, you are vulnerable."

  "Not for myself." Pamela flushed at the admission, more with irritation than with shame. If she had not been thick-headed with fatigue, she would have ended this conversation before she trapped herself. "Now, really," she added tartly, "in what way could I be involved or endangered? I am a stranger here."

  "You pointed out yourself that you brought me the news of the pregnant maid. You are up to your neck in this. Curse me for a fool for letting Maud use you. It will be all over the village in the morning. This is the last straw. Pam, you must go."

  Tired to death, knowing she was getting in deeper with every word, Pamela turned on St. Just, her eyes flashing and her firm jaw set.

  "You will have to drag me out of the house physically or lock the door in my face," she spat furiously. "I am not the type to run sly. There is something more at stake here than my absolute safety or yours. To sell love philters, to 'sing' good weather and good crops—I am perfectly willing to ignore such activity. I am willing to condone, even encourage, the herbalism. But the use of this power, if it is a power, against people must be stopped. St. Just, you cannot ask me to run away from a fight to oppose that, whatever the danger is."

  "You are willing to ignore, to condone," St. Just murmured, his eyes lighting. "You are planning to stay with us, then, Pam?"

  Cursing her unguarded tongue, Pamela shook her head. "Until this is over, no longer. It is useless to pretend that I have no feeling for you, St. Just. This makes my leaving Tremaire more imperative. I simply will not be involved in an illicit relationship with any man. Oh, it is not morality. I am not gothic, I am practical. Those things never work. The people end up hating each other. I could not bear to hate you, Vy. No," she added sharply, backing away, although he had not moved, "I will not talk to you any longer. I will not bid you a good night, either. It is too late for that."

  Chapter 10

  It seemed impossible to Pamela that anything more should happen. Her life had always gone forward in a series of crescendos and pianissimos, but previously she had always had time to catch her breath between periods of crisis. Even after her father's death there had been several months of peace before she realized the dreadful condition to which she had been reduced.

  Of course, she thought, as she struggled upright in bed and tried to concentrate on what Mrs. Helston was saying, her father's death had been a numbing blow surmounting a steadily rising anxiety about him. For a moment the correlation of her fears for her father and her fears for St. Just numbed her faculties anew. Then she threw off the dream-induced terrors and rubbed her eyes.

  "Please wake up. Lady Pamela, please do. Am I to tell his lordship?"

  "I am awake now, Mrs. Helston. Tell Lord St. Just what?"

  "It was not my fault," the housekeeper said defensively. Then her eyes slid away from Pamela's, and her voice grew sharper. "I daresay you will not believe me, but she was spirited away by witchcraft. Every door and window was locked and bolted last night—yes, and this morning too, because I went at once to check. And I had her sleeping in my own room. Yet this morning she was gone."

  "Who?" Pamela asked, although she knew already.

  Mrs. Helston's lips moved in reply, but at that moment there was a crash of thunder so loud and prolonged as to drown the words completely. Pamela did not repeat her question. She had asked it only to gain time to think, for her mind wa
s full of the implications of the pregnant maid's disappearance.

  Pamela did not believe the girl had been spirited away by witchcraft, in spite of Mrs. Helston's assertion. People always swore that a fly walking on the counterpane would wake them, when, in fact, a herd of horses trampling through the room would scarcely cause them to stir.

  That all the doors and windows were firmly locked and bolted, she did believe. Therefore someone with access to the keys, an upper servant, was involved in the attempt to destroy St. Just. Or one of us, Pamela thought, and because she was clinging to words themselves, their clear logic being a bulwark against irrational fear, she added mentally: Well, it was not I. And it could not have been Hetty, because the dose of laudanum I saw her take with my own eyes would have subdued a horse. St. Just would not threaten himself; his distress over the pentacle could not have been feigned. And the servants were devoted to St. Just. That left… George.

  "Lady Pamela, what am I to do?" Mrs. Helston was wringing her hands.

  Pamela wrenched her mind from this freezing probability to the necessity for action. The longer they waited to set a search in motion, the less chance there would be of finding the maid. She was not due to deliver her child for a week or two more, but if she did, the two could be separated, and it was much easier to hide a baby than a woman.

  St. Just must be told at once. Even as Pamela made the decision, she recoiled from it. If he interfered in this, he would infuriate the coven even more. The wild notion of sacrificing the baby flashed through Pamela's mind, but she recoiled from that thought with even greater horror. Then she wondered if she could search for the maid herself. That idea too had to be dismissed. She did not know the people or the country.

  'Very well," she said to the housekeeper. "I will attend to informing his lordship. You will not, of course, spread this story about the girl being taken by witchcraft," she added repressively. "I make no comment on the truth of it, but I am sure you would not wish to cast the lower servants into a panic. It will be safest to say that Lord St. Just removed her to a quiet place for her confinement, if a question is raised. If you can avoid mentioning her at all, I would do so."

  "I will do my best, my lady," Mrs. Helston replied, but a shake of her head and her hopeless expression indicated how little belief she expected in the explanation Pamela proposed.

  "Ring for Sarah, please, Mrs. Helston."

  Pamela's voice had been raised, for the thunder was growling and rolling almost constantly, but her last words seemed an unmannerly shout as a sudden, ominous silence fell.

  "I beg your pardon," she added in her normal voice, smiling. "I did not mean to shout at you."

  Pamela had been about to add a comment about the thunder, but the words never passed her lips. Mrs. Helston was staring toward the windows with abject terror on her face. Pamela's glance followed hers instantly, but there was nothing to see except the drawn curtain.

  "No," the housekeeper breathed. "No, it is too soon."

  "What is too soon? What is wrong?"

  "The fleet is still out, and it is nigh on shore. The thunder cannot stop yet. The wind cannot come so soon. It is not a sea storm. It is not. The witches have sung this weather."

  Pamela did not fully understand, but the housekeeper's fear communicated itself to her, and she found herself straining to hear the faint rumble that would presage another crash of thunder. Nothing.

  A silence as if the earth itself were holding its breath and listening. Pamela had just about recovered and was going to point out that there was no wind. Her intention was checked by the sight of Mrs. Helston, who stood before her with clasped hands, an image of entreaty. Tenseness returned, and with it, very faintly, came a whispering sigh, as if a great being had loosed his breath.

  The housekeeper moaned and raised her hands to her ears to shut out the sound she knew was coming. Hypnotized by the waiting and listening, Pamela very nearly repeated the gesture. She shook herself free of the self-induced spell as the whisper changed to a moan. The sound was low and sustained, the groan of a giant unendurably hurt, in despair at the knowledge that worse was coming.

  So strong was the impression that Pamela rushed to draw her curtains. She almost expected to see the Cerne Abbas giant, club in hand, lying out upon the edge of the cliffs above the sea. There was nothing, of course, but the lowering gray sky, except that the water seemed to have drawn back farther than usual, exposing more of the sharp-fanged rock that made the Cornish coast so dangerous.

  As she stared out, the moan rose in pitch to a wail and then to a shriek. Under the shriek of wind, which was blowing too steadily to rattle the windows, a low snarling arose, and suddenly the leaden sea leaped forward, smashing against the cliffs with a roar. The spume was flung so high that it formed a white curtain that temporarily hid the shoreline.

  Following the crash of the water came a prolonged boom. In the endless caves that honeycombed the cliffs, the air had been compressed and was voicing its protest. The shriek of wind cut off abruptly. Lungs emptied, the giant drew breath. The window frames creaked as the pressure of the wind relaxed, and the floor heaved under Pamela's feet as the water was flung outward by the imprisoned air. The very earth trembled in the violence.

  "Good God," Pamela breathed, not without reverence, as the initial burst of violence settled into a more natural lashing of wind and wave and crashing of thunder.

  The storm was a very bad one, but it was only that—a very bad storm, not a supernatural occurrence. The loud rattling of the windows drew Pamela to practical considerations. If the shutters were not closed at once, the windowpanes would shatter and the house would be flooded.

  The housekeeper was weeping and wringing her hands. Pamela subdued her irritation with an effort. She herself loved storms; they excited and thrilled her, but she knew that many people were terrified by thunder and lightning and roaring wind. It was necessary to soothe Mrs. Helston. To tell her sharply not to act like a child would merely shake her self-control further. Pamela moved toward the housekeeper and patted her shoulder consolingly.

  "The noise is nothing but the sea and wind," she said softly. "You are quite safe in the house, you know. And the house is of stone, so that we are even safe from the lightning," she added. "Come, there will be less noise and less to upset you when we have the shutters closed. If the windows were to break, we would have a dreadful time cleaning up."

  The woman lifted her face, exposing an expression of agony and bitterness that shocked Pamela silent.

  "I have lived all my life in Cornwall. Do you think I fear a storm?" Mrs. Helston cried. "My son is with the fishing fleet. You are safe! You have no one out there to be drowned by the wind and torn to pieces by the rocks."

  "Oh, I am sorry. I did not know. Sit down, Mrs. Helston, do. Surely, surely the men at sea heard the thunder before we in the house did. There must have been smaller rumblings, which we could not hear. They will have been warned. They know the coast. They will reef their sails. Surely they will be safe."

  The housekeeper shook her head. The anger was gone from her face, and only the pain remained.

  "It is witch wind," she said dully. "All the sea storms are alike. First it is quiet, then the water grows restless but not angry. Then you see the lightning—far, far off to the west. Then the thunder softly, and that is the time to make for shore. There is time, for the thunder comes slowly, and it comes before the wind. This is witch weather—thunder and wind from the east, and without warning. Lady Pamela, why are the witches angry? Why did they steal a girl from this house?"

  Pamela took the hand stretched out to her. "I do not know. I am sure no one in this house has deliberately offended them. Lord St. Just would not do that."

  "Ah, well, it is not my place to question. We have always served St. Just, and we have been through hard times before. If my boy is spared, he will go no more to sea until whatever will happen has happened. I will see to the house now."

  "Rest awhile," Pamela urged, for the woman's fac
e was white. "You have had a dreadful shock. So violent a storm must soon be over, however. I will go down and speak to Hayle about closing the house."

  "No, I had rather do it myself, my lady," Mrs. Helston said. "You are a stranger in a strange place, and you do not know our storms. This weather can rage for days. You mean kindly, though, and do not scoff—which is more than others do. It is better for me to work than to sit idle."

  That was true, and Pamela made no further attempt to detain the housekeeper. She rang for Sarah herself, remembering that the onset of the storm had prevented Mrs. Helston from doing so. The maid was so long in coming that Pamela wondered if she were involved in singing the wind, in spite of denials. Sarah came at last, unhurried, and with the appearance of all her usual self-possession.

  "You are up very early. Miss Pam," she remarked. "I thought you would sleep later, after the broken night you had."

  The remark gave Pamela the opening she wanted, and she told Sarah about the abducted maid.

  "Maud would know where the witches would hide a person, would she not?" Pamela asked eagerly.

  It had occurred to her as soon as Sarah entered the room that if Maud could get the girl back or tell her where to look, St. Just need not be involved at all.

  Sarah was behind her, lacing her stays, and Pamela could not see her face. Her voice was flat, without hint of surprise or even interest.

  "Perhaps, but I doubt she'd tell you such things. She'll be no help now, anyway. She's gone."

  "Gone? Where? Why?" Pamela tried to turn and face Sarah, but the maid tched angrily.

  "Stand still. How will I ever lace you if you jostle about? Maud's gone, because that business last night was a bad thing. While she was in here, the coven got out of hand. Ned Potten's wife sang that storm, with some young fools to help her, and many a good man will die if Maud cannot sing it quiet again."

  The breakers were still crashing, the caves booming, the wind howling, but Pamela had regained her balance. Spells could not affect the weather. Even if what Mrs. Helston said were true and this storm was not usual, there were freak storms all over England, and the freaks had nothing to do with witchcraft. Her laces tied, Pamela turned and examined Sarah's face. It was useless, she perceived, to argue the point. Sarah believed that a witch had sung this weather and that a stronger singing would change it.