Well, she thought, he's had enough time to flagellate himself. Time to rout him out.
She raised her hand to knock, but before she could do so Cotter opened the door, saw her, and stepped into the corridor. He gave a quick backward glance into the room – Lady Helen could see that the curtains had been drawn – and shut the door behind him. He folded his arms across his chest.
Had she been given to mythological allusions, Lady Helen would have dubbed Cotter Cerberus then and there. Since this was not her bent, she merely squared her shoulders and promised herself that St James would not avoid her by posting Cotter to guard the gates.
'He's up by now, isn't he?' She spoke casually, an enquiry from a friend, deliberately overlooking the fact that the room's darkness indicated St James was not up at all and had no intention of getting up any time soon. 'Tommy has a Nanrunnel adventure planned for us tonight. Simon won't want to miss it.'
Cotter tightened his arms. 'He asked me to make 'is excuses. Bit of pain this afternoon. The 'eadaches. You know what it's like.'
'No!'
Cotter blinked. Taking his arm, Lady Helen pulled him away from the door, across the corridor to a line of quarry windows which overlooked the pantry court. 'Cotter, please. Don't let him do this.'
'Lady Helen, we got to…' Cotter paused. His patient manner of address indicated that he wished to reason with her. Lady Helen wanted none of that.
'You know what happened, don't you?'
Cotter avoided answering by taking a handkerchief from his pocket, blowing his nose, and then studying the cobblestones and fountain in the courtyard below.
'Cotter,' Lady Helen insisted. 'You do know what happened?'
'I do. From Deb.'
'Then, you know he can't be allowed to brood any longer.'
'But 'is orders were-'
'Damn his orders to hell. A thousand and one times you've ignored them and done exactly as you please, if it's for his own good. And you know this is for his own good now.' Lady Helen paused to consider a plan he'd accept. 'So. You're wanted in the drawing room. Everyone's meeting there for sherry. You haven't seen me the entire afternoon, so you weren't here to stop me from barging in on Air St James and taking charge of him after my own fashion. All right?'
Although no smile touched Cotter's lips, his nod signalled approval. 'Right.'
Lady Helen watched him walk off in the direction of the main body of the house before she returned to the door and entered the room. She could see St James' form on the bed, but he stirred when she closed the door so she knew he wasn't asleep.
'Simon, darling,' she announced, 'if you'll pardon the ghastly use of alliteration, we're to have our collective cultural consciousness raised with a Nanrunnel adventure tonight. God knows we'll have to fortify ourselves with seven or eight stiff sherries – can a sherry be stiff? – if we're going to survive. I think Tommy and Deborah are well ahead of us in their drinking, so you'll have to be quick if we're even to catch up. What will you wear?'
She walked across the room as she was speaking, going to the windows to pull back the curtains. She arranged them neatly – more to stall for time than to see to their proper hanging – and when she could find no reason to continue fussing with them she turned to the bed to find St James observing her. He looked amused.
'You're so obvious, Helen.'
She sighed in relief. Pitying himself had never really been the question, of course. Hating himself was more likely. But she saw even that may have spent itself after their moments alone on the cliff when Deborah had taken Sidney back to the house.
Would Brooke have killed her or just raped her, St James had demanded, while I watched from up here like a useless voyeur? Quite safe, uninvolved. No risk incurred, right? It sounds like my whole life.
There had been no anger contained in his words, only humiliation, which was infinitely worse.
She had shouted at him. No-one cares about it! No-one ever has but you!
She spoke only the truth, but that truth did nothing to mitigate the fact that his own caring about it so unforgivingly was a permanent scar on the fragile surface of his self-esteem.
'What is it?' he was asking her now. 'A darts tournament at the Anchor and Rose?'
'No. Something better. A sure-to-be-dreadful performance of Much Ado About Nothing, put on by the village players in the grounds of the primary school. In fact it's a special performance tonight in honour of Tommy's engagement. Or so, according to Daze, the rector said when he came to call today, complimentary tickets in hand.'
'Isn't that the same group-?'
'Who did The Importance of Being Earnest two summers ago? Darling Simon, yes. The very same.'
'Lord. How could this current production match Nanrunnel's gallant bow to Oscar Wilde? The Reverend Mr Sweeney waxing eloquent as Algernon with cucumber sandwiches sticking to the roof of his mouth. Not to mention the muffins.'
'Then, what do you say to Mr Sweeney as Benedick?'
'Only a fool would pass that up.' St James reached for his crutches, swung himself to his feet, balanced, and adjusted his long dressing-gown.
Lady Helen averted her eyes as he did so, using as an excuse the need to pick up three rose petals which had fallen from an arrangement that sat on the shelf of a cheveret to one side of the window. They felt like small pieces of down-covered satin against her palm. She looked for a rubbish-basket and thus circumvented an open acknowledgement of St James' primary vanity, a need to hide his bad leg in an attempt to appear as normal as possible.
'Has anyone seen Tommy?'
Lady Helen read the meaning underlying St James' question. 'He doesn't know what happened. We've managed to avoid him.'
'Deborah's managed as well?'
'She's been with Sidney. She saw to her bath, got her to lie down, took her some tea.' She gave a brief, humourless laugh. 'The tea was my profound contribution. I'm not sure what effect it was supposed to have.'
'What about Brooke?'
'Can we be so lucky as to hope he's taken himself back to London?'
'I doubt it. Don't you?' 'Rather. Yes.'
St James was standing next to the bed. Lady Helen knew she should leave the room to give him privacy to dress, but something in his manner – a meticulous control too brittle to be believed – compelled her to stay. Too much remained unsaid.
She knew St James well, better than she had known any other man. She had spent the last decade becoming acquainted with his blind devotion to forensic science and his determination to stoke out ground upon which he could build a reputation as an expert. She had come to terms with his relentless introspection as well as with his desire for perfection and his self-castigation if he fell short of a goal. They talked about all of this, over lunch and dinner, in his study while the rain beat against the windows, on their way to the Old Bailey, on the stairs, in the lab. But what they did not talk about was his disability. It had always represented a polar region of his psyche that brooked no-one's intrusion. Until today on the cliff-top. Even then, when he had finally given her the opening she had long awaited, her words had been inadequate.
What, then, could she say to him now? She didn't know. Not for the first time did she wonder what sort of bond might have developed between them had she not left his hospital room eight years ago simply because he asked her to do so. And to obey him then had been so much easier than taking the chance of walking into the unknown.
Still, she couldn't leave him now without attempting to say something that gave him – even in small measure -back to himself.
'Simon.'