Ellis Peters - George Felse 04 - A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs (4 page)

They had reached the edge of the dunes, and halted there on the seaward side of the road. The moon laid rippling scallops of luminosity along the sea, and away on their right the squat spire of St. Nectan’s tiny church protruded from its hollow of sand, half- obscured by the ruled hedges of tamarisks.

“Tamsin—may I call you Tamsin?”

“Yes, of course, Dominic.”

“Tamsin—how much do you really like Simon?”

She had never been more startled in her life. It hadn’t taken her long to see that he was almost as dazzled by Simon as Paddy himself. She couldn’t blame him; she knew all about that powerful magnetism, even if she herself was immune from responding to it. But he wasn’t protesting or wondering, he was asking her, as one friend to another. Maybe he felt it flattering to be even a make-believe rival of the great man. Or maybe he just wanted to know. Or maybe, even more dangerously, he wanted to hear what she would say, because she wouldn’t be answering him, and that would tell him a great deal.

“I like him well enough, but for certain attitudes. And those I don’t like at all.”

“Then he really has asked you to marry him?”

At first she thought that his sophistication must have slipped very badly to permit him to ask such a thing; then the deliberation of his voice warned her that they were on the second plane, and this was in earnest.

“Yes, he has.”

“Eight times?”

“I haven’t counted. Probably. Most times we meet.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what? Count?”

“Marry him.”

“Look,” she said, turning her back on the shining innocence of the sea, “even if he meant it, the answer would still be no. But he doesn’t. He’s spoiled and flippant and mischievous, and in bad need of a fall. He’s only had to smile at people all his life, and whatever he wanted has fallen into his lap. And he doesn’t care what he breaks in the process. No, that’s too steep. He just doesn’t realise that he breaks anything, all he sees is his own wants. He’s just having fun with me.”

“
I
shouldn’t think it much fun,” said Dominic, “to ask you to marry me and get turned down.”

“You’re not Simon, my dear. Do you think he’d be concerning himself with why I turned
you
down—supposing I ever did?”

“No,” agreed Dominic honestly, “but then, he’s in love with you, and—”

It was the first mistake he had made, fumbling between the two planes of his liking for her, and he was thrown out of his stride by the gaffe. To cover himself he took her rather agitatedly in his arms, gingerly in case she objected, but already almost persuaded she wouldn’t. She was laughing; she shook gently with honest amusement against his chest.

“And you’re not! Go on, say—”

He did not so much lose his head as throw it away, and without it he was much more adept. He felt gently downward with his lips to her mouth, and kissed her. It wasn’t the first time, he knew what he was doing. But perhaps it was the first of its kind, warm and impulsive and affectionate, and quite untroubled.

When it was over he held her for some minutes still, not wanting to talk.

“That wasn’t necessary,” she said in his ear.

“No, I know it wasn’t.”

“Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry?”

“No. I’m glad. I enjoyed it very much, and so did you. But I won’t do it again, because it would spoil it.”

“You,” she said helplessly, “are an extraordinary boy.”

“I wouldn’t be, if I were with an ordinary girl.”

His cheek against hers, the baffling unusualness of the day overwhelming him with the delicious conviction of complete happiness, suddenly he froze. His mind went away from her, somewhere there over her shoulder, down among the dunes. She pushed him away suddenly, and turned to look.

“Tamsin, do you see what I see? Look, there between the tamarisks.” One man, two, three, slipping along out of the landward hollow, keeping in the tenuous shade of the young hedges, moving towards the church in its deep nest.

Tamsin shivered and took his arm, turning him about and drawing him landward across the road. “Ugh, it’s getting cold. I’d better get home, Dominic. Come on, we’ve got ten minutes’ walking yet.”

George was still on the hotel terrace, smoking his last pipe and watching the sea.

“Hallo!” he said, hearing the unmistakable step of his son and heir moving up on him quietly from the garden. “How’d you make out?”

“Don’t be nosy,” said Dominic austerely, and came and sat down on the arm of the chair.

“Dad—”

“Hmmm?”

“Do you suppose,” asked Dominic very casually, “that there’s much smuggling in these parts nowadays?”

After a long and cautious silence George said weightily: “Now, look, I’m on holiday. I intend to remain that way. The local excisemen and police are quite capable of running their own show. And it’s no business of mine where Sam gets his brandy.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Dominic cheerfully. “So, quite unofficially, of course, what d’you make of this?” And he told him exactly what he had seen in the region of St. Nectan’s church, though not the precise circumstances in which he had come to see it.

“Going towards the church,” said George carefully. “And Tamsin took good care to remove you from the vicinity as soon as she realised what was going on. Yes, quite interesting.”

“Especially,” said Dominic, “since Simon made such a point of broadcasting in the bar exactly when he intended to open the Treverra vault. And then grinned at Sam, and invited him—”

“Or dared him?” suggested George.

“—to be present on the occasion. And the hint and the challenge were taken. On the spot.”

“Now I wonder just where the safe-deposit was?”

“I wonder, too. In the vault itself, do you think?”

“Now mind,” said George warningly, “not a word to anyone else. We’re only in this game by courtesy, if we’re in it at all. It’s the local man’s manor.”

Dominic rose from the arm of the chair, and stretched and yawned magnificently.

“What do you take me for?” he said scornfully, and strolled away to bed.

IT’S TO-MORROW, then,” observed Paddy, coming in damp and boisterous from his morning swim, and plumping himself down hungrily at the breakfast table.

Tim looked up from the paper. “What’s to-morrow?”

“The big day. The day we take the lid off the old gentleman. Mummy said Uncle Simon was alerting the squad last night. Wouldn’t do if anybody got caught with his pants down, would it? Except the squire, I suppose it’s all one to him by this time.”

Not at his most gay and extrovert in the morning, Tim squinted almost morosely at his son over his coffee cup, and wondered if anyone, even at fifteen, could really be as bright and callous as this before breakfast.

“I know!” said Paddy, fending off the look with a grin. “That’s no way to talk about the dead. Still, I bet he’s the only one around Maymouth who isn’t excited about this bit of research. 7 am! And if you’re not, you ought to be. It’s your family. And just think, we may be making history.” He reached for the cereal packet as if it had been the crock of gold, and helped himself liberally. “Mummy, how’s that fresh coffee coming?”

From the corridor Phil’s voice retorted hollowly: “Being carried by me, as usual.” She came in with the tray, and closed the door expertly with her elbow.

Paddy received his cup, laced it with brown sugar to his liking, and returned happily to his preoccupation.

“Think we really shall find anything, Dad? In the coffin?”

Phil stiffened, the coffee-pot suspended in her hand. She looked from her husband to her son, and inquired in suspiciously mild tones: “And where did you get the ‘we’?”

Paddy’s eyes widened in momentary doubt and dismay, and smiled again in the immediate confidence that she must be pulling his leg. “Come off it! You wouldn’t go and spoil it, would you? Not when it’s Uncle Simon’s own personal project? I’ve got to be there, of course.” His smile sagged a little; her face hadn’t melted. “Oh, gosh, you
wouldn’t
make me miss the only bit of real excitement there’s ever going to be in Maymouth?” Inevitably he appealed to Tim across the table. “Dad, you didn’t say I couldn’t. We were just talking about it, and you
didn’t
say—”

“I didn’t say you could,” said Tim, truthfully, but aware that he was hedging. He looked doubtfully at Phil’s cloudy face, observed the set of her jaw, and could have kicked himself. He should have known that she wouldn’t think grubbing about among tombs and bones a proper occupation for her ewe lamb. Mothers are like that. Especially mothers as achingly unsure of their hold on what they love as Phil.

“No, but I thought you understood that I was taking it for granted. You must have known I wanted to be there, you could have told me right away if you didn’t mean to let me. I’m sorry if I should have asked, but I never thought. I’ll ask now. Please, Mummy, is it all right with you if I go along with Uncle Simon and Dad to open Jan Treverra’s tomb to-morrow?”

He recited this in a parody of his child’s voice, wrinkling his nose at her provocatively; which, according to all the rules, should have been the right thing, and paid off handsomely. But it wasn’t the right thing, and it wasn’t going to pay off. He saw it at once, and was appalled to think he had so stupidly clinched the case against himself. Never reduce anything to a formula; if you do, you’re stuck with it.

“No,” said Phil, gently but firmly, “I’m sorry, but it isn’t all right with me. You’re not going, and that’s that. Now forget it.”

Paddy pushed his chair back a little, brows drawn down over a level and injured stare. “Why not? Why don’t you want me to?”

“Because it’s no place for you, and I’d rather you stayed away from it.”

“Think I’d be having nightmares?” he demanded, suddenly breaking into a broad but uncertain smile. “Now, look, Mummy, I’m fifteen. I know what bones are like, and I know we’re all going the same way in the end. It doesn’t worry me a bit. You needn’t be afraid I’ll turn morbid.”

“
No
!” said Phil with unmistakable finality, refusing argument. She herself couldn’t be certain of her motives, but she knew that the thought of letting him go down those sand-worn steps into the vault horrified her, and at all costs she wanted to prevent it.

Paddy recognised a closed and locked door, but would not acknowledge it as impassable. He made the mistake of casting a glance sidelong at Simon’s place, where a carelessly folded newspaper left lying showed the state of the day. Apparently he’d breakfasted already, which was unusual and a pity. He could have diverted this disaster if it had threatened in his presence. Paddy pushed away his plate, and smoothed his forehead conscientiously, like a man-of-the-world tactfully recognising when to change the subject.

“Where’s Uncle Simon?”

“No good,” said Tim, not without sympathy. “You haven’t an ally, my boy. He’s gone up to the Place already.”

“Up early, wasn’t he?” The implication that he was looking round for support he ignored, though he knew nobody was deceived.

“Now, look, Paddy,” said Tim with emphasis, “let it alone. She’s said no, and I say no, and that’s all about it.”

Paddy’s fist slammed the table. He jerked his chair back and was on his feet in a blaze of rage. That temper had cost them plenty in patience and forbearance in his early years, but they hadn’t seen much of it lately, and this abrupt flare was as startling as lightning. It was almost a man’s rage, quiet and quivering. The dilated nostrils looked almost blue with tension.

“What are you trying to do, keep me a kid? You can’t! If I’ve got to grow up in spite of you, I’ll do it that way, and be damned to it!”

He didn’t even shout; his voice was lower than usual. And he turned and flung out of the room and out of the house before either of them could draw breath to stop him.

“The awful part of it is,” owned Phil, “I don’t know how honest I’m being about this. I don’t want him to go, I don’t think it’s any place for an adolescent boy. But I know darned well I’m jealous of Simon. He only has to crook his finger, and Paddy comes running. You’d think no one else existed, this last week or so. It scares me.”

“Our own fault, I suppose.” Tim turned glumly from the window and looked her in the eyes long and sombrely. “We ought to have known we should have to tell him, sooner or later. We should have done it long ago. I only wish we had.”

“But how could we know we should have to? I know it’s supposed to be bad policy not to. But we were going to move here, everything was new. Nobody knew us, except Aunt Rachel. Nobody cared. I couldn’t see any
reason
. And now—how in the world could we ever set about it, after all this time?”

“We couldn’t. We daren’t. There isn’t a thing we can do, except just keep our fingers crossed, and let him alone. It won’t be long now.”

“No,” she agreed, but only half-comforted. “Tim—suppose Simon tells him?”

“No! He wouldn’t do that. He’s always kept his bargain so far, hasn’t he?”

“He’s never really wanted to break it before,” said Phil cynically, “but this time he does. And. much as I like him, I wouldn’t trust him far when he’s after something he wants.”

She got up with a sigh, and began loading the breakfast dishes on to the tray. There had been a time when she had been equally jealous of Simon’s influence over Tim, until she found out by experience that Tim, after his quiet fashion, went his own way, and was very unlikely to be deflected from it by Simon or anyone else.

“Think I’d better go after him?”

“Tim, don’t you dare give way to him, after I’ve gone and committed myself!”

“You’ve committed me, too,” said Tim with a wry grin. “Don’t worry—united we stand! Still, it was pretty much my fault he’d got the programme all set up like that. I think I’d better go and find him, and get him cooled down.”

But Paddy was not in the house, or the garden, or the yard, nor was he visible anywhere on the road to the sea. Tim came back empty-handed.

“His bike’s gone from the shed. Never mind him, let him go. He’ll be back for his lunch. Give him that, at any rate, he doesn’t sulk for long.”

“What’ll you bet,” said Phil sharply, “he hasn’t gone rushing up to the Place after Simon? I
bet
you! He thinks Simon will get round us. He thinks Simon can get round anybody.”

She plunged upon the telephone in the hall, and dialled the number of Treverra Place.

“Oh, hallo, Tam—”

But it wasn’t Tamsin; the telephone was switched to Miss Rachel’s room, and the old lady was wide awake and only too ready to talk. And perhaps that was better, for if it had been Tamsin and the library, more than likely Simon would have been there to hear one half of the conversation and deduce the other.

“Oh, it’s you, Aunt Rachel. This is Phil. Listen, is Simon there in the library right now? No, I don’t want him, I just want to know. Good, that’s fine. Well, look, if our Paddy comes looking for him, don’t tell him where he’s gone, will you? And don’t let Tamsin tell him. I know he’ll find him in the end, but he won’t think of the vicarage for a while, anyhow—long enough for him to think better of it, I hope.”

“Exactly why,” inquired Miss Rachel curiously, “should he be on his way here, and why don’t you want him to find Simon? Oh, I’ll do what you say, naturally. But I do like to have reasons for what I’m doing.”

Phil sat down and drew the instrument into a comfortable position for a long session. Tim, recognising the signs, sighed and left them to it. What could you do with women? They were as dead set on not being outwitted or defeated as the kid himself, but it wouldn’t be any use pointing out the illogic of their proceedings; they’d never be able to see the analogy.

By the time Paddy had pedalled furiously up the sunken lane and was breasting the climb into the outskirts of May-mouth, he had worked most of the spite out of him, and was coming to the conclusion that after all there was something to be said for his parents’ point of view. Not much, of course, but something. Maybe, after all, he wouldn’t go behind their backs and coax or trick Simon into promising him what they had denied. For pure pleasure he kept telling himself that he would, but the sight of the absurdly tall and ponderous gateposts of Treverra Place forced him to slow his pace and make up his mind. He took the long drive in a weaving course from rhododendrons to rhododendrons, like a contestant in a slow-bike race, fighting it out. He would, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t! He was fifteen, not a spoiled kid in a tantrum. He’d go back at lunch-time, and apologise.

Still, now that he was here he might as well drop in and say hallo to Miss Rachel and Tamsin. In fact, he’d have to, because one of them had spotted him already.

Miss Rachel was parading the stretch of gravel in front of the embattled Victorian front door, upright and stocky in a gaudy tweed skirt and hand-knitted purple jumper, the image of an elderly country gentlewoman from a distance. At close quarters she was more of a stage version of the same character, with a mobile, actress’s face and bold, autocratic gaze, with a sort of instability about the whole impersonation, as if she was only waiting to complete her scene before whipping off the make-up and dressing for quite another role in quite another play. The one thing that didn’t change was that she must always be the central personage. Sometimes she reminded Paddy of Queen Victoria, because of her imperious and impervious respectability and her general shape; at other times he thought of her as a local and latter-day Queen Elizabeth, because she had so successfully charmed younger men after her through most of her life, and could do so still when she really tried. Probably she had stayed single to keep her power, like her great prototype before her, though not for such grand and statesmanlike ends, but for her own personal pleasure.

He was very fond of her. She told him off and complained of him very often, but he didn’t have to be a genius to know that she adored him, and that was nearly enough to ensure his affection in return. What clinched it was the unexpected amount of fun she could be at times, sometimes even his ally against the generation in between. She was all the grandmother he had, and grandmothers are a reassuring article of equipment in any boy’s life.

So when he saw her stumping up and down examining her roses, it was natural enough to him to turn his bicycle from the main drive along the intricate paths between the flower-beds, and ride down upon her in a sudden flurry of fine gravel, circling her three or four times before he put a foot to the ground and halted to face her. He was at peace with himself by that time, and his face was sunny. They’d been stuffy, but he’d been a complete oaf. He wouldn’t do a thing to widen the breach; he’d make his peace like a lamb as soon as he went home.

“Hallo!” he said, uncoiling himself at leisure from the bike and propping it against the huge scraper by the front steps. “You’m looking very pert this morning, me dear.”

“Am I, indeed?” She tapped her stick peremptorily on the stones that bordered the rose-bed, and gave him a narrowed and glittering glance of her still handsome black eyes. “Buttering me up will get you nowhere, my boy, let me tell you that for a start. I’m wise to you. You didn’t come all the way up here to see me, did you? Oh, dear, no!”

“Well, for Pete’s sake!” said Paddy blankly. “What have I done to you this morning? Did you get out of bed the wrong side? I’ve only just set foot in the place, give me a chance.”

“Oh, I know! Innocence is your middle name. But it’s no use, young man, you’re wasting your time. You won’t find Simon in the library. He isn’t here. And Tamsin won’t tell you where he is, either.”

“I wasn’t going to—” he began, stung and enlightened by this attack; and there, remembering in what a state of indecision he had arrived at the gate, he halted and flushed in guilty indignation.

“Oh, no, not
you
! You wouldn’t dream of running to Simon behind your mother’s back, would you? Don’t think I don’t know what was in your mind. You think he’ll be able to twist your parents round his finger, and get you everything you want, don’t you? Even when they’ve said no. Yes, you see, I know all about it.”

Yes, he saw, and he saw exactly how she had learned what she knew. It didn’t take much imagination to reconstruct. His mother must have been on the line like a tigress. What galled him most deeply was not that she should be so determined to frustrate him, but that she should be able to see through him as through plate glass, and anticipate his moves so accurately. And he’d won his struggle and come to terms with her in his mind before it ever came to the point of action. But she’d never made a move towards reconciliation in
her
mind, never allowed for the possibility that he might relent and think better of it. Who was going behind whose back?