“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.