A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs

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?

“Patrick, you’re not listening to me!” The old lady was half-way through the expected lecture, and he hadn’t heard a word.

“I am listening,” he said, with bewildering meekness, only half his mind present, the meek half. The rest, hurt, vengeful and obstinate, ranged bitterly after his mother’s treason. If she wanted that sort of fight, if she could immediately accept battle on those terms, and never give him the benefit of the doubt, well, she could have it that way.

“If they’ve said no, that should be enough for you. You’re not a little boy now, you know enough to realise they have your best interests at heart, and I thought you had sense enough to accept their judgment, even where you couldn’t quite agree with it. Fancy losing your temper over a little thing like that! I’m ashamed of you!”

So his mother hadn’t even kept that quiet. What could you do with women? They were all the same.

“I was ashamed of myself,” he said, with unexampled mildness; which pleased Miss Rachel so much that she