“Oh, he came down from home in his trunks. Always does. First thing in the morning, and again in the afternoon. I told you, his parents gave birth to a herring. Come on, run for it!”
And they ran, glad to warm themselves with exercise; across the undulating coastal road, and through the hollow lane to the gate of Pentarno farm. A deep hollow of trees, startlingly lush and beautiful as always wherever there was shelter in this wild and sea-swept land, enfolded the solid grey stone house and the modern farm buildings.
“I don’t live here,” explained Simon as he opened the gate. “I’m just a long-standing nuisance from Tim’s schooldays, that turns up from time to time and makes itself at home.”
The front door stood open on a long, low, farmhouse hall, populous with doors. At the sound of their footsteps on the stone floor one of the doors flew open, and Philippa Rossall leaned out, in denims and a frilly pinafore, her arms flour to the elbow.
“Well, about time! I thought I should have to start ’phoning the hospitals. When you two quit showing up for
She broke off there, grey eyes opening wide, because there were not two of them, but three. She was middle- sized, and middling-pretty, and medium about everything, except that all the lines of her face were shaped for laughter. She had a mane of dark hair, and lopsided eyebrows that gave her an amused look even in repose, and a smile that warmed the house.
“Oh, I didn’t realise we had company. Hallo!” She took in suddenly their wet and tangled hair, and the way their clothes clung to them, and swung for an instant between astonishment and alarm, but beholding them all intact and apparently composed, rejected both in favour of amusement. “Well!” she said. “Never a dull moment with Simon Towne around. What have you all been doing? Diving off the pier for pennies? No, never mind, whatever you’ve been up to, go and get out of those clothes first, while I get my baking in and make another pot of tea. And be careful how you turn on the shower, the water’s very hot. Simon, find him some of your clothes and take care of him, there’s a lamb. Tim isn’t in from the cows yet.”
Tim came in at that moment by the back door, a large, broad, tranquil person with a sceptical face and guileless eyes, attired in a sloppy, hand-knitted sweater and corduroys.
“Bodies, actually,” said Simon. “Off the point.”
“Eh?” said Tim dubiously, brought up short against this cryptic pronouncement.
“Phil asked if we’d been diving for pennies off the pier. And I said, no, bodies. Off the point. But we didn’t find any. This is Dominic Felse, by the way. Dominic’s staying up at the Dragon. He was kind enough to fish Paddy out of the sea when he was in difficulties. Paddy says he wasn’t in difficulties, but Dominic fished him out, anyhow. So we brought him back to tea.”
“Good!” said Philippa, with such large acceptance that there was no guessing whether she meant to express gratification at having her offspring rescued from the Atlantic, or receiving an unexpected guest to tea. The look she gave Dominic was considerably more communicative, if he had not been too dazed to notice it.
“He fetched me a clip on the ear, too,” volunteered Paddy, who would certainly not have mentioned this circumstance if he had not already forgiven it, and resolved to complete the removal of the smart by exorcism.
“Good!” said Tim. “Somebody should, every now and again. We’re much obliged to you, Dominic. Stick around, if you enjoyed it—there may be other occasions.”
The first, and brief, silence, which it must certainly have been Dominic’s turn to fill, found him speechless, and drew all their eyes upon him in understanding sympathy. It appeared that the Rossall brand of verbal table-tennis had taken at a disadvantage this slender and serious young man who didn’t yet know the rules.
“It’s always this kind of a madhouse here,” Paddy told him kindly. “You’ll get used to it. Just muck in and take everything for granted, it’s the only way.”
But it seemed that was not the trouble. Dominic had not even heard all the latter part of the conversation, and he did not hear this. He looked from Simon to Phil, and back to Simon again, and his eyes were shining.
“You did say
“Heaven help us!” said Phil Rossall devoutly. “There surely can’t be
Dominic rushed up the stairs of the Dragon Hotel just after half-past seven, made a ten-minute business of changing, and tapped at his parents’ door. Bunty, who had been struggling with the back zipper of her best dress, relaxed with a sigh of relief, and called him in.
“Just in time, darling! Come and do me up.”
It was convenient to have him there at her shoulder, where she could watch him in the mirror without being herself watched, or observed to be watching. For the dark suit had surprised her. He was no fonder of dressing up, as a general rule, than his father. The look of restrained satisfaction which surveyed the sleek fit of the gold silk sheath over her shoulders, and the pleased pat he bestowed on her almost unconsciously as he closed the last inch of zipper, confirmed what the dark suit and the austere tie had suggested. Apparently she’d done the right thing. He was studying the total effect now with deep thoughtfulness. One more minute, and he’d have his fingers in her trinket-case, or be criticising her hair-style. Something was on for tonight; something she didn’t yet know about. But by the mute, half-suppressed excitement of his face she soon would. Provided, of course, that she didn’t ask.
“I was wondering where you’d got to. You must have walked a long way.”
“Well, no, actually I never got very far. Something happened.”
“Something nice?”
“Yes and no. Not really, I suppose But then, I don’t think there ever was anyone there in the water, I think he just spotted some bit of flotsam. And then I had tea with some people I met.” That had been nice, at any rate; he shone secretly at the remembrance, and with difficulty contained his own radiance. A girl? Bunty didn’t think so, somehow. When remembering and containing encounters with girls he wore another face, conscientiously sophisticated and a little smug. This, though it strove after a man-of-the-world detachment, was the rapt face of a second-former noticed by the skipper of the First Fifteen.
He perched suddenly on the end of the dressing-table stool beside her, and put his arm round her, half to sustain his position, half in the old gambit that made confidences easy. The two faces, cheek to cheek in the mirror,
