Read Ellis Peters - George Felse 04 - A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs for Free Online Page A

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