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Authors: Ellis Peters
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of detachment and superiority. A baby could have seen through this move to keep him away even from the sand-dunes on this of all mornings. His mother again, of course, enlisting Miss Rachel’s aid. What else could it mean? Only women did things like that. Men came right out and said: “If I see you within a quarter of a mile of St. Nectan’s I’ll skin you.” But women put their scheming heads together and concocted a job for you to do somewhere else.
“I suppose you and Mummy worked out how long it would take me to fill this thing,” he said, dropping the basket on the grass, “and took jolly good care to make it an all-morning job. All right, I’ll fill it. And she’ll have to get down to it and bottle the lot today, and serve her right.”
“Your mother has nothing whatever to do with this. If you want to blame anyone for it,” she said grimly, “you can blame yourself and me—no one else. You went straight out from here, yesterday, and hunted out Simon. After I’d expressly told you not to! Didn’t you?”
“All right,” he said, roused and scowling, “I did. How did you know about it? But I’d have told you, anyhow, if you’d asked me.”
“Simon let it out, last night. Oh, quite innocently, don’t worry,
he
didn’t know you’d gone flatly against my orders and your parents’ wishes. Paddy Rossall, how
could
you!”
“They asked for it,” said Paddy, goaded. “If you want to know, I
wasn’t
going to go after Simon, by the time I got here I’d got over it, and it seemed mean and silly. But it didn’t seem mean and silly to
her
, did it, to get together with you just to balk me? That’s different, isn’t it? It doesn’t count if you gang up on your son, but it’s a crime if you do the same to your mother.”
“Now, you stop this nonsense this minute,” commanded the old lady, quivering with indignation. “Your parents have a perfect right to check you—and to expect at least obedience from you, if nothing else. They’re responsible for you, of course they’re entitled to take whatever steps they think necessary for your good. You don’t realise how much you owe to them, or how badly you’re behaving to them. You take all their love and care for granted. Well, let me tell you, young man, if you had any gratitude in you, you’d never be able to think of enough ways to repay them for all they’ve done for you.”
He couldn’t bear it. To have the most secret, penitent and loving promptings of his heart ripped out and brandished in front of him, made cheap and public and sanctimonious like the disgusting parables in some old-fashioned moral book for children—it was too much. He reacted violently against it, with flooding colour and reckless rage, crying out things he didn’t mean and didn’t believe, in an effort to restore at least a balance of decency.
“So only one side’s got any rights! What about
my
rights? Did I ask them to have me?
They
could have helped it, couldn’t they? But
I
couldn’t, I didn’t have any choice. I’m their
son
, remember?”
Whether Miss Rachel can be said at this point to have taken any actual decision to resort to extreme measures, or whether she was quite simply pushed over the edge of action before she realised it, the result was the same. She drew herself to her full modest height, looking more like Queen Victoria than Paddy had ever seen her, and in a half-smothered voice of shocked and royal rage, with judgment in every syllable, she said what could never again be unsaid.
“
No
” said Miss Rachel, full into his angry, miserable face, “you are
not
!”
His first instinct was quite simply not to hear her, to pick up his basket and back out of this argument now, before events overwhelmed him. Such a thing could not have been said, and therefore it had not been said. He cast one desperate glance round him, looking for a way of escape.
“Which tree am I supposed to—to start—”
It was no use, the words were still
“I suppose you and Mummy worked out how long it would take me to fill this thing,” he said, dropping the basket on the grass, “and took jolly good care to make it an all-morning job. All right, I’ll fill it. And she’ll have to get down to it and bottle the lot today, and serve her right.”
“Your mother has nothing whatever to do with this. If you want to blame anyone for it,” she said grimly, “you can blame yourself and me—no one else. You went straight out from here, yesterday, and hunted out Simon. After I’d expressly told you not to! Didn’t you?”
“All right,” he said, roused and scowling, “I did. How did you know about it? But I’d have told you, anyhow, if you’d asked me.”
“Simon let it out, last night. Oh, quite innocently, don’t worry,
he
didn’t know you’d gone flatly against my orders and your parents’ wishes. Paddy Rossall, how
could
you!”
“They asked for it,” said Paddy, goaded. “If you want to know, I
wasn’t
going to go after Simon, by the time I got here I’d got over it, and it seemed mean and silly. But it didn’t seem mean and silly to
her
, did it, to get together with you just to balk me? That’s different, isn’t it? It doesn’t count if you gang up on your son, but it’s a crime if you do the same to your mother.”
“Now, you stop this nonsense this minute,” commanded the old lady, quivering with indignation. “Your parents have a perfect right to check you—and to expect at least obedience from you, if nothing else. They’re responsible for you, of course they’re entitled to take whatever steps they think necessary for your good. You don’t realise how much you owe to them, or how badly you’re behaving to them. You take all their love and care for granted. Well, let me tell you, young man, if you had any gratitude in you, you’d never be able to think of enough ways to repay them for all they’ve done for you.”
He couldn’t bear it. To have the most secret, penitent and loving promptings of his heart ripped out and brandished in front of him, made cheap and public and sanctimonious like the disgusting parables in some old-fashioned moral book for children—it was too much. He reacted violently against it, with flooding colour and reckless rage, crying out things he didn’t mean and didn’t believe, in an effort to restore at least a balance of decency.
“So only one side’s got any rights! What about
my
rights? Did I ask them to have me?
They
could have helped it, couldn’t they? But
I
couldn’t, I didn’t have any choice. I’m their
son
, remember?”
Whether Miss Rachel can be said at this point to have taken any actual decision to resort to extreme measures, or whether she was quite simply pushed over the edge of action before she realised it, the result was the same. She drew herself to her full modest height, looking more like Queen Victoria than Paddy had ever seen her, and in a half-smothered voice of shocked and royal rage, with judgment in every syllable, she said what could never again be unsaid.
“
No
” said Miss Rachel, full into his angry, miserable face, “you are
not
!”
His first instinct was quite simply not to hear her, to pick up his basket and back out of this argument now, before events overwhelmed him. Such a thing could not have been said, and therefore it had not been said. He cast one desperate glance round him, looking for a way of escape.
“Which tree am I supposed to—to start—”
It was no use, the words were still
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