Part 9 (1/2)

”We could have a more thorough look on the way back. We've got time, it's not much after twelve. And there's nothing for us here.”

They turned back rather reluctantly, all the same; n.o.body likes going back by the same route. It is, as Paddy had rightly observed, a fundamental predilection of human nature to want to get somewhere, even if most arrivals turn out to be disappointing.

The floor on which they walked had been smoothed in places by stones deliberately laid. Sometimes it was naked rock, sometimes this levelled causeway, and sometimes, especially where the narrow cleft opened out into a broader pa.s.sage, there was deep, fine grey sand. With a light, the whole half-mile of it was easy, no more than a stony walk; and all these later reaches were dry, for over the entire length the level climbed very gently, and bore away inland from the Dragon's Hole at a brisk right incline.

”Where do you suppose we are?” asked Paddy as they turned back, playing his light ahead of them on both rough walls. ”Half a mile is farther than the neck, we must be right under the high part of the town.”

”I don't think we've borne as far to the right as that,” objected Dominic. ”I'd say somewhere just the other side the Head, under the dunes.”

”It's so straightforward here,” said Tamsin, stepping out merrily in the lead, ”you hardly need a light.” And promptly on the word she tripped over a stone that tilted treacherously out of the sandy floor, and went down with a squeak of protest on hands and knees.

Dominic and Paddy both reached solicitous hands to help her up, but for a moment she sat scowling, dusting her hands and examining her nylons. ”d.a.m.n! Somebody owes me a new pair of stockings.” A ladder was trickling playfully downward from her right knee.

”I'll buy you some new ones with my guinea,” offered Paddy generously. ”That was pretty much how I found it, actually, only I had more excuse, because I didn't have a light that time. You sure you're not sitting on a pirate's h.o.a.rd?”

”Not unless he h.o.a.rded granite sand. But there was something sharp, look, it broke the skin.” She sifted fine sand through her fingers, probed the indentation her knee had made, and raised from beneath the surface a thin ring of yellow wire, with edges that barely met. ”That's the secret weapon. Not a pirate's h.o.a.rd, but maybe a smuggler's ear-ring.” She rubbed it on her sleeve, and it gleamed encouragingly. ”I believe that's what it is. It looks like gold wire.”

They ran the torch carefully over every corner of the sanded floor, but found nothing more. Tamsin pocketed her find, and they resumed their methodical walk back. There were broken bays in the rocks here and there to be explored, but all of them proved to be dead ends; and as they drew nearer to the Dragon's Hole tiny trickles of water filtered down from the walls and channelled the sand of the floor.

They reached the seaward end of the tunnel, where the low, screened entrance hole shrank to thigh-height, and doubled upon itself midway in an optical illusion of solid rock. They crawled through on hands and knees, and stood upright again in the upper reaches of the Dragon's Hole.

When they had dropped down the slopes of shale and sh.e.l.l to where the light of the September day penetrated, there were still a few children playing on the sand, but even these were being called away to lunch by parents and elder sisters. The midday quiet was descending on Maymouth's beaches. Far down the glistening sh.o.r.e the tide had turned, and was beginning to lip its way back towards the town, but it would be two hours yet before it covered the cavern again.

”You could come and have lunch with us,” said Dominic, ”if you'd like to. Tamsin's staying. We could ring up your mother and tell her.” But he made the offer rather hesitantly, and was not surprised when it was politely refused. Paddy hadn't seen his mother for all of three hours, and there are times when three hours is a long time. Moreover, he had to demonstrate, rather than claim, that he was a responsible person who paid attention to the times of high and low tide, and could be trusted not to take any more chances.

”Thanks awfully, but I think I ought to go home.”

”Well, come and have an ice with us, anyhow.”

Paddy jumped at this offer. They climbed the steep path from the harbour to the Dragon's Head, and turned in by the first pale cliff- track towards the Dragon Hotel.

”Better put this with your guinea,” said Tamsin, extracting the thin gold ring from her pocket. ”I don't suppose it's anything much, but hang on to it, and time will show.”

”Do you think we should tell Mr. Hewitt about it? I told him I was coming to have another look at the pa.s.sage, but he wasn't much interested.”

”Question of priorities,” said Dominic with courteous gravity. ”Tell him about it, but leave it till he's got time for it. He's probably got a dozen lines to follow up, and some of 'em more urgent than this. He'll work his way round to it.”

They were walking close to the gra.s.sy edge of the cliff, where it overhung the beach and the harbour. Paddy looked down, from the painted operetta-set of Cliffside Row to the mouth of the blow-hole. The children were all gone now, the whole sickle of moist sh.o.r.e was empty. Only one lance of movement caught his eye.

From the narrow alley behind the cottages darted the figure of a girl, hugging the shadow of the cliff. She had tied a dark chiffon scarf over her candy-floss torch of pale hair, but Paddy knew her all the same, by her fawn-coloured sweater and Black-Watch-tartan legs. She ran head-down, hugging something small and shapeless under her arm. Because of the overhang he lost sight of her for a full minute, then she reappeared close to the deep shadow of the Dragon's Hole, and darted into it, and vanished.

He opened his mouth to call the attention of his companions to her, and then after all he held his tongue, and walked on with them in silence. But he couldn't get Rose Pollard out of his mind. And the more he thought of her, the clearer did it seem to him that she had been in the act of launching herself on this same errand earlier this morning, and then had drawn back when she saw them go down the beach ahead of her, and enter the cave. She had watched them every step of the way, he recalled now the stillness and tension of that small figure standing at the edge of the sunlight. The tide had dropped just clear of the entrance then, the beach had been otherwise almost deserted, only they had prevented whatever it was Rose wanted to do. Almost certainly she had watched them emerge again into sunlight and walk back to the harbour steps and the cliff path. Then, with the last of the playing children called home to lunch, she had found the coast clear at last.

For what? He had known her since he was a small boy, she had acted as baby-sitter several times for his mother, and he had liked her because she was kind and pretty and soft, and he could twist her round his finger, stay up as long as he liked, make all the mess he wanted in his bath, and ignore the finer points of was.h.i.+ng. She wouldn't have the resolution to do anything dangerous or underhanded, and she wouldn't have the wits to cover it up for long even if she tried it. Unless, perhaps, for Jim she could rise to things she wouldn't dare attempt for herself? It was was her father who was dead, and she hadn't liked her father any better than anyone else had, and Jim had detested him, because of her. But they couldn't have done anything bad, he wouldn't believe it. They were both too open, not for darkness and secrecy. Not for caves! Rose was frightened of the dark. What her father who was dead, and she hadn't liked her father any better than anyone else had, and Jim had detested him, because of her. But they couldn't have done anything bad, he wouldn't believe it. They were both too open, not for darkness and secrecy. Not for caves! Rose was frightened of the dark. What was was she doing there? she doing there?

Mute and abstracted, he ate his way through a ca.s.sata, and made his farewells. But once he was out of sight of the hotel terrace and back on the cliff path, it was towards Maymouth that he turned. He slid recklessly down the whitening, late-summer gra.s.s to the harbour, clattered down the steps, and homed like a racing pigeon into the gaping mouth of the Dragon's Hole.

She wasn't in the open part of the cave, he knew that intuitively as soon as he crept into the dark interior. There were no echoes, only the very faint and ubiquitous murmur of water, that was inaudible when there were voices and movements to drown it. She might have gone right through into the haven at Pentarno, which would still be dry at this hour; but he scrambled purposefully straight through until the daylight met him again, and the great waste of the beach and the dunes lay within sight, and there was no Rose to be seen crossing the sands.

In his heart he'd known all along where she must be. He abandoned the stony channel, and climbed inland, as quietly as he could, until he stood hesitating unhappily over the entrance to the tunnel.

He couldn't follow her in there without meeting her face to face, and somehow he couldn't bring himself to precipitate a situation like that, at least not until he knew what he was doing. He looked round him for the best cover, compressed his slight person into a screened corner as close as he dared to the pa.s.sage, and sat there silently, his arms wound round his knees, his heart thumping. She couldn't possibly stay long, whatever she had to do there, because she had to return by the same way, and to make good her retreat from the cave before the tide engulfed it. But if she didn't come, what must he do? Get out in time himself, and tell Jim? But Jim must surely know already. Husbands and wives were in each other's confidence, weren't they? Tell Hewitt, then? Or ought he to stay there and take care of Rose? But he couldn't couldn't do that to his mother, not again! He was getting hopelessly confused as to where his duty lay. do that to his mother, not again! He was getting hopelessly confused as to where his duty lay.

Rose spared him a decision. Before he heard her footsteps he saw a thin, pale pencil of light filter out of the rock wall, and waver across the shaly floor. She was hurrying, perhaps afraid of the tide, though she had still plenty of time by his reckoning. He heard the pebbles rasping, and uneven, running steps suddenly ending in a soft thud, as she threw herself down to creep through the low opening. The light of her torch leaped and fluttered with every thrust of the hand that held it. She clawed her way through, careless of the noise she made, as though a demon had been hard at her heels. When she scrambled to her feet, he saw the flickering light cast from below upon her pale hair, from which the scarf had been dragged back on to her shoulders. He saw her face twisted hopelessly into a child's mask of anguish, smeared with tears, the soft mouth contorted, the round chin jerking.

She blundered away from him down the slope, slipping and recovering in her frantic haste, and he heard the convulsed sobbing of her breath, and a faint, horrified whimpering that made the short hairs rise in the nape of his neck. The rattle of pebbles from under her feet receded and was still.

He sat for some minutes hugging his knees and shaking, reluctant to creep out after her where he must be seen. It didn't seem decent to let her guess that he'd been spying upon her in that condition. It didn't seem decent now that he had ever thought of doing it, but he had, and he hadn't meant any harm to her, rather the opposite. Better not to say anything to anybody, because whatever she was so frightened and so unhappy about, Rose couldn't have done any wrong, she had no wrong in her, she was too soft and mild. Better to go through the Hole to the Pentarno side; he might have to roll up his slacks and wade out at the entrance that side, because it lay a couple of feet or so lower than the Maymouth end. But it wouldn't be any worse than that, and he could still be home before his mother began to get worried.

He scurried down the slope to the thread of water that was gathering in the channel, and clambered hastily through the Hole again, to splash through the first encroaching foam and take to his heels up the Pentarno beach. The remembered vision of Rose Pollard hung before his eyes every step of the way, both aims spread for balance, the glow of the torch flailing in her right hand.

One thing at least was certain. When she came back from her mysterious errand, she had no longer been carrying anything under her arm.

CHAPTER VIII.

SAt.u.r.dAY EVENING.

PHIL WAS WAs.h.i.+NG UP after tea when Hewitt called. She put her head in at the door of the living-room to report: ”For you, Simon. Mr. Hewitt says the pathologist's come to have a look at Mrs. Treverra's body, and if you and Tim would care to be present, he'd be grateful. I suppose he wants to have the family represented, so that there can't be any complaints or anything later. Shall I tell him you'll be along?”

All three of them had looked up sharply at the message, Paddy sensitive to the quiver of feeling on the air, and stirred out of his unnaturally subdued quietness. All afternoon Tim and Phil had been exchanging anxious glances over his head, and wondering how long to let him alone, how soon to shake him out of his abstraction. A very dutiful, mute, well-behaved boy who sat and thought was not at all what they were used to.

”How about it, Tim? I don't say it's the pleasantest thing in the world to see, but if we can learn anything from it, I think we should.”

”I'll come, I want to. It's a h.e.l.l of a thing,” said Tim soberly.

”Then he says in a quarter of an hour, at St. Nectan's. They don't propose to disturb her, not unless there's absolute need. I'll tell him you'll be there.”

Tim looked at Paddy. There was no guessing what was in his head, but it could only be the shocks and readjustments of yesterday that were still preoccupying him. Unless directly addressed, he hadn't once said a word to Simon, and they had refrained from discussing the inexplicable tragedy of Morwenna in front of him. But sooner or later he had to learn to move and breathe in the same air with Simon again, and find some sort of terms on which he could live with him, and he might just as well begin at once.

”How about you, Paddy?” invited Tim after a moment's hesitation. ”Come along with us for the ride?”

The serious face brightened, wavered and smiled. ”I bet that means I don't get to come in,” he said, but he got up from his chair with every appearance of pleasure.

”I think I'd rather you didn't. But I'll tell you about it as we go.”

”O.K., Dad, I'll come, anyhow.” He hadn't been with Tim very much during the day, and he found that he wanted to. To sit by him in the front seat of the Mini, and touch shoulders with him now and again, was comfort, pleasure and rea.s.surance. Subdued and amenable, he wasn't going to ask any favours; if he was required to sit in the car while they went down into the vault, he'd do it, and not even creep to the top of the steps to peer down in the hope of a glimpse of forbidden sights. It was his pleasure to please Tim. You can be demonstrative with mothers, but showing fathers how you feel about them is not quite so simple, you use what offers, and hope they'll get the idea.

They threaded the sunken lane, halted at the coast road, and crossed it to the track among the dunes. The smell of the evening was the smell of the autumnal sea and the fading gra.s.ses.

”I didn't know they were thinking of opening Mrs. Treverra's coffin, too. Why did they? Was that this morning?”