A Nice Derangement Of Epitaphs Part 1

A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs.

by Ellis Peters.

MRS. M MALAPROP: Sure, if I reprehend anything in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!SHERIDAN: The Rivals The Rivals

CHAPTER I.

WEDNESDAY.

THE BOY in the sea was in difficulties, that was plain from the first moment Dominic clapped eyes on him. Only a seal could possibly navigate off the Dragon's Head in a tide like this one, racing out on the ebb with the impetus of an express train, checking and breaking back again like hammers on the toothed rocks, las.h.i.+ng out right and left in bone-white spray, and seething down through the wet sand in deep clawmarks, with a hissing like the old serpent of legend striking and missing his prey. For a mile off the point, far into deep water greener than emeralds, the sea boiled. n.o.body in his senses swam there in an ebbing tide.

He cupped his hands and yelled, and the bobbing head, a small cork tossed in a cauldron of foam, heaved clear of the spray for an instant and turned towards him a pallor which must be its face. He yelled again, and peremptorily waved the swimmer insh.o.r.e. The clamour of the ebb off the point might well have carried his voice away, but the gesture was seen and understood. And ignored. The head vanished in foam, and reappeared tossing off spray, battling doggedly outward.

Dominic looked round wildly for someone else to take the decision from him, but there was n.o.body. This wasn't the populous Maymouth side of the Dragon, but the bleak bay of Pentarno on the northern side, and tea-time of a fine but blowy day, when n.o.body frequented those sandy wastes. Mile upon mile of drifted sand on his right hand, and inland, beyond the processional dunes, the first green of pasture and gold and brown of stubble; and on his left the craggy bastions of the Dragon's Head, running out to sea in a grapeshot of scattered rocks, the cliff paths a six-strand necklace above him, a tapering crescent of pebbles below. Not a local in sight to take the load from him. And if he didn't make up his mind quickly it might be too late. Better make a fool of yourself than watch some other fool kid drown himself before your eyes.

Oh, d.a.m.n! Whether he was in trouble or not-!

Dominic launched himself from the path and went down the last slope of thinning gra.s.s and shale in a long, precarious slither, to arrive upright but staggering in the grey pebble shelf under the rocks, just clear of the hissing water. It was falling rapidly now, and this was no very good place to go in, but he had no choice. He shed his s.h.i.+rt and slacks, kicked off his sandals, and waded into water that ran back before him, s.n.a.t.c.hing its last fringes away from his toes in a scurry of foam. He overtook it, felt his way as fast as he dared down the broken slippery descent, took one last rapid sighting, and struck out strongly towards the boy in the sea.

The first stages were easy, and he knew his own capabilities and could trust himself in this much of a sea, even if his own experience had been, gained in the makes.h.i.+ft river-and-swimming-bath conditions of a land-locked county. But the currents off these rocks were something n.o.body would willingly venture in a fast ebb like this, and the thought of the jagged teeth ripping up the water into oil-green ribbons clung in his mind through every minute of that swim. Half a mile northward, and the mild, long rollers would be sliding innocently down the level sand, as harmless as the ripples in a baby's bath. Here he had a fight on his hands.

He dug his shoulders into it, head low, edging away from the rocks with every stroke. Once he hoisted himself out of the trough to take a fresh sighting, and found the boy by the glimpse of a slender arm flung clear of the water for an instant. Nearer than Dominic had expected. And perhaps still clear of the treacherous pull of the rocks. Maybe he'd known what he was doing, after all. Maybe he was one of the harbour kids, bred from some ancestry involving fish, and did this every afternoon for fun.

But no, that wouldn't do. The harbour kids simply didn't go in off the point, they had too much sense. The ones who can do nearly everything never push their luck to the last rim, because they don't have to prove anything, they know.

Well, if this kid was the strongest swimmer on the North Cornish coast, he was coming ash.o.r.e now, if his rescuer had to knock him out to bring him.

The sea flung them together almost unexpectedly in the end; two startled faces, open-mouthed, hair streaming water, glared at each other out of focus, six inches of ocean racing between them hard and green as bottle-gla.s.s. Dominic caught at a thin, slippery arm, and gripped it, pulling the boy round to lie against his body. The boy opened his mouth to yell, and choked on water, rolling helplessly for a moment; and then he was being towed strongly back towards the sh.o.r.e, and seemed to have lost all command of his own powers at the shock of such an indignity. He recovered almost as quickly, and suddenly he was a fury. He jerked himself free and tried to dive under his rescuer, but he had met with a resolution as grim as his own. The plunging head was retrieved painfully by its wet hair, and clipped smartly on the ear into the bargain. The sea effectively quenched the resulting yell of rage, and Dominic recovered his hold and kicked out powerfully for the distant sands.

For the first stage of that return journey, in the event more arduous and tedious than risky, he got no help from his pa.s.senger. But after a few minutes he was aware of a considerable skill seconding his own strokes; however sullenly, certainly to good effect. The kid had given up and resigned himself to being hauled ash.o.r.e; and at least, having gone so far, he had sense enough to reason that he might as well make the journey as quickly and comfortably as possible. They came in like that, together, struggling steadily northward across the tug of the undertow into the sunny water off the beach, until they touched ground, and floundered wearily through the shallows, feet sliding, deep into the soft, shaken sands.

Rising out of the water was an effort that sucked out their strength suddenly, and set them trembling and buckling at the joints with the realisation of their own tiredness. They fell together on their faces, toes still trailing in the receding foam, and lay gasping and coughing up sea-water. And there was the late afternoon sun on their backs, grateful and warm as a stroking hand, and the soft, almost silent waves lapping innocently on the long, level beach that stretched for more than two miles beyond Pentarno.

Dominic hoisted himself laboriously on his hands, and looked at his capture with something between a proprietor's pride and a keeper's exasperation. A slim, sunburned body, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, in black swimming trunks. Light brown hair-probably almost flaxen when it was dry-streamed sea-water into the sand. He lay on his folded arms, the fine fan of his ribs clapping frantically for air, like cramped wings. Dominic got to his knees, hoisted the limp, light body by the middle, and squeezed out of him the remainder of the brine he had swallowed.

Hands and knees scrabbled in the sand, and the boy writhed away from him like an eel. Under the lank fall of hair one half-obscured eye, blue and steely as a dagger, glared fury.

"What the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l," spluttered the ungrateful child, from a mouth bitter with sea-water, "do you think you're-doing?" He choked and ran out of breath there. Dominic sat back on his heels and scowled back at him resentfully.

"Now, look here, you daft little devil, you'd do better thinking what the h.e.l.l you you were doing, out there in a sea like that. Don't you know the bathing's dead dangerous anywhere off the point? Especially when the tide's going out, like this. This town marks all the safe places, why can't you have the sense to stick to 'em? And don't give me that drop-dead look, either. You can thank your stars I was around. You'd have been in a mess without me." were doing, out there in a sea like that. Don't you know the bathing's dead dangerous anywhere off the point? Especially when the tide's going out, like this. This town marks all the safe places, why can't you have the sense to stick to 'em? And don't give me that drop-dead look, either. You can thank your stars I was around. You'd have been in a mess without me."

"I would not not! I wasn't in trouble-" He wavered for the first time; fundamentally he was, it seemed, a truthful person, even when in a rage. "I could have managed, anyhow. I know the tides round here a lot better than you do, I bet." The still indignant eyes had sized up a summer visitor without any difficulty. "d.a.m.n it, I live live here." here."

"Then your dad ought to tan you," said Dominic grimly,"for taking such fool chances."

"I wasn't taking chances-not for nothing, I wasn't." He heaved a great breath into him, and swept back the fall of hair from his forehead. "I wouldn't-not without a good reason, my dad knows that. I went in because I saw a man in the sea-"

Dominic was on his feet in a flurry of sand. "You saw a man man? You mean, somebody in trouble? Where?"

"Off the point, where I was, where d'you think? There was something something being pulled out in the race, anyhow, I'm being pulled out in the race, anyhow, I'm nearly nearly sure it was a man. I swam out to try and get to him," said the boy, with bitter satisfaction in s.h.i.+fting the burden of his own frustration to more deserving shoulders,"but you had to take it on yourself to fish me out. So if he's drowned by now, you know whose fault it is, don't you?" sure it was a man. I swam out to try and get to him," said the boy, with bitter satisfaction in s.h.i.+fting the burden of his own frustration to more deserving shoulders,"but you had to take it on yourself to fish me out. So if he's drowned by now, you know whose fault it is, don't you?"

Dominic turned without a word, and set off at a run towards the water, his knees a little rubbery under him from shock and exertion. He had gone no more than a few yards when a shout from the dunes behind him brought him round again. The coast road from Maymouth over the neck of the Dragon's Head to Pentarno dipped closer to the beach here, and a man had just left it to drop in a series of leaps towards the sands. He had come from Maymouth, by the angle at which he appproached. A tall, agile, sudden man who could glissade down loose sand like a skier, and run, once he reached level ground, with the grace of a greyhound and the candour of a child. He came up to them full tilt, and checked in a couple of light steps, already reaching down to hoist the kneeling boy to his feet, examine him in one sweeping glance, and visibly sigh relief.

"Paddy, what's going on? Are you all right?" He turned an abrupt smile upon Dominic. "What's he been up to? Did you have to haul him out, or something? But he can swim like a fish."

"I haven't been up to anything, Uncle Simon, honestly!" The injured voice grew shrill, and snapped off into a light, self- conscious baritone. Dominic had thought and hoped this might be the father, but even an uncle was very welcome, especially one as decisive as this.

Gratefully he blurted out what most needed saying: "He says he saw a man being dragged out to sea off the point. That's why he went so far out. But I was up on the path there, and I didn't see anyone except him. Maybe he'd have been all right-but I was afraid he might not. I thought I ought to fetch him in."

"You were very right, and I'm most grateful. Even if he isn't," said Uncle Simon with the briefest of grins. He stood Paddy before him firmly, and shook him by the shoulders. "Now, what did you see? Somebody throwing his arms about? Shouting for help? What?"

"No, he wasn't doing anything anything. Not even swimming. It was like a head just showing now and then, and there was more of it sort of slos.h.i.+ng about under the water-like when you see a drift of wood or some old rags was.h.i.+ng about."

"It could have been just that, couldn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so-only I don't think it was."

"O.K., I suppose we'd better have a hunt round." He stripped off his sportscoat and s.h.i.+rt, and dropped them beside the boy. "Here, you stay here and mind these."

"I'll come with you," said Dominic.

"Stay well insh.o.r.e, then. And get out when you've had enough. I know this coast, you don't, and you've tired yourself already." He kicked his feet clear of his grey flannels. "Paddy, you can make yourself useful, too. Get up on the top path, and give us a hail if you see anything."

He was off down the beach and into the water, Dominic after him. Paddy's summer tan was only deep ivory compared with the tawny gold of Uncle Simon's long, muscular back, and the fine, lean arms and legs that sliced through the water without a ripple. His hair was not more than a couple of shades darker. Once in the deep water he swam like a dolphin. With unaccustomed humility Dominic accepted his own lesser part, and forbore from following too far. A man who could move with so much confidence and certainty, off such a th.o.r.n.y coast, had the right to deploy his forces as he thought best, and be obeyed.

He stayed in the water until he felt himself tiring again, and then he came out and made his way along the rocks towards the Dragon's mouth, as low towards the sea as he dared, watching Simon dive, and surface and dive again, achingly near to the cauldron of the rocks. The worst of the race was over now, the boiling had subsided a little. The swimmer worked methodically outward along the line of the receding tide, came back cautiously towards the rocks again where the worst spite was already spent, and clung to rest. He had torn his knuckles, Dominic saw a pink ooze of blood on the hand that grasped the rock.

"No dice, Paddy?" he called up to the boy above their heads.

"No, nothing." The voice shouted down a little gruffly and anxiously: "You'd better come in, hadn't you?" Even an Uncle Simon, presumably, may reach exhaustion finally, and with him Paddy was taking no chances. "It's no good now, anyhow. Even if it was was somebody." somebody."

"All right-yes, I'll come."

He dropped carefully into the water and swam back to the sand, preferring that to the slower climb along the rocks. The boys came down, scrambling after him, Dominic with his clothes bundled untidily under his arm.

The tall, tawny, sinewy man stood wringing water out of his hair and streaming drops into the sand. Deep brown eyes surveyed them as they came up, and he twitched a shoulder and s.h.i.+vered a little. It was early September, and the evenings were growing cool. They began to dress in damp discomfort and a sudden chill of depression.

"No sign of anyone."

"Maybe there wasn't anyone," said Paddy grudgingly. "But honestly, I still think there was."

"All right, Paddy, you couldn't have done more, anyhow. I'll notify the coastguard, just in case, if that'll make you feel better. That's all we can do. What we all need now is a cup of tea, and some towels. And maybe a drop of rum in the tea. Come on up with us to the farm-Sorry, but what should I be calling you?"

"My name's Dominic Felse. We're staying at the Dragon."

"Well, Dominic, come on home with us, and get warm and dry. Can't let you run off now, without having thanked you properly."

Dominic hesitated, half afraid that this might more properly be the time for him to disappear, but deeply unwilling to do so if he could gracefully remain. At eighteen years and one week he held the optimistic view that you can never know too many people or acc.u.mulate too many friends; and the success of a holiday depends on what you find for yourself on the spot, not what you bring with you.

"Well-if I shan't be in the way? I mean-I don't think Paddy particularly wants to come home with a lifeguard attached. Won't his people-?" It was a long time since he'd been Paddy's age, but with a heroic effort of the imagination he could still put himself in the other fellow's place.

"Now that's thoughtful of you, but take it from me, Dominic, this is one ego that needs no tenderness from you or anyone." He took Paddy by the nape of the neck and propelled him briskly towards the rising path that led up through the dunes towards the stubble-fields. "Come on, no argument!" He took Dominic, surprisingly but with absolute confidence, by the neck with the other hand, and hustled them into a trot. He was a man who could do things like that, and not only get away with it, but get himself liked for it, where someone less adept would have given electrifying offence.

"What about Paddy's clothes?"

"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 meals meals-"

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 amus.e.m.e.nt. "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 p.r.o.nouncement.

"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 circ.u.mstance 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 s.h.i.+ning.

"You did say Simon Towne Simon Towne? Really? You mean-the Simon Towne?" Simon Towne?"

"Heaven help us!" said Phil Rossall devoutly. "There surely can't be two two?"

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, were almost absurdly alike, oval, fair-complexioned, with freckled noses and large, bright hazel eyes. The two thick thatches of chestnut hair-She turned, nostrils quivering to the faint, damp scent, and put up a hand to feel at his forelock.

"Hmm! I see there was at least one someone there in the water. I didn't know you even took your trunks with you."

"I didn't, love! Look, I'll tell you!" But he'd do it his own way. He tightened his arm round her waist. The brightness was beginning to burst through. "Mummy, do you know who's staying in Maymouth?"

"Yes, darling, the distinguished Mids.h.i.+re C.I.D. man, Detective-Inspector George Felse, with his beautiful wife, and handsome and brilliant son." And the said George was already down in the bar, waiting for his family to join him for dinner; and the only concession he had made to the evening was to add a silk scarf to his open-necked s.h.i.+rt. Whereas it looked as if Dominic had everything lined up for a very special impression. She wondered if there'd be time to get George into a suit, and whether she owed it to Dominic to demand such a sacrifice of his father.

"Mummy, you said it! You look gorgeous. How about those black crystals? They'd go beautifully with this dress."

He had his fingers in among the few bits of finery she'd brought with her, fis.h.i.+ng for the necklace he approved. "Keep still. No, but really, Mummy, do you know who's here? Not in the hotel, staying with some friends of his at the farm over at Pentarno. Simon Towne Simon Towne!"

She opened her eyes wide at the gleaming, triumphant face in the mirror. "No! Is he, really really?" Now who on earth, she wondered for a moment, could Simon Towne be? This was a difficult game to play unless you had at least an inkling. Or, of course, there was always the deflationary play. The dead-pan face, the sudden flat, honest voice: "Who's Simon Towne?"

"Mummy, you shameless humbug! You were keener even than I was on those articles he did on Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. And that book on ancient and modern Peru-remember? Simon Towne is just about the most celebrated roving freelance journalist and broadcaster in the world, that's who Simon Towne is. As you very well know! And he's staying with the Rossalls at Pentarno until he sets off on another round-the-world commission in October. And I met him this afternoon!"

And I'm going to meet him to-night, thought Bunty with certainty; that's what all the fancy-work is for.

She took her exalted son by the arm and sat him firmly down beside her again. "You tell me every word about it, quickly."

He told her, and she paid him generously in reflected joy, and had no difficulty in appearing duly impressed; even was was a little impressed. Yes, George would have to suffer; they couldn't let Dominic down. Meantime, she had to get downstairs ahead of him. It wasn't difficult; he'd given her enough clues. a little impressed. Yes, George would have to suffer; they couldn't let Dominic down. Meantime, she had to get downstairs ahead of him. It wasn't difficult; he'd given her enough clues.

"Sorry, Dom, I've mussed your hair a little. It's a bit fluffy from being wet so recently. Use George's cream. He left it in the bathroom, I think."

He went like a lamb. She called after him: "I'm going down, I'll be in the bar." And fled. He'd be five minutes re-settling his crest to his satisfaction.

George was on a stool at the bar, leaning on his elbow; long and easy and thin, and physically rather elegant in his heedless fas.h.i.+on, but not dressed for a momentous meeting. Actually Bunty preferred him as he was, but a gesture was called for.