“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 accumulate 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—”
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 Simon Towne? Really? You mean—the Simon Towne?”
“Heaven help us!” said Phil Rossall devoutly. “There surely can’t be 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.”