But Brat kept his hand out, and presently Fourposter's curiosity overcame his stand-offishness and he dropped his head to the waiting hand. Brat made much of him, till Fourposter capitulated entirely and nuzzled him with elephantine playfulness.
"Well!" said Ruth, watching. "He never does that to anyone!"
Brat looked down into the small tight face by his elbow, at the small grubby hands clutching the reins so tightly.
"I expect he does to Jane when no one is around," he said.
"Jane, it is time you were cleaned up for lunch," Bee said, and turned to lead the way indoors.
And Brat followed her, over the threshold.
12
"I have put you in the old night nursery," Bee said. "I hope you don't mind. Simon has the room that he used to share with-that you used to share with him." Oh, dear, what a gaffe, she thought; shall I ever be able to think of him as Patrick? "And to give you one of the spare rooms was to treat you like a visitor."
Brat said that he would be glad to have the night nursery.
"Will you go up now, or will you have a drink first?"
"I'll go up now," Brat said, and turned to the stairway.
He knew that she had been waiting for this moment; waiting for the moment when he must show knowledge of the house. So he turned from her and led the way upstairs; up to the big first landing and down the narrow corridor to the north wing, and to the children's rooms facing west from it. He opened the third of the four doors and stood in the room that Nora Ashby had arranged for her children when they were small. One window looked west over the paddocks and the other north to the rise of the down. It was on the quiet side of the house, away from the stables and the approach from the road. He stood at the window looking at the soft blue English distances, thinking of the brilliant mountains beyond the whirling dust of the West, and very conscious of Bee Ashby behind him.
There was something else that he must take the initiative about.
"Where is Simon?" he said, and turned to face her.
"He is like Jane," she said. "Late for lunch. But he'll be in at any moment."
It was smoothly done, but he had seen her shy at his unheralded question, as if he had flicked a whip. Simon had not come to meet him; Simon had not been at Latchetts to greet him; Simon, it was to be deduced, was being difficult.
Before he could pursue the subject she took the initiative from him.
"You can have the nursery bathroom all to yourself, but do go slow on the hot water, will you? Fuel is a dreadful problem. Now wash and come down at once. The Pecks sent over some of the Rectory sherry."
"Aren't they coming to lunch?"
"No, they're coming to dinner to-night. Lunch is for family only."
She watched him turn to the fourth door, which he knew to be the bathroom of the nursery wing, and went away looking comforted. He knew why she was comforted: because he had known his way about the house. And he felt guilty and ill at ease. Fooling Mr. Sandal-with a K.C. sitting opposite you and gimletting holes in you with cynical Irish eyes-had been one thing; fooling Mr. Sandal had been fun. But fooling Bee Ashby was another thing altogether.
He washed absentmindedly, turning the soap in his hands with his eyes on the line of the down. There was the turf he had wanted to ride on; the turf he had sold his soul for. Presently he would get a horse and go up there and ride in the quiet, away from human relationships and this fantastic game of human poker, and up there it would once more seem right and worth while.
He went back to his room and found a brassy blonde in tight flowered rayon tweaking the wallflower in the bowl on the window-sill.
"Hullo," said the blonde. "Welcome home, and all that."
"Thanks," Brat said. Was this someone that he should know? Surely not!
"You're very like your brother, aren't you?"
"I suppose so." He took his brushes from his «grip» and put them on the dressing-table; it was a symbolical taking-possession.
"You won't know me, of course. I'm Lana Adams from the village. Adams the joiner was my father. I oblige because my boy-friend works in the stables."
So that is what she was: the help. He looked at her and was sorry for the boy-friend.
"You look a lot older than your brother, don't you? I suppose it's knocking about the world that does it. Having to look out for yourself, and all that. Not being spoilt like your brother. You'll excuse me saying it but spoilt he is. That's why he's made all this to-do about you coming back. Silly, I call it. You've only to look at you to know that you're an Ashby. Not much point in saying you're not, I should think. But you take my tip and stand up to him. He can't stand being stood up to. Been humoured all his life, I should say. Don't let it get you down."
As Brat went silently on with his unpacking, she paused; and before she could resume Eleanor's cool voice said from the doorway:
"Have you everything you want?"
The blonde said hastily: "I was just welcoming Mr. Patrick back," and, having flung Brat a radiant smile, made a hip-swing exit from the room.
Brat wondered how much Eleanor had heard.
"It's a nice room this," Eleanor said, "except that it doesn't get the morning sun. That bed is from Clare Park. Aunt Bee sold the little ones and bought that one at the Clare sale. It's nice, isn't it? It was the one in Alec Ledingham's room. Except for that the room is just the same."
"Yes; the old wallpaper, I notice."
"Robinson Crusoe and company. Yes. I had a great weakness for Hereward the Wake. He had such an enchanting profile." She pointed to Hereward's place in the pattern of fictional heroes that Nora had chosen for her children's nightly entertainment.
"Is the nursery-rhyme paper still next door?"
"Yes, of course. Come and see."
He went with her, but while she rehearsed the pictured tales his mind was busy with the village girl's revelation about Simon and with the ironic fact that he was to sleep in Alec Loding's bed.
So Simon had refused to believe that he was Patrick. "Not much point in saying you're not, I should think." That could only mean that Simon, in the face of all the evidence, refused to accept him.
Why?
He followed Eleanor downstairs, still wondering.
Eleanor led him into a big sunny sitting-room where Bee was pouring sherry, and Ruth was picking out a tune on a piano.
"Would you like to hear me play?" Ruth asked, inevitably.
"No," Eleanor said, "he wouldn't. We've been looking at the old wallpapers," she said to Bee. "I'd forgotten how in love with Hereward I used to be. It's just as well that I was removed from him in time or he might have become a fixation or something."
"I never liked that baby stuff on the walls," Ruth said.
"You never read, so you couldn't know anything about them," Eleanor said.
"We gave up using the nursery wing when the twins ceased to have a Nanny," Bee said. "It was too far away from the rest of the house."
"It was a day's march to call the twins in the morning," Eleanor said, "and as Ruth always needed calling several times we had to move them into the normal family orbit."
"Delicate people need more sleep," Ruth said.
"Since when have you been delicate?" asked Eleanor.
"It's not that I'm delicate but that Jane's more robust, aren't you, Jane?" she said, appealing to Jane, who sidled into the room, the hair at her temples still damp from her hasty ablutions.
But Jane's eyes were on Bee.
"Simon is here," she said in a small voice; and crossed the room to stand near Bee as if for reassurance.
There was an instant of complete silence. In the moment of suspended animation only Ruth moved. Ruth sat up and sparkled with anticipation.