“Hello, Prudence,” Harry said, opening his eyes.
“Harry, what on earth are you doing here so early?” she said in exasperation.
“I’ve been walking around for a long time, brushing the dew with urgent feet.”
“You weren’t. You were sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was composing a poem.”
“I don’t believe it. Tell me it, if you were.”
Harry said promptly.
Prudence tried twitching her lip. “Is it something to do with history?” she asked, backing away.
“No, it’s about me,” Harry said, grinning. “Practically all my poetry is about me.”
“If it’s about you what does it mean?”
“It means I want you to ask me to lunch,” he said in a serious voice.
“Well, I shan’t,” Prudence said irritably. “I don’t know why you want to write poetry anyway, even if it was good. There are lots of things that pay better and you don’t have to know anything. You could be an M.P or an editor or something.”
“Or a tinker or a tailor. I like the idea of manual work, but my hands won’t co-operate.”
“They co-operated all right when you were tearing up that floor.”
“Shall I tell you why you’re so aggressive towards me, Prudence?”
Prudence sighed and raised her eyes to the tops of the trees, a monument to patience, preparing to be incredulous.
“It’s because you’re too young. When you’re older, you’ll find that most men are as monotonous as steam-hammers. When you’ve been battered by a hundred thousand soporific words from jolly decent chaps, you’ll yearn for my company. But I shan’t be there. I believe in moving on.”
“Anyway, you’ve stayed here a long time.”
“Only a few weeks. Your family’s been here for hundreds of years. It’s time you moved on, too.”
For a startled second, Prudence looked at him as though she had encountered a friend. Of all the adults she knew, he was the only one who occasionally recognised an obvious truth. She was in this vulnerable state when they heard someone coming towards them through the woods.
Harry caught her hand. “Let’s hide,” he whispered. His face was bright and serious; he was like a soldier who enjoys war and has sighted the enemy at last. Prudence, to her surprise, found herself kneeling behind a bush, watching the man who came furtively through the trees to the chapel.
It was Morgan. He stopped by one of the broken walls, and waited, listening. Then he moved on to the ruined stone floor and knelt down. He was half sheltered by the wall, and they could no longer see him.
Prudence, hiding behind the bush, took a minute to realise how childishly she and Harry were behaving. Hiding behind bushes, watching people who thought they were alone, was too much like the games she had played long ago, when she was twelve or thirteen. She pulled her hand away from Harry’s and stood up.
“I’m going home now,” she said clearly.
She walked towards the chapel. “Good morning, Morgan,” she said.
He jumped up.
“Hello, Prudence. Hello. Hello, Prudence,” he said in an agitated voice. “I – came here – I can’t stand the house when that little crook’s in it. He’s still there, is he, Prudence? Has your father sent for the police?” He was talking wildly, and it was evident to Prudence that he had no idea what he was saying.
“Jackie’s very useful. I don’t think it would be fair to send for the police,” she said sternly.
“It’s the only way to treat people like that,” Morgan gasped. He was in a state of such agitation that Prudence wondered if he was ill, but as he was always pretending to be ill it followed that he must be in perfect health.
Harry came through the trees, said Good morning to them both with an air of gravity, and sat down on one of the walls.
Morgan turned to him, with the hatred a hunchback might feel for a jeering boy.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded passionately.
“I was wondering if I’d take up archaeology. Some of those old wool merchants may have been buried in a golden fleece,” Harry said, looking speculatively at the stone floor.
Morgan was suddenly transformed. He dropped his shoulders and lowered his head. He looked much smaller, and as malevolent as a weasel about to spring on a rabbit.
“Stay away from here. Stay out of the wood and away from the house. Get out of my reach,” he advised.
“Why don’t you have the law on me?” Harry said.
Prudence began to back away.
“Harry, come on,” she said in an urgent voice.
Neither paid her any attention.
“Get away. Quickly,” Morgan said in a flat voice.
Harry, with apparent difficulty, began to fumble at his pocket, Prudence and Morgan watched him. The article, whatever it was, stuck in his pocket. In the end it took him two hands to produce it.
“Now,” he said to Morgan with satisfaction, and held out the small, polished gun, as though he was offering it for inspection. He withdrew it quickly, and balanced it on his knee.
“Don’t be so violent, Morgan,” he said in a reproving voice.
Morgan seemed to ignore the gun. “Are you going?” he asked.
Harry looked at Prudence, and smiled, like a performer who has finished his act and waits for the applause.
“Certainly,” he said, and rose, tossing the gun from hand to hand, and walked away.
Morgan sank down on the wall and wiped his brow. Once again, he looked like a sick man.
“You see what it’s like, Prudence,” he said in a broken voice. “He’s dangerous.” He felt in all his pockets and finally discovered some cigarettes. He took one, the last, and threw the empty packet on the stone floor. He lit the cigarette with a match, and then looked up.
“Don’t worry your father with any of this,” he advised. “Tomorrow I’m flying to Ireland. By the time I come back Harry will have gone away. There will be no more trouble. I’ll be glad when I’m on that plane.”
Prudence continued to look at him with her candid, suspicious stare.
“Let’s get back to the house,” he said irritably.
Prudence stood waiting for him like a wardress. He jumped up, and they went back through the woods together, not talking at all.
THURSDAY (4)
HARRY found Hester beside the rose garden. She wore gloves, and carried a basket and scissors.
“You look deliciously Edwardian,” he told her lazily. “Are you sure you’re not going to begin trilling Today I’m gathering posies of roses, roses And all the other flowers That fill the happy hours?’ Enter chorus, pursued by bevy of young peers. If we’d lived fifty years ago, Hester, I’d have pelted you with the family jewels. I’ll find diamonds for you still. I promise you. Now sit down, and I’ll cut the flowers.”
He took the scissors from her.
“Here’s a pure white rosebud, for the first year of your life, when you crawled about in waterproof pants, with not an impure thought in your head, apart from a deep Freudian desire to murder your parents. And here’s one with a tinge of pink – that’s when you were two, and smeared your frock with jam. Then we’ll have some red ones, for the dark ages up to seven, when infant feet stamp and infant faces turn dark with fury. Then we proceed in a pale rose and cream through the years of fantasy. Roses don’t come in purple. I can’t do you as a brooding adolescent. I shall have to take the deepest red I can find. Now we’ll have the white coffee roses, and the very pale cream, for tenderness and delicacy and all the charms combined. That’s twenty. Am I right?”