Ellis Peters - George Felse 04 - A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs by Ellis Peters Read Free Book Online

had stayed single to keep her power, like her great prototype before her, though not for such grand and statesmanlike ends, but for her own personal pleasure.
    He was very fond of her. She told him off and complained of him very often, but he didn’t have to be a genius to know that she adored him, and that was nearly enough to ensure his affection in return. What clinched it was the unexpected amount of fun she could be at times, sometimes even his ally against the generation in between. She was all the grandmother he had, and grandmothers are a reassuring article of equipment in any boy’s life.
    So when he saw her stumping up and down examining her roses, it was natural enough to him to turn his bicycle from the main drive along the intricate paths between the flower-beds, and ride down upon her in a sudden flurry of fine gravel, circling her three or four times before he put a foot to the ground and halted to face her. He was at peace with himself by that time, and his face was sunny. They’d been stuffy, but he’d been a complete oaf. He wouldn’t do a thing to widen the breach; he’d make his peace like a lamb as soon as he went home.
    “Hallo!” he said, uncoiling himself at leisure from the bike and propping it against the huge scraper by the front steps. “You’m looking very pert this morning, me dear.”
    “Am I, indeed?” She tapped her stick peremptorily on the stones that bordered the rose-bed, and gave him a narrowed and glittering glance of her still handsome black eyes. “Buttering me up will get you nowhere, my boy, let me tell you that for a start. I’m wise to you. You didn’t come all the way up here to see me, did you? Oh, dear, no!”
    “Well, for Pete’s sake!” said Paddy blankly. “What have I done to you this morning? Did you get out of bed the wrong side? I’ve only just set foot in the place, give me a chance.”
    “Oh, I know! Innocence is your middle name. But it’s no use, young man, you’re wasting your time. You won’t find Simon in the library. He isn’t here. And Tamsin won’t tell you where he is, either.”
    “I wasn’t going to—” he began, stung and enlightened by this attack; and there, remembering in what a state of indecision he had arrived at the gate, he halted and flushed in guilty indignation.
    “Oh, no, not
you
! You wouldn’t dream of running to Simon behind your mother’s back, would you? Don’t think I don’t know what was in your mind. You think he’ll be able to twist your parents round his finger, and get you everything you want, don’t you? Even when they’ve said no. Yes, you see, I know all about it.”
    Yes, he saw, and he saw exactly how she had learned what she knew. It didn’t take much imagination to reconstruct. His mother must have been on the line like a tigress. What galled him most deeply was not that she should be so determined to frustrate him, but that she should be able to see through him as through plate glass, and anticipate his moves so accurately. And he’d won his struggle and come to terms with her in his mind before it ever came to the point of action. But she’d never made a move towards reconciliation in
her
mind, never allowed for the possibility that he might relent and think better of it. Who was going behind whose back?
    “Patrick, you’re not listening to me!” The old lady was half-way through the expected lecture, and he hadn’t heard a word.
    “I am listening,” he said, with bewildering meekness, only half his mind present, the meek half. The rest, hurt, vengeful and obstinate, ranged bitterly after his mother’s treason. If she wanted that sort of fight, if she could immediately accept battle on those terms, and never give him the benefit of the doubt, well, she could have it that way.
    “If they’ve said no, that should be enough for you. You’re not a little boy now, you know enough to realise they have your best interests at heart, and I thought you had sense enough to accept their