Sheer Folly (10 page)

“I enjoy visitors. Make it as mysterious as you like.” As they
reached the bottom of the steps, Pritchard stopped and said, “Put your fingers in your ears, Mrs. Fletcher. I have to signal to Owen that we're all down and he can turn off the waterfall lights.”

“Oh, of course, you won't want them burning all night.”

Even with her fingers in her ears, Daisy heard his piercing whistle. One by one the lights went out. The tumbling water still caught some light from the cave mouth above, then that too was extinguished. The only light was from the lamp where the path curved round the bluff.

Daisy's eyes took a moment to adjust to the lower level of light. In that moment, cutting through the waterfall's hypnotic roar, someone screamed.

Daisy had a confused impression of flailing arms and legs tumbling off the path towards the stream below.

 

Just ahead
of Daisy and Pritchard, Carlin started to run forwards, shrugging out of his overcoat and ripping off his dinner jacket as he went. He stooped to lever off his shoes, at the same time peering over the edge, then straightened, pinched his nose between finger and thumb, and jumped.

“Good job he didn't dive,” Howell commented, coming down the last steps. “There's only three or four feet of water there. Who went in?”

“Lady Ottaline,” Daisy told him.

“Those ridiculous shoes!”

“Owen,” his uncle said sharply, “get back to the house, quickly, and tell Barker what's happened. They'll need hot drinks, hot water bottles, dry clothes—he'll know what to do.”

Howell departed at a trot.

In the meantime, Armitage had dashed back round the bend, stripping as he ran, and followed Carlin over the edge.

Julia appeared with her arms full of Armitage's discarded coat and jacket. “He said there's an electric torch in the pocket of his coat. Hold on.” She dropped the jacket and delved into the
coat-pocket. “Here.” She switched it on and directed the beam down at the stream, but it was too weak to show anything but a reflective gleam from black waters.

Pritchard call down through cupped hands, “Anyone hurt?”

Armitage's voice echoed back: “No. But we're bloody freezing.”

“You'll have to go downstream. You can't climb out here. We'll meet you.”

“Right-oh!”

“Rhino!” Julia said in a surprised voice, “I thought you'd have been the first in. But I suppose you
are
a bit elderly to go rushing to the rescue.”

Rhino stood a prudent foot back from the brink, peering into the darkness below. He had got as far as unbuttoning his coat, and no further. Sir Desmond, at his side, hadn't even gone that far, though it was his wife who'd fallen in. Still, he did have the excuse of being a couple of decades older.

Sir Desmond didn't appear to hear Julia's words, but Rhino said indignantly, “Elderly!” With obvious reluctance he shrugged out of his coat and next moment he was on his way downwards.

“He was pushed!” Lucy hissed in Daisy's ear.

Daisy had no chance to question this extraordinary assertion, as Pritchard herded his remaining flock down the path. “We'll have to give them a hand down by the bridge,” he explained, anxious and apologetic. “The water's not deep but the bank is a couple of feet up. They shouldn't come to much harm. I can't think how it happened. It's never happened before!”

“Those ridiculous shoes,” Daisy, Lucy, and Julia chorussed.

“I certainly don't hold you to blame, Pritchard,” Sir Desmond agreed. He sounded more amused than anything. “My wife will always put fashion above common sense. It's entirely her own fault.”

By the time they reached the stretch of low bank just before the bridge, a sodden trio had appeared round the bend. Carlin and Armitage, knee-deep, supported Lady Ottaline between
them. She had lost or abandoned her coat and hat, and her hair hung in rats' tails round a face blotched and striped like an Indian brave on the warpath.

“
Escob annwyl
! Her face!”

“No need to go all Welsh,” said Lucy. “Her make-up's run, that's all.”

“Oh, well done!” Julia cried encouragingly. “Just a little farther.”

Sir Desmond and Mr. Pritchard hauled Lady Ottaline out, streaming with water and shivering convulsively. Between chattering teeth, she spat out, “My m-mink! They m-made me leave it!”

“Too heavy,” said Armitage, taking the hand Julia held out to steady him as he climbed onto the bank.

“We couldn't have got Lady Ottaline out of there in her coat, sir,” Carlin agreed. Daisy and Lucy lugged him out. “It weighed a ton, wet.”

“So do you,” said Lucy.

“No matter,” said Sir Desmond. “I must thank you, gentlemen, for retrieving my wife. Her coat can wait until tomorrow.”

“It'll be ruined,” Lady Ottaline wailed.

“I daresay. I told you it was unsuitable for a country weekend. Here, wrap yourself in mine.”

“I can't walk back to the house with no shoes!”

“You couldn't walk
with
shoes. Come along, you don't think you could manage in mine, do you? And I'm not carrying you.”

“Rhino will!”

Everyone turned back to the stream. Unnoticed, Lord Rydal had arrived and stood glowering. “I most certainly will not. Get me out of here!”

Pritchard stepped forwards, but Carlin and Armitage were ahead of him. Each grabbed one of Rhino's outstretched hands.

“On your marks . . .” said Sir Desmond, “get set . . . heave!”

For a moment it looked as if Carlin and Armitage were going to join Rhino in the water. Then they did. They landed face
down and Rhino went over backwards with a tremendous splash that showered those on the bank.

Though Daisy's coat protected most of her, the water that hit her legs and face was icy enough to make her gasp. She realised how cold Lady Ottaline must be, even with her husband's coat over her wet things.

“Mr. Pritchard,” she said, “Lady Ottaline needs to get dry and warm, and she shouldn't walk back to the house alone.”

“I can't walk,” Lady Ottaline moaned.

“Bosh,” said Lucy, “it'll warm you up.”

“My shoes are squelching,” Daisy put in hurriedly, if not quite accurately. “I'll take them off and walk on the grass with you. It won't be as uncomfortable as the gravel.”

“All you young ladies had better go,” said Pritchard cheerfully. “Sir Desmond, that leaves you and me to help the others out.”

“I ought to go with my wife.”

Julia scotched his escape. “Don't worry, Sir Desmond, we'll take good care of her.”

“We'll send out a search party,” Lucy promised satirically, “if you don't catch us up by the time we reach the house.”

Lady Ottaline complained constantly as she and Daisy crunched across the frosty grass. Daisy didn't want to sound equally whiny, so she held her tongue though she was sure her toes must be getting frost-bitten. Lucy and Julia crunched along the gravel path beside them, Julia making encouraging remarks.

Halfway to the house, they met Howell returning with three menservants to the rescue. A practical man, he had brought several pairs of wellingtons.

“Rubber boots!” exclaimed Lady Ottaline. “I've never worn rubber boots in my life. I wouldn't be seen dead wearing those hideous things.”

“I would,” said Daisy. “Thanks, Mr. Howell, just what I need.” She hung on to Lucy's arm and thrust her feet into the smallest pair. “They're better than nothing, Lady Ottaline, honestly.”

“Don't be asinine, Lady Ottaline,” Lucy said sharply, adding with more truth than tact, “No one's going to see you whose opinion you care a fig about. Do you want to catch pneumonia?”

“The others will need your help, I'm sure, Mr. Howell,” Julia suggested.

As soon as Howell and the servants went on, Lady Ottaline gave in. She might not care a fig for his opinion, but he was male—and she couldn't see the figure she already cut in a man's overcoat that could have gone round her three times, with her hair dripping in lank rats' tails and her face streaked in clownish red, white, and black.

Clomping along with numb feet in boots two sizes too large, Daisy tottered. Lucy propped her up and supported her the rest of the way. Just behind them came Julia and Lady Ottaline, the latter complaining constantly.

“All I want,” Daisy said when they reached the terrace behind the house, “is a hot bath.”

“You won't be the only one. I wouldn't mind it myself.”

“At least we won't run out of hot water, thanks to Pritchard's Plumbing.”

“I never said plumbers aren't a good thing in their place. Oh lord, the old biddies are waiting to hear all about it.”

Mrs. Howell and Lady Beaufort were peering out of the French windows of the drawing room.

“This is where my t-t-t-teeth start chat-t-tering uncontrollably,” said Daisy. “Can you get us past them without stopping to chat?”

“Of course, darling. In any case, we can't go in that way dripping, in gumboots.”

“Well, find a way in quickly, or my teeth really will start chattering uncontrollably.”

“Serves you right for that nonsense about your shoes squelching!”

“I had to do something, or we'd still be standing there trying to persuade her to budge.”

“
I
wouldn't.”

“No, I don't suppose you would, darling.” Daisy sighed. “You always were much more strong-minded than I am.”

Julia caught up with them and was pointing out a side-door when it opened and the butler appeared. Barker showed his mettle. Not turning a hair at the sight of four aristocratic ladies in varying states of disarray, he quickly ushered them in. Relieving them of wet shoes, rubber boots, and other impedimenta, he assured them that maids had been alerted, baths were being drawn, and hot drinks prepared. He would take it upon himself to make their excuses to Mrs. Howell and Lady Beaufort.

A few minutes later, Daisy was wallowing in hot water, murmuring to herself, “A butler is a lovesome thing, God wot,” and beginning to believe she might thaw out someday. Twice she turned on the hot tap with her toes, without any diminution in the blissful warmth.

“A plumber is a lovesome thing, too, God wot,” she told herself as she reluctantly heaved herself out of the water and wrapped herself in a vast towel, warm from the heated towel rail.

Beside her bed, she found a thermos flask of cocoa and a plate of Marie biscuits. Clearly she was not expected to put in an appearance downstairs if she chose not to. She chose not to, but she did want to talk to Lucy. She reached for the bell to summon a maid, intending to ask whether Lady Gerald was up and about. Just before she rang, she heard a tap on the door.

“Come in?” To her relief, Lucy appeared, elegant as ever in a silk kimono of her favourite peacock blue. “Oh, it's you, darling. Come in and sit down. I was afraid it might be Mrs. Howell come to fuss.”

“It might have been, but I persuaded her if you didn't come down you'd rather be left in peace.”

“Thanks!”

“She sent all sorts of anxious messages, which I can't remember. Actually, I think she's too busy fussing over Lady Ottaline to be frightfully concerned about lesser beings.”

“Is Lady Ottaline all right? She bore the brunt of the whole thing.”

“Sir Desmond insists she's healthy as a horse. I doubt she'd be pleased to hear it.”

“She does rather cultivate the fragile look, though it's very much the brittle kind of fragility. Lucy, what on earth made you say Rhino was pushed? Did you see someone give him a shove?”

“Heavens no! Nothing Alec would call evidence. It was too dark to see much, anyway, but that's what made it seem so opportune. You can't say he was exactly keen to jump in and help the other fellows rescue Lady O.”

“Rather the reverse.”

“So there he stood balking on the edge with someone on each side who had good reason to wish him ill. And in he went.”

Daisy thought back to the scene. “Julia and Sir Desmond. He'd been pestering Julia to death, but I can't see her resorting to such drastic means, especially as all she has to do is keep saying no. As for Sir Desmond, his wife was flirting with Rhino—strange tastes some people have!—but if anything, Rhino was trying to deter her. At least that's what it looked like to me.”

“What you don't know, darling, because you retired from the world, is that they've been having a torrid affair for months.”

“Are you serious? There really is no accounting for tastes! But that's hearsay, of course.”

“If you mean did I see them come out of a hotel bedroom together at dawn and draw my own conclusions, no, I didn't. But it's not gossip I went digging for. I'm not turning into a second Great-Aunt Eva. It's been common knowledge among people one meets everywhere.”

“Does Julia know?”

“I think not. As a matter of fact, I've been wondering whether I ought to put her in the picture.”

“She must have seen that there's something between them. This evening, I mean. I should let sleeping dogs lie, if I were you. It's not as if she's fallen madly in love with him and you have to prevent her making a terrible mistake.”

“That's a good point. My lips are sealed. Actually, it'd be more to the point to tell Lady Beaufort.”

“Why don't you?”

“Catch me!” said Lucy, in a rare descent into vulgarity. “You do it.”

“Not likely! What about Sir Desmond, did he know?”

“Oh, Daisy, what does it matter? No one was hurt, and in any case, I told you, I was joking when I said Rhino was pushed. Though I must say, if I'd been close enough, I'd have been awfully tempted.”

 

Bright sun
streamed through the window of Daisy's bedroom when Lucy flung back the curtains next morning.