Sheer Folly

by Carola Dunn

  “You may want to save the word whimsy for the grotto,” Armitage suggested. The heavy satchel of plates didn’t appear to discommode him in the slightest. He carried it over one shoulder and the tripod over the other.

  “Since follies are whimsical by their very nature,” said Lucy, “Daisy’s trying to avoid overuse of the word.”

  “This is for my article about the house, darling, not the grotto book. I can be as whimsical as I like.”

  “You still intend to write that, eh?”

  “Definitely. I’m sure my American editor will be interested, even if Town and Country isn’t. I don’t want to bother you with my questions, though. I expect I can get enough information at the British Museum library. Victorian vicars were forever writing dim little volumes about the history of local notables.”

  “I’ve read a few, but I haven’t been able to trace any from this parish. No, I said I’d help you, and I will. But you never told me what sort of articles you write.”

  “Oh, I just describe interesting country houses, with little tidbits of the history of the family thrown in. I don’t write about the present residents—well, just a bit about ‘gracious permission’ and so on—nor any of the skeletons in cupboards if they don’t want me to. Most don’t mind as long as none of those concerned are still living.”

  “You may write about dead skeletons, but not living ones, eh? That sounds reasonable. All right, you can ask, though I can’t promise to answer.”

  “Fair enough. The best stories usually come from members of the family, who’ve grown up hearing them. What—”

  “Not now, Daisy,” Lucy interrupted. “Wait till we’ve finished what we’re doing. Let’s concentrate on the grotto for the moment.”

  They came to the first set of three shallow steps. The path was now leading them up the lower slopes of the downs. The lawns on either side gave way to rough tussocks. Ahead, sheep-cropped grass rose steeply to the rounded summit, crowned with a spinney. More steps, then they reached the bridge over the stream.

  Here Armitage paused. “You may not want to mention this,” he said, “as it somewhat detracts from the picturesqueness, but the channel is lined with some sort of tile. Otherwise, I’m told, the creek would often dry up in the summer.”

  “It tends to happen in chalk and limestone country,” Daisy said.

  “You grew up in this sort of country?”

  “No, quite different. The valley of the Severn, in Worcestershire. It’s just one of those useless bits of general knowledge one remembers from school.”

  “Knowledge is seldom useless, especially for a writer, though its usefulness isn’t always immediately apparent.”

  “That must be why Daisy’s such a successful writer,” said Lucy, impatiently moving onward. “She has a vast fund of apparently useless information.”

  “Whereas you, Lady Gerald, have a vast fund of specific technical information.”

  “I wouldn’t say vast,” Lucy demurred, but she looked pleased.

  Amused, Daisy realised he was buttering them up, in a rather roundabout and subtle fashion. Doubtless he wanted them on his side if Julia asked what they thought of him. She was sure by now that they were attracted to one another, though to what degree the attraction was acknowledged she couldn’t guess.

  The stream was below them now, though the gorge was by no means the fearsome chasm it had seemed last night. On the far side, here and there, small plants clung to the whitish cliff. They turned the corner of the bluff. The sun, still quite low in the southeast, shone directly into the mouth of the grotto. Sparkling, the waterfall flung itself down into a pretty pool fringed with reeds and watermint. It was a delightful scene, but Daisy was glad she had seen its dramatic aspect the previous evening.

  Lucy called a halt. Armitage put down his burdens and started setting up the tripod at her direction.

  “I’m going up,” Daisy said. “I’ll make a list of things I want to write about, and then you can decide which will make good photos.”

  “Right-oh. Stop at the top, though, while I get a couple of shots. A human figure gives an idea of the scale,” Lucy explained to Armitage.

  Gazing back the way they had come, he made some indistinct reply. Daisy grinned. Lucy shrugged, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.

  Daisy went up the steps, much less steep and narrow by daylight. At the top, she went over to the the stream. As it approached the lip of the cave, the low wall confining it to its bed sloped down from eighteen inches high to no more than six, so that it wasn’t noticeable from below.

  She moved forwards, stopping a prudent couple of feet from the edge, and waved to Lucy, who was peering through her viewfinder. Lucy motioned her to come closer. Daisy shook her head.

  Lucy turned to Armitage, who by now had returned at least part of his attention to what she was doing. (Another part was on filling his pipe.) Pointing up at Daisy, she said something. As he replied, he glanced back down the path again. Lucy looked at her wristwatch, tapped it, and shook her head vigorously. Daisy guessed what she was saying: “Julia won’t be here for ages. She was just starting breakfast and she may seem ethereal but she has a healthy appetite.”

  Armitage blushed, cast one last longing look backwards, then headed for the steps, his unlit pipe clenched in his teeth. Lucy generally got her way when she was being forceful.

  “Besides,” said Daisy as the lovelorn swain arrived in the grotto, “she won’t want people to think she’s chasing after you.”

  “How did you know . . . ? What people?”

  “Pritchard, Howell, Sir Desmond, Carlin, for a start. Anyone else who goes down to breakfast. Barker—he was just coming in with fresh coffee when she said she’d join us. Then there’s her mother, who’d be bound to wonder where she was if she got up and found her missing. She’ll probably go up to her and tell her we—Lucy and I, that is—are working in the grotto and she’s going to pop along to see how we’re doing.”

  “You don’t think she’ll mention me to Lady Beaufort?” Armitage asked wistfully.

  “I wouldn’t. But then, my mother is much more daunting than Lady Beaufort. Come on, Lucy’s getting impatient, and she can be almost as daunting as Mother when she tries.”

  Armitage moved into position to be the requisite figure in Lucy’s composition, leaving Daisy to explore.

  She found herself making reams of notes on everything from the fossils visible in the polished marble of the floor to the curious formations dependent from the roof, which she thought might be incipient stalactites. Armitage would know. She turned towards the cave mouth to ask him.

  He wasn’t there.

  Appalled, Daisy dropped her notebook and rushed to the edge. With one hand on the statue of Tethys, how far over dared she lean—?

  “Daisy,” Lucy cried behind her, “for pity’s sake take care!”

  Startled, she lost her balance and tottered. . . .

  TWELVE

  A tug on Daisy’s coat made her fall backwards, instead of forwards and down. She staggered back. About to sit down, hard, she found herself clasped in Armitage’s arms.

  “My plates!” Lucy yelped.

  In hindsight—or rather hind-hearing if there was such a word—Daisy realised she had heard a crash just before she felt the jerk on her coat that had saved her. Lucy was on her knees, feverishly unbuckling the straps of her satchel.

  “Sorry, Lady Gerald, but better your plates than Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “Of course, but—. Daisy what on earth were you doing?”

  “Charles!” Julia had appeared at the top of the steps. She looked at Armitage with heartbreak in her eyes. “I mean, Mr. Armitage!”

  He whipped one arm away from Daisy’s person. “Can you stand alone?”

  “Yes, thank you. He saved me from a wetting, or worse, Julia. I thought he’d fallen in—”

  “Oh, Charles!”

  “Thank heaven, nothing seems to be broken. Darling, why on earth should you think he’d fallen?”


  “One minute he was there, posing for your pictures. The next minute I turned round and he was gone.”

  “It’s ten or fifteen minutes since he came down to help me carry the stuff up. It’s sheer luck that the plates are all right. Of all the idiotic—!”

  “I was being careful. If you hadn’t shouted in my ear—!”

  “Lucy, Daisy!” With obvious reluctance Julia disentangled herself from Armitage’s arms. “You’re only shouting at each other because Daisy had a shock and Lucy’s relieved—”

  “I wasn’t shouting,” said Lucy at her most dignified.

  Armitage grinned. “That’s what it sounded like to me.” He’d moved several paces from Julia and was smoothing his hair, though it was cut too short to be ruffled by any amount of exertion. Extracting a box of matches from his waistcoat pocket, he set about trying to light his pipe.

  “I was,” Daisy admitted. “I really thought I was in for a ducking.”

  “I ought to have told you I was going down,” Armitage said, “but you were so busy taking notes I didn’t like to interrupt.”

  “Oh, where’s my notebook?”

  “I hope you didn’t drop it over the edge,” said Armitage, making for said edge.

  Lucy, Daisy, and Julia spread out and moved towards the back of the cave, searching.

  “Darling,” Lucy said to Julia in a low voice, “you’ve only known the man three days. Should you be throwing yourself into his arms?”

  “Actually, we first met in town several weeks ago. Mother thinks it was her idea to get us invited here, but I inveigled her into it. You won’t give me away, will you?”

  “Of course not,” said Daisy.

  “Having Rhino drive us down was entirely her own idea however.”

  “And a rotten one!” Lucy exclaimed. “Look, here’s your notebook, Daisy. Heavens, you’ve got masses of notes. No wonder you didn’t notice when Mr. Armitage—”

  “Guess who’s on his way here,” Armitage said in tones of doom, retreating rapidly from the mouth of the cave. “His ruddy lordship.”

  “Rhino? Oh no!” Julia was equally dismayed.

  “Let’s go into the second cave,” Daisy proposed. “With any luck he’ll think we’ve left and go away.”

  “I think he saw me, but we can try it. I’ll go first, shall I? It’s darkish in the tunnel even on such a bright day. Perhaps I’d better light the lamps in the inner grotto. There’s a little natural light, from a rift in the roof, but not enough for Mrs. Fletcher’s serious studies.”

  He took a small electric lantern from the niche behind a naiad and led the way between Neptune and Amphitrite. After lighting the first shell-shaded gas lamp, he continued striking match after match and applying them alternately to his pipe and the rest of the lamps.

  Daisy studied the statue of St. Vincent Ferrer. He was interesting if only because he was an anomaly among the Classical figures and natural adornments of the grotto. He was dressed in a monkish robe and cowl, like Armitage playing the hermit, and like Armitage now he carried a flame in one hand. Patron saint of plumbers, Pritchard had said. The statue was definitely noteworthy, but she couldn’t decide whether she should write about it or not.

  She turned to consult Lucy. Lucy wasn’t there.

  “I do wish people wouldn’t keep disappearing! Where’s Lucy got to now?”

  “Isn’t she here?” Julia looked round vaguely. “She must have stayed behind. I’ll go and see, shall I?”

  “That’s all right, I’ll go. You two enjoy a moment’s privacy—it’s liable to be brief enough. But behave yourselves.”

  Lucy was feverishly setting up her tripod and camera before Neptune. “Oh, there you are, Daisy! Come and lend a hand. The sun will have moved too far round in a few minutes and flash photos never come out as well. Get out the exposure meter, would you?”

  Daisy had helped Lucy with her photography in the days before she started to make money with her writing, so she knew what she was looking for and where to look. She was taking it from the inner pocket of the satchel when an all too familiar grating voice behind her said, “What are you doing here? They told me Julia—Miss Beaufort—was coming here.”

  “Go away, Rhino, we’re working.”

  “Julia has no particular interest in the grotto, Lord Rydal,” Daisy pointed out.

  “What she’s interested in is that damn colonial counter-jumper. And he lives here.”

  “Not at this time of year.”

  “Rhino, come here,” Lucy commanded.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I need your help moving this.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Are you saying you’re not strong enough to move a tripod with a camera attached? Sorry, I shouldn’t have put you in such an embarrassing position, where you had to admit it.”

  “Darling, don’t torment the poor man. He can’t help it if he’s let himself get a bit—” Daisy eyed him up and down—“flabby.”

  “Flabby! Of course I’m strong enough,” Rhino snarled. He strode over to Lucy and reached out to grasp two legs of the tripod.

  “Stop! Half a sec.” Lucy made a big fuss about peering through the viewfinder. “Let’s see, I think three inches to the left should do it.”

  “Three inches? And you can’t manage that yourself?”

  “Not after carrying my stuff from the house.” Lucy pronounced this taradiddle without a blink, and without any attempt to look limp and exhausted.

  “What difference does three inches make anyway?”

  “All the difference in the world. I can see you don’t know the first thing about photography. Make it four inches to the left.”

  “Show me, exactly. I’m not moving it twice.”

  “This leg here,” Lucy said patiently in the sort of voice one uses to a two-year-old—a not very bright two-year-old. “And this leg here. Hold on, just let me check.” She squinted at Neptune through the viewfinder again. “It’s not quite straight. Rotate it just the tiniest bit to the right.”

  Rhino looked daggers at her but obeyed. She managed to keep him busy for several minutes, but he was about to go past Neptune in search of Julia when another distraction arrived.

  “There you are, Rhino darling,” cooed Lady Ottaline, hurrying to him and clutching his arm, which fortunately was not supporting any vital bit of photographic equipment at that moment. “Look, I’m wearing sensible shoes today.”

  She held out one silk-clad leg. Her “sensible” shoes were not proper walking shoes, but at least they had comparatively low Cuban heels. Though she seemed not to have suffered any lasting ill effects from her unexpected midnight swim, she was not eager to repeat it for the sake of fashion.

  “Look out!” said Lucy. “If you knock against the tripod I’ll have to start again.”

  Still standing on one foot, Lady Ottaline turned the other this way and that. “What do you think, darling?”

  “Very sensible,” Rhino said woodenly.

  Lady Ottaline pouted. “Oh, I’m going to fall!” With an unconvincing wobble, she flung her arms round his neck.

  “If you must stand on one foot,” Lucy snapped, “please go and do it somewhere else. I’m trying to get some work done here.”

  “Poor you, having to work still even though you managed to get married at last.”

  “Poor you,” Lucy retorted, “having no interests beyond the pursuit of men after donkey’s years of marriage.”

  Lady Ottaline shot her a venomous look, but Rhino had escaped from her toils during this exchange and was rapidly heading for the inner cave. She sped after him.

  “I hope they didn’t wreck that exposure, the silly asses.” Lucy slid a plate out of the camera. “It’s a pity she drove Rhino away, but I couldn’t keep him occupied much longer.”

  “I’m amazed that you succeeded in keeping him so long. Or in getting him to do anything at all, come to that.”

  “It’s just a matter of being firm. It’s a pity more people don�
��t try it on him.”

  “You could say Lady Ottaline’s being firm, I suppose. Or perhaps tenacious is the word. He looked positively hunted.”

  “Yes,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “I suppose he really is in love with Julia, as far as he’s capable of it, and he’s afraid Lady Ottaline will turn her against him if he doesn’t surrender to her wiles.”

  “I doubt anyone or anything could turn Julia more against him.”

  “No, but you can’t expect him to realise that. In his own eyes he’s as close to perfection as a man can be.”

  “I can’t see why Lady Ottaline should be so desperate to hang on to him if he doesn’t want her. But then, I can’t see what she wanted with him in the first place.”

  “Darling, that’s obvious. She has to have a lover at her beck and call, and she’s getting beyond hooking a new one.”

  Daisy shook her head. “The great advantage of never having been beautiful is that one doesn’t have to worry about growing older and losing one’s looks.”

  “Would you mind going after those beautiful people and stopping them coming back till I’ve finished this shot? I don’t want another one ruined. Besides, you may be needed to help prevent Rhino massacring Armitage.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of ‘the colonial counter-jumper’ for Julia.”

  “I don’t. But I approve still less of Rhino. The man’s a menace to civilisation.”

  “Perhaps Armitage will massacre Rhino.”

  “Not likely. He’s outweighed two to one. Rhino’s both an irresistible force and an immovable object. He’ll do the massacring.”

  “Oh dear! I don’t think it counts as a massacre, though, if it’s just one person.”

  “Then perhaps Rhino will oblige and massacre Lady Ottaline, too,” Lucy said dryly.

  With great reluctance, Daisy went round Neptune and through the short tunnel. Approaching the end, she heard raised voices.

  Armitage and Rhino were shouting at each other, Armitage sounding more Canadian than ever and Rhino’s caw raised to roc-like proportions. Since they were both shouting at once, Daisy caught only the odd word here and there. Judging by those, it was just as well she missed the rest. Lord Rydal had the vocabulary of a coalheaver. Armitage seemed to prefer more esoteric imprecations, including a phrase or two that had a Shakespearian ring.