Fall of a Philanderer (Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries #14)

Chapter 1

Still, she thought, picking her way across the wet lawn, it would have been much worse if she hadn’t brought Deva to keep her stepdaughter company. The pair had dashed off to the beach after a bare minimum of lunch, leaving Daisy to drink her second cup of coffee in peace.

She reached the knee-high drystone wall surrounding the back garden.

The still air was full of flower scents, mingled with a smidgeon of seaweed, fish and tar.

Red valerian and creeping toadflax sprouted from every crack and cranny of the wall; the top was a mosaic of gold and silver-green lichen.

On the other side, the wall dropped nearly four feet to the grassy track leading from the village up onto the cliffs.

Glancing towards the village, Daisy saw Westcombe spreading up the hillside from the quay in a jumble of buildings

washed in Mediterranean shades of pink, yellow, white and blue, topped with lichened slate roofs. Here and there a towering palm attested to the mild climate of this sheltered south coast nook.

A man was coming towards her along the path at a jaunty stride, full of vim and vigour. Pleased with himself and the world, Daisy thought.

She placed atop the wall the ancient cushion the landlady had lent her.

Sitting down, she pivoted to face the beach, bare legs dangling.

With the approaching walker in mind, she tucked her blue cotton skirt—hemlines were scarcely below the knee this year—under her thighs before she turned her attention back to the view.

Overhead, seagulls wheeled, crying, and a few bobbed on the ripples.

A pair of sailing dinghies slid past, heading for the sea.

On the far side of the sparkling water rose a steep wooded slope.

Where the inlet narrowed opposite the town, a patch of sand and a wooden landing-stage marked the far end of the ferry crossing.

The ferry was halfway across, its oars throwing up little flurries of white like bunches of lace on a blue frock.

Once a schooner-building port, Westcombe was becoming known as a holiday and yachting centre. Now that the rain had stopped, Daisy could see why.

On the other side of the track was a jumble of rocks, grey, black and rusty-red, and then the sandy beach where the girls were building a castle to rival Windsor.

They were a study in contrasts, one plump and brown with black hair, in a yellow shirt and red shorts, the other a pale, skinny redhead in green and white.

Daisy waved, but they were too intent on their earthworks to notice.

“Hullo!” The walker had reached her perch and stopped, raising his tweed cap to reveal thick sandy hair. “Hullo,” he repeated with a grin which lent charm to an otherwise plain face and conveyed satisfaction with life, himself, and his view of Daisy. “Topping day.”

She couldn’t help responding with a smile. “Lovely. I’d almost given up hope.”

“You’re on holiday?”

Daisy’s mother, the Dowager Lady Dalrymple, would have thrown a fit if she’d seen her daughter chatting with a man to whom she had not been properly introduced.

But then, she would have thrown a fit if she’d seen her daughter sitting on a wall overlooking a public footpath.

The stranger sounded like a gentleman and was unexceptionably dressed in a tweed jacket and flannels.

Though he was tieless, his shirt open at the throat, that was surely excusable at a seaside resort.

“Yes,” said Daisy, “and you?”

“I’m a resident. George Enderby, proprietor of the Schooner Inn, at your service.” He bowed, and looked at her enquiringly.

Daisy wasn’t so far removed from her upbringing as to grant the use of her name to an innkeeper, however gentlemanly, without further acquaintance. “You’ve chosen a very pretty place to live,” she said. “I’ve been admiring the view.”

“So have I.” With a small smile, he kept his gaze on her face.

Though he didn’t glance down, Daisy was suddenly aware of her display of legs. Feeling a blush rising, a Victorian affliction she despised, she willed it away, saying hastily, “One must be able to see for miles from up there.” She gestured up the track. “I’m dying to explore.”

“You shouldn’t go alone. The cliffs are dangerous. I’d be happy to offer my escort.”

Was he trying—in the vulgar parlance—to “get off” with her? “That’s very kind of you, but I think I’ll wait till my husband arrives next weekend.”

The information that she was married did not appear to put him out in the least. “It would be a pity to miss the sunny weather,” he said persuasively. “Another cloudburst may roll in by next weekend. Besides, I’m familiar with the ground. I can make sure you have a wonderful experience.”

“It does seem a pity not to take advantage of the weather. I wonder if the girls would like to go.”

Mr. George Enderby frowned. “The girls?”

“My daughter and her friend.” Smiling, Daisy nodded towards the beach. “They’re having great fun building sandcastles, but … Oh, who is that?”

An extraordinary figure was approaching Belinda and Deva.

Around its knees flapped a reddish skirt.

Below this, tattered breeches reached to mid-calf, leaving feet and ankles bare.

The upper half of this apparition was clad in a sheepskin jerkin over a collarless man’s shirt, the ragged tail of which fluttered behind.

A straw boater with a drooping brim and a hole in the crown completed the picture.

The scarecrow trudged across the sand, pulling a ramshackle handcart, and stopped beside the girls.

“Sid!” exclaimed Enderby. Shouting angrily, he stormed off between the rocks down to the beach.

Daisy scrambled to her feet on top of the wall and watched anxiously, debating whether to jump down and follow.

Surely Sid would be in an institution if he were dangerous.

Was Enderby just taking out on the unfortunate creature his annoyance at being foiled in his pursuit of Daisy?

There was something rather theatrical about the whole performance.

Enderby was actually shaking his fist now, a gesture she had more often read about than seen except on stage.

Perhaps he was putting on a show for her, hoping his defence of the children might coax her to a rendezvous despite husband and daughter.

The girls, who had merely raised their heads when Sid arrived, stood up and backed away as Enderby rushed towards them.

Sid swung round in alarm. He shrank back. Then, to Daisy’s astonishment, he turned his back on his assailant, bent down, and peered at him between his legs.

Enderby stopped dead, apparently stymied by this unconventional manoeuvre.

Hands on hips, he stared for a moment. Perhaps he realized he would look an absolute ass shouting and shaking his fist at a beachcomber’s bottom, because he feinted a kick, then, with a disconsolate shrug, stalked away towards the hillside track.

Sid seemed to have come up with his own peculiar version of the soft answer that turneth away wrath.

Daisy missed the beginning of the next scene as she carefully lowered herself to the path. At three months pregnant, she was full of energy but inclined to move with caution. When she was again able to look towards the beach, Sid was holding out something to Belinda.

Whatever it was, Bel took it with a smile.

Sid crouched and pointed at the highest tower of the castle.

By then, Daisy was close enough to see that the object was a long, grey and white gull’s feather.

Bel stuck it in the top of the tower and Sid clapped his hands.

Turning to his cart, he rummaged around in it.

The cart was a ramshackle construction of weathered lumber, knocked together with rusty nails, on a rickety perambulator chassis.

As Daisy approached, she saw that it was decorated with scraps of ribbon, sea-worn coloured glass, shells, feathers and silver paper.

The girls came nearer to admire it, and Belinda saw Daisy.

“Look, Mummy, hasn’t he made it pretty?”

Sid looked round with a frightened face.

Close to, he was, if anything, even less prepossessing than from a distance.

His chin was stubbled, his hair shaggy, his eyebrows wild.

The skirt Daisy had observed appeared to be a woman’s red flannel petticoat hitched up under his armpits, perhaps to cover the deficiencies in his breeches, the visible parts of which were splitting at the seams. But he did not smell, the blue eyes beneath the unkempt eyebrows were timid and childlike, and his hat bore a wreath of daisies and pink thrift.

Daisy smiled at him. “Hullo, Sid.”

“He can’t talk, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Deva importantly. “He just makes noises when he tries. Is he an idiot?”

The beachcomber shook his head, his mouth working.

“No,” said Belinda. “Think how clever he was, Deva, to get rid of that shouting man so quickly.”

The girls looked at each other and both bent down to stare at Daisy between their legs, giggling.

“That’s enough of that, you two,” Daisy said, afraid they would upset him. “You can both speak perfectly well. How nicely you have decorated your cart, Sid.”

He stood back and regarded his handiwork with some pride, nodding vigorously. Then he delved again into the mixture of flotsam, jetsam, kelp, driftwood, and tarry lumps of cork he had collected. He came up with a greenish glass ball, nearly a foot in diameter. This he held out to Daisy.

“Oh, that’s a fisherman’s float, isn’t it? What a wonderful find.”

Sid pointed to himself, then to the ball, then to Daisy.

“He means it’s a present, Mummy. That’s what he did when he gave us the feather for a flag for our castle. Isn’t it, Mr. Sid? Is it a present for my mummy?”

He nodded solemnly. Daisy took the ball, with some reluctance as she suspected he could probably sell it and he certainly looked in need of cash.

“Thank you, Sid. How very kind of you. We’ll put it on the mantelpiece at home, Bel.”