Chapter 1 #2
Sid shook his head. His expressive hands outlined a square in the air, delineated crosspieces, gestured at the sun. Widespread fingers became sunlight shining through his imaginary window onto the ball.
“Put it on the windowsill,” Deva interpreted, “so that the sun shines through it.”
The beachcomber’s eager nod was accompanied by a grin that revealed several missing teeth.
He turned back to the cart. Dismayed, Daisy envisioned a flood of gifts, each more inappropriate than the last, and Sid following them about for the rest of the holiday.
Harmless as he seemed, she wouldn’t be happy leaving the girls alone with him about.
What had she got herself involved in now?
But he brought out a piece of fishing net and with a few quick knots fashioned a bag to carry the glass ball. Renewed thanks and admiration of his cleverness made him bashful. Ducking his head, he
picked up the shafts of the cart and trudged away towards the far end of the beach.
Belinda looked after him, her freckled face worried. “He’s very poor, isn’t he, Mummy? Do you think he’d like a new hat? I’ve got all my pocket-money that I saved.”
“I’ll think about it, darling. We don’t want to embarrass him. What a marvellous castle you’ve built. Are you still working on it, or shall we go for a walk?”
“You said we had to wait for you to come before we go in the water.”
“Now you are here, Mrs. Fletcher, may we bathe?”
“Yes, do, and I’ll come and paddle.”
Bel and Deva whipped off their shorts and shirts and sunbonnets, and in their bathing suits dashed into the water, splashing and squealing.
Leaving her sandals and the glass ball with their clothes and towels, Daisy followed.
Here in the inlet, protected from the open sea, the waves were scarcely more than ripples.
Each swirled a few feet up the beach, then withdrew with a soft suss-suss-suss.
Venturing in up to her ankles, she realized why the girls were squealing: the chill was quite a shock at first.
Drawn by the sunshine, several other families had walked to the beach from the village by the time the girls had had enough and came out shivering, Belinda bluish with cold.
“In India, the sea is warm,” said Deva as Daisy enveloped her in a towel.
“How do you know?” Belinda asked. “You were only little when you came to England.”
“My ayah told me.” Deva’s Indian nursemaid was an oft-quoted authority.
“You’d better run up to the house and get dressed.”
“Oh no, Mummy, there’s a little boy looking at our castle. He might spoil it if we go. We’ll just put on our things over our costumes.”
In no time they were organizing a team of younger children to reinforce
the construction with stones and rush about with buckets to fill the moat. Daisy returned to the garden wall to fetch her book and the cushion.
The landlady, Mrs. Anstruther, was in the garden cutting flowers.
She was not at all what Daisy—who admittedly had little experience of the breed—would have expected of a seaside boarding-house landlady.
She ought to be middle-aged and either plump and motherly or hatchet-faced and tyrannical.
Instead, she was in her early thirties, just a few years older than Daisy, rather too thin even for the fashionable no-bosom, no-bottom look, with pleasing if not beautiful features and dark curly hair.
Though hospitable, she was diffident almost to the point of aloofness.
“Oh, you startled me!” she exclaimed as Daisy’s head appeared above the wall.
“I’m just picking dahlias for the dining room.
” She said this with a tinge of defensiveness, as if Daisy might accuse her of neglecting the making of beds or the preparation of tea.
No doubt she had suffered from faultfinders in the past.
“Food always tastes better with flowers on the table,” said Daisy. “I was just going to take my book and your cushion down to the beach, but since you’re out here, there’s something I’d like to consult you about, if I may?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Anstruther came towards the wall. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ll come up.” Even if it weren’t for the virtual certainty of a crick in the neck, the questions Daisy wanted to ask were not the sort to be bandied about on a public footpath. She went along to the steps and ascended more conventionally than she had come down.
Mrs. Anstruther met her at the top of the steps, looking anxious. “Is something the matter, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Not at all. I just want your advice. The girls and I have just made the acquaintance of a rather curious character, a beachcomber …”
“Oh, that’d be Sid.” Her face cleared. “He’s quite harmless. Simple,
and a mute, as you’ll have discovered, but he’s a gentle soul. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Good, that was my impression. He gave me this glass ball.”
“You must have made quite a hit with him! He can sell those at the newsagents’ for a bob or two apiece. People buy them as souvenirs.”
“Oh dear, I was afraid of that. And afraid he’d be offended if I offered to pay him.”
“I couldn’t say.”
“No, well, we’ll work out something. I’m glad to know I needn’t worry about the girls meeting him when I’m not with them. I was a bit concerned because of the way Mr. Enderby rushed down … Are you all right?”
Mrs. Anstruther had turned pale, but she flushed as she answered, “Yes, thanks. Just for a moment I … It must have been because I was stooping in the sun.”
“I should think you’d better wear a hat.”
“Yes. Silly of me. You were saying … about Mr. Enderby?”
“I was sitting here on the wall talking to him, and when he saw Sid stopping by the girls, he rushed off, yelling at him. I must say, I was rather taken with Sid’s response.”
“He bent down and looked through his legs?” Mrs. Anstruther smiled faintly. “He doesn’t do it often, but it always has the same disarming effect. I dare say he doesn’t need to do it often, because people liable to berate him are so disconcerted the first time that they rarely try again.”
“No doubt. It certainly sent Mr. Enderby packing, so I couldn’t believe the girls were in any real danger. I wanted to ask you about Enderby, too. If he’s a friend of yours, I hope you don’t mind my saying that he seems to consider himself quite a Don Juan.”
“He’s no friend of mine.” Mrs. Anstruther’s light tone failed to conceal a hint of bitterness.
“I suppose it’s all talk? All bluff and bluster?”
“You stay away from George Enderby. Don’t let him cozen you.
That’s my advice, for what it’s worth. Now I’d better be getting on, Mrs. Fletcher, or your tea won’t be ready for you. Would you like a deck-chair for the beach? There’s some in the shed, there. The girl can carry one down for you.”
“Thanks, I’ll manage it myself. And thanks for the advice.”
Returning to the beach with her book in her hand and a deck-chair under the other arm, Daisy told herself that any relationship—past or present—between Enderby and Mrs. Anstruther was none of her business.
But curiosity was her besetting sin, and she couldn’t help wondering whether Mrs. Anstruther was in fact a widow, as she had assumed.
Or was there a Mr. Anstruther waiting in the wings whom she simply hadn’t met?
At four o’clock, the holiday-makers on the beach started unpacking picnics or heading back to their lodgings for tea. Daisy called the girls.
“Just five minutes, Mummy. The big tower’s starting to sag! We’ve got to shore it up.”
“No, right now. I didn’t think to ask for a picnic, so you have to wash off the sand and put on frocks. Come on.” She flattened the green and red-striped deck-chair, as usual getting its wooden frame the wrong way round. “Bother, these look so simple but I always manage to get them tied in knots.”
“We’ll carry it for you.”
“Let’s pretend it’s a palanquin,” Deva suggested, as they each picked up one end.
“What’s a palanquin?”
“My ayah says it’s a sort of chair with poles for carrying a maharanee.”
“What’s a maharanee?”
“A sort of queen. Mrs. Fletcher, you can be the maharanee and we’ll carry you.”
“Gosh, no, I’m much too heavy. Besides, it would be bound to fold up with me inside, and pinch your fingers, too.”
“We’ll carry the towels and buckets and spades on it. And your book, Mummy.”
“Not likely, it’d get all damp and sandy.”
Somehow they made it through the rocks and up the steps without spilling off the buckets and spades more than a couple of times.
When they reached the shed, Daisy said, “Thank you. Now I’ll put it away while you run up and change.
Go in the back way, we don’t want to leave sand all over the front hall. ”
The girls scampered off. The deck-chair disposed of, Daisy followed them through the back door, standing open to the warm air.
The passage led to the foot of the stairs, where it widened into the front hall.
There Daisy saw Mrs. Anstruther standing by the hall table, a letter in her hand, a look of shock on her white face.
“What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do?”
The landlady averted her face. “The post only just came,” she said in a flat voice, picking up another letter from the table. “The van broke down on the way from Abbotsford. Here’s one for you.”
“Oh, good. Thank you. But are you all right? I’m afraid you’ve had bad news.”
She shook her head, closing her eyes and swallowing. “No, not at all. My husband is coming home.”
“You weren’t expecting him to?”
“Oh, yes, but Peter’s in the Navy, a warrant officer, a gunner. He’s often gone for months and one can never be sure just when … His ship’s in the Nore. He’ll be here on Saturday. I’m just afraid …”
Daisy waited in silent sympathy.
“I’m afraid of what he’ll do when he finds out about George Enderby!”