Chapter Eleven #2
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… .