‘It is not the walks which are treacherous, Parsifal.’
‘Landslides?’
‘I have not known of one in this part of the countryside.’
‘Then somebody in a hurry, perhaps, brushed against you in passing and upset your equilibrium a little. People can be very clumsy at times.’
‘Parsifal, I shall require you to protect me.’
‘Of course, Mrs Leyden.’
‘Dead! And never called me Mother!’ said Diana.
Romula turned on her as though she could have struck her. ‘If I am found dead at the bottom of the cliffs, I shall come back and haunt you. You are a strumpet,’ she said. ‘Come, Parsifal.’
Thankful that the uncomfortable interval was over, Parsifal followed her until the trees thinned and they were in the open. ‘You don’t really mean that you were attacked on your way over here, do you?’ he asked, falling in beside her.
‘I don’t know what else I mean. Which way did you come?’
‘By the hill path. It is more difficult than this route, but a good deal shorter and, of course, more easily reached from Seawards. I shall have to rejoin it later on. I must pick up some things at the hotel.’
‘Oh, well, that will do for me, too. I can telephone from there and tell Lunn to bring the car. I have had a shock, Parsifal.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘I was bending down to dig up a root of sea-pinks with my little trowel—I have a blue pot at home in which I thought the little plant would look well—when I was heavily struck by a human body and sent over the edge of the cliff.’
‘Some loutish holiday-maker who could not wait until there was room to pass.’
‘Nonsense! I was not impeding anyone. I was not on the path; but on the grass verge between the path and the cliff-edge.’
‘You might have been killed! Did you see anybody?’
‘Of course I did not. Fortunately I fell into a dip which arrested my descent, but of course I am neither of the age, the build or the physical power to be able to climb to the top again. Fortunately the cliff-path is a favourite haunt of the holiday walkers, so I thought that if I called out and continued to do so, in the end some passer-by was certain to hear me and either render assistance or go in search of it.’
‘And somebody came.’
‘After what seemed a considerable interval, yes. Of all people it turned out to be Garnet. He said he was out for his morning constitutional. I took this to mean that he was on his way to see Diana, but when, after he had climbed down and assisted me to the top, I told him that I myself was on my way to Campions, he must have thought it better to change his mind. He accompanied me through the woods as far as the Campions garden fence and then left me.’
‘You have had a lucky escape.’
‘Lucky do you call it?’
‘Miraculous, then. But surely it could not have been intended as an attack on you? It must have been either a sheer accident or dangerous, thoughtless horseplay.’
‘I have my ill-wishers, Parsifal. You reached Campions before I did, it seems. You were paying a return visit when we met.’
‘But, look!’ said Parsifal in an incredulous tone. ‘You’re not accusing me of pushing you over the edge of the cliff, are you? I came by the inland route, over the hill, as I told you. I was never on the cliff-top at all.’
‘If I thought you were my assailant, should I have asked for your escort on my homeward way? I wondered whether you had seen anybody in the woods, that is all. But, of course, you entered them from the other side, did you not?’
‘Yes, I saw nobody.’
‘You are very late back,’ said Bluebell. ‘Gamaliel, poor boy, says he is starving. Did Diana keep you talking too long? She is lonely and tends to become loquacious, as lonely people usually do when they get a sympathetic listener.’
‘Let us have our lunch. I will tell you all about it later. It is not for Gamaliel’s ears. I do not want to upset him so near to his examinations. Where is Garnet? He will be hungry too.’
‘He will not be in for lunch. He went out soon after you had left and said he would have a bread and cheese lunch at a public house.’
‘Oh? Did he say where he was going?’
‘Out for a walk, and that he would call at Headlands on his way and ask how our grandmother felt after the party.’
‘I suppose he really went to see Diana. He slept with her last night while Rupert was at Headlands, I expect. At any rate, he did not sleep here.’
‘Oh, well, I suppose they must make the most of their opportunities, as I expect Rupert and Fiona did,’ said Bluebell tolerantly. ‘How oddly things arrange themselves! If only Garnet had desired Fiona instead of Diana, how beautifully simple everything would be.’
‘Not for us and Gamaliel. We should have had to find other lodging and how that could have been afforded I hardly know. From our point “of view, things are much better left as they are.’
When the picnic lunch, at which he was in high spirits, was over, Gamaliel went off to resume his studies. Parsifal and Bluebell cleared the table and washed the dishes and then settled in deckchairs on the balcony above that where they had lunched.
‘One gets a wider prospect from up here,’ said Parsifal.
‘Yes. You are going to tell me about your visit to Diana.’
‘About that there is nothing to tell. I was with her a very short time and did not stay long at the house. It was Mrs Leyden who delayed me.’
‘You have not been to Headlands?’
‘No, I met her at Diana’s gate. I think they were having an altercation.’
‘That means she knew Diana slept with Garnet last night.’
‘That was the lesser of her complaints. She claims that she was attacked on her walk along the cliff-top and might have been killed.’
‘Attacked? But people don’t do that sort of thing around here.’
‘Our own people, no, but one cannot go bail for holiday-makers and there are already plenty of them around here.’
‘What does she say actually happened?’
Parsifal, who had a good verbal memory, quoted Romula’s words.
‘Oh, it must have been an accident,’ declared Bluebell. ‘All the same, surely the person who did it could have stayed to find out whether she was hurt.’
‘Perhaps not, if he thought he might have killed her. I would put him down as a sort of pedestrian hit-and-run.’
‘Oh, well, yes, perhaps.’
‘She claims, moreover, that she was not on the path when she was pushed. That means the way was clear. There was no need for any pushing.’
‘She is getting on in years. Do you think she made the whole thing up? She may have a persecution complex. Elderly women sometimes get some very peculiar notions in their heads.’
‘I had not thought of that. All the same, perhaps she ought not to take these lonely walks while so many strangers are about. One does hear of muggings and kidnap and suchlike unpleasant things, and I don’t suppose her wealth is any secret.’
‘I believe I am what is called unworldly, but I wish I thought that some of it would come our way.’
‘I wonder whether it would be a good idea if I walked over to the village Post Office and telephoned Headlands to ask whether she got back safely and how she feels after her experience?’
‘It could do no harm, I suppose, and it might please her. All the same, I do not care that she should have any excuse to class us as sycophants.’
‘There is no question of that where I am concerned, Blue,’ said Parsifal, suppressing the fact that he often begged from Romula. ‘She knows that I have no expectations under her Will.’
‘She might think I sent you. Oh, that Will! If only she had made her intentions known at the dinner party we should all be relieved from the burden of uncertainty.’