He pointed out various landmarks along the way, some of which I recognised from my researches—the pavilion shaped like an enormous pineapple, a fountain featuring a goddess with exuberant breasts and abasket full of grapes, a picturesque hermitage long since abandoned but still attractive. It had been built to resemble a mushroom, the roof carpeted thickly with moss. “My grandfather hired a man to live there and pretend to be the hermit. Apparently it was all the rage a century ago. Ah, and here we are,” he said as we broke from the trees and out onto the wide expanse of headland giving on to the sea.
The beauties of the Devon cliffs are best described by poets. A natural historian will speak of limestone and strata and mineral deposits, but a poet will sketch with words the grandeur, the limitless, stark beauty of white chalk cliffs bearing down to the ink blue sea. This part of the world brooks no beaches; no pleasant stretch of shingle softens the base of these cliffs. They rupture abruptly at water’s edge, broken off as if in midsentence. If one is careful and has a good head for heights, one might perch precariously at cliff’s edge and peer over the side, spotting the dark shadows that hint at caves forgot since the start of mankind. But tarry too long and it seems the earth shifts under the feet, crumbling away like so much demerara sugar. It is easy to lose one’s head and succumb to giddiness, and as we approached the edge, Merryweather looked a trifle unwell.
“Are you quite all right?” I enquired.
“Entirely,” he said.
“For a clergyman, you are frightfully mendacious,” I told him. “You are positively green, Merryweather. Have you a poor head for heights?”
He looked abashed. “I am afraid so.”
I drew a flask from under my skirts. I offered it to him and he pulled in a long sip, swallowing, then gasping, choking, and heaving all at once. I thumped him hard upon the back until he regained his breath. His complexion had turned from green to a violent shade of pink.
“Not water,” he managed in a broken voice.
“Certainly not. Aguardiente,” I explained. “It is a refined spirit from the sugarcane plant. Potent but effective for restoring the nerve. Already you look much improved. Would you care for more?”
He reared back like a frightened pony and waved me off. “Thank you, no.” His voice was still hoarse but he managed to stand. “I am quite recovered. I think I saw stars for a moment,” he added, blinking furiously.
“Yes, it can have that effect.” I tucked the flask back into place and found him regarding me with a lively interest.
“You are an extraordinary lady, Miss Speedwell,” he said.
I held up a hand. “I am on a first-name basis with the rest of your family and see no reason for formality amongst friends, Merryweather.”
“Veronica,” he said, with one of his charming blushes. “It is difficult to make new friends here. I am glad to think of you as one.”
“You do not much care for being a vicar, do you?” I enquired as we began to stroll. I made certain to keep myself between Merry and the edge of the cliff path. Where we walked, the path was bordered by a grassy verge some feet from the brink of the precipice, and the footing was sound enough.
Merry shrugged. “One has no choice in such things.”
“No choice! You speak like a Russian serf. You are not tied to the land, you know. You have two strong arms and a strong back. You have a reasonable intellect, one presumes, as well as the advantage of youth. The world is yours for the taking.”
“But take itwhere? I have been educated for this,” he said, tugging at his dog collar. “I am fit for nothing else.”
“Feathers,” I said firmly. Merryweather, like so many born into the noble class, had little imagination and less initiative. But liberating him from his torpor could wait. We had come to a section of the cliffs which looked as though a giant had bitten a piece away, leaving a long curve edging inland. A landslide had happened here, I realised, carrying away part of the path itself. Some distance from the edge, a pair of wooden posts had been knocked in, flanking the path. Between them stretched a heavy chain, thick with rust, and a painted notice, the edges peeling away from the salt-laden winds.danger.
“That is where the cliff collapsed,” Merryweather told me. “When I was a child. It happened when Tiberius was having friends to stay—you must know, the people he has invited for this house party. It is a reunion of those who were here then.”
The sea was louder here, as if the sheared-away cliff cupped it, amplifying the sound and sending it up to where we stood.
“There was a fossil, was there not?” I asked, stretching on tiptoe. I could see nothing. The notice was some six feet from the edge, and even as I stood there, I observed a tiny ripple of pebbles as the ground shifted. They shivered and then disappeared as a minute portion of the cliff fell away.
Merry grabbed my arm and pulled me several feet further back. “I am sorry, but it is not safe. When Father had the notice put up, it was some twenty feet from the edge. Every year more of it slides down into the sea.” He shifted and raised his gaze to the sky. “The autumn storms will come, bringing heavy wind and rain, soaking the earth and causing the ground to crumble away. And that is when the situation is most unstable.”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable, so I allowed him to lead me up to safer ground. A boulder had shrugged itself free of the earth, making a sort of rustic seat, and we scrambled up to perch atop it.
“St. Frideswide the Lesser’s chair,” he said.
“And who is St. Frideswide the Lesser?” I asked. “Besides patroness of your church.”
“A Saxon lady of gentle, some say even royal birth,” he told me, his hair ruffled by the sea breezes. “Not to be confused with the original St. Frideswide, of course.”
“Of course. What makes this your St. Frideswide’s chair?”
“Legend says St. Frideswide had become a Christian, unlike the rest of her family, who remained firmly pagan. Her father arranged a marriage for her with another Saxon lord, who refused to permit Frideswide to practice her faith. Frideswide came here and sat upon this rock and said she would not be moved until her intended husband promised toallow her to do as she pleased. Naturally, her father and brothers and prospective husband thought it would be a simple matter to carry her off the rock and to the church to be wed.”
“Naturally.”
