Chapter TwentyRachel went down to breakfast as the lesser of two evils. If she shared the family meal she would get all the family questions over at once, whereas to stay upstairs was to invite separate visits from Ernest, Mabel, Ella, Cosmo, and Richard, with the same solicitous enquiries from each visitor in turn. She put a little colour in her cheeks and hoped for the best.
Everyone certainly did ask an inordinate number of questions. Ernest Wadlow’s chief preoccupation appeared to be a desire to establish the exact spot where she had fallen. He arranged spoons and forks to represent the line of the cliff, with a breakfast cup for Nanny’s cottage, and lumps of sugar to simulate the broken wall.
‘If you came out here you would switch on your torch at the gate—I suppose you did switch o
