Friend Alice provides her own very colorful account of The Great Fall of 2010:
"It was a dark night. Two feeble candles dully flickered on the steps pointing to the welcoming lights of the house below. I leapt down the path, and glanced up to see Faith making her way down like a grand dame, gingerly, as if the whole world was about to collapse beneath her feet. "You are walking like an old lady," I called out. No sooner had the words left my mouth than her feet shot from under her and she pitched into the air, arms flailing as she launched on her maiden flight. Down she went, tumbling and tearing at roots and shredding leaves, bumping in the snow until she somersaulted and ended upside down, wedged in a hedge. I saw a hand feebling waving in the dark. "I am here," she called weakly. "Down here."
Oh dear. I stumbled into the house, hysterical - with laughter - and
hauled a debonair Belgian away from his champagne. "It's Faith," I
said. "She is in the hedge. You have to get her out."
"Faith," said the debonair Belgian, astonished to find that his host duties for the night included search and rescue. "Faith," he said, "you find zuch interesting ways to drop in...I haf to say zat I am verree glad zat you are not wearing a short skirt - it would be very embarrrrrrasssing. (Belgians are very conservative).
"Just get me out," she said. "I
am tangled up in a root." Much heaving and pulling and puffing ensued and
finally Faith was retrieved, a little bent, with a leaf in her mouth
and a bee in her bonnet about my causing her fall through my quite
extraordinary powers of suggestion.
Last night I believe she sat up all night writing a novella called
La Chute. Can someone please tell her the title has already been used."
