Penn was now determined to excel. He took a little time, as when he was about, to bowl, trampling about and weighing the stone, pleased to have all eyes upon him. Then with an easy turn of his body he sent it flying. It fell, amid applause, well beyond the last mark.
'It's incredible, said Mildred. 'I can't think how a human being can send a stone so far. Penn must be a superman!
Felix, with a look of comical determination, took his stance, and without preliminaries, while the others were still exclaiming, hurled his pebble. It out-distanced Penn's last throw by several yards, landing almost among the reeds on the other side of the lake. There were admiring cries.
Penn thought, I can beat that. It was almost as if his will alone could carry the stone bird-like and drop it out of sight in the middle of the reed bed. He loosened his shoulders and dropped his arms for a moment as his coach had told him to do. He moved into action. But just as his hand was coming forward he saw Miranda, who had advanced to the edge of the beach a little beyond the group, and with apparent unconcern was taking her shoes and socks off. Penn's stone fell a little short of his second throw and well behind Felix's. There were groans of commiseration.
'Never mind, said Mildred. 'We think you're both wonderful.
Now let's go in and have some tea, I'm getting cold.
'You shall both have a prize, said Humphrey. 'What would you like for yours, young Penn? I've got a fine Swedish knife. I'll show it to you when we get back.
'Miranda, do be careful, said Ann. 'You may cut your feet on those sharp pebbles.
They began to trail back through the trees. Penn wanted to wait for Miranda who had walked out knee-deep into the lake, but Humphrey was still making conversation. Penn, who felt a little guilty at having refused Humphrey's invitation to London, thought he had better not run away from him again, so with frequent backward glances he answered as best he could.
They moved on slowly. Back in the grove it was dark at first until they got used to the greenish half light. Patches of sunshine high up, moving in the leafy space like miraculous fishes, illumined sudden vistas of thick boughs and canopied galleries. Penn looked upward as they walked between the huge trees and it seemed as if there were a silence spread above them, a brooding green silence beneath which their voices ran to and fro. He wished Humphrey would stop chattering and leave him in the quietness of the wood to wait for Miranda.
'Ha-a-a-ay!
There was a loud cry from behind and everyone stopped. It sounded at first like a cry of fear, and Penn felt an immediate sickness of alarm before he realized that it was a cry of triumph. It came from somewhere high up.
'Hey, everyone, come and see where I am! Miranda sang out. 'Good heavens! said Ann. She began to run back and Penn and everyone else ran too.
They reached a slight clearing where a great tree spread its Anns over a circle of grass. There, near to the top, half hidden in the leaves, was Miranda. They had to strain their necks back to see her as she edged out on to what seemed a perilously thin branch.
'Miranda, come down at once I' cried Ann. 'Are you mad? Come back off that branch.
'Ho, ho, ho! Come and fetch me I' called Miranda. She began to swing on the branch.
Ann turned away, hiding her face.
'Miranda, don't be a bloody little ass, said Mildred. 'We think you're very clever to have got up there. Now come down and stop frightening us, or by heaven you shall have no tea.
'I'm going farther up, Miranda announced. She edged back off the thin branch and began testing higher footholds.
Penn felt giddy at the sight of her so high up. He wondered crazily if he ought not to climb the tree after her. But he had a horror of high places and felt so sick he almost had to sit on the ground. 'Miranda, said Felix in a voice of authority. 'Don't go any farther up. Come down now and come down slowly. He had a hand on Ann's shoulder.
'Do you really want me to come down? said Miranda. She had stopped and was half visible, her legs pale among the dark leaves. 'Yes, I certainly do, said Felix. 'Come down at once.
There was a moment's pause. 'All right, said Miranda. 'Watch out.
I'm going to jump.
'Don't — cried Ann.
But the next moment Miranda had jumped. Someone screamed.
Penn rushed madly forward. He had a strange instantaneous glimpse of her leaving the branch, her skirts flying up. The next moment something struck him on the shoulder so violently that he was hurled stumbling to his knees several yards away. It was Felix, who arriving first, caught the falling Miranda in his arms and the two of them whirled to the ground in a spinning hurly-burly of arms and legs.
There was, after the tumbling heap came to a stand-still, a moment of immobility. Then Ann rushed with a cry to where Miranda lay. But already Miranda was picking herself up. She got as far as a sitting position and began to rub her leg. Felix was getting up slowly.
'Are you all right? said Ann, kneeling beside her.
Miranda didn't answer at once. She breathed deeply. She said then, 'I'm all right except for my ankle. That hurts a lot. She began to cry. 'Don't try to get up, said Ann. 'Move yourself about a bit. No bones broken?
'Needs whipping if you ask me, said Mildred.
'I'm all right really, said Miranda through her sobs, one hand on her leg and the other in her eye. 'It's just the ankle. It hurts so much.
It took a little while for everyone to be satisfied that nothing was indeed broken except perhaps the ankle. Then it was decided that she should be moved back to the house. After consulting with Ann, Felix knelt beside the child and gathered her carefully in his arms. He rose bearing her, she still weeping, and the others formed a procession behind and set out toward the bridge.
Penn had picked himself up. He was still aching dreadfully from the collision with Felix. But no one asked how he was. He and Humphrey brought up the tail of the procession. As they passed slowly over the bridge Penn found that he was crying quietly. Humphrey put an Ann round his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-seven
IT WAS of course Mildred's idea that Miranda should stay on at Seton Blaise: and once suggested the notion seemed to please everybody. It pleased Miranda because it represented a holiday, it pleased Felix because it represented a chance to get to know the child and because Ann must be constantly at the house, it pleased Ann (he hoped) for the same reasons, it pleased Humphrey because it left Penn in need of consolation, and it pleased Mildred because she had thought of it. Only Penn was cross.
The doctor, summoned at once, had declared the damaged ankle to be severely sprained and had prescribed rest and quiet; more danger was to be apprehended from shock than from anything else, he privately explained to them. Miranda herself, cheerful at first, was established upon the big settee in the library, and from there lorded it over the household, consuming during the day fantastic quantities of coffee, biscuits, chocolate, cakes and ice- cream, as well as her usual meals.
Felix was in a strange state of mind. He was by now very much in love. He observed with mingled feelings of delight and dismay the terrifyingly rapid alteration of his (as it now seemed in retrospect) gentle and sensible love for Ann into a passion which shook him with stormy gusts and left him trembling. By declaring his love he had completely changed the world. He was a different man, she a different Ann, and the place they inhabited was not the same. Yet in the midst of the new landscape they constantly apprehended, in ways which seemed to puzzle them both, their old knowledge of each other; and upon this, when their steps faltered, they laid a steadying hand.
On the whole, for Felix, joy predominated over fear. Falling in love is a rejuvenating process, and he surrendered himself to it as to a delightful course of treatment. He had, too, the reassuring sense of an interval during which forces were working on his side. He had cast a stone and now watched the ripples. He had, at
