Simply Magic

quite possibly overpessimistic. Poor and dowerless as she must be, she had not failed to catch the eye of almost every eligible bachelor in the neighborhood. But she was surely far too sensible to marry Dannen and too lively to consider Birney. And Crossley was too old for her-he could be her father, for God’s sake.

In fact, the very thought of her marrying any of the present prospects made Peter quite unreasonably irritable. And he was being unreasonable. Surely any half-decent marriage was preferable to life as a spinster schoolteacher. At least, that was what he knew any of his sisters would tell him.

But even as he was wool-gathering with such thoughts and neglecting the ladies who chattered about him, someone suggested a game before tea, and a chorus of enthusiastic voices was raised with a dizzying variety of suggestions, which ranged from cricket to hide-and-seek. Cricket could not be played, however, unless someone dashed back to the house for all the necessary-and bulky-equipment. Besides, Miss Moss complained with the obvious support of most of the other ladies, cricket was really a man’s game. And hide-and- seek was not practical, as the trees did not grow thickly on this side of the lake and there were very few other hiding places. All of the other suggestions were rejected too for one reason or another.

It seemed they were to proceed gameless to tea after all-until Miss Osbourne spoke up.

“How about boat races?” she suggested.

There was a swell of excited approval-and then the inevitable dissenting voice.

“But there are too few gentlemen to row all of us,” Miss Jane Calvert pointed out. “Some of us would have to stand and watch.”

The other ladies looked at her in dismay, all of them, it seemed, with mental visions of being among the excluded.

“But who is to say,” Miss Osbourne asked, “that the men have to have all the fun? I was thinking of races in which all of us would row and none of us would be passengers.”

“Oh, I say,” Moss said, and laughed.

“That is the best idea I have heard yet, Susanna,” the countess said.

Peter folded his arms and pursed his lips.

“But I have never rowed a boat,” Miss Raycroft protested.

“Neither have I,” Miss Krebbs wailed. “I could not possibly…”

“We must think of something else, then,” Miss Mary Calvert said.

But Miss Osbourne raised her voice again, more firmly than before.

“What?” She looked about at the circle of those who had gathered to choose a game, and it was immediately apparent to Peter’s amused eye that she had forgotten herself and had slipped into an accustomed role of teacher rallying unenthusiastic pupils. “We are going to miss the chance of taking the oars ourselves and demonstrating that we are not just decorative ornaments who must always be passengers? We are not going to strive to beat the men?”

“Oh, I say,” Moss said again, while Peter grinned and caught an identical expression on Edgecombe’s face.

“ Beat the men?” Miss Krebbs half shrieked again. She looked as if she were close to swooning.

A few of the other young ladies were giggling, but they looked definitely interested.

“There are only four boats,” Miss Osbourne pointed out. “We will have to have elimination heats-across the lake to the pavilion and back again ought to be far enough. The ladies will compete against one another and the men against one another. At the end there will be a race between the winning man and the winning woman. Then we will see what sort of competition the lady will offer the gentleman.”

She was flushed and bright-eyed and full of energy and enthusiasm-a born leader, Peter guessed, gazing at her, intrigued and not a little dazzled. And she was going to get her way too, by Jove. Despite the misgivings with which almost all the young ladies had greeted the initial suggestion-especially when they had known that they were not to be mere passengers in the boats-they were now fairly bouncing with eagerness to get the races under way.

“This is going to be the best picnic ever,” Miss Mary Calvert declared with youthful hyperbole as she flashed Peter a bright smile.

Had Miss Osbourne told him she was the games teacher at school? He seemed to recall her saying something to that effect though he had not taken much notice at the time. A games teacher? Was there such a thing as a games teacher at a girls’ school?

For the next hour there was far more bouncing up and down and cheering and squealing and laughing-and some good-natured derision-on the bank than there was great expertise shown in the water. A few of the races were close-Miss Calvert narrowly beat the countess, though Miss Moss and Miss Mary Calvert were left far behind, an outcome brought about by the twin facts that each of them moved in circles as much as they moved in a straight line and that neither of them could stop giggling. Raycroft beat Dannen by a nose, a come-from-behind victory that resulted from a final, impressive burst of speed while Finn and Moss were only a boat length or so back. A few of the races were runaways by the winner-Miss Osbourne in her heat, for example, Peter in his. She beat Miss Calvert in the runoff ladies’ heat too, and he beat Edgecombe in the men’s, though only by half a boat length.

And so everything came down to the final race and everyone without exception gathered on the bank even though the countess laughingly protested that they must all be half starved and would flatly refuse any further invitation to one of her entertainments. They would have tea, she promised, the moment a winner was determined.

“I daresay it will not be Miss Osbourne,” Raycroft remarked cheerfully, but with a lamentable lack of either tact or gallantry.

Miss Raycroft punched him on the arm and the other ladies’ voices were raised in collective indignation. Both Peter and Susanna Osbourne laughed. He grinned at her, and she looked back, bright- eyed and determined.

She looked absurdly small and fragile to be taking on such a challenge. And quite irresistibly attractive too, by Jove. There was something attractive about an athletic woman, he thought in some surprise.

The young ladies seemed uncertain whom they should champion. They solved the problem by clapping and jumping up and down and calling their encouragement indiscriminately to both contestants. Most of the older people were intent upon offering advice to Miss Osbourne, who was climbing into one of the boats with Edgecombe’s assistance. Most of the other men were unashamedly partial.

“I say,” Moss called, “you had better win, Whitleaf. It would be a ghastly humiliation to us all if you did not.”

“You have the honor of our sex on your shoulders, Whitleaf,” Crossley agreed.

“I think you had better not win, my lord,” the Reverend Birney advised. “Gentlemanly gallantry and all that.”

But his suggestion was met by a burst of derision from the men and a chorus of indignant protest from the ladies.

Susanna Osbourne took the oars and flexed her fingers about them.

Everyone stood back, Edgecombe told them to take their marks, there were some urgent shushing noises, and then they were off.

Peter grinned across at the other boat as soon as they had cleared the shore, but Miss Osbourne was concentrating upon setting her stroke. She had learned much during the past hour, he noticed. She had learned not to dip her oars too deeply into the water and thus impede her progress rather than help it. Now