“The last time we were invited to a picnic,” Miss Mary Calvert said, trailing one hand in the water, “it rained cats and dogs all day and all night. Do you remember, Rosamond? It was for the retirement of the old vicar and we all had to be crammed into the vicarage and pretend that we were not hugely disappointed.”
Peter did not speak with Susanna Osbourne for all of the first hour or so. Each day since their visit to Miss Honeydew’s he had found himself looking forward to spending some time with her, but each day he had felt the necessity of having to keep their encounters short since he could not simply include her in the crowd of young ladies who often hung about him for long spells at a time-she would not have appreciated the frivolity of the group conversation. Having an actual lady friend was a novel venture for him, but he was very aware that his interest in her might be misconstrued by others if he was not careful. And so he was careful never to single her out immediately at any entertainment, and even when he did, to spend no more than half an hour with her.
Earlier in the afternoon he had bowed to her on the terrace when he arrived, made some deliberately bland observation about the weather just to see the light of amusement in her eyes, and turned his attention elsewhere. And then he had proceeded to enjoy himself-as had she.
The Reverend Birney, the fair-haired, fresh-faced young vicar, took her for a row on the lake and engaged her in earnest conversation the whole time-Peter watched them.
Dannen, that prize bore, took her walking along the near bank with Raycroft and the countess. And then he kept her standing close to the water for all of fifteen minutes after the other two had returned to the picnic site. Peter knew because he timed what was obviously a monologue.
Crossley, a widower in his forties, fetched her a glass of lemonade on her return and sat with her for a while, pointing out features of the view with wide arm gestures. Peter knew because he watched.
It struck him suddenly that her own assessment of her marriage prospects was 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.