Chapter Two
The Wind Takes a Hand
The picnic games began after the pies, and Alexander — who had been quiet through two helpings in the manner of a man gathering courage — rose and announced a stone-skipping contest, to be conducted, he said, in the manner of the ancient Greeks.
"The Greeks skipped stones, Verity. It is practically philosophy."
"The Greeks," said Verity, "did not wear new boots."
Alexander took a running start at the water's edge, planted his foot upon a wet stone, and sat down hard in the shallows with the dignity of a baptized badger.
There was a silence. Then the meadow laughed until the willows shook.
Verity extended her parasol. "Take the parasol, philosopher."
"I have achieved oneness with the river," said Alexander, accepting it.
"One," said Verity, hauling, "two, three — up."
Lady Fallow rushed up with a blanket, and Sir Peregrine declared it the finest dive since Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, which Alexander received with the modest air of a man who had not intended to dive at all.
"My boots," said Alexander mournfully, as they squelched. "My new boots."
"You should have skipped the stones," said Verity, "and not the part where you stay upright."
"I was demonstrating hubris," said Alexander. "The Greeks were great believers in hubris. Usually just before the tragedy."
"This was a comedy," said Verity.
"So far," said Alexander darkly.
Meanwhile the Reverend Mr. Plimpton had engaged in single combat with a wasp over the syllabub.
The wasp wanted the syllabub. Plimpton wanted the wasp to want something else.
Plimpton, retreating step by step with his dish held aloft, delivered an impromptu sermonette — "On the Wickedness of Wasps, with Reference to the Syllabub" — and the meadow fell silent to appreciate it.
"Consider the wasp!" cried Plimpton, ducking. "It labors not, neither does it spin — but it eats the syllabub of the righteous!"
The wasp landed on the rim of the dish.
"It has no respect for the cloth!" Plimpton backed into a deck chair. "It is a striped interloper! A —" he ducked again — "a floating exclamation mark of iniquity!"
The wasp took the syllabub. Utterly. Decisively. It dined in state upon the rim while Plimpton watched, dish in hand, sermon ruined.
Alexander, dripping, applauded the wasp. "A decisive victory. The church militant is no match for the church picnic."
"The wasp," said Miss Vane, "has better table manners than my late husband."
It was then that the wind came — off the river, sudden and mischievous, the way wind comes when it has been waiting all afternoon for its cue.
Mrs. Harlow had draped her cream shawl over a hamper while attempting battledore. The gust seized the shawl, shook it like a terrier, and bore it tumbling toward the water.
After it went the whole picnic — Miss Vane's bonnet ribbons streaming behind her like signal flags, Plimpton's coattails flying, Sir Peregrine shouting directions that contradicted each other, and Alexander squelching heroically in his ruined boots, crying, "To the left! No — the other left!"
The shawl bounced, flirted with a bramble, and made for the water.
But Cyril Pettifer was youngest and fleetest. He outran them all, caught the shawl at the very edge of the reeds, and — Verity saw it clearly — shook it out vigorously, twice, thrice, before returning it to his aunt with a bow.
"My shawl!" cried Mrs. Harlow, clutching it. Then her hand flew to the place where the brooch had been. Her face changed. "My brooch! It is gone!"
The search lasted an hour. They searched the grass blade by blade.
Alexander waded the shallows until his boots gave up entirely and began to make a sound like a drowning accordion.
Plimpton prayed over the reeds. Miss Vane found a button, a thimble, and the frog, which they declined to arrest for a second time.
Sir Peregrine offered a reward of one ham, which produced a great deal of enthusiasm and no brooch.
Of the brooch — seven amethysts, silver spray, winking purple — there was no sign at all.
Mrs. Harlow sat upon her camp stool with her shawl clutched about her like a fortification, and there was a tremble in her voice that had nothing to do with the wind. "My husband gave me that brooch," she said quietly. "Thirty years ago. It is all I have of him that still winks at me."
Verity's hand found Alexander's. "Then," she said, "we had better make it wink again."