But the process did not work out quite like that. At least, as Penn told himself, the early stages did not. Miranda very quickly guessed what was the matter with him. It would have been difficult not to. And when she had guessed, the tormenting and the teasing got worse. And the more she teased him the more owlish and donkey-like he felt himself becoming. He could not toss back witty remarks, he could not fence with her, he could only, with patient stupid smiles, endure the continual piercing of her wit. The injustice of the situation tortured Penn. There was within him so much that was marvellous. If he could, even for a short while, have made Miranda quiet, he could have unfolded a seriousness and an eloquence that must have impressed her. He could have talked deeply to her. But at the superficial level at which she continually disported herself he was tongue-tied.
He was made very miserable by this situation, yet one inestimable blessing kept him from despair, and that was the almost continual company of his beloved. The blessed German measles quarantine turned up just at the right moment, and he could now see her every day and indeed most of the day if he dared to brave her annoyance by pursuing her. He did not cease to hope that he would make her love him; and he noted with a recurrent joy that if ever, wounded by some particularly malicious or irritable sally, he wandered away from her by himself, she would after a little time come to find him. She came, it seemed, merely to torment him more, but she came: and he could sometimes persuade himself that he loved the torment.
During all this time Penn had not of course said anything about love to Miranda. It was not only that he was not able to find, in the sparkling play of her conversation, any place for his more solemn words: he was also restrained by certain scruples. She was, after all, very young. It was easy to forget this most of the time, so ready and so sophisticated was her mastery of him. He never for a second questioned that she was far cleverer than he was. But she was younger.
And even apart from this, a sort of shame possessed him at the thought of uttering words about love. The hidden eloquence which he felt himself so marvellously to possess was not exactly about that. He felt able to tell Miranda the wonders of the universe and the secrets of the seas but not exactly to say in words that he was in love with her; Miranda was often out of temper; and at these times Penn suffered most. It was as if, almost absent-mindedly, she were taking it out of him because of pains and troubles of her own of which she would tell him nothing. Penn told himself that he must make allowances. He knew that Miranda was devoted to her father; and he conjectured that it must have been torture to her to see Randall gradually withdrawing from Grayhallock. All the same, it was difficult sometimes to be patient with her, and he wondered if perhaps his whole approach was wrong. It was the first time that he had thought explicitly about strategy, and he felt, at the first touch of the idea, ashamed, as if he were profaning something innocent. Miranda gave him no peace, however, and began at this time literally to pinch him. She would come suddenly up behind him, seize the skin of his Ann or some other part of him between her little pincer-like fingers, and squeeze as hard as she could. Penn became covered with bruises. At first he was pleased and excited by this treatment. But Miranda put so much malice into the pinches and was so unpleasant if he touched her in response even so far as to push her off; that this new policy soon reduced him to a state of black almost revengeful agitation. He began to see her as a demon; and deep within him there was some darkness that gave answer.
He had not so far thought very much about touching her; at least he had not thought about it with any kind of precision. He had been content to touch her hand and her shoulder in a way which was natural, but had an added sweetness and excitement: and the thrill of her presence had affected his whole being like a warm breeze which soothed rather than disturbed. Now however it began to be different. It was as if Miranda's savage pinches were designed to awaken in him something far more primitive, and he felt, sometimes with wretcheddness and sometimes with a sort of dark zest, more depraved. The thoughts of strategy found here their context. Penn found himself wondering if it wouldn't be a good plan, if it would not perhaps further his cause, if he were to give Miranda a hard slap one of these days. Perhaps this indeed was what her treatment of him was designed to produce, perhaps she wanted him to be brutal? Before this conjecture Penn paused, first with amazement and then with a sort of pride. He was in deep waters. But he was shocked to find, now that it was suddenly released, how much sheer animosity he had in him against his young mistress. With this release, terrible, black, new, came sexual desire. Penn had imagined earlier that he was suffering. But those had been pure flames. Now he lay tossing sleepless in bed and imagined her body. Guilt now blackened his vision and complicated his pain. His desires grew hideously precise; and in the dark stream of his new yearning it was as if he were back at the beginning again and the real Miranda had disappeared. Only that had been heaven whereas this was hell. The first Miranda had been a heavenly vision. The last Miranda was a doll of flesh.
On the day of the expedition to Seton Blaise Penn's gloom had been a little alleviated at first because Miranda had been nice to him in the morning. She had been particularly unpleasant to him on the previous day; and although Penn believed that he filled a certain need for her, during the time after her father's departure, her malice was hard to bear all the same and he was glad, the next morning, of a kind word. Lunch had been all right. He had felt a little reconciled with Miranda, and he couldn't help enjoying the food; but after lunch, in the garden wanderings, she had avoided him. He had hurried away, he hoped not too rudely, from the kindly Humphrey who had seemed disposed to talk to him, and pursued her a little through the trees; but each time as he came near she had run on, and he could see her now ahead, following close behind Ann and Felix, going in the direction of the lake. Mildred, who had detached herself from that group, had joined her husband beside the water, and they seemed to be discussing a possible new landing-stage. Penn was alone with his trouble.
They all converged upon a place where the trees ended and there was a little gently sloping shingly beach. The sunshine was bright and large after the scattered light of the grove. The lake stretched away into flat expanses of reddish and yellowish reed beds, in front of which a few coots and tufted ducks swam lazily about. The open fields, scarcely visible on the other side, were fringed with ragged lines of elm and hawthorn. Penn edged near to Miranda, but she was holding on to her mother's Ann in a little-girlish sort of way and paid him no attention.
Mildred and Humphrey had joined them. 'We must get that boat, don't you think? said Mildred. 'A boat is what this scene needs. It would look so romantic nestling among the reeds.
'It wouldn't be so romantic having to paint it every winter and stop up the holes. Eh, Penn? said Humphrey.
Penn laughed.
Felix would do all that, said Mildred. 'Wouldn't you, Felix? It's so nice that you're going to stay in England. You're so useful.
Felix smiled, but did not seem disposed to pursue the question of the boat. He was looking, Penn thought, very fine today, huge and brown in a sagging open-necked white shirt.
Ann picked up a pebble from the shingly beach and threw it into the water. She stared at the ripples. She was looking rather nice in a pretty flowery dress, but sad. She had her hair sleeked back as usual, but Penn thought she must have put on some make-up or something. Her face looked different.