"He fell like a stone, crash into the tree. You can't realize that. You haven't been up. I have. I know what it's like."
"But you've had a letter from him!" Mollie protested. "Really you talk as if he was killed!"
"I don't know where the letter came from, and I can't write to him, except to the Aiglon Company, which I've done, and there's no reply, and somebody else had to address the envelope for him. I ought to go, not you. I saw him fall."
To Mollie's touch on her shoulder she was quite unresponsive. Mollie could have shaken her. It might have been the best thing to do.
"Do run away, you boys!" she said crossly instead. "Go and pick some of those blue flowers; Auntie Joan's a little tired. Now, Joan, I'll tell you what I'll do if you're good, but not unless. He's in a hospital or a nursing-home, I expect, and I shall go straight to him; and then if he's fit to move, as I expect he is by this time, I shall bring him straight down here. Will that do?"
"I know he's not fit to move. I saw him fall. I saw him falling all last night."
"Now you're naughty and just trying to make the worst of it. That's simply willful. It's like Alan when he wants smacking; when you're as old as I am you'll look on the bright side and be thankful it's no worse. Now do try. I'm going to bring him down here, and we'll keep him for a month. A whole month—it will be lovely! Why, you've only seen him in London and Richmond Park!"
"I've been to Chalfont Woods with him four times."
Mollie seized gratefully on the diversion.
"Joan! How could you! You never told me that!" she scolded. "And you never told me you'd been flying with him either! Philip would be furious if he knew! And now I'll tell him, and about Chalfont too, and all those other times as well, if you don't try to be reasonable. A month in this lovely place with him, and nobody to interfere—why, you'll be glad he had a little bit of an accident!... Now get up and we'll all go back. You'll have to get dinner ready, and I shall want a few sandwiches. Alan! Jimmy! We're not going to the shore. You can play on the see-saw instead. Run ahead, boys—and you come along, darling——"