by Henry Green
‘And what age would you be, sir?’
‘Seventy-six come March.’
‘That’s a tidy sum to be still carrying swill around,’ the man complimented him, and noticed it a second time.
‘What would that be, again?’ he asked.
Mr Rock did not answer.
‘I thought I caught what I heard before, twice over,’ Adams insisted.
‘Was there an echo?’ Mr Rock asked, his mind adrift.
‘Not that I reckon.’
‘They must have faced away from the house, then,’ the old man said, and let his love for Elizabeth, and fear that he might lose the cottage, sap what ability was left him. Then he tried not to start on this subject, but could not help it.
‘Adams,’ he began, ‘how d’you hold your house?’
The woodman stopped listening to the woods or to Mr Rock. He took in what was being said, but he had heard it so often these last ten years that he barely paid attention. From habit he answered,
‘The same as the rest. It goes along with the job to the estate.’
‘They’d like to have me away,’ the old man said.
‘Well, I heard tell that you were goin’ on your own, sir?’
‘How’s that?’ Mr Rock demanded, turning his eyes full on Adams, with such a glare of alarm the man was startled.
‘Why it might be just talk up at the house, like.’
‘What was?’
‘Some up at the house has made out there was likely an honour for you,’ the woodman offered.
‘Yes, and I don’t doubt,’ Mr Rock exclaimed, with violence. ‘The paltry intriguers,’ he said. ‘But they didn’t tell you, did they, about the other?’
‘I don’t follow, Mr Rock, sir.’
‘It’s the Academy of Sciences,’ the sage elaborated, boasting but frantic. ‘There’s an election yesterday or today. If they elect me, I can spend the rest of my time in their Institute, or scientific poor law sanatorium, but I can’t take my girl. Otherwise I may have some money, thank you. And then, of course, I can refuse. Would you hesitate in my place?’
‘How’s that, sir?’
‘What’s to happen to Miss Elizabeth?’ he asked, talking as if to a servant in the days of his youth. ‘She’s sick with her mind, Adams. Anyone can tell it.’
‘So you’ll have the money, sir?’
‘What do you think?’
‘And good luck to you I say, Mr Rock.’
‘They’d like to have me out, this lot would, Adams,’ he said, calmer now. ‘It wasn’t Mr Birt said about me, was it?’
‘Why never in the world,’ the woodman answered. ‘Likely enough one of the girls only caught a word Miss Baker or Miss Edge let drop.’
‘Those two won’t be sorry when my time comes,’ Mr Rock announced. ‘But I’ll tell you. So long as she remains single I’ll see they let her keep on at my cottage, the State I mean. I’ve some friends still in high places haven’t forgotten the services I rendered. Why, when the State took over from the owner, and founded this Institute to train State Servants, it was even in the Directive that I was to stay in my little place.’
‘That’s right, so you’ve often said,’ Adams hastily agreed.
‘Well then,’ Mr Rock muttered, and fell silent.
‘There’s gratitude,’ he added after a moment, ‘Throw him out in the street.’
‘That’s the way things are,’ Adams agreed, glad to let the matter drop.
‘But are you safe, man?’ Mr Rock demanded.
‘Houses are that short there’s no-one safe,’ Adams replied. Mr Rock was silent, for an entirely fresh idea had struck him. This woodman was a widower, living alone, and his was a five-roomed cottage. This had never occurred to Mr Rock before. Perhaps because he never could remember Mrs Adams was dead. And as long as Elizabeth was alive he would not let her be turned out, not if he had to hang for it.
Then the cry came a third time, much clearer, so that even Mr Rock heard, and the double echo.
‘Ma-ree,’ a girl’s voice shrilled, then a moment later the house volleyed back ‘Ma-ree, ma-ree,’ but in so far deeper a note that it might have been a man calling.
‘There’s one been out on the tiles,’ George Adams remarked to make a jest, because he was relieved to hear just a girl hollering. But the sage made no comment. He had been struck by a second notion. What he asked himself now was, could Miss Edge and Miss Baker, in order to get him out of the house, have set Birt onto Elizabeth, be in league with the man to break a poor old fellow down by simply driving his sad girl out of her wits? To have her straitjacketed even, muffled in a padded room?
Up at the great house Miss Edge switched on lights in the sanctum to which she had risen in the State Service, hand in hand with Miss Baker. It did not surprise her to find this lady not yet down.
Edge was short and thin. Baker, who hardly cared for early rising, fat and short.
Both, at this time, were also on separate Commissions in London, sitting Wednesdays each week, which necessitated a start that day very much in advance of the usual hour. On such mornings their breakfast was taken in this seventeenth-century, grey-panelled room, under a chandelier, on furniture which included two great desks set side by side, and equal to the authority these two whiteheaded women shared.
The panelling was remarkable in that it boasted a dado designed to continue the black and white tiled floor in perspective, as though to lower the ceiling. But Miss Edge had found marble tiles too cold to her toes, had had the stone covered in parquet blocks, on which were spread State imitation Chinese Kidderminster rugs. As a result, this receding vista of white and black lozenges set from the rugs to four feet up the walls, in precise and radiating perspective, seemed altogether out of place next British dragons in green and yellow; while the gay panelling above, shallow carved, was genuine, the work of a master, giving Cupid over and over in a thousand poses, a shock, a sad surprise in such a room.
In spite of summer and that it was dawn, there was already a log fire alight as Edge moved across to draw one pair of curtains, merely to look at the weather, or to lower a window perhaps, she did not know, but the room influenced her to act on graceful impulse. She took hold on velvet, which had red lilies over a deeper red, and paused, as she gently parted the twin halves, to admire her hands’ whiteness against the heavy pile. Delicately, then, she proceeded to reveal window panes, because shutters had not been used the night before, to disclose glass frosted to flat arches by condensation, so that the Sanctum was reflected all dark sapphire blue from electric light at her back because it was not yet morning. She could even see, round her head’s inky shade, no other than a swarm of aquamarines, which, pictured on the dark sapphire panes, were each drop of the chandelier that she had lit with the lamps switched on in entering.
She also caught a glimpse of matter whisk across behind, then dart back to hide. She turned. Held her breath, or she might have screamed. And it was, as she had feared, a horrid bat.
She made one dive for the wicker basket and put that on her.
The anonymous letter she had torn into little pieces the night before, now lay like flakes of frost on her white head.
She crouched down in case this new thing could flicker up her skirts. And Miss Baker entered.
‘My dear,’ Baker said, cutting the lamps off at the switch, going across to the window which she opened. A light came through, so grey it was doomed, together with a wisp of mist. The bat flew outside at once. Whereupon Miss Baker turned lamps on again.
Edge rose, delicately took off the basket.
‘If we could as easily rid ourselves of Rock,’ she said.
Over one eyebrow, caught in a mesh of hair, was a torn piece of paper with, printed on it, the word ‘FURNICATES’.
‘You have something on your head,’ Baker calmly told her.
Without a word Edge removed it, reread, and let the word drop from her fingers to spiral to destruction on the flames.
‘What’s for breakfast?’ Baker asked. E
dge looked at a wristwatch.
‘They have five minutes,’ she said, referring to the ten girl students whose turn it was to do orderly duties, that is to wait on these two Principals. Then she slightly yawned. She began,
‘Each Wednesday that you and I go up to Town,’ she said, ‘the weather we have here, Baker, is exquisite, truly exquisite. There may be black fog outside, just now, this minute, but we shall be cheated, dear. The sun will shine.’
‘I dread Wednesdays for that reason,’ Baker untruthfully agreed.
‘And the day of the Dance on top of all,’ Edge mused aloud.
‘Oh well,’ the other said.
‘So much still to be done,’ Edge insisted.
‘Least said soonest mended,’ Baker gave a hint. She moved over to warm her fingers at the blaze.
‘If the whole routine is not upset already,’ Miss Edge complained, fidgetting with tableware. ‘Till we even have to go hungry up to our labours in London because they are going to Dance.’
There was no reply.
‘And such a day of it altogether, with the tamasha this evening,’ Edge continued. ‘Particularly now when at any minute we ought to hear about that dreadful Rock’s election.’
‘Well Edge,’ Miss Baker objected. ‘I warned you, you know, last night. Didn’t I? Don’t lay too much store. It may not eventuate.’
‘I cannot believe Providence will not provide the key after all that you and I have done,’ Edge argued. ‘You know what this means. Why, I have literally set my heart on it. And such a happy way out, dear. To go where he will be properly looked after, and we shan’t have to see that granddaughter trail herself around.’
‘They won’t take her, Edge,’ Miss Baker said. ‘Whatever happens.’
Before Edge could answer, the door was opened by a tall girl with long golden hair, and who had been in tears. She was followed by another student bearing breakfast dishes and the toast.
‘Why, Marion, where’s Mary?’ Edge broke off, for Mary had been so punctual in her attentions that these two ladies had let her wait on them out of turn, in fact almost without a break, so that she was readily missed.
‘She’s to go to Matron, ma’am.’
‘What’s the matter with the child?’
‘It’s nothing, ma’am, I think.’
‘Will you tell Miss Birks from me I shall want to hear when I get back. We cannot have Mary away, can we?’
‘What’s for breakfast,’ Baker said again, getting with difficulty off a low footstool over by the fire.
‘You have your especial favourite this morning,’ Miss Edge told her, after she had lifted the silver cover off a dish. ‘Kedgeree, my dear.’
‘And scrambled eggs to follow if you will just touch the bell, ma’am,’ the girl who had been crying said, as, with her companion, she left the room, and the door gently, gently closed.
‘Well, if it is scrambled I trust the bacon’s crisp,’ Baker hoped, and spooned her kedgeree onto a plate. Miss Edge, however, did not seem able to settle down. She went over to the curtains, shaping as though to open these once more. But her dread of bats returned, so, lest there should be another nested within the heavy pelmet, she barely disturbed those folds with a forefinger, but peeped at the day as if by stealth.
‘We are going to have such a wonderful morning,’ she announced.
‘Come and take breakfast, Edge,’ Miss Baker said.
‘I told you it would be, just the one day in the week we must go to Town. Oh, how really aggravating,’ Edge went on. ‘Baker, I wonder if you would mind? But it does seem rather stuffy here, now they’ve lit our fire. Could I trouble you to help with this window?’
While Baker came to lend a hand without a word, Miss Edge put long fingers up to her hair, as if to ward off another flittering animal about to be let loose. However the two ladies soon had the window open, and Baker went back to her place at table. But Miss Edge could not at once leave the scene spread out afresh. Because, with the coming of light, the mist was rolling back, even below her third Terrace, all the way to her ring of beechwoods planted in line with the crescent of her House; although, off to the left, where beech trees and azaleas came down over water, her Lake still held its still fog folded in a shroud.
‘I love this great Place,’ she announced.
‘You have your breakfast or you’ll regret it, Edge.’
But Miss Edge would not budge. She was moved. Then she thought she heard something.
‘What was that?’ she asked. Baker plucked a fishbone from her mouth.
‘I thought someone called,’ Miss Edge explained.
‘Shall I ring for our eggs now?’ Baker wanted to be told.
‘Just as you please,’ Edge murmured. They did not command sufficient labour to mow the lawns, which, in the dew, over long grass, all down the three descending Terraces, had strings of brilliants garlanded now between the blades and which flashed prism colours at her from the sun, against a background of mist. ‘I love it,’ she repeated.
Fresh morning air flowed gently, coolly down from the window. She was about to move away, out of danger, when she was halted.
‘There,’ she exclaimed. ‘Did you not hear this time?’
‘I didn’t,’ Baker said.
‘I wonder,’ Edge murmured, hesitating. But Miss Baker cut her short. She insisted that her colleague must take breakfast, in view of the long day they both had before them. And at last Edge sat down, remarking that she would wait for her dish of egg.
‘As I lay in bed last night,’ she went on, ‘I was going over the whole Rock imbroglio in my mind. You know, Baker, we are altogether crippled here without a proper furnaceman, while at the same time you and I are agreed that we shall never find a man before we can offer a cottage. And that means none other than this curious creature Rock.’
There was a knock. A nervous Marion came in with scrambled eggs. Now that Edge was away on her pet topic she did not think to ask after Mary a second time, although she did break off so as not to speak of Institute affairs before one of the students. The moment the door was closed again, however, Miss Edge continued, still on the perennial subject,
‘In the summer, when he no longer had his furnaces, the man could cut some of the grass. We might even get a few of the girls to try their hands at making up hay in their free hours to help the farms. In any case he could assist generally about the place, and, if we chose well, I do not doubt we could get some real assistance out of his wife, for the man must be well married. And that house of Rock’s was built by the life tenant,’ which was their way of referring to the private owner of this estate, from whom the State had lifted everything. ‘Was actually built to that very purpose. It is a worker’s cottage, Baker.’
‘After you brought this up the other day I had a look at our original Directive,’ Baker said, deliberately putting some egg on a plate which she laid in front of Miss Edge. ‘There,’ she said, ‘Now eat that up. And it lays down in black and white how, while Mr Rock’s still living, he’s to enjoy the house which the life tenant put him into. The State recognises a right in view of the past services.’
‘Ah yes,’ Edge answered, toying with a fork. ‘But yesterday I fetched through that Directive for myself, and there is precisely nothing in it about the granddaughter.’
‘Elizabeth Rock? She’s in the Service,’ Baker objected. ‘She’s on sick leave after a breakdown through overwork. You can’t mean that a man’s own granddaughter mustn’t come home when she’s ill.’
Edge sipped at her tea. ‘It’s Sebastian Birt,’ she said, in what was now a dangerous mood, over the edge of a cup, ‘the precious economics tutor. What doubtless goes on between those two can be a menace, dear, to our girls.’
‘Yes,’ Baker said, ‘that’s as may be. But we’re back to where we started ten years ago when we first came, Edge. The moment we’re not allowed to choose our own staff, as under the present system we never can, we’re in a dilemma over men like Mr Birt.’
�
�But are you content? After all, there are ways and means?’
‘Edge,’ Baker replied, ‘you are simply not to allow this to serve as a pretext to eat absolutely nothing when we have a long day before us. Do take your food now. The car will be round in half an hour. The last time we discussed the matter, and you went into methods to get rid of Sebastian, you had to agree with me that it would be difficult, while I considered it might be downright dangerous. Now you bring the whole thing back to the granddaughter. If you want to know what I think, then I’ll tell you. First, if we do get rid of him they’ll send us someone who may be worse and, second, I have a feeling we could burn our fingers over master Birt.’
‘But it does so aggravate one, Baker; there is the cottage sitting up begging at me and I have set my heart on it.’
‘Well, Mr Rock won’t live for ever, will he?’ Baker asked, while she took a great bite off her toast heaped with marmalade and butter.
‘I want action,’ Edge demanded.
‘I don’t know how you’re going to get it, then,’ Miss Baker said. ‘And there’s this about Sebastian. There’s never come even a hint of trouble, the five years he’s been here, between him and one of our girls.’
‘I am eating my heart out for that cottage, Baker.’
‘And all the while your stomach’s crying aloud for sustenance. Look. I shall see Pensilby of the Secretariat of New Buildings at my Commission today, and I’ll ask him if his Department would support a licence for an entirely new cottage.’
‘But new building does not come under that Ministry,’ Edge elegantly wailed.
Miss Baker then explained the acute approach to the official which had suggested itself.
‘I see,’ Edge exclaimed. ‘My dear, you are splendid,’ she said, which was praise indeed. But she was not the sort to let anyone rest for any length of time on such a note. She had been looking at the other curtains, and now she rose from her place to walk daintily across. She paused an instant, then, courage in both hands, she swept these back as dramatically as the scene disclosed shone on her now smiling eyes. Because, except for what still hung over the water, the mist was evaporating fast, the first beech trees away to the right were quite freed, her Park itself was brilliantly clear, the sun up, a lovely day had opened and, as she watched, a cloud of starlings rose from the nearest of her Woods, they ascended in a spiral up into blue sky; a thousand dots revolving on a wave, the shape of a vast black seashell pointed to the morning; and she was about to exclaim in delight when, throughout the dormitories upstairs, with a sound of bees in this distant Sanctum, buzzers called her girls to rise so that two hundred and eighty nine turned over to that sound, stretched and yawned, opened blue eyes on their white sheets to this new day which would stretch on, clinging to its light, until at length, when night should fall at last, would be time for the violins and the dance.
