by Henry Green
The old man was alarmed.
‘In which respect has Swaythling to do with this?’ he asked. ‘In any case, what evasion?’
‘Why, that’s Seb’s word,’ she answered, almost gay. ‘I think its so smart of him, don’t you? Two girls who escape, and a couple of old women who, what he calls, evade the whole issue. But you told Seb you were going to send in a report to Mr Swaythling, Gapa.’
‘I did nothing of the kind,’ the old man truthfully protested.
‘Must have slipped your memory, then,’ she said, altogether sure of her facts.
‘There are times you remind me of Julia,’ he said, with a grim laugh.
‘Didn’t you know a woman will always get her own way,’ she replied as obviously. She laughed, then grew serious again. ‘Oh, but Gapa it is so important, this is. You see I’m planning my future on Seb,’ she said. ‘If anything should happen to him, I’d die. And what chance has he got, if Miss Edge and Miss Baker turn against Seb, I mean? It’s his first post, you see. Oh, wasn’t that a pity we came across the wretched girl?’
‘Look Liz, don’t lose your head. What have they against Sebastian?’
‘But nothing, dear, nothing naturally. What could they? It’s so difficult to explain. After all, you’ve lived out of things a long time, Gapa. You see, I’m frightened for the reprisals. Don’t you understand, and of course, I know, they’re so fiendish, those two old creatures, it must be hard to believe, yet Seb has studied them, he’s told me, the point is they watch like pussies, they’ve learned all Seb and I mean to one another, and he’s certain they’ll strike back, if you should do anything, you see, right at your weakest part, the chink in your armour.’
‘Which is?’ he patiently enquired. She was biting her lower lip.
‘Why me, of course,’ she wailed, but he thought she seemed well satisfied. ‘They’re capable of anything,’ she explained. ‘Oh Gapa, I’m dreadfully worried. You will, won’t you?’
‘What?’ he asked.
She stopped dead. She turned, and stamped a foot. Unseen, a rabbit, which had come out of its hole fifty feet away, stamped a hind leg back.
‘You know perfectly,’ she accused. ‘Only sometimes it suits to pretend you don’t, like often when you say you can’t hear. No, Gapa, you must promise you’ll never let on to Mr Swaythling about what’s happened.’
‘Yet suppose they just hide it up?’ he asked calmly. ‘What then?’
‘How on earth?’ she demanded, searching over his face with her eyes, as if she feared for his sanity.
‘I’ve some experience,’ he told her. ‘They’re caught in a trap those two, like the cruel weasels they are.’ He spoke with great patience. ‘They drove that poor child to this,’ he went on. ‘She’s been over to me about them. Only because they liked the colour of her eyes they pushed her unmercifully, set her to fetch and carry all day through, “Just bring my pince nez from the Sanctum”,’ he quavered, in a horrible mimicry of Miss Edge. ‘No, Mary will never come back now.’
‘Did she tell you?’ his granddaughter asked him, wide eyed.
‘Of course not,’ he said sharply. ‘If she had, I’d have known where to look, wouldn’t I? No, but she has complained, Liz, often and often, the poor girl. All she’s got in the world is out in Brazil, she has no relatives besides.’
‘Oh, Gapa dear,’ she cried. ‘You shouldn’t listen, you really mustn’t. They’re so deceitful at that age, you can’t imagine.’
‘And do you know how Mistresses Edge and Baker will act next?’ he went on. ‘They’ll cover up. They have made one or two gestures today but they’re only sitting back, they’re saying to each other “Mary must turn up tomorrow”, and when she does no such thing, perhaps she’s not in a position to oblige, they’ll tell one another, Liz, “Wait for the next day”. And so on.’
‘Now, Gapa, they can’t hide it altogether, I mean they have their lists, haven’t they, Mary won’t simply disappear into thin air, surely, you see?’
He stayed silent.
‘They won’t, will they?’ she pressed him, with rising terror.
‘I’m not one to look into their dark minds,’ he said at last. ‘But they must find something, a means to put the blame onto her however it turns out. I do know that,’ he said.
‘And then the cottage?’ she wailed.
‘Don’t let yourself get upset, Liz,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Just allow me to handle this my way.’
‘But it’s our whole future, Seb’s and mine,’ she almost shouted, unmasking herself. ‘When we’re married, where are we to go? I didn’t mean to ask you like this, but I’ve been thinking. Oh Gapa, you wouldn’t mind, surely now, I mean you’d hardly notice. But I had felt when we’re married we could live on here with you, the both of us.’
When Mr Rock heard this, he was terrified for his grand-daughter. She could not have them both.
‘Dear, you know the Rule,’ he said gently. ‘When one of the staff takes a wife the State always moves him to another post.’
‘Yes, but you could put in a word with Mr Swaythling. You wouldn’t mind. You see I’d never get over leaving you. It’s hard to set these things to words, but you’re my life, Gapa, you understand.’
He kissed her cheek clumsily. She began to cry.
‘So my little girl is going to be married,’ he said.
‘Oh, there’s nothing absolutely fixed yet,’ she replied, stepping back to blow her nose, and sent a sharp look at his face. ‘I never meant to tell, then I’m such a fool, I get upset at times and bring it all out. You won’t breathe a word, will you, Gapa, not to Seb either, because he’s funny that way, and of course, if Miss Edge got to hear before we were ready, it would be the end. I mean, I’ve considered this for ever so long, because I’m sure the only way is to run off one morning, and get it over, almost before you know you’re doing it yourself. Get married, you see. All those tremendous preparations are simply no good. Next, soon as Miss Edge saw it was finished, after I’d shown her my certificate, I mean, there’d be absolutely nothing for her to do, would there?’
‘It wants thought,’ he said, reminding himself, if he were to show opposition, that it would drive her into the man’s arms and then he would lose her finally. But he was not so blind, he said under his breath, spectacles or no, he could see Birt coveted the cottage, would move heaven and earth to have him sent to the Sanatorium once the ring was on her finger.
‘I hardly know that I should bother Swaythling,’ he said about the cottage, and began to walk away from the house.
‘Wrong way, Gapa,’ she said. He turned without a word, marched up to, and past her. She followed at his heels.
‘You mean you won’t get on to him, then,’ she started. ‘Not one teeny word, when all the time you’ve sworn if anything happened to this Mary you’d move heaven and earth?’
‘I intended nothing of the kind,’ he lied, over his shoulder.
‘No, but that was what you said, didn’t you?’
‘We shall be late, Liz.’
‘Why are you, I mean, what’s all the hurry?’ she called, unable to catch up.
‘Justice,’ he cried. Looking at his back, she thought oh dear he’s upset.
‘What’s that? And must you go so fast?’
‘Do you really consider I should leave Mary be? Have you any idea what you’ve said?’
‘Oh I just don’t understand,’ she wailed.
‘It is a matter of simple justice, Liz.’
‘Yes, Gapa.’
‘I’d do as much for any dog I saw maltreated, I’d report it.’
But not for me, she felt. Their skins and hair simply allowed these wretched chits to get away with things. However, she had the sense to say no more. His pace slackened.
‘Don’t be afraid of life, Liz,’ he said. ‘Everything settles itself in the end. I’ve lived long enough to know that.’
‘Yes, Gapa,’ she agreed. Now she could see his face she noted it was red with more than the s
unset, and puckered into deep wrinkles, an infallible sign of distress.
‘You want me to write to Swaythling about yourselves and the cottage while not mentioning this girl?’
‘Oh my dear,’ she lied. ‘It’s not that at all. I explain myself so badly, ever since I’ve been ill. You know, sometimes I feel as if I’d something in my head and I simply can’t get out the words. Have you ever? No, it’s silly to ask. The whole thing, you see, is Seb. He’s worried.’
‘Yes, Liz,’ Mr Rock encouraged, reminding himself that she must not become distressed, the doctor had been insistent.
‘He knows them so well,’ she was going on. ‘He lives all the time within sight and sound of Miss Baker and Miss Edge, so he can watch and judge, day in day out, he has to. He really understands, you see. And he’s worried for the cottage. Oh, of course, he wants to live there, but he’s true, Gapa, you must believe. Because, naturally, I realise you don’t like him. But I do know what you don’t, that you will in time, you’ll come round, there’s no-one in the world who wouldn’t, once they’d seen the real person underneath the skin. Still, I do realise, it isn’t a little thing I ask, I do honestly.’
‘Don’t fuss, dear, we’ll find a way,’ he said.
Then, as they came to where the trees ended, and blackbirds, before roosting, began to give the alarm in earnest, some first starlings flew out of the sky. Over against the old man and his granddaughter the vast mansion reflected a vast red; sky above paled while to the left it outshone the house, and more starlings crossed. After which these birds came in hundreds, then suddenly by legion, black and blunt against faint rose. They swarmed above the lonely elm, they circled a hundred feet above, until the leader, followed by ever greater numbers, in one broad spiral led the way down and so, as they descended through falling dusk in a soft roar, they made, as they had at dawn, a huge sea shell that stood proud to a moon which, flat sovereign red gold, was already poised full faced to a dying world.
Once the starlings had settled in that tree they one and all burst out singing.
Then there were more, even higher, dots against paler pink, and these, in their turn, began to circle up above, scything the air, and to swoop down through a thickening curve, in the enormous echo of blood, or of the sea, until all was black about that black elm, as the first mass of starlings left while these others settled, and there was a huge volume of singing.
Then a third concourse came out of the west, and, as the first birds swarmed upon the nearest beech, these late comers stooped out of dusk in a crash of air to take that elm, to send the last arrivals out, which trebled the singing.
The old man wondered, as often before, if this were not the greatest sound on earth. Elizabeth stood quiet. The starlings flew around a little and then, as sky faded fast, the moon paled to brilliance, and this moment was over, that singing drooped, then finished, as every bird was home.
‘I’m glad I had that once more,’ Mr Rock said aloud.
Behind them the first cock pheasant gave a challenge.
‘We’re to have the most lovely night,’ Elizabeth told her grandfather.
They went on their way again.
‘I want you to know,’ she said, from the heart, ‘in spite of everything, whatever happens, absolutely, if Seb asks me to marry him even, there’d be nothing could alter the way I love you, Gapa. I wouldn’t let it.’
‘Don’t allow yourself to grow sentimental, child,’ he answered.
She gave a soft laugh.
‘And don’t you be gruff with me, my darling,’ she said. ‘Not tonight of all nights. Listen, I think I hear their music already. They’ll have every window wide. Yes, I’m almost certain.’
‘Good,’ he said, alone with blank thoughts, in his deafness.
‘I’ll dance every dance,’ she murmured happily.
Down a dank Passage which led to the Banqueting Hall Miss Winstanley, hurrying at the far end, saw a bunch of students outlined against great, wide opened double doors to the ballroom. They were in their long, white dresses. She smiled through her misery, they looked so serious, and thought, as she watched them wait for music, that one and all were in what she called ‘the mood’, that, once Edge and Baker had opened proceedings, the first waltz would send each child whirling forward into her future, into what, in a few years, she would, with age, become.
‘Couldn’t care less,’ a fair child asserted, ‘but I won’t ever speak to Merode now, it’s perfectly rotten of both to upset our whole show. What, we might’ve had the thing cancelled, thanks to those two.’
‘I don’t know why you gripe, Moira,’ another objected. ‘We’re to hold it after all, aren’t we, or I can’t see what we are waiting for, then. Of course there’ve been whispers. But that is the whole trouble with this academy. A fat lot of talk and no do, in my opinion.’
‘Will anyone quite say what Merode and Mary have actually done?’
‘Needn’t ask me. I don’t want a summons to be put through the old mangle in the Holy of Holies. But all the same I do think those two have at least given everyone a bit of excitement.’
‘Even so,’ Moira protested, ‘and you can’t be too sure we’ve heard the last yet, I still think it beastly selfish to have picked on this one date of the entire year. If they let her come down in the end, I’ll tell her straight.’
‘You needn’t worry. She’s safely locked away.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Because I’ve been to look. But I heard someone I shan’t mention got through to her all right.’ Moira took this without the slightest sign.
‘How d’you mean?’ she asked.
There was no reply. And all the girls listened.
‘You realise, probably, they’ve still not gone so far as to put telephones along the bath corridors?’
‘I thought everyone knew how, Moira.’
‘Some people are certainly bent on having a mystery at any cost these days,’ the girl said.
‘It’s only there’s a grating right through to the floor above. Whoever this was must have used it,’ a student informed them all, unaware that she was telling the girl who had first found this out.
Then Marion protested.
‘I’d just like to say, I think it’s beastly to deliberately plague poor Miss Edge and Baker, and get into touch with Merode in spite of what they said. Because they’re not too bad considering.’
‘All right, Marion, but who put the whole dance in danger herself? After all, you did tell them both that Mary had gone to Matron, didn’t you?’
‘Oh? Then what would I be doing down here now? You can’t suppose they’d have let me come if I was in disgrace, surely to goodness.’
There was rather a pause. It began to seem probable that Marion, in some way, had bought permission to attend, had tendered treachery over the counter.
‘If anyone wants to know what I think, in my opinion you were decent to cover for them as long as you might,’ a girl volunteered.
‘Just you wait till I catch Merode,’ Marion commented.
‘But need there have been all the embroidery with that silly doll business?’
‘Who did anyway?’ Moira joined in.
She was given no answer. Everyone feared her tongue.
‘Well, I shan’t lose a night’s sleep,’ a girl, who had been yawning, informed the company. ‘Praise be that a couple of us rustled up the gumption to do something in this dead-alive hole.’
Moira took her on.
‘But have you got the latest?’ she demanded. ‘Right before the finish, pipped at the post, one minute before the whistle, two seconds left for play, guess what? Liz has hooked him. He’s buying the hoop Saturday, and they’ll be married in September.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Why Sebastian, naturally, old “Cause and Effect”. Or have you been asleep till now? Isn’t it splendid for Mr Rock, though.’ And it was plain from her voice that Moira meant this. ‘He might be a great grandfather extraordinarily quick. Only nine
months, and what’s that in his lifetime?’
The news was taken reflectively. Then someone asked, by way of fun,
‘I wonder what Edgey’ll give for a present?’
‘A stuffed goose.’
‘One of those lucky cat charms.’
‘Or a black and white china pig money box.’
‘No, listen, Baker is not too bad really, you know. I bet she even signs them a fat cheque.’
‘However he could. Why, Liz’s a million.’
‘Pity does it, dear. That’s the way to get a man. Go weak up top.’
‘But she must be years and years older.’
‘D’you imagine the proper reason’s that husband and wife mayn’t give evidence against one another?’
‘If you really believe what you’ve just said then all I can say is, you’ve been having a sight too much of old Dakers in class.’
‘Plenty of time for slips betwixt cup and the lip, between now and September, in class and out.’
‘What d’you mean, because they won’t wait six weeks. They’ll be wed at the end of a gun.’
‘Only what you said, Moira, wasn’t it, not till the autumn?’
‘I say, isn’t everyone confusing, in white dresses for once? I’m frightfully sorry, I’d never have spoken to you if I’d seen you were a senior.’
‘That’s all right. This is your first summer term, I expect. Else you’d know that tonight of all nights we’re all in the party together. You can even ask Edge for a hop round if you want.’
‘Oh her.’
‘Don’t be too sure. She does it divinely. You simply can’t tell just by looking at people.’
‘Or their dolls,’ someone else put in.
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘But I could never have imagined about her dancing. Anyway, it’s awfully decent of you not to mind when I spoke.’
‘Well, my point is, Mary’s a curse.’
‘Can you imagine? Mrs Blain doesn’t know even yet.’
