by Henry Green
‘You suppose she’ll go into hysterics when she does find out? My dear, the whole of that ancient stuff about her favourites is simply my eye and that Betty Martin. It’s just she can’t cook without she must make an almighty fuss of someone.’
‘Lord, things are slow. When on earth is it all due to start?’
‘No hurry. I’ve been sick of the whole business for days.’
‘Well, there might just be some more on downstairs, remember.’
‘Watch your step, Melissa,’ Moira warned. ‘It wouldn’t do, now, for everyone to learn.’
‘I tell you,’ a girl said from the back, ‘I agree with Marion. This making blue eyed well-done-girl stuck up posters out of those two is perfectly crazy.’
‘Who has?’
‘You, only this morning. When you promised us all they were wonderful. And started to cry even, as you thought of what might have happened to Mary.’
‘Oh I did, did I?’
‘Stop squabbling, children. But please, I mean it. In another minute I shall be saying “oh my poor head”.’
This was a tolerable imitation of Marchbanks.
‘How will Ma manage?’ one of them asked. ‘That sinus of hers’s been really bad.’
‘How could she ever dare not? We’ll have a laugh over the love birds anyway. Someone might cut in a bit on S. just to make her wonder.’
‘Good for you, duck,’ another greeted Moira over this last remark. She was an unpopular girl.
‘Anyway three cheers for the old State Service.’
‘Nobody’s to touch the crab sandwiches if they know what’s good for ’em. They’re poison.’
‘We made the lemonade too sweet again, for that matter.’
‘There won’t be much downstairs, you know where.’
‘For the third time, Melissa! Shut up, will you?’
‘So what about downstairs?’
‘There you are, all of you.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, for the love of Mike, tell her.’
‘That’s just one item. Because is it right we’re to look after pigs now? Aren’t pigs rather the end?’
‘Old Mr Rock will be in charge,’ Moira assured them confidently. ‘I’ve already told him,’ she lied.
‘Why, what are pigs to him?’
‘Pearls before swine.’
‘Well, of course, he wouldn’t like competition for Daise. After all? Can you imagine his precious darling set down in the middle of a hundred sties?’
‘It’d be company. I feel Daisy’s so alone.’
‘Anyway, I think Mr Rock’s an old sweet.’
‘He’s afraid for her most of the time with this filthy swine fever,’ Moira explained. ‘If I was to be a vet I’d do something about it. Perhaps I’ll wed one and make him.’
‘I didn’t expect you of all people to poke fun at Mr Rock, Moira.’
‘I’m not. I meant every word. After all, it’s always the end for the poor pigs.’
‘And the waste when they die. “A drain on the whole economy of the State”.’
‘I say, Midget, you do take S. off beautifully. Will you give us a star turn later?’
‘Why, do they allow turns at the dance?’
‘Not up here, we don’t.’
‘Everyone this evening seems to imagine other people are poking elaborate fun. But swine fever’s a true waste, isn’t it?’
‘So what?’
‘Oh, you’re hopeless.’
‘I’m sorry to say, children, I don’t fancy Mr Rock will be here much longer.’
‘Oh, not another death, Mirabel?’
‘There’s been nobody died off of late, has there, or if so, then I’ve not heard.’
‘He’ll be shifted, you’ll see.’
‘Lucky old, old man.’
‘But they can’t. It would be the finish. Being with us is everything for him.’
‘Why? Has he told you, Mirabel?’
‘Anyone knows just by looking in his sweet old face.’
‘At least be sure of this. If they are to get married Edgey will slide all three out one way or another.’
‘But why on earth?’
‘Jealousy.’
‘Oh no. You can’t be so absurd.’
‘Can’t I? But it’s right enough, mark my words. She won’t have anyone wed just under her nose. And if the old man is broken hearted it will be that silly Elizabeth’s fault. Honestly I’ve got now so that I loathe my own cloth, I hate all women.’
‘Not if we have the pigs, Edge won’t. Why, there’s no-one else but Mr Rock.’
‘You’re dappy where he’s concerned, Moira. He’s too aged to look after a fly even.’
‘How can you say that, when he’s made such a success of Daisy and Ted?’
‘What about Adams?’
‘You don’t include the granddaughter, I notice. No, he’s nursing the viper in that woman, all right.’
‘You’re all of you crazy,’ Moira said.
At this precise moment, and out of sight of these girls, Miss Inglefield, without warning, started the gramophone just once more to see if it would work. The loud speaker was full on so they could even hear the conductor, dead these many years, tap his stick at a desk some thirty summers back, and the music, with a roll of drums, swayed, swelled into a waltz. The girls, each one, gave a small sigh, moved, as one, each to her long promised partner, took her by the hand; they held hands as women but in couples, what had been formless became a group, by music, merged to a line of white in pairs, white faces, to the flowers and lighted ballroom, each pair of lips open to the spiralling dance. Then it stopped sharp into silence when, satisfied out of sight round the corner, Miss Inglefield lifted the needle. At once these students broke away disappointed, years younger once again.
‘False alarm,’ someone commented severely.
A single pigeon, black in thickening sky, flew swift and on past the Park.
It was dusk.
Light from wide open windows increased by strides, primrose yellow over a dark that bled from blue.
With a swoop an owl came down across and hooted while Mr Rock and his granddaughter crept up the last stone flight when, unheralded, unannounced, and they could not see inside for the windows were yet too high above their heads, the gramophone crashed out once more, so loud now the old man halted entranced by the first bars of another great valse of drums and strings which, a second time however, was no sooner begun than cut off again by Inglefield.
‘False alarm,’ Mr Rock said in a loud voice, and was about to elaborate with an attack on Edge for not keeping the instrument in proper order, when he was silenced, made mute, because, through his deafness, he had caught the last echoes of this music sent back by the beeches, where each starling’s agate eye lay folded safe beneath a wing.
‘We’ve started well,’ he then contented himself by suggesting.
‘He said we’d meet out here,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘To unlock us the side door.’
‘Better not,’ Mr Rock answered. ‘I’ll ring the bell at the main entrance and be decently announced, or not attend at all,’ he said.
‘Now Gapa,’ she wailed. ‘Who promised he’d be good?’
They slowly advanced across the last Terrace.
‘Liz,’ he said, ‘in this world one should do a thing right, or leave it. If I’m to help as you’ve asked, you must give me credit for being able to see into their minds. I tell you they are dazzled by the position they hold here. We have to make our impression.’
‘Yes, Gapa,’ she agreed, not to upset him.
‘They behave like the Begums of British India in my young days,’ he continued. ‘Besides there is no-one need creep like a thief, particularly in our circumstances.’
‘Very good, Gapa. But will they let me see myself in a mirror, if only for a moment, then?’
‘I’ll be bound they gaze at their reflections on the glass at all hours,’ he replied. He was invigorated at the prospect of a strange, difficult night
ahead.
‘You will speak all right?’
‘You can be quite sure I’ll get you your chance to prink.’
‘Oh, you know I didn’t mean that. About Seb and me, I was trying to tell?’ she asked.
‘If their Byzantine obliqueness will allow, I might,’ he answered gaily, when a man hailed low and soft. ‘Liz,’ he called.
‘There he is, oh at last,’ she exclaimed.
‘Birt, can that be you?’ the old man cautiously raised his voice. ‘And if so, don’t skulk.’
A dark, short figure rose, almost from under their feet.
‘This is not Guy Fawkes night, after all,’ the sage commented.
‘Sorry, sir, but you know the way things are,’ Sebastian excused himself, adopting the hearty voice of a junior who was there to report present.
‘Have they found my other child, then?’ Mr Rock asked.
‘Good Lord sir, not yet,’ Birt replied, still the shy, deprecating junior.
‘Then you may lead us to the front entrance, for me granddaughter and I to be announced like civilized beings,’ he said.
The younger man was struck silent at this effrontery. He felt that Mr Rock should on no account so flaunt himself.
‘It’s this way, Gapa,’ Elizabeth prompted, resigned to disaster.
They turned, and at once became aware of the new powered moon, infinitely more than electric light which, up till then, had seemed, by a soft reflection from whence it cut into the Terrace, pallidly to surprise by stealth these mansion walls. For their moon was still enormous up above on a couch of velvet, blatant, a huge female disc of chalk on deep blue with holes around that, winking, squandered in the void a small light as of latrines. The moon was now all powerful, it covered everything with salt, and bewigged distant trees; it coldly flicked the dark to an instantaneous view of what this held, it stunned the eye by stone, was all-powerful, and made each of these three related people into someone alien, glistening, frozen eyed, alone.
‘I’ll leave you now,’ Sebastian said, as if to announce the moon had found him out.
‘Thank you, I don’t fancy that,’ Mr Rock objected. ‘They shall not come upon us unawares in this light.’ He also had on his mind the winking pairs of silvered eyelashes, still unseen, there might be watching from out black caverns of unlit, shadowed upstair casements.
‘Oh, is this wise?’ Elizabeth half wailed.
‘He’s to escort us in good order,’ the old man explained of Sebastian who had no torch.
‘Well sir, I’d really rather not,’ Sebastian attempted to insist.
‘Nonsense. Never try to duck when you’re in the open.’
Thus it was they came, one hydra-headed body to the enormous, overhanging portals, and Mr Rock pressed the bell which, by the moon, shone like a pearl on a vast hunk of frozen milk. To do so he had to enter and be lost, as if by magic, in a cube of impenetrable shade.
Elizabeth almost cried out after him, until his dead hand came forth to stab the bell a second time.
‘Did it ring before?’ he asked, out of his deafness.
‘The girls are off duty,’ Sebastian said. ‘Tonight.’
‘Then we’ll stay on notwithstanding, till we are made welcome,’ the old man answered, sure of himself, from the dark.
Steps made themselves heard within, at the advance. And, with a fearful creak, the great door was opened. Miss Baker stood silhouetted. It was Elizabeth she saw first, and she mistook the girl.
‘Mary,’ she cried, in a small voice.
But she did not take long to come back to earth.
‘Oh do enter in,’ Miss Baker said, bright as the light behind, to three silent people.
Mr Rock took time to dry his gum boots after which, through what to them was blinding electric, copper illumination they followed Baker, without another word, the short distance down this corridor on into the sanctum.
Each of these two Principals thought the other had invited Mr Rock and his granddaughter, yet, while Baker did the honours, and Edge rose to greet them with the words, ‘How kind to have troubled,’ this lady had twin notions at one and the same time; that Sebastian, since he was a member of the staff, had no business unsummoned in the Sanctum; and also that, on no account, must this sudden rush of guests mar Baker’s and her own triumphal entry, by which the Dance was ever opened. Thus she observed, while shaking hands,
‘You are rather late, you know.’ And added, ‘which is naughty,’ as she received Mr Rock, letting the smile die when she came to face Sebastian.
The old man bowed with the servile courtesy that he could assume at will.
‘The pleasure is ours, ma’am,’ he announced, attentively serious. He was aware how, washed and brushed, he made a fine figure. Not so Elizabeth, for all her effort to seem at ease, while Sebastian could look no-one in the eye, had even to shift his weight continuously from one foot to the other.
‘I regret we have nothing in the way of light refreshment,’ Edge lied. She was not to put herself out for these people. ‘It does seem absurd on a Great Night like this, but there things are, we have to abide by our Regulations,’ she went on. ‘And if we were to make an exception the once, then we would do no more than to give rise to a Rule, should we not, in a contrary sense?’
‘We are not here to eat and drink,’ Mr Rock pronounced stoutly. ‘It is just that Elizabeth would like to change her shoes.’
‘So kind . . . sorry . . . such a nuisance, I fear,’ the younger woman stammered.
But, although it was now more than time for the Principals to declare the ball open by making a personal appearance, Miss Edge, who had not wanted to give them more, did not seem able to leave her guests.
‘And what is your news?’ she asked of Mr Rock.
‘At my age, ma’am,’ the old man answered, ‘one day is much like another. Which is what renders tonight memorable,’ he added, with a gleam in the huge eyes behind spectacles. ‘Because, on this occasion, I must insist that you allow me a dance.’
‘Oh Mr Rock, how splendid,’ Baker warmly said.
‘But I always do dance with you, whenever you ask. What about last year? You remember?’ Miss Edge put in at random, almost whinnying with nerves.
‘I have not attended these three years past,’ Mr Rock, who had never been to one of their dances, announced with a small bow. ‘The year before I was indisposed, and on a previous occasion, I remember, I had hurt my leg.’
‘Twisted his knee . . . sprained his ankle,’ Elizabeth supplemented.
‘Yet what I feel is, it only seems like yesterday,’ Edge announced, with a wee inclination from the waist. ‘And Sebastian,’ she ordered, turned on him for the first time, ‘you are not to shrink now. Not sit out continually.’
‘He won’t. I promise,’ Elizabeth shrieked.
‘These special Occasions mean so much to the Girls,’ Baker added.
‘Because, while we’re here, and if you permit, of course, I have a small suggestion I might offer,’ Mr Rock said to Miss Edge.
‘By all means,’ she agreed. ‘And let it be now rather than later. Otherwise we could seem to be sharing secrets, putting our heads together before the children, and that, even at our age, might seem curious,’ she added with a sort of sneer.
‘You flatter an old man,’ he said.
‘My dear Mr Rock,’ Miss Baker cried, delighted, unaware.
‘It was only, ma’am, it came to me I could, perhaps, render a small service. But, naturally, this is a mere suggestion.’
Edge felt the urge to consult her wristwatch, then restrained herself.
‘I’m positive my colleague and I would be more than willing . . .’ she faintly encouraged him, all the less enthusiastic because of her pressing anxiety to get the Dance begun.
‘I thought I might lecture, say once a week, to your older girls, ma’am,’ Mr Rock brought gravely out. His granddaughter and Sebastian were astonished, as also the two Principals.
Miss Edge could recollect litt
le of the subject in which he had made his name great so very many years ago, but her first determined thought was, not suitable for younger Students, even nowadays.
‘Well now,’ she said, as she believed cordial to the last. ‘This is generous indeed, is it not, Baker? You have quite taken away my breath.’
‘Why, Mr Rock,’ Miss Baker assented, wondering at last.
‘We shall ponder this. Believe me I am truly Grateful,’ Edge went on, and experienced the most acute impatience. ‘Is that not so, Baker?’ Then showed her hand. ‘Yet it just does occur to one . . . Oh I know, living as you have the best part of a lifetime with your great Discovery, at this late hour it must seem plain as day. Yet I cannot but put the question, would it be quite right for our dear Girls?’
Mr Rock found himself literally choked by momentary rage. How could these two dastardly trollops for a moment imagine he would ever so demean his nature as to discuss the Great Theory before children? He felt it so much that he reeled, and bumped into Sebastian, who had taken shelter. He controlled himself.
‘We are at cross purposes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘What I had intended,’ he went on, in the self-absorption of old age, and a pathetic kind of dignity which they took for mere insolence, ‘was this. In fact a brief weekly homily on the care of pigs.’
‘You did?’ was all Edge could bring out for the moment, while Baker gasped. Elizabeth took her young man by the finger of a hand, but, from the misery of his embarrassment, Birt shook her off.
‘By the time they’re older, one or more might be encouraged to have a go at this filthy swine fever,’ Mr Rock surmised, at his most bland and serious.
‘Not many of our Students enter the Veterinary Service,’ Miss Edge said, in a distant voice. She began to move off. ‘Baker,’ she commanded. ‘We must not keep the girls.’
‘Now run along, Sebastian,’ Baker urged. He did not have to be told twice.
‘But of course,’ she went on coldly, to the Rocks, ‘how thoughtless. I think you had both better come this way, to our washroom. You’ll find a mirror for yourself, dear.’
‘Do hurry, Baker,’ Miss Edge called.
So the old man came upon himself alone with his granddaughter in front of a white enamelled door.
He was silent for a minute. Then he said severely,
