Concluding (1948) Page 2

  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.

  But Edge had caught sight of two specks. She looked again. Two men had come out from under her Trees. One was carrying a yoke with buckets, so she knew him. She cried out, in shocked vexation, "Rock flaunts himself."

  "What?" Baker demanded, jolted by the tone used into looking sharply from her plate.

  "Why cannot the man take the back way?" Edge asked in a calmer voice. "Must he trail across our beautiful front, even with his swill?"

  "He's rather a favourite outside this room, you know," Miss Baker said, to moderate her colleague.

  "Tomorrow I shall speak about it."

  "Well, I shouldn't give a hint in the kitchen, Edge."

  "Stumbling over our grass," Edge protested, when there was a knock. "Come in," she invited, triumphant suddenly. The girl Marion entered. She stood just inside the door.

  "Ma'am," she said, and swallowed.

  "Yes, Marion?"

  "Ma'am," she said, once more swallowing.

  "Well?"

  "It's Mary and Merode," and the child brought out everything, which was little enough, in a rush.

  "They're not there, and the beds not slept in."

  Half an hour later, punctual to the minute, Baker left with Edge in the car for Town. They had a number of reasons why they should carry on as though nothing had occurred. What they had decided was, that the police must be casually informed, yet be instructed, at the same time, not to make a search.

  Meanwhile Miss Marchbanks could question other girls in the dormitory.

  There was no point in losing one's head. The Dance must go on of course.

  Mary was such a steady girl, in fact they would not even consider it (although Merode had n
o parents), Edge had said speaking for Miss Baker, and that it was all a mistake, as they would find when, after their hard day, they themselves returned. In any case, the two girls must be together, which made for safety. Baker had not been so sure.

  But, as Edge pointed out, if they were to draw attention by staying down here to miss their Wednesday Commissions, they would look, when everything was cleared up by luncheon, as it would surely be, like nothing so much as old fools, or worse, yes, like a couple of old fools.

  So they went. And two thirds of the students knew nothing whatever, at first, about the disappearance of these children.

  Mr Rock left his yoke. When he came in alone by the outside kitchen door, he could just see Maggie Blain seated, in charge, at her kitchen table and beyond her, barely a part of one of the cookers. This was by reason of a great shaft of early sunlight which, as it entered one of the windows, shone so loud already that it bisected the kitchen, to show him air on the rise in its dust, like soda-water through transparent milk. It hid the line of girls beyond, fetching their own breakfasts at the other cooker. They were no more to him than light blue shadows, and their low voices, to his deafness, just a female murmuring, a susurration of feathers.

  "The swill man," he called in a high cracked voice, bringing out the joke he had plied for ten years; anxious about his breakfast, because that depended upon Mrs Blain's present health and temper.

  He felt it would be all right because she said, "Marion, a cup of tea for Mr Rock."

  The girl and the old man came together over this, in the megaphone of light. When he was seated she whispered at him, "You didn't catch sight of Mary and Merode?"

  He could not hear.

  "You'll have to speak up, my dear," he said, "if you want me to understand."

  "As you came along?" she said louder, at a loss.

  "There'll be time and to spare for secrets when the music's playin'," Maggie Blain told her. "Will you come along tonight?" she enquired of Mr Rock. He decided that she sounded hospitable.

  "I'm past it," he said.

  "Might do you good," she said grimly. He did not like that tone so well.

  "And you?" he asked, then felt faint for lack of food, so that he had to close his eyes behind the winking spectacles.

  "Me?" she said. "I'll be so rushed all day with work I shan't seek to be on my toes when the hour strikes." He took this to be a bad sign. And he had only had the cup of tea.

  "Oh, you'll come to our dance surely, won't you Mr Rock?" a girl's voice called from the shadows. But he was not even going to consider now that the Principals had not invited him. It was breakfast he was after.

  "You shouldn't trouble about me," he said, with the one purpose in view. "This lady here's the one will have to bear the brunt," he said. But it drew no response out of Mrs Blain. So he kept silent for a time. The whispering began once more. If he could have heard, past the glow from that hot tea which flooded his senses, he would have caught these sentiments, "You didn't?"

  "I did."

  "Oh, but you shouldn't have."

  "Why, whatever else was I to do?"

  "But they'll turn up, directly."

  "Mary and Merode?"

  "I know, but all the same."

  "There you are, you feel like me, like me, you see." And all the while a line of girls fetched their breakfasts, served themselves, the sleep from which they had just come a rosy moss upon the lips, the heavy tide of dreams on each in a flow of her eighteen summers, and which would ebb now only with their first cup they were fetching, as his tea made his old blood run again, in this morning's second miracle for Mr Rock.

  "It'll be a smashing day," the cook said, heavily ironic. And why shouldn't I come along, Mr Rock asked himself in an aside, because I could keep out of sight, and there will be a buffet.

  "Not that I'll see much even if it does keep fine," the cook said. While I sit still, Mr Rock argued inside him, I shan't have to worry that I shall come upon Elizabeth and him round every corner, behind every palm; no, of course, there will be no palms. But he was famished.

  "A holiday?" he asked out loud because, in that case, there might, at the moment, be less chance of food. Several sang out together in answer.

  "Why, this is Founder's Day," they announced. He had forgotten.

  "Yes, I expect we spoiled the peace and quiet for you when they stuck us down in this damp den, ten years ago to a week," the cook pronounced.

  "Pooled the diet?" he asked, not hearing.

  One or two giggles came from the girls as they moved with their trays. But he was well-liked, and respected.

  "I shouldn't wonder you thought they'd let you live your life out in peace and quiet," Maggie went on, in a louder voice.

  "How's that?" he said, catching it. "Plenty of go about me yet," he bragged.

  "Come on, hurry now," Maggie called to the queue. She could not see this because it was beyond the sunlight. "Or I shall never get started," she explained.

  "Yes, Mrs Blain," they dutifully answered.

  "Heavy on you, too, with your girl sick?" the cook added, condescending.

  The old man wondered if she thought Elizabeth was a slavey, but what he jovially said was, "Well, I haven't three hundred of 'em, have I?"

  "Oh I don't let those be a bother, my goodness me," the cook replied. "No, all I meant was that a man your age doesn't want to be saddled to fetch and carry for others," she explained.

  "I never permit a woman to be a worry," Mr Rock said, with decision.

  "I don't suppose," Mrs Blain replied, sparing a glance inside her at the picture she imagined of the late Mrs Rock. "And then your granddaughter will wed and the place'll seem empty," she said, without malice.

  "She's not there more often than not," he objected, in the sense that she was always off somewhere to meet Sebastian.

  "But then she's not been so well," Maggie Blain agreed to defend Miss Rock, having misunderstood him.

  "They overdo things at their age," Mr Rock explained, as though Liz were still a child, with all the time in the world before her for work, love, and marriage.

  "Ah, there you are," the cook said.

  "I wouldn't have your family, nevertheless," the old man put in. He usually plied the one jest until he won his meal.

  "They're good girls," Mrs Blain answered. She was in great ignorance. "Have you got the staff breakfasts up?" she called after the orderlies. At this half promise of food he felt his stomach gush

  digestive juices.

  "We've taken them, Mrs Blain, and there's one over," Marion insinuated. "Mr Birt's had a night off." Mr Rock waited for the spare to be offered. He waited. Then, to his vague, wondering surprise, beyond the cone of light in which he sat and warmed his cold hollow bones, he gradually felt a tide of female curiosity flow up over him, so strong it was like the smell of a fox that has just slunk by, back of some bushes. He could not understand. If he had only known, this bit of news had been put forward, and some of the girls hung on the answer, to discover whether it was official and above board, the absence of Sebastian Birt under the particular circumstances.

  "That's right," Mrs Blain said. "His name's struck off my list," and there was a sort of sigh came from outside the sunlight. The whispering began again. But it had given Mr Rock an uneasiness. Because he was certain Sebastian had been round to the cottage after dark. And now the snake was not even in next morning. Drat Mrs Blain, why couldn't she hurry his breakfast. How right, earlier on, not to carry the tea up to Liz, Mr Rock told himself, the fellow could only have been there all night, and somehow or other these girls knew, which must be one reason they did not propose to give him a bite of anything. He could go hungry now.

  "But there's some don't trouble," Mrs Blain said, with so much suggested in her voice that Mr Rock, instantly apprehensive, decided in his own best interests that he would do better to ignore what was on the way, until he knew how grave it was.

  "But there's some don't give themselves the trouble," she repeated, directly
at him. He realised he would have to respond. He turned to her like a blind man.

  "Going off up to London as usual this day of all days," she explained herself.

  "Oh, Mrs Blain, it's the date the Commissions sit," said one of the embryo State Servants.

  "I tell you I'm right sorry this minute for Miss Marchbanks," the cook continued. "All that goes awry will be laid to her door, and no argument," she ended, in a sort of hush about.

  Most of the children were hanging on her words. She was aware, but in ignorance. She sought to improve on this. "God help her, poor woman, if she hasn't the decorations just so in quick time," she said.

  The whispers began again.

  "Is that the last of breakfast?" she called out, and the old man's heart beat wet in his mouth.

  "I should be getting on," he said, to force matters.

  "Don't disturb yourself, Mr Rock," the cook told him. "You're one who's never in the light, is he, girls? You'd better get your own now," she gave them leave. And with a sort of chorus of welcome and pleasure because they were hungry too, nine came with their spoons and plates of porridge, and their lovely, sleepy, but rather pimply skins, to sit alongside the famished, sweet old sage. None dared remind Mrs Blain of him. She was a terror for her rights.

  "But you are coming tonight, Mrs Blain?" one asked.

  "Me?" the cook demanded. "After I've finished the knick knacks for the buffet, which'll take me all day on my stoves?"

  "You know you've got the best lot of orderlies on the whole rota to help you," they said.

  "I'd never have agreed without," Mrs Blain retorted. "I told Miss Marchbanks. Give me Mary and the girls on her rota, I said, or you'll have a dead woman on your hands."

  This statement had a greater effect than she could have expected. There was a sort of gasp round the kitchen, and at least three children, while Mr Rock blindly watched, pushed their porridge plates away. One or two even put what they felt into words.

  "I don't think I'll come either, tonight I mean," the youngest said.

  "How's that Maisy?" the cook asked. "Are you shy even of a bit of fun at your time of life?"