Concluding (14 page)

Still with her back towards him she laughed.

"Darling, you do do it well," she said. He thought, anyway she seems to listen, and was encouraged to pursue the matter.

"It follows," he proceeded, "that for the present an equipoise can be claimed here. There are, naturally, individual tensions, what one might describe as instances of disintegration or even of centrifugal action, whereby certain appear, now and again, to be flung out into the periphery of outer darkness. In other words we do not always agree between ourselves. Nevertheless I claim that we have a general measure of contentment in spite of what are, no doubt, inherited differences of outlook. To sum up, we exist together to earn a living by teaching others how to gain theirs. By and large we go about it in peace, and so I claim that there is what I can call a condition, which is to say a self compensating mechanism, in, or of, equipoise."

He paused. He was about to lose the thread. She said no word.

"But an incautious movement towards the centre," he went on with an effort, "towards the shaft upon which our little world revolves, that is to say upon the State which employs us at our main function, that of spinning like tops on our own axis," and here he gave one of his cracked laughs to point the jest, "can only fracture the spinning golden bowl, the whole unit, and bring the lot to nought, in other words, reduce us to the lowest, the unemployable."

"What is it, dear?"

"He's worried about this cottage, Liz," Sebastian replied promptly, but in his own voice.

"If he's worried, then he only is about me. I do blame myself," she said.

"Oh no, he's not," he said. Then Birt lost control. "He's past the age," he rushed on. "Besides he's ending, dying on his feet, I tell you. More than ever capable of some incredible folly."

"Don't be absurd, please," she said, and walked out in the sun in a sweat, as if she had been dowsed with cold water. He followed.

"Why, you don't mean he could have been upstairs all the time?" he whispered.

"There you are," she said, then turned on him in the sharp light. "You're terrified of Gapa, you all are, every one of you, and quite right. He'll do what he thinks fit, so he should. They've been at you about our house, though I don't know exactly how or what, and I don't want, I wouldn't stoop so low."

"Justice," Sebastian began almost to shout. "Old men have no idea at their age. They're too old."

"But darling I'm sure I didn't say a word, even, about justice."

"Yes Liz, but that's the essence of what we're discussing, surely. He's got his teeth into some injustice he thinks they've done this student, he will talk too much with the children you understand, and he's out to make trouble. But the bad part is, don't you see, he'll do it in spite of our cottage."

"It's me he wants to protect, it's me he loves," she said, showing signs of great agitation which he was too excited to notice.

"Yes, yes, he is, and that's why, and . . ." he answered in a jumble, but she burst into tears and hurled herself at him. She forced herself on his chest as he stood there, arms hard around his neck.

"Oh Seb darling, why do you frighten me so?" He clutched her, speechless.

"If you love me like you say you do?" she went on. He held her tight, as though to crush the fears out.

"Forget it," he said. "This girl's disappearance has bowled me over."

She relaxed a trifle in his arms.

"But you said yourself Gapa was too old, and had to be let do what he wanted."

He stiffened.

"Why, you don't mean he really has anything on with this Mary?" he asked.

"Of course not," she said. "You must be mad. At his age? Really."

"It's all very well, Liz," he said, and relaxed his hold. "They do, you know." Then he put on the lecturer's voice again. "There have been regrettable instances," he intoned. "We have only to recollect the Police Court cases in the old regime."

"Stop that, Seb. I won't have you go on like it about Gapa. He's worth the whole lot of them." But she gave him a Judas kiss on the mouth.

"I love you," he mumbled, against lips which were thin as grass. He drew back. "No," he said, "Baker's all right. It's Edge is the trouble."

"They have no men," she said of these spinsters.

He winced. He even squirmed. But she did not notice.

"Baker can, and will, listen to reason, but the guv'nor's a real terror," he brought out at last. He took her hand. They wandered over to the sty. "She'll stop at nothing. She'd a light in her eye at lunch which made me uneasy, I can tell you. And to say what she did into the bargain."

"All right then, what did she say?" Miss Rock asked in a tired, bored voice.

"Oh not in so many words," he answered. "But it would do no harm at all to watch most conscientiously. She'll fight."

"What about?"

"To win her own way, of course. D'you suppose he could ever be persuaded to accept this election if it comes?"

"So that you can take over the cottage?" she asked with extraordinary perspicacity in a small, languid voice, while she glanced at him.

"Hullo, what's this?" he said, halted in his tracks.

"You're not being open with me," she said, and did not meet his eyes.

He knew this was so, but could hardly admit it. He had also to bear in mind that she must be spared shocks.

"I am," he protested. "Darling, we've not kept things from each other, have we?"

"You must remember Gapa's everything, Seb."

"Everything, Liz?"

"Well, after all he's done, when he's worked his fingers to the bone, and his discoveries from the time he was young, I do think he's entitled to lead his own life from now, I mean we owe it to him, don't we, and if you loved me, darling, you'd see it that way too. I mean if he's good enough for the State, for them to let him and
me
live on here, then I don't see we've a right to tell him whatever it is might suit us at the moment."

"But darling, they will offer the election. The State will."

"Who said they would?"

"Miss  Edge  heard, Liz. When  she  was  up  in Town. This morning."

"You don't mean to say you've talked over Gapa again with that woman?"

"Of course not, dear. She just mentioned it at lunch."

"So that's what you've been at, then?" He stayed miserably silent.

"Don't let's mention them even, any more," she said, as though she had made up her mind this was all a stupid misunderstanding. She kissed his cheek. "Shall we go down to the Lake?" she said.

"Oh, not there, Liz, I'd want to bathe," he extemporised." They've put out an order against that on account of the weeds."

"All right, where? The beech tree?"

"Back to our private beech, Liz?" he agreed, nervously. She kissed him twice.

"Dear me," she said, very shy all of a sudden. "You have become loving." And they made off, hand in hand once more.

*  *  *

The staff, as well as the students, were allowed half an hour in which to be down for tea today, nevertheless it was unprecedented for Miss Edge to be the ten minutes late she was, and still more so for her to be faced with the fact that many of her colleagues could be even more unpunctual than herself. There was no sign of Marchbanks, which was, perhaps, to be expected after the ridiculous misunderstanding that had been uncovered about not calling the doctor, but Miss Baker was absent, and, most significant of all, Sebastian Birt had not put in an appearance, which was inexcusable after what had occurred, and, for that matter, was still going on, perhaps. Because they still had no news of Mary.

Edge literally itched to get to grips with Merode in spite of the rules and regulations, but now Dr Bodle had seen her at last, he'd forbidden even the simplest questioning, an injunction which Miss Edge would have been inclined to ignore, or forget, only Baker rather lost her head, had grown quite insistent. The thought of a girl laid by in full possession of her faculties, with a key to the whole mystery, protected even from points her own mother should put by the too hasty opinion of this fool of a medico, angered Miss Edge so much, now she had drunk some tea and felt restored, enraged her so deeply that, from the dais, she turned another terrible look on her charges, and several were caught in the middle of huge yawns; the soft, brilliant wetness of their pink mouths, and shining pearly teeth, being struck at her glance to pure enchantment, under wide, astonished eyes.

"Can Dakers and I help with the flowers afterwards, ma'am?" Winstanley asked.

"Thank you. I really feel I can manage," Miss Edge answered. She glared around. There was one good thing, she told herself, the girls were no longer at their whispers, there were none of those stares as at luncheon. But, on the other hand, the atmosphere was lax. They sat over tea as if washed out.

Next she examined her pile of blooms. Was it imagination, or had these in some way settled? But surely not by their own weight?

How absurd that, at lunch, she had had this feeling the child was underneath.

And certainly the flowers -were fading.

She took another glance at the students. No, they showed small interest in High Table. They entered by dribs and drabs, lazily, slack. Miss Edge clenched her thin fists.

She sent a frightful look at the gigantic, repeating gramophone, dumb in a corner.

"Has it been overhauled?" she asked at large.

"What is that, ma'am?" Winstanley questioned.

"Why, the music for our Ball of course," Edge replied. "We do not want to be suspended, so to speak, by a breakdown."

"Oh, the old thing's in a good mood now, ma'am. We tried the records as late as Tuesday."

"A mood, Winstanley? Will you arrange for the car to go at once over to Bradhampton to pick up Edwards, that is his name, Edwards? Then he can give the mechanism a thorough doing."

"Your car, ma'am?" Winstanley said. "But Miss Baker's taken that."

Edge felt her heart lurch. Hermione take the car and not say a word? What was this?

"Dear, dear, where is my memory?" she lied. "The truth is I have so much before each of these Festivities I sometimes wonder how I shall get through. Then you might send word, and he can come up on his bicycle." Like the policeman, she thought. But Baker must have something up her sleeve which could only have to do with Mary. How disloyal not to have mentioned it.

Miss Edge once more began to feel nervous.

She looked about the great room. By good fortune none of the girls seemed to watch the pile of blooms.

"Did she say when she would be back, then?" she asked.

"Miss Baker, ma'am? She's upstairs, resting."

"I distinctly understood her to tell me she had to run over somewhere," Edge lied again, to save her face. But she let all the anguish she felt sound in the voice she used.

At this precise moment one of the orderlies brought her Principal the post. A letter, marked O.M.S. in great black capitals, was addressed to her personally, and she opened it at once.

"Dear Miss Edge,"
she read, "
I
am directed by Majesty's Secretary of State Swaythling to inform you of the following, reached by the Secretary's State Council as conclusions, and with which he is in agreement. He intends to implement these conclusions by means of a Directive to be issued as soon as possible.

(1)
That, generally speaking, there is insufficient opportunity at present for those girls under tuition for State Service, throughout the various Institutes, to take part in practical management.

(2)
That, for this purpose, it is advisable they should be provided with pigfarms.

(3)
Under the supervision of their Principals, students should run such an undertaking themselves, cooperatively, but in strict conformity with all Directives as may from time to time be issued by Majesty's Minister of Agriculture to professional pig farmers.

Finally: It is anticipated by these means that students will avail themselves of the opportunity afforded to learn from practical experience the day to day problems which arise in Administration.

Bearing in mind the need for stringent economy which obtains at present, your suggestions as to how this scheme can best be set in motion, together with those of your colleague, who should have received a similar communication by the same post, can be addressed to me, so that I have these on my desk not later than today week. Your fellow worker. John Inglethwaite"

Miss Edge was quite pale when she had finished.

One of the juniors seated below the dais said, to make conversation with an older girl, "Gosh, will you just look at Edge now, again."

"She's not so bad," the senior tolerantly answered. "It's your first summer here, I suppose? She's always a trifle nervy before the dance. But she'll be very different once we're under way."

Edge folded the communication from Inglethwaite and laid this on the table. She pressed the flat of a thin, open hand down over it. She was breathing heavily. Pigsties all over the wonderful Place? And the Stench? There were times, indeed, when one's ultimate loyalties were tested.

Not a scrap of help could be expected from Baker, who would find the whole idea quite practical; no, Miss Edge decided, no, her colleague would just remark . . . 'how quaint, how black and white.'

She looked with anguish about the great room in which they were to dance. It had been The Banqueting Hall, burned down in Edwardian times. When the owner rebuilt he had replaced a vaulted roof of stone by oak, and put flat oak panelling eight foot up the walls, all of which, including a vast bow window over the Terraces, had been varnished a hot fox red, then, at some later date, treated with lime, until the wood turned to its present colour, the head of a ginger-haired woman who was going white as her worries caught up, in the way these will.

But Miss Edge's glance, now, was seeking the familiar, she sought comfort in what she had known so long, there was a long appeal about her look.

"Oh, we must give them a good Time," she said aloud. "It shall be a real Success."