Henry Green - Concluding

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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."

A younger girl turned under this gaze to another, and whispered, "I bet Edge is a bit inside out to do with Mary."

"Why, whatever for?"

"Haven't you heard? There was a telegram to say the sister Doll was badly ill at home, and she was to go at once. Muriel had it from one of the seniors, who was there when this wire came. Rotten luck, on the night of the dance."

Her friend said, "I thought I hadn't seen Mary today," and went on to speak of the time she'd had to wait before she had been able to iron her dress.

An evening air, entering cool by wide windows, wafted the scent of that pyre of flowers to Miss Edge, reminded the lady that she had not yet had her stroll, that there could be no leisure for that now, with all she knew she had still to do. At the same time it carried a small buzz to her sharp ears. She at once looked more closely at the azalea and rhododendron. With a great rush of horror, she realised the whole pile of blooms was alive with bluebottles.