Henry Green - Concluding

"What, after all, can one make of it?" she began right away in a great voice. "Creeping down at dead of night in her pyjamas and then, hours later, to be found comfortably ensconsed within a fallen beech, having made herself a nest, thank you, and not forgotten the coat, which she still had with her. What is one to think? Finally, discovered by Sebastian Birt of all people, well on in the morning, as if he did not know where she was the whole time, oh then she is quite composed, of course. A little fuss at first, naturally, when she finds herself the centre of attention, but no excuses, Baker, mark you. So what is the inescapable conclusion?"

Her colleague got up, began to pace to and fro across a thick shutter of sunlight.

"It's all very difficult," she said.

"Do you think so? And how about Mary, after she turns up, as she will? For she must. But let us not meet her trouble half-way. Time enough when the girl returns. Because do you still not see it, dear? At least for Merode. Why, I gave you the answer to our riddle not ten minutes since."

"What riddle, Edge?"

"The quandary in which we find ourselves. How to explain Merode's absence without this horrible rigmarole of Reports. Though we owe it to the Trust, with which you and I have been privileged, Baker, to cast out evil hanging over the heads of our Students root and branch, this we must do, or forfeit all self respect. For I have watched the situation grow, and I have held my hand. Rock, who I deeply suspect, his disastrous granddaughter, and a weak young man. You will agree I have given you my views on them many a time the past few weeks. No, they must, and shall, be sent packing. But don't you, even now, see the way to explain Merode?"

Her colleague, in perplexity turned towards Miss Edge, and was blinded by sun. She screwed her face up into a pathetic maze of bewilderment before a hot dazzle of evening.

"My dear," she began, and could not go on.

"Sleepwalking," Edge brought out at last in an even louder voice, jubilant as a trumpet.

"But she. ." Miss Baker started to object, only to be ruthlessly interrupted.

"Has told three people the same," Edge insisted. "Marchbanks, her aunt, and myself. No doubt Mrs Manley encouraged the child to stick to the truthful account of what had occurred. But I simply cannot understand, now, that I could have been so blind as not to accept it, at once, face value, immediately. Because this is, in an exact measure, sufficient to our purpose, Baker. Of course we do not want the playing truant to be known, for the child's own sake. Not many of the girls have learned. Merode was just sleepwalking, that's all, and the Dance can go ahead. Of course she will rest in Quarantine, until Mary comes back with her tail between her legs. It is amazing to me, after what has occurred, that I always trusted the girl. Yet in justice to ourselves, we must leave no stone unturned to rid the Precincts of the three persons I have named. That's all."

"But Edge. ." Baker began once more.

"Not another word, dear," Miss Edge said firmly. "And will you do me the favour to look at the Time? If we are to be ready we shall have to hurry, Baker."

Miss Edge watched her colleague out of the room. When the door closed on her, Edge's face took on a look of triumphant satisfaction.

Later, Mr Rock and Elizabeth were on their way up to the house for the dance. She wore a trailing black silk dress, with a yellow ribbon in her hair. Both walked in rubber boots because he feared the dew. He carried his shoes, and hers, in a despatch case which went back to the days of his youth.

Daisy was not home yet, or Ted. He had left some milk outside for Alice, but then she spent most of her time these days away at the Institute, currying favour, as he would, if he were wise, he smiled wryly to himself. And Elizabeth had been too silent, he thought, so quiet there must be something yet to come; from her poor starved heart, no doubt, under that stained mackintosh hung over the shoulders. She was spent and sad, he knew.

The first blackbird, up on a branch, gave heed that night rode near, the light grew ever softer, rhododendrons stared, air was still, the boots they wore gleamed wet so soon; it was cool, and gnats had departed to the last bars of sun which, high above, slanted from one beech to another that dwarfed the azalea bushes where bluebottles no longer waited, whence butterflies were gone, and whose scent had faded, whose honey was now too late for bees in the hush of sunset preparing in the west that would lie red over the sky like a vast bank of roses, just time enough for lovers.

He saw an empty bird's egg lying on grass and glanced upward to find the nest. He then realised his evening heavens, which precisely matched that blue.

He thought she had said something he was too deaf to hear.

"What is that?" he gently asked.

She, who had not yet spoken, told him then, "About Sebastian, Gapa."

"Yes dear," he said. He had known it would be this.

"Oh Gapa, I want you to be marvellous to me now. I mean you always have. But there are times, aren't there? The thing is I'm in terrible trouble. In my mind you understand. About him. And I do so want you to promise."

"You tell me," he suggested, gentle as before.

"But you may not agree, not look at it the way he does. Yet he didn't ask, you needn't think, because honestly he never did. In fact if he thought for a minute I was talking to you he would be furious. Really he would. He's so worried."

"Is he?"

"Yes, oh, you wouldn't know. About that silly girl who's missing."

"Why, dear?"

She swallowed.

"It's not what you imagine at all," she hurried on. "He's absolutely true to me, you can be sure, and they fling themselves all the time at his head. I don't think they ought to have masters, Gapa, at these places, do you, since they're only children, the girls I mean, and sex is unconscious at their age. It's such a temptation for a man." He winced, as Sebastian himself had earlier, at the assumption of sexual knowledge.

"Come to your point, Liz," he said firmly. "I'm so worried for him. It's not what he's actually mentioned, yet he couldn't help but drop hints, poor sweet; you know, underneath, he's half out of his mind with the torture of it all. Oh, everything's my fault, I should never have met him. They blame it all on Seb, you see. Isn't that inconceivable, but so wicked, so wicked of them? You were absolutely certain from the first, oh Gapa you really are the most wonderful man. I know when I was all right, and I used to come down to see you, I had no idea, I thought there was just a bee in your bonnet, but you were sure. They're dangerous. The two of them should be behind bars."

"Edge and Baker I presume?" he said.

"You see, when you're young and all that," she went on, "starting in the State Service, because I know, Gapa, I've done it, things have so changed since your day, well then, the slightest bad report he gets and he'll never receive promotion. Never. It isn't a story, honest. No redress, nothing. And you realise what an Enquiry means, if you appeal against one of these awful Reports. It's the end. Absolutely. Even if you think you've brought it off, it boomerangs back onto you. So I want you to promise you'll lend a hand." He judged from her tone that she was near tears.

"I'll do what I can," he said for comfort, though he could not but show the bitterness in his voice. She mistakenly took this to be aimed at the two Principals.

"And I do really realise what it costs to say that," she announced, "I understand how you hate to speak to them, even. If you weren't the most splendid man you'd never have promised to talk to Miss Edge." She brought this out quite naturally, and he did not contradict. "You needn't do much, Gapa dear. Get her to sit out one dance, just like that, she'll be thrilled, because they truly appreciate you here, the staff does, despite all you speak against them when you get out of bed the wrong side of a morning. Seb's often told me how Miss Edge talks about you," she lied, while the famous old man had to hold himself back in order not to squirm from his granddaughter, that she should be so transparent. "Get her quietly alone somewhere," then she laughed and it was worse, so that he drew himself away.