Henry Green - Concluding

So much so, that when he came to the first flight of stone steps Mr Rock turned completely round and went down backwards.

Upon which a faint cry came from those beechwoods he had been facing. The great crescent of the moonlit house received and gathered the sound, sent this back in a girl's voice, only deeper. "Mar. . eee," the gabled front returned.

He was halted by it between two steps, "What was that?" he asked, peering over a shoulder at moondrenched trees, starched, motionless in the distance he had yet to traverse.

When his granddaughter did not deign to reply, Mr Rock assumed it must have been a noise in the head from his old heart, the sudden twang on a vein. He sighed. He began the climb once more, down his cliff face, grabbing at the balustrade each step he took.

Next he sneezed. Fumbled after a handkerchief. "Careful you don't take yourself a chill, dear," he called. But she ignored him. She warmed herself at the blaze in her heart for Sebastian.

As he struggled forward once again, he blamed the girl for what he took to be a fit of sulks because, after all, she was not much company if she would trail five foot behind, and never open her mouth. Upon which the cry came a second time, "Mar. . eee." The house received this, drove it forth louder, as before, and twice.

"Could someone be calling from the Institute?" he asked in his deafness.

When she paid no heed, he sharply demanded, "Well, is it?"

"Oh I don't know, you know," she answered in a preoccupied, low voice. "I expect that's only some of their girls out amongst the tree trunks."

"But it came from behind," he objected.

"The echo did," she replied, as languid as Miss Edge.

He hesitated onward, silent in his turn.

"Would they be after Adams, then?" he enquired at last, and received no answer. The stars above were bright. She was vowing herself to Birt.

The trouble Mr Rock had with his eyes, under a moon, brought him back to where he left off with Miss Edge, to health. Had he tried, he would have been unable at this precise moment to remember more of his latest talk with the Principal. He slowed up, to let Elizabeth draw level.

"I keep well in myself for a man my age," he boasted. "Of course I have difficulty with my eyesight, and I wish I'd thought to bring the stick along. You might have reminded me when we started."

She made no comment.

"No, I have been very fortunate," he went on. "Few men of my years could conscientiously boast of health like mine. I enjoy my food, I get my sleep all right in bed, I have few of the usual aches and pains. No-one asks me if it will rain tomorrow, which I always consider the ultimate insult to a man's white hairs. True I'm a bit deaf, naturally. That can't be helped. No, I've a deal to be thankful for. And if they would only trouble to pronounce, or even sound, their consonants, I'd hear as well as the next man. Too much, even, on occasion," he added, half remembering the girls below. There was a pause.

"Your grandmother always did say there could be no deaf people if those who condescended to open their mouths away from a plate would bother to be distinct."

She received this in silence. He started on another tack, as he painfully began to negotiate steps down to the third Terrace. "Have you seen Alice?" he asked. She did not answer.

"I said, had you run across my cat?" he insisted.

"No, Gapa. Why?"

"Because I'm worried about the animal, of course," he explained. "I would not put it altogether past those two dangerous fanatics to do away with Alice. You know how foully underhand they are. A pet could be fair game. Damn this moonlight. I can't see where to put my feet."

How frightfully unreasonable he is, she thought. Just when it was light as day. Quite the sort of thing Seb wouldn't ever believe, if he still resented her seeing Gapa home, when she got back. Oh Seb!

"Daisy still out. No-one can tell what's become of me Ted. What a day. Too long by half."

"But they've been off before," she protested. "I mean, there's nothing new. . this isn't the first time, Gapa, after all, on their own, is it?"

"I wouldn't know about that, of course," he said, tart.

"You'll find them when you get back."

"You surely do not propose to leave me walk through the woods all by myself?" he cried out. Indeed, these were now much nearer.

"Why Gapa dear, how could you think? Of course not."

"Work one's fingers to the bone and fat thanks in return," he grumbled.

She said not a word.

"Pay no attention, Liz," he said, at last.

"I got hot up there. I'm glad of a breather," she lied, to meet him halfway.

"The ludicrous female would have upset me if I hadn't kept control," he went on, suddenly remembering Miss Edge at last.

"Then you did speak? Oh, you are good." Elizabeth was dreamily enthusiastic. "And what did she. . you know. . was it, I mean did you smooth things out?"

"Smooth what out?"

"Why, everything."

"How can I tell yet?" he demanded, in an exasperated voice. "But I swallowed my pride," he muttered. "Yes, I had to do that," he said, to make all he'd done into sacrifice. Then he at last entirely recollected the proposal Edge had just made him. He gave one more short, sharp laugh. He'd nothing other than contempt for the half crazed harpy. "The trouble with drunkenness is that it will not realise the other party can be sober," he added, aloud.

This last remark did not make sense to her. She could only guess.

"What?" she asked, alarmed. "Miss Edge pretended you'd been… oh Gapa, was there more trouble, then? Because you haven't. . that's to say, there could be no question. . but this is awful." The fact was, the old man might, on occasion, get muddled drunk.

"Liz," he said sternly. "Don't be a fool."

"Then what is it?" she cried, rather wild. She looked close into his moon brown face. The forehead was corrugated.

Mr Rock knew he had gone too far. If he told her of this last, ludicrous development she was sure to repeat it to Sebastian who, not later than next day, or even the same night, would be all over the place imitating his idea of his Principal's idiom while she proposed marriage. And, in any case, the suggestion, from every point of view except Edge's own, the old man considered, was tantamount to an insult offered by the woman. Mr Rock next experienced a wave of panic. He would have liked to get rid of his granddaughter, in case, somehow, she learned. Then he recollected the black ride that was almost on them. Indeed, raising eyes from a treacherous path, he saw the beeches like frozen milk, and frozen swimming-bath blue water, already motionless in a cascade, soundless from a height, not sixty yards in front.

"Peace, child," he said.

"Oh, what did you mean before?"

"You misunderstood. No more of this."

"Then, had the new bother anything, at least, to do with Seb?"

"Liz, of course not."

"You must remember I haven't been well," she subsided. "I get so terribly worried, you know." He had realised that before, but wondered how dark the ride would be which was beginning to gape at him, narrow and black.

The cry came a third time, directly on them, from somewhere amongst the trees. But now they had come so far that even though he waited he could barely catch the echo's answer, the house singing back in a whisper, and he just heard it thrice; "Mar. . ee,"

"Mareee,""… eee."

"You must have heard," the old man accused his granddaughter, as though she had missed the call three times.

"Oh don't pay attention, dear, I told you. That's only their Club they think is so secret, and everybody knows. They go and whoop round the place at night."

"I've never noticed."

"Well, you see, perhaps you wouldn't."

"I may be a trifle hard of hearing but I trust I could never miss a shout such as we've just heard."