Concluding (12 page)

"Ah Marchbanks," Miss Edge called out above the bustle, "I see they have not neglected our tamasha." She was looking at the mass of flowers.

"I'd thought pine branches with salt," that woman answered with a blush. "So cool, in this hot weather, for the Dance. A soupcon of snow," she elaborated.

"Indeed," Edge said, unenthusiastic, while conversation, for the moment, became general around High Table.

"In their white dresses," Marchbanks explained, painting the picture.

"I hesitate to think what our Supervisor would say," Edge objected, referring to a Government Inspector whose visits, in order to check up, were exhaustive and unannounced.

"Yes, there is that of course," Marchbanks agreed.

"What a time they are being, Baker, with our luncheon," said Miss Edge. And her confidence was now such that she continued, having for the moment forgotten, "What can have happened to Mary and her girls?"

It was Mary whose privilege it had been to serve them, each day almost. Right from the very first she had shewn such diligence.

Miss Baker winced. Once more she closed her eyes. There was a noticeable pause.

Winstanley offered up a topic to bridge the awkwardness.

"Ma'am," she said. "Have you ever thought of Chinese pheasants for our grounds?"

"Chinese?" Miss Edge enquired.

"The plumage," Winstanley explained. "A perfect red and gold. They aren't any trouble either, they live off the land."

"I seem to remember Mr Birt telling us there was no such thing," Edge expatiated, with a glance of malice at this man.

"Ah," he said, bowed in her direction, and assumed a close imitation of Mr Rock's party manner which they could all recognise. "We admit of no domestic animal as self sufficient under the State. But it would certainly add a touch of Babylonian splendour to the walks."

"It might startle his goose," Edge objected with a knowing look. All laughed at this allusion, Sebastian Birt excessively.

"They need no attention, ma'am, for sure," Winstanley insisted. "They roost in the nearest tree, and feed off acorns."

"Like cats and pigs then," Miss Edge said, with a smirk benign.

"Where I was brought up there used to be a black and white farm," Baker announced. "A half timbered place, piebald horses, black and white poultry and so on."

"I often wish I had been reared in the country," Edge said, throwing a bright smile at her colleague to mark this lady's return into the fold of conversation. "Sometimes I wonder if our girls appreciate how fortunate they are to find themselves in magnificent Parks and Woodlands."

"Oh they do that, I'm sure, ma'am," came from Marchbanks.

"And someone like Mr Rock, again," Edge pursued, her eye on Sebastian Birt. "How truly privileged."

There was another pause.

"The amenities of urban life in sylvan surroundings," the young man said at last, still with an exact imitation of the sage.

"More, I think," Miss Edge said. "Indeed I fancy that taking Youth, as he has it round him now, and in this beautiful great Place, one of the State's ornaments, a veritable crown of Jewels, a man could be expected to live out his life at rest with himself, and the world."

"But it must depend on one's physical condition. There can be no comfort in age as such," Winstanley, who loved an argument, objected.

Miss Edge looked gravely at her. "In that case," she said, as though to refer to incurable illness, "there is another alternative. The State looks after its own. There are Homes of Repose for those who have deserved well of their Country and who, with advancing years, find the burden of old age detracts from the advantages of a life of quietude they have been permitted to lead at large." Sebastian squirmed. She saw this, then turned to Baker, who looked woodenly at her in warning.

"There are great mercies," Miss Marchbanks said.

"And great responsibilities, Marchbanks," Edge corrected, upon which she swept over the hall of students with an imperious
slow swing of her eyes. She did not, at once, go on with what she had been about to say, or here and there, below, she could perceive a mood she particularly detested, and which today she could not have after all that had occurred, girls whispering. She was unable, of course, to hear this. But it was the heavy heads leant sideways into one another's hair, the look of couples as though withdrawn upon each other, in one word, the air of complicity, which startled and disgusted Edge.

"A community at peace within itself," she went on, but her attention was no longer directed onto those immediately around, "can well be a corrective," and then she saw how many of these whisperers seemed to watch someone at High Table, "can canalise," she said, in wonder could it be Sebastian Birt? "will influence all those who come under the sway," she continued haltingly but no they seemed intent on someone or something beyond, "must bring out the best," she said, then realised it could only be the mass of flowers, "can but . . ." she continued, and there she stopped. Her colleagues, who turned in surprise, saw Miss Edge go pale. It was one of these deadly rumours had taken hold of the students, the Principal knew, was spreading through their ranks in poison. She pulled herself together. "Can but turn all those who come under its influence upwards and onwards to the ideals, to the practical politics, that is, the High Purposes of the State," she ended in a forced rush.

She blew her nose, then, to hide her face a moment. What idea could it be had taken hold, she asked herself?

"The greatest good of the greatest number," Sebastian echoed, in a peculiarly servile manner.

"I think your suggestion about these Chinese pheasants excellent," Baker said to Winstanley, with a nervous eye on Edge, who, at that precise instant, rose up from her place. She went slowly over towards the mass of flowers. The staff's anxious conversation covered the guv'nor's halting step. But they began to keep their girls in view also, and could see those who whispered fall silent the better to watch Miss Edge. Then, when this lady reached the pyre of azalea and rhododendron, which towered well above her head, and which must at once have assailed her with its burden of hot scent, one child even rose to her feet she was so curious about Miss Edge, only to be brought back by a neighbour tugging on her skirts at which she subsided, rosy cheeks covered by blushes, and in a fit of giggling which she managed to choke off too easily, too soon.

It was uncanny for Edge to leave her place at mealtime. But, having found little at fault with the pile of blooms, not even a nettle, she came back as though nothing were the matter. Only, once she was seated in her chair again, she fairly glared out over the students.

"The scent's so strong it quite puts one off one's feed," Miss Baker remarked, to offer Edge a motive. She pushed her plate away untasted.

"My dear," Edge said, almost as though from a dream. "This excellent cold roast beef! You surely do not propose to forgo your luncheon?"

But she paid no real heed to Baker's antics. It was the girls. That whispering had spread once more. Several, like her colleague, had ceased to eat. Fifty or sixty, even, sat heads bent, their thick hair, dark, gold or red hanging across eyes which, behind this warm screen, watched the flowers, or watched herself so Edge sensed, as well as whatever else it might be had attracted them, unfortunate children, and that drew sharp jewelled eyes this way, and muted voices.

On a sudden Edge felt deathly hot.

"Are all our windows open, I wonder?" she asked. Dakers half rose from his chair, which was entirely unnecessary because their table on the dais was raised well above the three hundred heads beneath.

"It's stifling," Baker agreed.

"No, I'm sure they're wide as can be," Miss Marchbanks said.

The eyes, Edge asked herself, and then came over deathly cold.

Because she knew, now.

It could only be the body under the flowers, a corpse.

"Sip some water, dear," Baker suggested.

"The early start," Marchbanks murmured, while Sebastian was on guard as though to see the hag die before his eyes. Then Edge made a stupendous effort and came through.

"What?" she asked. "Yes of course," she said. "Yes, I daresay they may be a trifle overpowering." Then she began to address herself under her breath. Mabel, she murmured, Mabel, pull yourself together, this is ridiculous. After a short time she looked guiltily over the girls and was relieved to find they did not appear to have noticed, indeed they already seemed to talk more freely.

"Azaleas can bring on hay fever," Miss Winstanley suggested.

"And pine branches asthma," Edge said, rather wild, not yet herself quite.

"Oh I don't think Adams cut any in the end," Marchbanks protested, intolerably nervous and sensitive at one and the same time.

"It was the salt," Miss Edge explained at random, recovering poise. She fanned herself with a handkerchief. "The Supervisor would never pass it."

But, as often as her thoughts turned to the absent Mary, who, she knew well, could never be under those flowers, they reeled away back to Mr Rock and his granddaughter Elizabeth.

"Mr Birt," she began once more. "You have seen our sage this morning. Has he news of his election?"

"I believe not," Sebastian said, in furtive embarrassment.

The girls were filing out to fetch the sweet. Miss Edge felt rejuvenated.

"Strange," she exclaimed. "It was yesterday they sat, surely? I made certain I would hear at the Commission, only to find we had been cancelled. I set great store by it for him."

There was a silence. The staff waited to have their plates removed. Edge took a sip of water.

"Because, you know," she went on at large, "he is too old to live the life he does. He needs help here," she explained.

"Amazing the things he did," Miss Baker put in, and a look passed between her and Edge. The subject was dropped.

"Marchbanks, I do not want any of the decorations touched before I am ready to supervise all that myself, directly we've had tea," Miss Edge ordered, and then at once felt almost completely well again. What she had been through she saw now as just a moment's weakness.

"The great thing is, ma'am, they're to all intents and purposes practically self supporting," Winstanley began once more.

Because Miss Edge had just asked herself if the horror Rock could have sheltered Mary she was startled.

"How do you mean?" she fiercely enquired.

"The Chinese pheasants."

"Yes, I had gathered that," she lied. "But the point occurred to me, how would they do in winter, in snow?"

"Oh, ma'am, I'm sure they must be hardy. Why, think of the giant panda," Marchbanks said.

"Yes, there's another black and white animal," Miss Baker agreed.

"But the bran," Edge announced. "We came across that only the other day. Did we not, dear?" she asked Miss Baker. "Oh, I make no bones," she went on, raising her voice so that the staff, and in particular Sebastian, should not miss the implications. "Mrs Blain has her little preferences, perhaps we all have, and in any case I do not want this mentioned away from High Table. But it seems she has a weakness for his goose, which, to my mind, is nothing less than a danger. A blow from one of its great wings," and her voice rose so that the nearest students heard, even stopped eating their cherries the better to listen, "one blow, in one of its savage tempers, and the miserable bird could smash a leg."

"You don't suppose, you know who . . ." Miss Baker began, in an obvious reference to Mary and Merode, when Edge interrupted her.

"My dear," she said. "No shop at meals."

"They might need a little grain," Winstanley admitted.

"And how so?" her Principal demanded.

"The Chinese pheasants, ma'am."

"Of course," Edge replied, who had, in fact, forgotten these decorative birds. "I do not deny the wheat. But there lies my whole difficulty. If Miss Baker and I are exercised in our minds over this matter of our Supervisor and the bran, and really it is peace at any price these days, for I do not suppose we shall mention it in the kitchen," she sneered, knowing full well that her remarks would be repeated to Mrs Blain, in all probability by Sebastian Birt, "I do beg leave to question the wisdom of additional food at certain seasons. We already have an unofficial cat," she added, not looking at Marchbanks, no longer afraid.

"But ma'am," Winstanley said with tact, "it's swans, I'm certain."

"What is?"

"That break a person's leg with their wings."

"I'm sure Alice doesn't get anything," Miss Marchbanks interjected. At just a momentary glance they could, each of them, see that she had flushed with rage.

"Quite, Marchbanks," Edge said in a soothing voice. "I never even suggested it. We all respect . . . there can be no question . . . Well, in a word, it is Mr Rock's white Persian, and who is there can stop a cat making free with the Grounds?" She seemed almost embarrassed. She was still not quite herself.

"She never even gets a sup of milk while over here, it's a shame," Miss Marchbanks said. She could not let the matter drop. Miss Edge gave her a small bow.

"But a goose is not much less large than a swan," Edge went on, turning to Winstanley. "And consider the power they must have in their shoulder muscles for long migratory flights. I know some of my girls are simply in terror of the bird."

Sebastian Birt cleared his throat, as though about to speak. But Edge glared at him, and Baker gave such a glance of doom that he did not have the heart. Then Miss Inglefield made her first contribution.

"Grace, ma'am," she said.

"Good heavens," Edge exclaimed, verifying the fact that all the girls had finished. "Whose turn is it, Baker?"

"Yours dear, I think."

Upon which Edge rose, and, with her, all the staff, and each one of the students. When the noise had subsided Miss Edge brought the session to a close with a shout of two prime, immemorial words. "Thank you," she cried in a great voice, looking brilliant.

"Thank you, ma'am," they all replied traditionally, and luncheon was over.

The buzzers went for tea.