Concluding (1948)

by Henry Green

  "How d'you do," the woman replied. "But I still don't quite understand," she said to Miss Baker.

  "I was just explaining to Merode's aunt the predicament in which we find ourselves," Baker suggested diplomatically, because it was quite on the cards this woman might give trouble. She had the air of a determined creature. "There is nothing the matter with Merode," the Principal went on. "On the contrary, we've always found her so helpful, haven't we dear? But I must say, in the present circumstances, we hardly know what to decide."

  "It is Miss Baker, isn't it?" Mrs Manley addressed Edge's colleague. "Then I'd be so grateful if you could tell me what this is all about. You say she is quite well?"

  "Yes, Mrs Manley, I'm glad to assure you the doctor's given a clean bill. But the truth of the matter is, she was out most of last night."

  "Who with?" Mrs Manley asked sharp.

  "Another student," Edge replied, as quick.

  "A girl?" Mrs Manley enquired, turning what Miss Edge decided was a hostile look upon her.

  "We have no male students here," Edge spoke out severely, so much as to suggest that a joke in bad taste had been cracked.

  "And the other girl is not home yet," Miss Baker explained.

  "Yes, I see," Mrs Manley said, not in the least apologetic.

  "So we were wondering if you could help," Edge announced, as though her colleague and herself had hatched a curious plot.

  "I wonder if I could see Merode?" the woman asked, but in a hard voice.

  "I think that would be best," Miss Edge agreed.

  "But, dear, the doctor," Baker objected. "He said she was on no account to be pressed. And we have our regulations."

  "Surely the child's own aunt. . . ?" Mrs Manley asked.

  "She was in pyjamas," Edge interrupted, as if this explained all.

  "Well of course, since it was at night," the strange woman said.

  "Do have another of these cakes. We rather pride ourselves on them," Miss Baker offered, and it occurred to Edge that, everything considered, this particular aunt and guardian was having a fine tea. Did they have nothing at home, for them to eat so enormously whenever they came over? Was it fair to the girls in the holidays?

  "Thank you," Mrs Manley accepted. "No," she went on, "had you said Merode wore her day things, then I would have been worried."

  "She has torn the leg," Miss Edge pointed out.

  "But you told me she was not hurt."

  "The trouser leg," Edge patiently explained.

  "On a briar, because it was dark, no doubt," the guardian answered, and again showed relief in her tone of voice.

  "Oh, it had occurred to us this thing might have been worse," Miss Edge commented, at her most dry. Baker gave a glance of warning.

  "We wondered if we could put our heads together," she said in a conciliatory way.

  "I'd like a word with the child first," her aunt insisted.

  "Of course," Miss Baker said. "The only trouble is the doctor . . ." and she did not finish her sentence.

  "You surely did not get me over to forbid my seeing my Merode," Mrs Manley objected, and appeared to harden.

  "There are also our regulations," Baker pointed out, in embarrassment.

  The relative snorted.

  "All the more reason, then," she said, starting to get her gloves and bag together.

  "I think what my colleague tried to explain, without having to cross the i's and dot the t's, is this," Miss Edge announced. "You cannot, of course, be familiar with the Directives under which we carry on our work here. They are designed to protect us, as well as the students, from day to day inconveniences that may arise where a community of young people exists."

  "But you are not going to tell me this happens commonly, Miss Edge."

  "In the ten years we have been here, I do not know when we have had someone over at such short notice," the lady answered, then waited. When there was no retort, and she had given Baker a look to express her disagreement at the summoning of what had turned out to be a recalcitrant witness, Miss Edge continued, "We are fronted by an entire scaffolding of Reports. In certain circumstances we are obliged to render a Report of behaviour to our Superior Authority. And, if we are to do so, the most stringent Rules obtain. Access to the party concerned before she has given an explanation is rigidly excluded. I cannot see her, my colleague even cannot do so, no-one can intervene before she has given her own story."

  "Then why have me over?"

  "We thought it the human thing," Baker interjected, miserably.

  "But what's behind this, what has she done?" Mrs Manley complained.

  "There's a man in it, I'm very much afraid," Baker muttered.

  "No really Miss Edge . . ." the aunt began.

  "Miss Baker," Edge corrected, as if to dissociate herself from the line which was being taken.

  "... I can't accept that," Mrs Manley went on, with a look of venom at Edge. "Only sixteen, and not ever a hint of the kind at home."

  "We sometimes notice with families . . . where the parents are no longer together . . ." Baker uttered in a faint voice, mixing Mary with Merode.

  "Their orphans wander about the garden at night in pyjamas?" Mrs Manley asked, and actually laughed aloud.

  "Miss Baker has written the standard work on this difficult subject," Edge said, thrown back on the defensive.

  "Well I don't know that my husband wouldn't agree with her," the woman announced in what could only be termed a fruity voice. "But you and I realise it's hardly usual, don't we?" she had the impudence to ask Edge.

  "I am afraid we shall not see eye to eye," this lady said, while Baker made a gesture of weariness.

  "There's a whole history of such cases," she explained "I've no doubt," Mrs Manley agreed, conscious perhaps that she had gone too far. "And of course I'm grateful to you for the chance to put our heads together," she added with what was, to Edge, an altogether offensive familiarity. "But I have the right to see my ward at any time, I hope?"

  "Of course," Miss Baker said.

  "Yes," Edge put in. "The question is, how not to make it harder for her."

  "In view of your rules about reports, you mean?" the aunt enquired.

  "Just so."

  "Oh well, Miss Edge, I hope it won't come to that, indeed not," Mrs Manley answered, in such a way that the lady felt this relative was in full command. Then the aunt tried a shot in the dark. "But I do feel I have a right to learn how it was you came to the conclusion there might be a boy in it, before I go up to see my niece," she said.

  "She told Miss Marchbanks," Baker explained, quite unaware.

  "Exactly," Mrs Manley said. "But did she write out an account?"

  "Oh no," Baker replied, with signs of distress because she saw looming ahead the awkwardness that Merode had fainted. But Edge could see further. She was on tenterhooks.

  "Then this Marchbanks person questioned her?"

  "Yes, and such a distressing thing occurred," Baker hurried on, regardless. "The dear child fainted."

  "Fainted?" Mrs Manley echoed, in a voice of horror. It was then that Baker saw the pit she had dug for herself.

  "Oh, not what you think at all," she said pettishly. "It was what made the doctor diagnose shock."

  "Third degree shock," Mrs Manley snorted. Edge had to keep herself from clicking her fingers together she was so exasperated.

  "Really, madam, I cannot have this," Baker said, with great firmness, rising to the occasion. "I asked you here to have a quiet talk about what was best in the child's own interest, and you make suggestions as to our competence. Perhaps I should remind you that the State, when It delegated Responsibility to my colleague and myself, gave us a large measure of protection, or latitude if you prefer the word. I asked you over because I felt that was the human thing to do. If you insist you must see your niece before she has voluntarily made her explanation, then my Report shall go in and I'll note the fact in what I have to write, which may go hard with her. After all, I can lay claim to some experience."<
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  "There is one of our students missing yet," Edge added, white of face.

  "But what d'you get out of your girls if you won't allow anyone to go near 'em?" Mrs Manley asked, in a humble voice. Baker, at this point, was misled.

  "My dear Mrs Manley," she said, back at once to her most expansive. "We are not like that with our children. There is perfect confidence."

  "And if they won't talk?"

  "Well then, that is very difficult, isn't it?"

  "But Miss Baker, who is this Marchbanks?"

  "Our deputy. We both have to go to London Wednesdays, and while we are away she takes our place. We have complete faith in her, isn't that so, Edge?"

  "Of course," Miss Edge agreed, showing in her voice the disapproval she felt at the line their little talk was still taking.

  "And, in spite of the rule you have about interviews with your students, she was brought before Miss Marchbanks?"

  "She was found hidden," Edge interrupted, finally taking charge.

  "Then who hid her?"

  Miss Edge answered with a prolonged shrug of the shoulders.

  "That's one point on which I'd like to see Merode, of course," Mrs Manley said. "But this woman interviewed the child?"

  "Certainly not," Edge objected. "When Merode was discovered she was brought before our deputy, as she would have been before us if we had not been obliged to be elsewhere."

  "She was asked no questions?"

  "Miss Marchbanks has thirty years in the State Service. I am confident she would never betray her Trust."

  "But excuse me, Miss Edge, you haven't answered my question."

  "I have some regard for accuracy, madam. Since neither myself or my colleague were present. . ."

  "And yet my little girl fainted?"

  "She blurted something out about a man and then she fainted," Edge agreed.

  "You see, it is just this point that I find so difficult to understand," Mrs Manley appealed to Baker. "What man? Where is he? If she volunteered what she did, why don't I know about him? And in her pyjamas, too."

  "But my dear lady, it is precisely why we asked you to come over. Merode has been simply splendid the whole time she has been here. We just wondered if she had given any indication in her letters?"

  "There is one of our girls we cannot account for yet," Edge repeated, in a warning voice.

  "But I've had not a hint from the child," the aunt protested. "She's always been so very happy with you both. Of course, I don't say she has no secrets from me. I know I never told my mother a word, and I don't expect any different from my poor sister's girl." Edge sniffed audibly, but was not noticed. "Yet I'm sure, if she'd fallen under the influence of an older child, then I'd have had at least an idea."

  "And there's been no sign?" Baker asked, hoping against hope.

  "Not one," Mrs Manley answered. "But I'll tell you a perfectly simple explanation of the whole affair."

  "By all means," Baker encouraged, dubious to the last.

  "Sleepwalking," the aunt announced, in barely concealed triumph. And Miss Baker was so flabbergasted at this forgotten echo of the dawn that, without more ado, she took the woman up to Merode at once.

  Edge did not stay to argue. There was no time, she felt. As soon as Baker had led the woman out, she herself hurried off to get the decorations done because, now they had decided to hold their Ball, it must be the most successful ever. The girls simply must enjoy themselves.

  She found a number of her charges waiting, unconcerned, by the side of that horrible pile of blooms.

  She concentrated on Moira, in whom she had sensed almost an antagonism these last few weeks.

  "Here we are, dears," she cried out gaily, at her most genuine. It would be enough, in a day or two, to think of the implications with Merode s aunt, when they came to write out their Report.

  "Moira, will you take the satin ribbon out of that drawer and divide it into twenty-one inch lengths? You will find scissors at the back. Then you must cut it square, with two v's afterwards at each end. Be as neat as you can, child. Tie the branches in bundles. Now the others," and she approached the pyre with a distaste they did not seem to share. "We'll have you parcelling bundles up." She flicked with a long handkerchief at the blooms, was relieved to find no flies. They misunderstood the gesture.

  "Oh, we sprinkled with water to keep fresh," two or three sang out. "We've put sheets of paper round to save the floor," they added, and then scent from that mass of flowers came over her again. She was heartened to find this sharp as wine, now day was cooler.

  "How will I tell the inches?" Moira enquired, while her companions attacked the pile.

  "Hurry, Moira," they called. "We'll catch up in no time."

  "Marion, fetch the steps," Edge ordered, relieved that the senior had recovered from her last bout of crying. "Judge the best way you can, dear," she said to Moira, and thought I must have been poorly at lunch, it was the heat, forgetting she had felt so bad at tea. "Busy as bees, aren't we?" she added aloud, standing dead still in the midst of commotion, while that heap of lovely blooms was robbed and diminished by her charges.

  When several swags of azalea had been tied in neat bows, Miss Edge led a short procession down, through evening sun, to the alcove which looked over descending Terraces towards the trees beyond, the blessed, dear prospect. She closed her mind to Mrs Manley. After she had given directions, she stood at one of the windows and lovingly, sun in her eyes, watched the Park. Until she remembered.

  "Oh my dears," she called out. They turned beaming faces which she could not see for sun, for this was the mood in which they most liked Edge. "We are going to be allowed to keep pigs, have you heard?"

  There was a descant of small cries.

  "But where, we haven't been told, of course," Edge said, her wrinkled face back to the prospect. "How shall we hide them?"

  "Down by Mr Rock's, I'd say," Moira proposed, because she would then see more of the old man.

  "Not a bad idea at all," Miss Edge approved.

  "And he could look after ours," Moira went on. "He's done such wonders with Daise."

  "We shall have to think about that," Edge objected, showing signs of reluctance. The idea is you should manage everything yourselves, under supervision of course."

  "Oh, what a good plan, ma'am," they said, although several, if she had only known, were no keener than their Principal. And this lady did not disclose her fears. Why should she?

  "We shall go into everything," she promised.

  "When will it come about?" one of the girls asked.

  "All in good time," Edge answered. "Now back with you and fetch more bundles, or we shall never be done." She was, for the moment, left alone with Moira.

  "He really would be best," the girl informed Miss Edge. "He knows everything about them."

  "I'd not tell him so, if I were you," the guv'nor said, certain the child would rush to do it if advised against.

  "Why not, Miss Edge?" Moira asked, and went beyond what was permissible when she omitted to call the Principal madam. However Edge contented herself by merely saying, "Think."

  Blind sun, three quarters down the sky, was huge to the right. A soft breeze swayed curtains. Miss Edge regretted her walk, which she usually took about this time. She could have gone by the old man's cottage to prospect for a site to place the pigsties, up wind of course.

  "He has ideas about himself, you know," she added.

  As they were still alone for the moment, Moira thought she would make the best use of her chances.

  "Is that right, ma'am, when they reckon Merode's aunt's here?" The scissors went snip into the ribbon, shiny, primrose yellow.

  "Why yes, Moira," Edge answered, then screwed her eyes up against the sun. Was that Mr Rock, or not, afar off there, skirting the beeches to get down to the Lake?

  "Is she all right again?" the child asked, about Merode.

  "There's never been anything the matter, not so far as I know," Edge replied of Mrs Manley, aloof and absent.
For it was Mr Rock after all. Much worse he was deliberately exercising his animal. How intolerable, if she had taken her stroll, to have come upon him driving the slobbery pig.

  "But isn't it strange about Mary, ma'am?"

  Miss Edge barely heard.

  "Moira," she said. "You have younger eyes than I. Look over there and tell me what you see. Is that Mr Rock? And what has he got with him?"

  The child collected her face into an expression which the old man, had he been present, would have found adorable in the effort to pierce the slanting sun, which turned her skin to coral, her red hair to live filaments.

  "Why how sweet," the child exclaimed. "Yes, it is him. He's taking darling Daise for a run."

  The others came up, then, with bunches of red and white rhododendron.

  "But not loose, dear?" Edge protested.

  "Oh, she's absolutely safe, isn't she?" Moira appealed to her companions.

  "Why Mr Rock's often let her out while we've been there, when she's stayed so busy and well-behaved."

  At this moment there was the sound of a motor car engine. Coming or going? The Principal looked left, then right. Almost at once their little red State tourer came down the Drive, its cloud of dust not yet martialled but already falling in behind. Mrs Manley was seated in the back. She looked straight ahead. By some trick of the light, perhaps, her face was purple.

  "That's Mrs Manley, isn't it?" Moira cannily enquired.

  "She's been to see Merode," a child said.

  "I'll bet she asked some posers," yet another suggested.

  "We'll have to hasten if we're ever to get through," Edge propounded, and saw, or thought she saw, that Mr Rock had stopped to look. Their car, so soon invisible to Edge, must have just been entering the Trees. For a cloud of dust now lay afar, at the Drive's opening, and was a delicate pink.

  The old man seemed to stand fast, the better to watch.

  The decorations for Founder's Day were already traditional, although the Institute had been open for only ten years. In consequence there was no need for Edge to give orders, her presence was designed to preclude innovation, such as the fir branches Marchbanks had so foolishly suggested. Hooks were fixed permanently in the walls at proper intervals, and the work of tying azalea and rhododendron to hang head downwards in separate, glistening great masses went on apace without Edge having to give a thought to the proceeding. Indeed, despite a renewed preoccupation with Mr Rock, she was already conscious of a glow within her at the prospect of so much that would inevitably please, and which was to be enjoyed and enjoyed; when the trees' shadows crept at last over the mansion, and then there was moonlight; when Baker, with herself, in front of all the students dressed in their clear frocks, could sway out in one another's arms at last to open everything to that thunder of the waltz.