by Henry Green
"False alarm," someone commented severely.
A single pigeon, black in thickening sky, flew swift and on past the Park.
It was dusk.
Light from wide open windows increased by strides, primrose yellow over a dark that bled from blue.
With a swoop an owl came down across and hooted while Mr Rock and his granddaughter crept up the last stone flight when, unheralded, unannounced, and they could not see inside for the windows were yet too high above their heads, the gramophone crashed out once more, so loud now the old man halted entranced by the first bars of another great valse of drums and strings which, a second time however, was no sooner begun than cut off again by Inglefield.
"False alarm," Mr Rock said in a loud voice, and was about to elaborate with an attack on Edge for not keeping the instrument in proper order, when he was silenced, made mute, because, through his deafness, he had caught the last echoes of this music sent back by the beeches, where each starling's agate eye lay folded safe beneath a wing.
"We've started well," he then contented himself by suggesting.
"He said we'd meet out here," Elizabeth remarked. "To unlock us the side door."
"Better not," Mr Rock answered. "I'll ring the bell at the main entrance and be decently announced, or not attend at all," he said.
"Now Gapa," she wailed. "Who promised he'd be good?"
They slowly advanced across the last Terrace.
"Liz," he said, "in this world one should do a thing right, or leave it. If I'm to help as you've asked, you must give me credit for being able to see into their minds. I tell you they are dazzled by the position they hold here. We have to make our impression."
"Yes, Gapa," she agreed, not to upset him.
"They behave like the Begums of British India in my young days," he continued. "Besides there is no-one need creep like a thief, particularly in our circumstances."
"Very good, Gapa. But will they let me see myself in a mirror, if only for a moment, then?"
"I'll be bound they gaze at their reflections on the glass at all hours," he replied. He was invigorated at the prospect of a strange, difficult night ahead.
"You will speak all right?"
"You can be quite sure I'll get you your chance to prink."
"Oh, you know I didn't mean that. About Seb and me, I was trying to tell?" she asked.
"If their Byzantine obliqueness will allow, I might," he answered gaily, when a man hailed low and soft.
"Liz," he called.
"There he is, oh at last," she exclaimed.
"Birt, can that be you?" the old man cautiously raised his voice. "And if so, don't skulk."
A dark, short figure rose, almost from under their feet.
"This is not Guy Fawkes night, after all," the sage commented.
"Sorry, sir, but you know the way things are," Sebastian excused himself, adopting the hearty voice of a junior who was there to report present.
"Have they found my other child, then?" Mr Rock asked.
"Good Lord sir, not yet," Birt replied, still the shy, deprecating junior.
"Then you may lead us to the front entrance, for my granddaughter and I to be announced like civilized beings," he said.
The younger man was struck silent at this effrontery. He felt that Mr Rock should on no account so flaunt himself.
"It's this way, Gapa," Elizabeth prompted, resigned to disaster.
They turned, and at once became aware of the new powered moon, infinitely more than electric light which, up till then, had seemed, by a soft reflection from whence it cut into the Terrace, pallidly to surprise by stealth these mansion walls. For their moon was still enormous up above on a couch of velvet, blatant, a huge female disc of chalk on deep blue with holes around that, winking, squandered in the void a small light as of latrines. The moon was now all powerful, it covered everything with salt, and bewigged distant trees; it coldly nicked the dark to an instantaneous view of what this held, it stunned the eye by stone, was all-powerful, and made each of these three related people into someone alien, glistening, frozen eyed, alone.
"I'll leave you now," Sebastian said, as if to announce the moon had found him out.
"Thank you, I don't fancy that," Mr Rock objected. "They shall not come upon us unawares in this light." He also had on his mind the winking pairs of silvered eyelashes, still unseen, there might be watching from out black caverns of unlit, shadowed upstair casements.
"Oh, is this wise?" Elizabeth half wailed.
"He's to escort us in good order," the old man explained of Sebastian who had no torch.
"Well sir, I'd really rather not," Sebastian attempted to insist.
"Nonsense. Never try to duck when you're in the open."
Thus it was they came, one hydra-headed body to the enormous, overhanging portals, and Mr Rock pressed the bell which, by the moon, shone like a pearl on a vast hunk of frozen milk. To do so he had to enter and be lost, as if by magic, in a cube of impenetrable shade.
Elizabeth almost cried out after him, until his dead hand came forth to stab the bell a second time.
"Did it ring before?" he asked, out of his deafness.
"The girls are off duty," Sebastian said. "Tonight."
"Then we'll stay on notwithstanding, till we are made welcome," the old man answered, sure of himself, from the dark.
Steps made themselves heard within, at the advance. And, with a fearful creak, the great door was opened. Miss Baker stood silhouetted. It was Elizabeth she saw first, and she mistook the girl.
"Mary," she cried, in a small voice. But she did not take long to come back to earth.
"Oh do enter in," Miss Baker said, bright as the light behind, to three silent people.
Mr Rock took time to dry his gum boots after which, through what to them was blinding electric, copper illumination they followed Baker, without another word, the short distance down this corridor on into the sanctum.
Each of these two Principals thought the other had invited Mr Rock and his granddaughter, yet, while Baker did the honours, and Edge rose to greet them with the words, "How kind to have troubled," this lady had twin notions at one and the same time; that Sebastian, since he was a member of the staff, had no business unsummoned in the Sanctum; and also that, on no account, must this sudden rush of guests mar Baker's and her own triumphal entry, by which the Dance was ever opened. Thus she observed, while shaking hands, "You are rather late, you know." And added, "which is naughty," as she received Mr Rock, letting the smile die when she came to face Sebastian.
The old man bowed with the servile courtesy that he could assume at will.
"The pleasure is ours, ma'am," he announced, attentively serious. He was aware how, washed and brushed, he made a fine figure. Not so Elizabeth, for all her effort to seem at ease, while Sebastian could look no-one in the eye, had even to shift his weight continuously from one foot to the other.
"I regret we have nothing in the way of light refreshment," Edge lied. She was not to put herself out for these people. "It does seem absurd on a Great Night like this, but there things are, we have to abide by our Regulations," she went on. "And if we were to make an exception the once, then we would do no more than to give rise to a Rule, should we not, in a contrary sense?"
"We are not here to eat and drink," Mr Rock pronounced stoutly. "It is just that Elizabeth would like to change her shoes."
"So kind . . . sorry . . . such a nuisance, I fear," the younger woman stammered.
But, although it was now more than time for the Principals to declare the ball open by making a personal appearance, Miss Edge, who had not wanted to give them more, did not seem able to leave her guests.
"And what is your news?" she asked of Mr Rock.
"At my age, ma'am," the old man answered, "one day is much like another. Which is what renders tonight memorable," he added, with a gleam in the huge eyes behind spectacles. "Because, on this occasion, I must insist that you allow me a dance."
"Oh Mr Rock, how
splendid," Baker warmly said.
"But I always do dance with you, whenever you ask. What about last year? You remember?" Miss Edge put in at random, almost whinnying with nerves.
"I have not attended these three years past," Mr Rock, who had never been to one of their dances, announced with a small bow. "The year before I was indisposed, and on a previous occasion, I remember, I had hurt my leg."
"Twisted his knee . . . sprained his ankle," Elizabeth supplemented.
"Yet what I feel is, it only seems like yesterday," Edge announced, with a wee inclination from the waist. "And Sebastian," she ordered, turned on him for the first time, "you are not to shrink now. Not sit out continually."
"He won't. I promise," Elizabeth shrieked.
"These special Occasions mean so much to the Girls," Baker added.
"Because, while we're here, and if you permit, of course, I have a small suggestion I might offer," Mr Rock said to Miss Edge.
"By all means," she agreed. "And let it be now rather than later. Otherwise we could seem to be sharing secrets, putting our heads together before the children, and that, even at our age, might seem curious," she added with a sort of sneer.
"You flatter an old man," he said.
"My dear Mr Rock," Miss Baker cried, delighted, unaware.
"It was only, ma'am, it came to me I could, perhaps, render a small service. But, naturally, this is a mere suggestion."
Edge felt the urge to consult her wristwatch, then restrained herself.
"I'm positive my colleague and I would be more than willing . . ." she faintly encouraged him, all the less enthusiastic because of her pressing anxiety to get the Dance begun.
"I thought I might lecture, say once a week, to your older girls, ma'am," Mr Rock brought gravely out. His granddaughter and Sebastian were astonished, as also the two Principals.
Miss Edge could recollect little of the subject in which he had made his name great so very many years ago, but her first determined thought was, not suitable for younger Students, even nowadays.
"Well now," she said, as she believed cordial to the last. "This is generous indeed, is it not, Baker? You have quite taken away my breath."
"Why, Mr Rock," Miss Baker assented, wondering at last.
"We shall ponder this. Believe me I am truly Grateful," Edge went on, and experienced the most acute impatience. "Is that not so, Baker?" Then showed her hand. "Yet it just does occur to one . . . Oh I know, living as you have the best part of a lifetime with your great Discovery, at this late hour it must seem plain as day. Yet I cannot but put the question, would it be quite right for our dear Girls?"
Mr Rock found himself literally choked by momentary rage. How could these two dastardly trollops for a moment imagine he would ever so demean his nature as to discuss the Great Theory before children? He felt it so much that he reeled, and bumped into Sebastian, who had taken shelter. He controlled himself.
"We are at cross purposes, ma'am," he said. "What I had intended," he went on, in the self-absorption of old age, and a pathetic kind of dignity which they took for mere insolence, "was this. In fact a brief weekly homily on the care of pigs."
"You did?" was all Edge could bring out for the moment, while Baker gasped. Elizabeth took her young man by the finger of a hand, but, from the misery of his embarrassment, Birt shook her off.
"By the time they're older, one or more might be encouraged to have a go at this filthy swine fever," Mr Rock surmised, at his most bland and serious.
"Not many of our Students enter the Veterinary Service," Miss Edge said, in a distant voice. She began to move off. "Baker," she commanded. "We must not keep the girls."
"Now run along, Sebastian," Baker urged. He did not have to be told twice.
"But of course," she went on coldly, to the Rocks, "how thoughtless. I think you had both better come this way, to our washroom. You'll find a mirror for yourself, dear."
"Do hurry, Baker," Miss Edge called.
So the old man came upon himself alone with his granddaughter in front of a white enamelled door.
He was silent for a minute. Then he said severely, "Barbarous of them to mix the sexes."
"You go first," Elizabeth commanded. As he fumbled with the handle she caught at his sleeve.
"Oh Gapa," she exclaimed, "you didn't ... I mean, what an extraordinary idea ... to keep the cottage for us all, wasn't it... oh, are you sweet."
"I'll leave your shoes inside," he answered, shutting her out.
When the music began a third time, eighteen children waiting in the corridor lifted heads from their confabulations but did not immediately move off towards the Hall because of two previous disappointments. Then the valse continued, on and on, and they could see couples circle into view, their short reflections upon the floor continually on the move behind swinging skirts over polished wax, backwards and forwards, in and out again as each pair swung round under chandeliers. And at the sight these others walked on the lighted scene, held white arms up to veined shoulders, in one another's arms moved off, turning to the beat with half shut eyes, entranced, in a soft ritual beneath azalea and rhododendron; one hundred and fifty pairs in white and while, equally oblivious, inside their long black dresses, Miss Baker and Miss Edge lovingly swayed in one another's bony grip, on the room's exact centre, to and fro, Edge's eyes tight closed, both in a culmination of the past twelve months, at spinsterish rest in movement, barely violable, alone.
Above, locked safe into a sick bay, curtains close drawn against the moon, Merode's infant breathing told she was asleep.
Still farther off, in their retiring room, unaware that the dance had opened, the staff sat to make scant conversation. They were embarrassed; and, out of sympathy, perhaps, for the lovesick Winstanley, had chosen to pretend, by ignoring him, that Birt, who seemed most ill at ease, was not present in fat flesh amongst them. All over the Institute hardly a word more was now spoken, not one down the Hall where Inglefield had taken up her stand to drive the deafening music. Then, suddenly at a doorway, there loomed unheralded the figures of Elizabeth and the old man. Both were dressed as black as those two Principals.
His great white head nodded to rapt, dancing students. "The first will have to be with me, then," he announced to the granddaughter loud under music, for Inglefield had turned the power full on and because, as he looked around, he had seen no sign of Sebastian. Then Moira whirled past, hair spread as if by drowning over Marion's round, boneless shoulder. He let his arms, which he had held out to Elizabeth, drop back as he followed the child with carefully expressionless, lensed eyes. And Liz gave a gasp of disenchantment as she bent to raise the old hands from his sides; after which they launched out together onto the turning, dazzled floor. But not for them, as with the others, in a smooth glide. Because Mr Rock went back to the days before his own youth, was a high stepper.
He stepped high, which is to say he woodenly, uproariously lifted knees as if to stamp while he held the granddaughter at arm's length, but did not cover much ground. Still the one man on that floor, they made a twice noticeable pair because they were alone in paying heed to where they went, in his case to avoid a fall when he might break a hip, certainly fatal for a man his age, and she for the boy who remained, at the moment, her one hope of continuing to live.
"They are here," Baker, who kept an eye half open, murmured to Miss Edge. The news came to this lady as though from a distance.
"Let all enjoy themselves. They must," she mumbled in return.
There was just one note might have jarred at the outset, though it passed unnoticed. Mrs Blain had, as was natural, been amongst the first starters. She'd grabbed hold of an orderly, and was saying while she blindly danced, "Oh, we're champion."
"You do waltz beautifully," her girl replied.
"Soft soap," the cook answered. "But I've one matter on my mind. Why my Mary's not here to enjoy things. I can't make out the reason she never phoned." Mrs Blain panted, because puffed.
"Perhaps she couldn't," the chi
ld lazily suggested.
"Oh, aren't we all dancing?" Mrs Blain enthused. "Just look at us," she said, from closed eyes. "I do wish she could be here, though. She might've given me a ring. Mind now, will you look how you go? This night's for all to enjoy, isn't it, bumpin' into people? Yes, I'd've liked to get a word. Illness in the family can be a terrible upset."
"I hardly think it is," this vague girl told her, after they had danced some more.
"There, you're only dizzy, a bit. What do you know?" Mrs Blain demanded.
"I don't fancy she's home," the child softly insisted.
"Then where is she?" Mrs Blain cried out, and opened green eyes rather wild. It seemed they danced like a whirling funnel.
"She's gone, you'll discover."
"Nowhere to be come upon?" the cook wailed, and pushed that spiralling orderly away at arm's length until, she felt, the girl revolved about her like a wisp of kitchen paper. "Lost?" she yelled, but it was drowned by music. "What's this? So that was it, then? Oh, you wicked things."
"Not to do with me, Mrs Blain," the orderly gently protested, given over to her shivering, glazed senses.
"Wicked deceivers," the woman said, in a calmer voice. "I'll have my enquiries to make on that, all right."
"We think it's pretty rotten of her to want to spoil this heaven evening."
"Well then," the cook said, quietened at once, and folded the child to an enormous bosom. Upon which both gave their two selves over, entire. As they saw themselves from shut eyes, they endlessly danced on, like horns of paper, across warm, rustling fields of autumn fallen leaves.