He kissed her cheek clumsily. She began to cry.
"So my little girl is going to be married," he said.
"Oh, there's nothing absolutely fixed yet," she replied, stepping back to blow her nose, and sent a sharp look at his face. "I never meant to tell, then I'm such a fool, I get upset at times and bring it all out. You won't breathe a word, will you, Gapa, not to Seb either, because he's funny that way, and of course, if Miss Edge got to hear before we were ready, it would be the end. I mean, I've considered this for ever so long, because I'm sure the only way is to run off one morning, and get it over, almost before you know you're doing it yourself. Get married, you see. All those tremendous preparations are simply no good. Next, soon as Miss Edge saw it was finished, after I'd shown her my certificate, I mean, there'd be absolutely nothing for her to do, would there?"
"It wants thought," he said, reminding himself, if he were to show opposition, that it would drive her into the man's arms and then he would lose her finally. But he was not so blind, he said under his breath, spectacles or no, he could see Birt coveted the cottage, would move heaven and earth to have him sent to the Sanatorium once the ring was on her finger.
"I hardly know that I should bother Swaythling," he said about the cottage, and began to walk away from the house.
"Wrong way, Gapa," she said. He turned without a word, marched up to, and past her. She followed at his heels.
"You mean you won't get on to him, then," she started. "Not one teeny word, when all the time you've sworn if anything happened to this Mary you'd move heaven and earth?"
"I intended nothing of the kind," he said, over his shoulder.
"No, but that was what you said, didn't you?"
"We shall be late, Liz."
"Why are you, I mean, what's all the hurry?" she called, unable to catch up.
"Justice," he cried. Looking at his back, she thought oh dear he's upset.
"What's that? And must you go so fast?"
"Do you really consider I should leave Mary be? Have you any idea what you've said?"
"Oh I just don't understand," she wailed.
"It is a matter of simple justice, Liz."
"Yes, Gapa."
"I'd do as much for any dog I saw maltreated, I'd report it."
But not for me, she felt. Their skins and hair simply allowed these wretched chits to get away with things. However, she had the sense to say no more. His pace slackened.
"Don't be afraid of life, Liz," he said. "Everything settles itself in the end. I've lived long enough to know that."
"Yes, Gapa," she agreed. Now she could see his face she noted it was red with more than the sunset, and puckered into deep wrinkles, an infallible sign of distress.
"You want me to write to Swaythling about yourselves and the cottage while not mentioning this girl?"
"Oh my dear," she lied. "It's not that at all. I explain myself so badly, ever since I've been ill. You know, sometimes I feel as if I'd something in my head and I simply can't get out the words. Have you ever? No, it's silly to ask. The whole thing, you see, is Seb. He's worried."
"Yes, Liz," Mr Rock encouraged, reminding himself that she must not become distressed, the doctor had been insistent.
"He knows them so well," she was going on. "He lives all the time within sight and sound of Miss Baker and Miss Edge, so he can watch and judge, day in day out, he has to. He really understands, you see. And he's worried for the cottage. Oh, of course, he wants to live there, but he's true, Gapa, you must believe. Because, naturally, I realise you don't like him. But I do know what you don't, that you will in time, you'll come round, there's no-one in the world who wouldn't, once they'd seen the real person underneath the skin. Still, I do realise, it isn't a little thing I ask, I do honestly."
"Don't fuss, dear, we'll find a way," he said.
Then, as they came to where the trees ended, and blackbirds, before roosting, began to give the alarm in earnest, some first starlings flew out of the sky. Over against the old man and his granddaughter the vast mansion reflected a vast red; sky above paled while to the left it outshone the house, and more starlings crossed. After which these birds came in hundreds, then suddenly by legion, black and blunt against faint rose. They swarmed above the lonely elm, they circled a hundred feet above, until the leader, followed by ever greater numbers, in one broad spiral led the way down and so, as they descended through falling dusk in a soft roar, they made, as they had at dawn, a huge sea shell that stood proud to a moon which, flat sovereign red gold, was already poised full faced to a dying world.
Once the starlings had settled in that tree they one and all burst out singing.
Then there were more, even higher, dots against paler pink, and these, in their turn, began to circle up above, scything the air, and to swoop down through a thickening curve, in the enormous echo of blood, or of the sea, until all was black about that black elm, as the first mass of starlings left while these others settled, and there was a huge volume of singing.
Then a third concourse came out of the west, and, as the first birds swarmed upon the nearest beech, these late comers stooped out of dusk in a crash of air to take that elm, to send the last arrivals out, which trebled the singing.
The old man wondered, as often before, if this were not the greatest sound on earth. Elizabeth stood quiet. The starlings flew around a little and then, as sky faded fast, the moon paled to brilliance, and this moment was over, that singing drooped, then finished, as every bird was home.
"I'm glad I had that once more," Mr Rock said aloud. Behind them the first cock pheasant gave a challenge.
"We're to have the most lovely night," Elizabeth told her grandfather.
They went on their way again.
"I want you to know," she said, from the heart, "in spite of everything, whatever happens, absolutely, if Seb asks me to marry him even, there'd be nothing could alter the way I love you, Gapa. I wouldn't let it."
"Don't allow yourself to grow sentimental, child," he answered.
She gave a soft laugh.
"And don't you be gruff with me, my darling," she said. "Not tonight of all nights. Listen, I think I hear their music already. They'll have every window wide. Yes, I'm almost certain."
"Good," he said, alone with blank thoughts, in his deafness.
"I'll dance every dance," she murmured happily.
Down a dank Passage which led to the Banqueting Hall Miss Winstanley, hurrying at the far end, saw a bunch of students outlined against great, wide opened double doors to the ballroom. They were in their long, white dresses. She smiled through her misery, they looked so serious, and thought, as she watched them wait for music, that one and all were in what she called 'the mood', that, once Edge and Baker had opened proceedings, the first waltz would send each child whirling forward into her future, into what, in a few years, she would, with age, become.
"Couldn't care less," a fair child asserted, "but I won't ever speak to Merode now, it's perfectly rotten of both to upset our whole show. What, we might've had the thing cancelled, thanks to those two."
"I don't know why you gripe, Moira," another objected. "We're to hold it after all, aren't we, or I can't see what we are waiting for, then. Of course there've been whispers. But that is the whole trouble with this academy. A fat lot of talk and no do, in my opinion."
"Will anyone quite say what Merode and Mary have actually done?"
"Needn't ask me. I don't want a summons to be put through the old mangle in the Holy of Holies. But all the same I do think those two have at least given everyone a bit of excitement."
"Even so," Moira protested, "and you can't be too sure we've heard the last yet, I still think it beastly selfish to have picked on this one date of the entire year. If they let her come down in the end, I'll tell her straight."