"I'm all right. It's never hurt me to do without," he said, his self pity allowing him to forget what Mrs Blain had provided. "But you've been ill," he generously added, and felt tired.
"Hullo," she then exclaimed, in such a well known accent of pure gaiety that Mr Rock knew, before he could turn round. It was Sebastian Birt, in a neat brown suit.
"Hullo Sebastian," he said.
"And the light of their camp fires went out to meet the dawn," this young man announced, pretending to quote Herodotus, in a reference to the fire under the copper in which Daisy's swill was being cooked.
"You're up then," Mr Rock said, looked shortsightedly to see whether Sebastian was shaved and, when he found that the young man had done so, having to admit to himself, with a gloating reluctance, that the prating idler could not have spent the night in her bed unless, as was just possible, he had been slippy enough to bring his razor or depilatory with him. The worthless fellow would have had to do it on cold water though, which was very unusual in such a quarter, Mr Rock thought.
Meanwhile Elizabeth Rock, who had realised how unattractive she must look in her state of undress, was off back to the cottage.
"Wait for me, now," she called, "I won't be a moment, really." And Sebastian, who did not answer, just stood there in a daze at the chance which bound him to these two strange people by the love he had for the granddaughter, the love, he thought, of his life.
"Well?" Mr Rock enquired, not for lack of more he might have said. Sebastian brought himself out of himself with a jerk.
"They've mislaid one of their girls," he mentioned as casual as could be, speaking in his own voice, as he almost always did to the old man.
"Who have?"
"Miss Edge and Mistress Baker," Sebastian replied, about to break into eighteenth-century speech, but he checked himself. "In fact they're looking everywhere for a couple, a brace," he added.
"Bless my soul," Mr Rock commented, his eye on the swill. The news did not at once disturb him.
"And they've left Ma Marchbanks to hold the baby."
"How's that?"
"They've gone up to Town as per usual. Our misguided rulers have put both on separate Commissions which sit Wednesdays. Of course, they can't miss those."
"Good," Mr Rock said.
Sebastian barked a laugh. "What in general is good about it, sir?" he asked. "There's hell to pay up at the house."
"I always feel easier when those two State parrots are safe off the premises," Mr Rock said. "I don't know what they put in the food now, but these last few weeks I can't seem able to boil your swill."
"Preservative," Sebastian promptly replied. "For what we are about to receive may it be ever fresh," he misquoted in his falsetto, then immediately controlled himself. "Tell me, does she do well
on it, sir?" he enquired with deference, as though Mr Rock might suppose the question to be sarcastic.
"So long as I'm allowed to keep the animal," Mr Rock nervously answered, "and I think I've a reasonable prospect. But if I were a younger man there's one thing I'd do." And he looked with savagery at Birt. He was in earnest. "I'd have a shot at this filth of a swine fever," he said. "Next to the system we live under each one of us nowadays, it's the curse of our time," he ended, stirring the swill once more.
There was a silence.
"You haven't seen Merode and Mary, then?" the younger man asked. He was anxious again.
"Me? No. Why should I?"
"They're the pair of students we can't find."
"So you said," Mr Rock admitted, horrified.
There was another silence.
"It's going to be a magnificent day," Sebastian suggested.
"When you get to my age you'll appreciate it."
"You mean the weather?" Sebastian asked, respectfully.
"Did you say 'end of her tether,'" Mr Rock demanded in a wild voice, thinking of Mary and turned to face the younger man who explained, "I spoke indistinctly again. No, I mentioned the weather."
"Oh I see," Mr Rock commented. "It's my ears," he said.
At this moment the swill began to boil with mustard bursting bubbles and, as a result, a stench rose from the copper harsh enough to turn the proudest stomach. Birt would have gone off at once but did not like to leave at a moment of awkwardness and incomprehension. Because, also, of his love for Elizabeth, he did not wish to antagonise the old man, so put up with the smell. Besides, he had promised to wait.
"At last," Mr Rock said, and came to Sebastian's rescue by moving away on his own. "Have you had breakfast?"
"Oh yes, thanks all the same, I had mine up at the Institute," Birt lied, so as not to saddle the sage with the need to prepare an extra portion. For his part Mr Rock showed no sign of what he felt as, with simplicity, he waited by the kitchen entrance for Sebastian to pass first. Even in this room Sebastian imagined he could taste the stink of swill. But just then Elizabeth entered, and the young man forgot in anxiously watching to find how she might be. Much could, as a rule, be told from the clothes she wore, from her manner when she set out.
"What's it to be?" Mr Rock asked, as he took a saucepan off a nail.
"Why Gapa," she said, eyes smiling upon Sebastian. "How sweet you are to us, but you mustn't bother, not on a day like this. I couldn't now," she said.
"Sebastian, you talk to her," Mr Rock suggested. The young man looked gravely at him.
"Don't think there's anything I can do, sir," he said with a sort of adolescent's smiling courtesy, out of place in a beak.
"Now Elizabeth. ." Mr Rock began at once, but she interrupted.
"No," she said. "It's no use, I won't listen, either of you. Come on Seb, the weather's too good to waste inside." She took his hand, led him out. "Don't you ever smell anything besides your pretty students?" she asked in a low voice. "I believe you don't, and that's what makes you lucky," she said, as they turned into the ride by which Mr Rock had gained the big house earlier. It was noticeable how, when with her love, she no longer hesitated with her spoken feelings. "Darling, you're the luckiest man," she said, and sniffed fresh air.
"You're looking so much better," he told Elizabeth as they dawdled up the ride, holding hands. She was not tall like Winstanley, yet came head and shoulders above him.
"Oh Seb, I don't know that you'll ever forgive me; all my stupid hesitations," she said.
The sun, which was not high yet, came aslant between trees with a smoky light, much as it had through Mrs Blain's great window, and struck their blue shadows sideways.
"Most of it's my fault, I do know that." He spoke sincerely.
"Why no," she murmured back. "You're perfect."
"If we hadn't met," he said, "you’d never've had your breakdown, would you?"
"I might. You can't tell. Now I've had one, I know," she said. "Actually, I believe you saved me, my reason I mean."
"Oh Liz, it was hardly as bad, come now."
"That's how it felt," she answered. "And I've been such a fool all this time not realising my own mind."
He did not dare ask whether he was to understand she had at last decided what she wanted of him. His experience with her had taught Birt that she took refuge in a vast quagmire of vagueness when at all pressed. So, heart beating, because it was genuinely important how she would put it, he waited.
"Sometimes I wonder if you'll ever forgive," she began again. "Oh I can't imagine why you picked me out," she said. "I get frightened sometimes you won't ever see me the way I really am. But one thing I'm sure now. I worried so at the start. D'you think I'd better tell? Well, I will. It was about Gapa. He's very famous. You see, I thought it might all be because of him."
He again felt he must at all costs make her right.
"What d'you mean?" he asked patiently.
"When you first showed an interest," she said. "Last Christmas. The time you began coming across the park to see us. Oh, for quite a long while I was sure you only did it to be by Gapa."