Free Concluding by Henry Green Page B

when all else failed.
    "I must wire your parents," she said, as she got up to go over to the file, and hated herself for playing the ace. But after all, she thought, I've my own position, my pension to consider.
    "Why, you're an orphan," she cried out, delighted because she knew this would make a great difference with Baker, who had long been an acknowledged authority in State circles on the parentless. "And made your own way with scholarships, I see here. My dear child, you don't want to throw all that away on a simple escapade." Merode had got her eyes off the dado and was better for the moment. She did not want her aunt brought into this.
    "But what is it you wish me to tell you, Miss Marchbanks?" she mumbled.
    The lady sighed. "You're surely not expecting me to put the words into your mouth," she said.
    "You've always been so wonderful to us, Miss Marchbanks."
    "You're rather a flatterer you know, Merode."
    "A lot of us call you mother, ma'am." She began to cry again.
    "Ma, you mean, which is quite different. Now, come on now, we haven't got all morning. And you want to go to the dance tonight, don't you? It's going to look so lovely, really it is, especially if I can work in a pet idea of mine about fir trees. Adams is to fetch some. Was it a boy?"
    Marchbanks saw the girl had ceased crying. At this sudden return to the main object, the child's attention had been forced back to that dado, although at first the squares stayed as they were. What's the use? Merode asked herself. Let them tell it.
    "I suppose," she said at last. Miss Marchbanks went back and sat down behind Edge's desk. She allowed herself a small, satisfied smile.
    "Was it Mr Birt, by any chance?"
    "I don't imagine," the girl answered, obviously in a daze.
    "Or Mr Rock?"
    No answer.
    "Was it?"
    The furry square on her tongue started to swell once more.
    "I'd like to help you but you won't let me," the woman said. Merode began to cry again. This cut her off from the growing dado, but the rectangle was black with stiff hairs on her tongue.
    "Listen dear," Ma Marchbanks said, as a trace of the child's panic passed over her. "You were only sleep walking, weren't you? That's all, isn't that it? So simple, you understand. It must be? Can you hear?"
    There seemed to be some lessening in Merode's sobs.
    "But where is Mary, then?" Marchbanks insisted in a great voice, upon which Merode slumped forward in a faint. As she rang the bell on the desk for Miss Birks, and started up out of her chair, Ma Marchbanks thought, oh dear, to faint right away while I was questioning, how will that look, oh dear, but the poor child.
     
    Mr Rock went out with the bran to summon Ted, his goose. It was unusual for the bird not to be at hand, waiting.
    "Ted," he called, "Ted," in exactly the swill man's voice he had used to announce his presence in the kitchen, only louder. He turned this way and that, but there was no sign. Then he saw a sergeant of police push his bicycle onto the path from the road. The blue uniform gave Mr Rock a jolt. Already, he asked himself, so soon?
    The old man's cottage stood, like the hub of a wheel, on a spot at which several rides met. As he watched the policeman he saw, out of the corner of an eye, his goose come in a rush, absurd sight, its neck outstretched, wings violently beating to help cover the ground it had never left. Sun now made the bird a blaze of white.
    "Morning, Mr Rock," the sergeant said. "Might turn out warm," he said.
    "Yes," the older man replied and then, as Ted came up hissing, the policeman walked round his bike to put this between the goose and himself.
    Mr Rock threw balls of bran as if to sow dragon's teeth.
    "She'll do you fine at Christmas," the sergeant said.
    The sage, who had no intention of ever killing Ted, merely grunted.
    "Did I hear you call her Ted?" the policeman asked. So much a detective he should be in plain clothes, Mr Rock sneered to himself. "Because it's a funny thing," the man went on. Would be, Mr Rock