"Did she tell you?" his granddaughter asked him, wide eyed.

"Of course not," he said sharply. "If she had, I'd have known where to look, wouldn't I? No, but she has complained, Liz, often and often, the poor girl. All she's got in the "world is out in Brazil, she has no relatives besides."

"Oh, Gapa dear," she cried. "You shouldn't listen, you really mustn't. They're so deceitful at that age, you can't imagine."

"And do you know how Mistresses Edge and Baker will act next?" he went on. "They'll cover up. They have made one or two gestures today but they're only sitting back, they're saying to each other 'Mary must turn up tomorrow', and when she does no such thing, perhaps she's not in a position to oblige, they'll tell one another, Liz, 'Wait for the next day'. And so on."

"Now, Gapa, they can't hide it altogether, I mean they have their lists, haven't they, Mary won't simply disappear into thin air, surely, you see?"

He stayed silent.

"They won't, will they?" she pressed him, with rising terror.

"I'm not one to look into their dark minds," he said at last. "But they must find something, a means to put the blame onto her however it turns out. I do know that," he said.

"And then the cottage?" she wailed.

"Don't let yourself get upset, Liz," he said in a loud voice. "Just allow me to handle this my way."

"But it's our whole future, Seb's and mine," she almost shouted, unmasking herself. "When we're married, where are we to go? I didn't mean to ask you like this, but I've been thinking. Oh Gapa, you wouldn't mind, surely now, I mean you'd hardly notice. But I had felt when we're married we could live on here with you, the both of us."

When Mr Rock heard this, he was terrified for his granddaughter. She could not have them both.

"Dear, you know the Rule," he said gently. "When one of the staff takes a wife the State always moves him to another post."

"Yes, but you could put in a word with Mr Swaythling. You wouldn't mind. You see I'd never get over leaving you. It's hard to set these things to words, but you're my life, Gapa, you understand."

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.