begin to look a bit worn. Now, are you sure George will be impressed by Morgan’s name?’
‘Very,’ said Jane.
‘Do you mean you’re very sure or that George will be very impressed?’
‘I mean both.’
‘It would put me off, if I were George.’
The recital of
‘Not a hush from anybody,’ said the warden, meaning, ‘Not a sound.’ — ‘Not a hush,’ she said, ‘because this instrument of Mr Farringdon’s apparently registers the drop of a pin.’
One of the dormitory girls, who sat mending a ladder in a stocking, carefully caused her needle to fall on the parquet floor, then bent and picked it up again. Another dormitory girl who had noticed the action snorted a suppressed laugh. Otherwise there was silence but for the quiet purr of the machine waiting for Joanna.
Thou mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World’s strand. sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it almost unmade… .
8
A scream of panic from the top floor penetrated the house as Jane returned to the club on Friday afternoon, the 27th of July. She had left the office early to meet Tilly at the club. She did not feel that the scream of panic meant anything special. Jane climbed the last flight of stairs. There was another more piercing scream, accompanied by excited voices. Screams of panic in the club might relate to a laddered stocking or a side-splitting joke.
When she reached the top landing, she saw that the commotion came from the wash-room. There, Anne and Selina, with two of the dormitory girls, were attempting to extricate from the little slit window another girl who had evidently been attempting to climb out and had got stuck. She was struggling and kicking without success, exhorted by various instructions from the other girls. Against their earnest advice, she screamed aloud from time to time. She had taken off her clothes for the attempt and her body was covered with a greasy substance; Jane immediately hoped it had not been taken from her own supply of cold cream which stood in a jar on her dressing-table.
‘Who is it?’ Jane said, with a close inspective look at the girl’s unidentifiable kicking legs and wriggling bottom which were her only visible portions.
Selina brought a towel which she attempted to fasten round the girl’s waist with a safety-pin. Anne kept imploring the girl not to scream, and one of the others went to the top of the stairs to look over the banister in the hope that nobody in authority was being unduly attracted upward.
‘Who is it?’ Jane said.
Anne said, ‘I’m afraid it’s Tilly.’
‘Tilly!’
‘She was waiting downstairs and we brought her up here for a lark. She said it was like being back at school, here at the club, so Selina showed her the window. She’s just half an inch too large, though. Can’t you get her to shut up?’
Jane spoke softly to Tilly. ‘Every time you scream,’ she said, ‘it makes you swell up more. Keep quiet, and we’ll work you out with wet soap.’
Tilly went quiet. They worked on her for ten minutes, but she remained stuck by the hips. Tilly was weeping. ‘Get George,’ she said at last, ‘get him on the phone.’
Nobody ‘wanted to fetch George. He would have to come upstairs. Doctors were the only males who climbed the stairs, and even then they were accompanied by one of the staff.
Jane said, ‘Well, I’ll get somebody.’ She was thinking of Nicholas. He had access to the roof from the Intelligence Headquarters; a hefty push from the roof-side of the window might be successful in releasing Tilly. Nicholas had intended to come to the club after supper to hear the lecture and observe, in a jealous complex of curiosity, the wife of Selina’s former lover. Felix himself was to be present.
Jane decided to telephone and beg Nicholas to come immediately and help with Tilly. He could then have supper at the club, his second supper, Jane reflected, that week. He might now be home from work, he usually returned to his room at about six o’clock.
‘What’s the time?’ said Jane.
Tilly was weeping, with a sound that threatened a further outburst of screams.
‘Just on six,’ said Anne.
Selina looked at her watch to see if this was so, then walked towards her room.
‘Don’t leave her, I’m getting help,’ Jane said. Selina opened the door of her room, but Anne stood gripping Tilly’s ankles. As Jane reached the next landing she heard Selina’s voice.
‘Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity …’
Jane laughed foolishly to herself and descended to the telephone boxes as the clock in the hall struck six o’clock.
*
It struck six o’clock on that evening of July 27th. Nicholas had just returned to his room. When he heard of Tilly’s predicament he promised eagerly to go straight to the Intelligence Headquarters, and on to the roof.
‘It’s no joke,’ Jane said.
‘I’m not saying it’s a joke.’
