The Covenant Part 88

'My temp. The boy who comes in occasionally.'

On her way back to Sentinels she used a footpath through the cathedral grounds, and as she glanced about her she thought: How we English do corrupt our language. Mr. Dixon has a temp. I go to the hairdresser's for a perm. My cousin leaves the telly, goes to the fridge to get herself a snack of meat and veg. How awful.

In succeeding days she paid extra attention to what was being said around her, and heard such words as perks perks for perquisites, for perquisites, grungey grungey for objectionable, for objectionable, grotty grotty for distasteful, and what was probably the ugliest verbal invention of all time, for distasteful, and what was probably the ugliest verbal invention of all time, brolly brolly for umbrella. for umbrella.

When she spoke about this debas.e.m.e.nt with her cousin she noticed approvingly the precise English pattern of Lady Ellen's speech: 'Mustn't be put off by the odd bit of verbal invention, must we?'

'I was thinking of how the Dutch language deteriorated at the Cape. Became quite debased, you know.'

'I shouldn't wonder if they'd done a good thing, Laura. Mark you, languages change. You say the Afrikaners blotted their copybook. I say they've kept up with the times, and a good thing, too.'

'But there's a grandeur about language. I don't like to see it cheapened.'

'The odd bit of improvement never hurt any language. I relish some of the changes the Americans have made. Mortician's Mortician's a delightful word. a delightful word. Custodian's Custodian's much higher-toned than much higher-toned than janitor. janitor. Not to worry about a few modifications.' Not to worry about a few modifications.'

'It offends me to see signs in my dress shop which say, "Wear U get tru value," and in Afrikaans, "U is welkom." I may sound chauvinistic, but they seem silly.'

Since Lady Ellen knew nothing of Afrikaans, Laura dropped the subject, but three nights later when they drove north to see the Oxford Players do King Lear King Lear at Stonehenge, and the great monoliths glowed somberly in the night shadows, she surrendered to the glories of Shakespeare and actually trembled when the old king, huddling against the darkest pillars, shared his pity with those less fortunate: at Stonehenge, and the great monoliths glowed somberly in the night shadows, she surrendered to the glories of Shakespeare and actually trembled when the old king, huddling against the darkest pillars, shared his pity with those less fortunate: 'Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these?'

It seemed to her that words could not be more glorious, and later, when the young man tried to frighten the crazy blind Earl of Gloster by describing the cliff and the workman climbing perilously down its face, she sighed with the terrible power of the words: 'How fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down Hangs one that gathers samphiredreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head . . .'

Unaware of the dangerous path she was treading, she sat there in the shadow of Stonehenge and gave herself over to the magic of great-fas.h.i.+oned words hurled into the night and became drunk on them, and when old Lear at the end confessed his weakness, she had tears in her eyes from suffering with him: 'I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind.'

Three days later, still mesmerized by words, she borrowed Lady Ellen's Austin and drove by herself to Cambridge, where as a young woman of twenty she had enjoyed such flawless hours with her older brother, Wexton.

Parking the car in a munic.i.p.al lot, she walked along King's Parade, ignoring the n.o.ble chapel of King's College, for she wanted to see again the austere entrance to Clare College, which her brother had attended. Walking as if in a dream, she entered the old surroundings which had housed scholars since 1326 and stood for a long time recalling ruefully those long spring days when she had visited Wexton here. How mercurial they were, how filled with surging ideas. Shaking her head in mournful recollection, she left Clare, nodding her head as she remembered the excellent education her brother had obtained here: You were one of the brilliant lads, Wexton. Oh, G.o.d, how I miss you.

She walked aimlessly south till she reached the gatehouse to King's College, where almost against her will she entered that stately court where Wexton had encountered the temptations he could not resist. She intended hastening through, wanting to see the Backs, where she and her brother's friends had enjoyed so many hours, but she was diverted to the right toward that grandest of England's self-contained chapels, King's, with its glorious arches reaching to heaven, its ornate choir reminding one of kings and princes. It had been spoiled somewhat since she first knew it by the installation of one of the best canvases Peter Paul Rubens ever painted, a gigantic adoration of the Magi worth millions of whatever currency might be in vogue: d.a.m.n, that's a fine painting, maybe the best he ever did. But it doesn't belong here.

She sat in one of the choir stalls, envisioning the days long ago when she and Wexton had come here with his friends to hear evensong: Those d.a.m.ned friends. Those accursed friends. Oh, Wexton, all life's a falling away, a dismal falling away, but why did you . . .

Tears came to her eyes and for some moments she wept, refusing to use a handkerchief, for these were not handkerchief tears. Pressing her fingers to her cheeks, she wiped the tears away, then left the chapel to walk slowly down one of the major sights of England and perhaps Europe, that expanse of green gra.s.s hemmed in by the walls of Clare, the chapel and King's. The buildings were admirably suited to each other, but it was the long sweep down to the River Cam and the Backs beyond that gave the place its n.o.bility. Here she had been sitting on the gra.s.s one evening during the Maysthat week of frivolity which falls in Junewhen Noel Saltwood, from Oriel College at Oxford, drifted by in a boat with Cambridge friends he was visiting. They had met, fallen in love, and pledged a marriage which she had never once regretted. Life in Noel's South Africa had been rather primitive, and good conversation lagged, but often he encouraged her to get back to Salisbury, and from there to the theaters in London, with occasional excursions to Cambridge, and that had sustained her.

'Oh, Wexton, why in G.o.d's name did you do it?'

'Pardon, ma'am, but did you call?' It was a short little man wearing a rather long overcoat although the day was warmish, the kind of odd attendant one found everywhere.

'No. No. I was just thinking.' The man moved closer to a.s.sure himself that she was all right, then pa.s.sed on. As he left she thought: I was indeed thinking. Of years gone, and of evenings on this gra.s.s when I first met Noel and his fine, unaffected approach to life. He listened like a country oaf to everything that Wexton and his clever friends and that brilliant young tutor said so glibly. And as he walked me back to my digs he said bluntly, 'I think your brother and his cronies are half-daft.'

'Don't you dare say a thing like that.'

'The way he ridicules everything. Don't you ever listen to him?'

So under Noel's tutelage she did listen, and Wexton and his friends, and especially the tutor, did ridicule everything. They despised Australia. They considered South Africa a blight. And they positively excoriated the United States. They also put George Bernard Shaw in his place, and John Galsworthy was beneath their contempt.

It was only then, spurred by Noel's sharp a.n.a.lysis, that she realized that her brother had fallen captive to a clique that idolized the young tutor, and in later years she watched with horror as they landed fine jobs in government, accelerated to positions of importance, then scurried off to Russia with high state secrets. Three of them, including Wexton, were living there now in lifelong exile. Two others had ended up in American jails, and one had committed suicide to avoid a treason trial. No one identified the tutor who had enlisted them, and so many others, in the revolution which was to eliminate excrescences like Australia, South Africa and America.

Oh, Wexton, I would travel to Leningrad on my knees if I could see you again! Once more she broke into tears, thinking of the dazzling manner in which this group of young brilliants had used the English language, and of the pitfalls into which it had led them. With them cleverness was four-fifths of the battle, she said to herself. Remember when one of them dismissed all of South Africa with a joke, even though he knew I was engaged to a South African: 'We had sense enough to let America win her war against us and got rid of that bad apple. We had to win our d.a.m.ned war against the Boers, and we're stuck with that atrocity.'

When she dropped her head in her hands, displaying an anguish that all could see, the little man in the long coat hurried back: 'Ma'am, I say, are you all right?' She was so preoccupied with her grief that she did not see another man, in a dark suit, who watched her from a far bend of the River Cam.

Very slowly she drove back to Salisbury, experiencing a vague presentiment that this might be the last journey she would ever make to Cambridge, or to England either: I'm old now. I should be visiting here as a dignified old lady coming to see my brother to talk about old times. But he's in Leningrad. G.o.d, he must be homesick.

When she tried to decipher how he had been seduced into committing his mortal sinthe betrayal of his nation and his peersshe began to think of the role words play in life: Our family was so keen on word games. Wexton and I played them incessantly. I think I first came to suspect him when he cheated one day. Altered the meaning of a word in order to win. At Cambridge he altered the meanings of the great words and ended a traitor. Back in Salisbury, walking within the shadow of the cathedral, she thought: Integrity in words protects integrity in life. If the word is corrupted, everything that stems from it will be evil. And this made her ponder word usage in South Africa, and it was then that she made her decision.

Immediately after she deplaned at Johannesburg she telephoned her son: 'Yes, tonight. I want you and Susan and the children over here at once.' When they arrived she took her son aside and said bluntly, 'Craig, I thought you were wasting your talents when you took science at Oxford. Now I thank G.o.d you did.'

'What are you prating about?'

'Your salvation. I want you to cable Was.h.i.+ngton tonight. Tell them that you've accepted the NASA position. Go to America. And take your family with you... forever. But first you must visit Salisburymake arrangements for Timothy's college.'

'But why? You've always said you love it here.'

'I do, and that's why you must go.'

'To what purpose?'

'To get out of here. I'll put aside funds for Timothy's fees at Oriel, and Sir Martin can find him something in England when he graduates.'

Mrs. Saltwood asked her son to call in his wife and children, and when they were formally seated before her she said, cryptically, 'Very ugly things are going to happen in this country. They're beyond our controlbeyond the control of any sensible people. If there was a chance that you could modify them, I'd want you to stay. I will.'

'We can't leave you here, Mother,' Craig's wife said earnestly.

'I'm expendable. You're not. I've had my life, you haven'tand it would be crazy to try to spend it in this insane atmosphere.'

'What makes you so agitated?'

'I went to a performance of King Lear King Lear at Stonehenge. I heard majestic words. And I dare no longer turn my back.' at Stonehenge. I heard majestic words. And I dare no longer turn my back.'

'Mother, you're not making sense.'

'All you need to know, Craig, is that after the first of June it will not be wise for any Saltwood to be living in South Africa.'

'What happens on the first of June?'

'I go bowling. I go bowling in Cape Town with the Lady Anne Barnard Club, and I want you to be safely home in Salisbury.'

She would say no more. She bought four tickets on South African Airways: 'They have the best planes, you know, and the best pilots, too.' And she spent many hours at the Johannesburg offices of the Black Sash, discussing events with the ladies who were endeavoring to alleviate the tragedy and hards.h.i.+p engendered by enforcement of apartheid. She also sent four urgent letters to Sir Martin Saltwood at Sentinels, explaining the necessity for sending Timothy to England and asking him to watch over the boy. Finally she wrote to the princ.i.p.al of a black high school in the Transvaal, a.s.suring him that she would speak at his school, as requested. After that she spent her spare time with the sonnets of Shakespeare, until a chain of those unequaled lines echoed in her head, building an eclectic sonnet of their own: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I all alone beweep my outcast state Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud Like as the waves make towards the pebbled sh.o.r.e When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.

At times the sheer beauty of the words overcame her, and she felt that men and women give their lives for many good and n.o.ble causes, but none more sacred than the keeping alive of words that thunder and sing and console, and it was to such a mission that she now dedicated herself.

When word reached Vrymeer that Craig Saltwood and his family were leaving, the Van Doorns were startled, for this was only the latest in that flood of talent that was pouring out of South Africa. 'Craig must be out of his mind,' Marius stormed. 'Good job here. Sound prospects.'

'And a clear view of the track ahead,' his wife agreed.

Philip Saltwood had dropped by to see Sannie, but she was out with the Troxel boys, and Marius put the question to him: 'Would you be frightened out of South Africa today?'

'I'd want to stay. But that's because I like crisis situations.'

'You imply that if you were Craig, you might leave.'

'I might. I doubt a non-Afrikaner has much future here. I'd probably go back to where I was wanted.'

'You d.a.m.ned foreigners,' Marius growled.

'I'm staying,' his very English wife said. 'But of course, my life is here. Sannie and the rest.'

'Are you also saying that if you were Craig, you'd take the chicken and run?' her husband asked.

'I would, for the reasons Philip has just cited. It's not pleasant, Marius, living where you're not welcome'

'Rubbish. All my friends adore you.'

'And half our Jewish acquaintances have sent their children out of the country. Never coming back. And we know many English who are doing the same.'

Marius adopted a philosophical view: 'Every organism ought to cleanse itself now and then. The brains we lose will be replaced locally.'

'But if you Afrikaners despise speculative thinking because it might turn radical, how can the gaps be filled?' she asked. 'Have you heard what Afrikaner professors and ministers are teaching these days? Not much leaders.h.i.+p there.'

'It'll come,' Philip interposed. 'I see some very bright young engineers.'

'One thing does worry me,' Marius said reflectively. 'Of all the places in the world I've seen, the one that impressed me most was Princeton, New Jersey. When I was there Einstein was in residence, and John von Neumann, and Lise Meitner was visiting. All the brilliant scientists that Europe had lost in the 1930s. They were the ones who paved the way for the atomic bomb. Fermi, the others. And when the urgent need came in World War II, the Germans looked around for their help and they were gone. I wonder if we're alienating similar talent.'

But when Frikkie and Jopie arrived with Sannie, they put things back into perspective. 'To h.e.l.l with all English fugitives,' Jopie said. 'They fight for nothing these days. Won't even play us in rugby.' But as soon as he said this he remembered that Mrs. van Doorn was English: 'I don't mean you.'

Frikkie said brightly, 'Let the Jews and the English hands-uppers clutter up Harvard and Yale. We have work to do here which they would never stomach. And we're going to do it.'

When the time came for the Craig Saltwoods to leave the country, Philip announced that he'd like to drive to Jan s.m.u.ts Airport to see them off, for this would give him a chance to meet Laura Saltwood, of whom several local people had spoken with regard. However, the journey was a hundred miles, and he might not have gone had he not received a surprising telegram from Craig Saltwood, whom he had never met: imperative i see you jan s.m.u.ts airport prior my departure. imperative i see you jan s.m.u.ts airport prior my departure.

Frikkie and Jopie volunteered to drive, because they knew that Sannie enjoyed seeing the 747s even if she wasn't flying in them, so as a foursome they drove across southern Transvaal, roaring into the airport well ahead of takeoff. They found Craig Saltwood anxiously looking for his American cousin. When Frikkie identified the Englishman, the three Afrikaners withdrew, leaving the cousins alone. Then Craig said, startling Philip even more, 'I know we're practically strangers, but. .. Philip, would you please watch over my mother. I'm sure she's up to something dramatic and I'm d.a.m.ned if I can leam what.'

Philip was at a loss for words. Stunned by the request, he finally said, weakly, 'I can't very well watch over her from Venloo.'

'I don't mean that. You can never stop my mother from doing what she wants.'

'What do you mean?'

'I think she's going to fall afoul of the law. Everything she says and does strengthens the impression.'

'Then why are you leaving?'

'Because she insists. Says things here are bound to go to h.e.l.l Here she comes.'

Laura Saltwood was sixty-seven that day, tall, white-haired, thin as in her youth, and clear-eyed. She was quite content to see her family leaving 'for a better climate,' as she phrased it, and she did not intend showing tears as they departed. She was somewhat disconcerted to meet Philip, for his unexpected presence made the departure one degree more grave than she had intended; however, she greeted him cordially and asked him to join them in the lounge to await the plane's takeoff.

'I have these friends with me,' he apologized, and when he called them over she widened her conversation to include them, using Afrikaans when introductions were made. The situation was strained, for the Craig Salt-woods were embarra.s.sed at leaving the country, while Frikkie and Jopie were obviously disgusted with them for doing so.

Now the plane was wheeled into position, a modified version of the standard 747, shortened so it could fly non-stop to London, since South African planes were not allowed to refuel anywhere in black Africa. An all-white flight crew took their places in a land that was eighty percent non-white, and after formal goodbyes another family left the country, its children never to return to the land which had nurtured them and which sorely needed whatever contributions they might have made.

Jopie said as the plane soared off, 'The Englishlast to land, first to flee.' And Frikkie said, 'A wise farmer weeds out his weak mealies.' They made no attempt to hide their bitterness.

They might have been even more upset had they chanced to see at a far edge of the airport an unscheduled Boeing to which a sequence of small automobiles reported during the s.p.a.ce of about an hour. No announcements were made over the loudspeakers regarding this plane; no uniformed stewardesses flourished through the airport, heralding it. Quietly it filled with pa.s.sengers, quietly it taxied to the far end of the runway, and without notice of any kind it took off, circled, and flew directly westward on a very long flight to South America. It contained one hundred and eighty businessmen and farmers, most of them Afrikaners, who were going with their wives to visit Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to investigate farmlands of the interior against the day when they might wish to quit South Africa for a new frontier. Of these pa.s.sengers, forty-three families would like Brazil so much that they would make arrangements to purchase vast fincas, fincas, holding them in reserve for the day when they might be needed. The others would make their decisions later. As for the secret plane, after an appropriate rest it would load up with Afrikaner and English doctors and fly them to Australia to register with that country's medical a.s.sociation, so as to ensure a refuge . . . when the crunch came. holding them in reserve for the day when they might be needed. The others would make their decisions later. As for the secret plane, after an appropriate rest it would load up with Afrikaner and English doctors and fly them to Australia to register with that country's medical a.s.sociation, so as to ensure a refuge . . . when the crunch came.

On May 30 Laura Saltwood appeared at the black school in the Transvaal to find that publicity regarding her visit had encouraged some thirty or forty black princ.i.p.als and school officials to drive substantial distances to hear her. They knew her to be a remarkable woman, a quiet worker in a score of worthy causes. She had the reputation for both good sense and fearlessness, and they knew she would not have come so far unless she had something pertinent to say.

Although she had written her speech in detail, suspecting that it might be the most important she would ever deliver, and perhaps the last, she did not refer to notes but spoke extemporaneously. She announced her subject as Language, Language, one of the most mercurial topics in the world, and eased the apprehensions of the older conservatives by praising Afrikaans: one of the most mercurial topics in the world, and eased the apprehensions of the older conservatives by praising Afrikaans: 'As you know from the Old Testament, South Africa and Israel have much in common, especially their determination in creating and establis.h.i.+ng a new language. Israel went back to ancient Hebrew. South Africa went to cla.s.sical Dutch, adding a wonderful a.s.sembly of new words, new spellings, and new arrangements.

'Don't let anyone ridicule Afrikaans, just because it uses compact constructions. The greatness of English is that it simplified High German, made it more attainable, knocked out the silly declensions. A German purist would have every right to scorn English as a b.a.s.t.a.r.dization, just as Dutchmen scorn Afrikaans as a cheapening of their language. That's unfair. Two centuries from now Afrikaans may be a major language and Dutch may have disappeared, because Afrikaans speaks to simple needs, and therefore creates its own vitality.'

The more volatile younger teachers were disappointed by the conciliatory approach, and one history teacher whispered, 'She could be the spokesman for the Afrikaner universities.' But then she launched into the heart of her message: 'Before Soweto 1976 the black children of South Africa were advised that since their future lay in this country, they should adopt as their second language not English but Afrikaans. And they were ordered to use Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in half their subjects, when they clearly preferred to use English in all. They were right to demand English. To deny them that language would be a most grievous deprivation. [Here several teachers applauded.]

'English is a universal language, a lingua franca in all parts of the world. Airlines fly by English. Scholarly reports from all countries are circulated in English. To have this language is to have a key to the world's economies.

'English also has a literature probably richer than that of any other language, because in English you have not only the immortal contributions of Milton and Shakespeare, d.i.c.kens and Jane Austen, but you also have contributions made by people like Ernest Hemingway from America, Patrick White from Australia and William Butler Yeats from Ireland. To surrender English when you have a chance to acquire it is like throwing away the key to a treasury.

'Learn Afrikaans to help you in your daily life in this country, but learn English to help you live in the whole world. The conqueror who makes me learn his language makes me a slave. The edict that makes me learn a language spoken by only a few people puts me in a cage. The teacher who enables me to learn the lingua franca of the entire world sets me free. If you learn Afrikaans, you will be able to read a few fine books; if you learn English, you will be able to read the greatest body of learning and literature in the world.'

The princ.i.p.als applauded; the teachers cheered; the students went out and marched with banners. The police looked diligently for Mrs. Saltwood, but she had traveled by back routes to her home in Johannesburg; the next day she flew to Cape Town with a friend who served with her on the board of the Black Sash. What was more important, they made arrangements to bowl together on the Lady Anne Barnard team.

On June 1 Laura Saltwood rose at seven, read from the little book of Shakespeare's sonnets which she kept with her, and after a spare breakfast in her friend's kitchen, dressed in her bowls uniform: white stockings, white shoes with pale blue trim, white dress with heavy braided piping, white sweater with the Lady Anne Barnard colors on the pocket, and a stiff white straw hat with Barnard streamers. A selected group of women, most of them Church of England, had proudly worn this uniform for the past eighty years, and now twelve of them journeyed by different ways to the bowling green in the park, where they were to meet the distinguished Ladies of the Castle. During much of South African history this team had enrolled t.i.tled members.

Most of the players were in position when Laura arrived; some were much older than she; most were in their fifties. They were a handsome group of women, sun-tanned, each in proper uniform, each keen on the game which they had played for decades. The Ladies of the Castle could be easily differentiated from Laura's team: they wore brown shoes with very heavy rubber soles, and their hats had wide brims, down in front, up in back, with ribbons that hung neatly from the left side. It was obvious that they intended to win.

No one, either from the Barnards or the Castles, spoke to Mrs. Saltwood in any way other than their normal greeting on a June morning when the air was brisk and the sides of the playing field rimmed with beds of late-autumn flowers, but their tenseness indicated that this was not an ordinary day.

Laura was paired with the best bowler on the Barnards, Mrs. Grimsby, a stern-faced woman who intimidated her opponents by wearing on her dress a band of six medals she had won in international compet.i.tions. She was formidable, and shook Laura's hand firmly when they met: 'We'll have at them, yes?'

'It's our turn to win,' Laura said.

The teams bowled in sets of four, two opponents at one end of the rink facing two at the other. Today Laura would be bowling against Mrs. Phelps-Jones, who consistently beat her, but she felt that with Mrs. Grimsby at the other end, they just might pull off a surprise victory.

Laura won the right to send down the target bowl, the jack, which she did with some skill, landing it almost exactly the right distance from the backstop, but a little too much to the right. Since other foursomes would be playing at the same time on adjoining rinks, it was customary to move the jack into the center of the lane, at the distance set, and when this was done, the game began.

Laura and Mrs. Phelps-Jones were each to bowl four b.a.l.l.s, Laura's marked with a small blue triangle inset into the wood, her opponent's with a green circle. A small mat was spread to protect the gra.s.s where the bowlers would be standing throughout the game, and on it Laura took two firm steps, swinging her right arm at the same time and delivering a ball with a decided spin. She launched it far to the left of her target, but since it was not perfectly round and since she had been careful to start it on its largest axis, it gradually twisted itself to the right, ending up not too far from the jack.

Mrs. Phelps-Jones was not daunted. Taking over the mat, she swung her first bowl well to the right, watching with satisfaction as it cut a large parabola toward the left, ending closer to the jack than Laura's. At the end of this first head, Mrs. Phelps-Jones scored one point, for her first ball rested closer than any that Laura could send down, but Laura escaped disaster because one of her bowls was better than her opponent's second closest.

Now it was Mrs. Grimsby's turn, and she was a terror. Sending her wood right-to-left, she seemed to have implanted a magnet in the jack, for it drew her wood to it, and at the end of that head she had scored a cheering three. The game continued close through the twenty-one heads, with Mrs. Grimsby scoring the points that Laura failed to make. It was a splendid compet.i.tion, with all four ladies delighted by the closeness.

It was Mrs. Grimsby who first saw them. She had delivered a smas.h.i.+ng wood, sharp right-to-left, that knocked away two of her opponent's bowls, and when she looked up, they were standing off to one side, two men in dark suits watching the game, saying nothing.

Mrs. Grimsby's opponent saw them next, then all the women on the far ends of the rinks. No one spoke, but gradually their changed expressions alerted the women, whose backs were to the men. Finally Mrs. Phelps-Jones said matter-of-factly, 'Laura, I think they've come.'

Mrs. Saltwood did not look up. She was checking the position of the b.a.l.l.s sent to their end by Mrs. Grimsby and her opponent, and she said, 'I think Esther has two, do you agree?'

Mrs. Phelps-Jones bent over to inspect and said, 'Two, right.'

The game continued, as the men intended it should, and although Laura did poorly, the remarkable bowling of Mrs. Grimsby enabled their side to win 25-21, but as Laura knelt to recover the bowls, she saw that Mrs. Phelps-Jones was weeping, and when she moved down the rink to congratulate Mrs. Grimsby, she found that she, too, was crying.