Nothing Page 6

“Then why don’t you?”

  “Because we can’t afford it.”

  “I believe you simply won’t bother with a party of your own Philip.”

  He laughed.

  “Well,” she said, “it’s your life after all.”

  “But I do wish she’d ask the relations,” he insisted.

  “Who’ve you got specially in mind?” she demanded.

  “Uncle Ned,” he replied then rather mysteriously paused.

  “What’s so thrilling about him?” she asked.

  “I see you haven’t got the idea,” he said. “I imagine you either have the feeling or you don’t. I just feel a thing for my family that’s all. Oh we’re nobodies, our names have never been in history or any of that rot, I simply’d like to see them and I don’t ever seem to.”

  “You can when you’re married.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “It was what you said the other day Philip about not liking to ring your relations to propose yourself to tea. Well once you marry a girl you’ll be able to ask your uncle round as often as you please for him to get to know her.”

  “That’s quite an idea,” he agreed.

  She watched him with an unfathomable expression.

  “It’s a bit stiff though to have to marry to meet one’s uncle,” he protested at last.

  “Nothing’s easy,” she said. “Oh nothing’s ever easy,” she repeated. A pinched look came over her face. She pushed her empty plate away. “You get fed up,” she muttered. “Sick of it all!”

  “Why whatever’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” she said and looked as if about to cry.

  “I say I’m most dreadfully sorry. Would you like to go outside or something.”

  “Everything’s so hopeless,” she announced in a low voice.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She appeared to pull herself a little together.

  “I don’t seem to get anywhere with my life Philip,” she said not looking at him, eyes averted. “I mean,” she went on and began to speak louder, with some assurance “I mean now that the only jobs one can land, or the only ones within my reach, are State jobs, well I just can’t move on, get promotion, arrive at the top where there’s just the one person, you know. In the days there was more private industry one could change around but as I am, I’m no more than in a Grade which I drag about with me like a ball and chain if I apply for another Department.”

  “You wouldn’t want to go back to the bad old times Mary,” he gently remonstrated. “Not when we’re making this country a place fit to live in at last.”

  “A ball and chain dragging at one all the time,” she echoed as if she had not heard him. “And so it will be the whole of my life. I’ll do a little bit better every year and get nowhere in the end.”

  “Mary,” he cried, “you’re discouraged!”

  “You’re telling me?” she asked, showing signs of indignation.

  “No but look at all the way we’ve come the past few years,” he protested.

  “Oh yes,” she agreed in an uninterested voice.

  “And we’re not working for ourselves now,” he went on. “At least not those of us who are worth anything, like you and me. Besides, if you’ll forgive my being personal, you’ll marry, have children.”

  “Will I?” she said in a small voice.

  “Of course you must,” he announced with what was almost impudent assurance.

  “I don’t think I shall Philip. But suppose I do, what will happen to them? Are they to work through a few Grades until they reach retiring age by which time I’ll be dead?”

  “There’s your grandchildren,” he said not so confidently.

  “How d’you know?” she demanded in a loud scornful tone then bit her lip.

  There was a pause while he crumbled bread into pellets. He looked at her again. The face he saw seemed even younger, wore an expression of childish obstinacy.

  “You were talking of my party,” he tried. “Why don’t you persuade your father to have one for you?”

  “Oh Philip,” she protested and gave him a hard, angry look “one dance doesn’t alter everything for ever does it!”

  “I know,” he said at last “I get moments of utter discouragement too.”

  “You do Philip?” Her voice was softer.

  “Fifty two weeks in the year and we work fifty,” he muttered.

  “And they say buy a new hat so you’ll feel different,” she agreed.

  “But we’ve got everything before us haven’t we?” he moaned as if he were looking down into his own grave.

  “Year in year out,” she assented.

  “Sometimes it seems hopeless,” he said and in his turn took on an appearance of obstinacy younger even than his years. As she watched him she visibly brightened.

  “Cheer up Philip,” she encouraged. “Things may not be as bad for all that.”

  “Here,” he demanded, obviously puzzled. “I thought you were the one who saw no hope.”

  “Oh come on,” she cried. “Let’s not sit here any more, glooming Sunday afternoon away! What about a film?”

  “I’d love to if you would,” Mr. Weatherby replied, back at his most formal, and in a short time they were off past the small round tables, with older people glancing up at them. As a couple they kept themselves to themselves under scrutiny, and would probably appear bright and efficient to their elders, quite a mirror to youth and the age they lived in.

  They hardly spoke again that day, a kind of blissful silence lay between.

  •

  The following morning, on the Monday, Mary Pomfret rang up her office to say she was indisposed and took a train to Brighton. Philip did the same. Neither knew what the other had done and they did not see one another on the way down.

  Mary went straight to Mrs. Weatherby’s hotel but Philip strode off in the opposite direction. Soon he came to a pewter sea on which a tramp steamer was pushing its black smoke out in front and he had to lean himself against wind and rain.

  Miss Pomfret selected a chair in full view of the lift and not long afterwards when Mrs. Weatherby descended she waved, went up to the gates to greet Jane. This lady seemed disconcerted.

  “My dear,” she said “am I supposed to recognize you?”

  “Why how do you mean?”

  “Are you alone Mary?”

  Miss Pomfret laughed and appeared embarrassed.

  “I think I must be,” she said. “I don’t see anyone else.”

  “My dear you will forgive, you really must, but it was such a queer surprise. No, not so very long ago one never was sure whether to go up to a friend in this wretched uncomfortable place. You see there was no knowing if they wanted to be known. Absurd but there it is.”

  “Well I did rather need to see you as a matter of fact.”

  “You darling, then it’s a visit,” Mrs. Weatherby cried although she still seemed wary and once or twice looked over a shoulder. “Come, where shall we choose for a cosy talk. But what a long way to travel,” and chattering as if delighted she led the girl to a corner from which she could not be observed by anyone passing through the main lounge.

  “I was killing two birds with one stone I suppose actually,” Miss Pomfret explained with obvious discomfort. “Oh no, such a rude way to put it! As a matter of fact there was something I simply had to ask. Something that came up the other day when I talked to Daddy.”

  The older woman seemed to pay a great deal of attention to the exact positioning of the diamond clip in the V of her dress.

  “You see he said something about my mother,” Mary went on. “And you,” she added.

  Mrs. Weatherby sat up very straight.

  “It’s too wicked the wicked tongues there are,” she cried in great indignation and at once. “I only hope my dear you won’t ever have some such terrible experience you can look back on in your life and be sure that all your poor ills date right from it. Oh I went to my lawyer but he said let sleeping dogs
lie, don’t stir up mud, better not throw glass stones. I don’t know if I did right, yet oh they should have been punished!”

  “Please I didn’t realize, I’m so sorry,” Miss Pomfret murmured.

  “What can it have been?”

  “I couldn’t possibly tell,” Jane protested. “I’d rather bite my own tongue off first. And so deceitful,” she wailed. “People I’d known all my life, thought were my best friends!”

  “By the way don’t tell Philip I came,” Mary interposed at her most ill assured and nervous.

  Mrs. Weatherby at once assumed a mantle of tragic calm and decision.

  “Then you know everything,” she proclaimed in a low voice.

  The two women stared at each other in amazement. Suddenly Jane laughed. A good-natured smile spread across her face but there was still a trace of slyness about the eyes. Miss Pomfret looked small, frightened, and bewildered.

  “Then what exactly did dear John say?” the elder asked with a casual tone of voice.

  “Only that Mummy and you were great friends.”

  “Darling Julia,” Mrs. Weatherby assented. “And you are so like her dear. Simply the living spit! I am very fond of John,” she added then waited rather out of breath.

  “You see I’ve never had anyone tell me about Mummy,” the girl said with an appealing smile.

  “But doesn’t dear John?”

  “Oh you know what Daddy is.”

  “Yes I see. I see. What was it exactly you wanted to find out?”

  “But everything, how she was like, everything.”

  “Of course. Look my angel,” Mrs. Weatherby beamed on Mary, “I’m such a stupid, so you will forget all I said about idle tongues won’t you? I thought,” she went on obviously at random, “you’d heard something about that absurd houseparty. It was in Essex before you were born. But simply invented, every single word made up! I suppose people had much more time on their hands those days which made them so dangerous. Darling Julia!!” She sighed. “Darling darling Julia and how she would have simply been overjoyed to be sitting looking at you here this instant minute!”

  There was pause during which Jane gazed earnestly into Miss Pomfret’s face.

  “Did you go down to stay in Essex together then in those days?” the girl enquired at last.

  “Never once,” Mrs. Weatherby replied immediately. “Put all that right out of your sweet mind. Now promise me. You see my dear you were a little sudden, weren’t you, so lovely there by the lift! And I was just a tiny bit upset.”

  “Why, is anything wrong?”

  Jane gave the girl a shrewd look.

  “These beastly servants,” she said. “Half the time they don’t know the dish they’re serving. But how selfish of me! What was it you wanted about your dear mother?”

  “I’m so ashamed,” Mary excused herself. “Suddenly turning up like this of course you wouldn’t understand at first.”

  “But where did you learn how to find me? You are really clever and so sweet with it.”

  “Philip said.” At this Mrs. Weatherby started. “Why that wasn’t anything awful was it.”

  “Awful?” Mrs. Weatherby echoed, her response to this colder. At that moment Richard Abbot appeared for a minute on the way out behind his bags but Miss Pomfret had her back towards him. “Awful?” Jane repeated. “Good gracious me I should hope not. No it’s just that little Penelope is ever such a little bit run down and I always think the wind down here is splendid don’t you for all that sort of thing. No we’ve been like mice,” she added “like mice, just breathing the air in. We simply haven’t seen a soul.”

  “She got upset didn’t she playing at being married?”

  Mrs. Weatherby took this with great good humour.

  “Well my dear,” she said “I can at least tell who you got that from. Oh no I’m not blaming, Philip is so sweet with his sister only dear Mary I can speak out to you can’t I, but sometimes he does rather overdo things don’t you think, makes them to be more than they really are. It’s true an old friend came to tea and Penelope dear darling was a wee bit upset after.” Mrs. Weatherby paused, seemed to reflect. “She’s so sensitive and jealous. It was one of my dearest friends, we went to dances together, had all the same partners, I’ve known her for years. And you know how things are. Soon as you have children of your own you’ll come upon this very same problem you sweet soul! When they’re brought in after tea they expect undivided attention, the wonderful pets, and I suppose Pen thought she was being a trifle neglected.”

  “Probably mine will be at my skirts all day long if I have any,” Miss Pomfret commented shyly. “But did this friend know Mummy too?” she asked.

  “We all loved Julia,” Mrs. Weatherby answered. “Why we loved her!”

  “Did you know Daddy too then?”

  “Of course you angel! It was almost a double wedding. We were never a moment out of each other’s houses at one time. Your beloved mother was my dearest friend!”

  “Who did you get to love first?”

  There was a pause then Jane cried,

  “Just listen to you. Isn’t that sweet!” And Mrs. Weatherby’s extraordinary eyes did at this moment fill with tears. So she went on for twenty minutes about Julia’s perfections following which, after hardly putting another question, Mary excused herself and left.

  Once she was outside the girl hurried back to the station.

  Mrs. Weatherby had just set her face to rights when she looked up to find her son Philip standing there.

  “Good Lord dear boy have you seen Mary?” she cried.

  “I had lunch with her yesterday,” he said.

  “No just now not an instant ago,” she insisted.

  “My sweet Mamma she’s in the office cutting out an article on English cherry blossom for the Japanese.”

  “What are you down here for then?”

  “Oh I thought I’d have a change. To tell the truth I’d something I rather wanted to ask.”

  “And you came all the way down to Brighton just for that?”

  “It wasn’t anything I could mention over the phone. Look here you won’t be annoyed will you but am I Father’s son?”

  Mrs. Weatherby went deep red under the make-up.

  “Are you what?” she demanded menacingly.

  “All right Mamma forget this,” he said in haste.

  “What has one done to deserve it?” she claimed in a low voice. She looked closely at his hangdog face. Then she again began to laugh. “Oh God,” she said. “Forgive me dearest but what a gowk you are! So you’re in love with her isn’t that the thing? Or is it more of this damned snobbery? Philip do take your hat off and sit down. You can’t stand in a hotel lobby to ask questions like you just have of your very own mother your flesh and blood and remain covered!” He sat at her side. “There,” she said “that’s better. Are you sure you feel quite all right? Are you contemplating marriage Philip?”

  He mumbled no.

  “Quite sure?” she asked. “So this is the reason she wished to see me then,” she added.

  “Who?”

  “Mary.”

  “No Mamma what can she have wanted? You say she’s been here?”

  “Why all the hurry though dear boy? Good God but you aren’t now proposing to elope? With Mary? Oh my dear.” She peered at him with her marvellous soft eyes as though he might be ill. “Please oh please don’t do anything sudden darling, always such a mistake,” she said. She laid a white fat hand on his forearm to restrain him. “If much happened I’d never be able to look poor John in the face after,” she appealed. “Promise me! But you’re wet,” she cried, “you’re soaked through.” She moved her hand to his forehead. “It’s burning!” she announced. “That’s how it is then, you’re in a high fever, don’t know what you’re doing, oh dear and in a hotel too. Did you see little Penelope?”

  “Who Mamma?”

  “I’m so worried but this of course explains everything, you’ve a great temperature. No I’ve been fussed a
bout the darling if you really want an answer to your stupid question. There are some people here who seemed perfect and I let her run out with their child, the two of them are just of an age. Now look my dear boy you must change at once and have a good hot bath. No arguments please. Oh you’ll be the death of me with your pneumonia and your silly insane ideas! Here’s the key to my room. Have a really hot bath and sit in my dressing-gown while I see the manager.”

  “See the manager?” he echoed.

  “To get your clothes dried of course,” she told him. “You don’t suppose I specially bring a change of suits for you when I come away for the weekend and haven’t been told that you’re to pay me a visit unannounced. If children only knew the worry and responsibility they are to parents.”

  “But I’m all right,” he protested.

  “You sit there and say that to my face after all you’ve just asked about me; no I don’t want to worry you but you’re seriously ill Philip or it would be better for you if you were! Perhaps though in spite of everything you’re just insane.”

  He sat apparently unmoved.

  “I’m sorry, I do apologize,” he said.

  “You’ll forgive me but your whole generation’s hopeless I must say it, so there!” Mrs. Weatherby pronounced, still in the low tones she had used all along to voice her indignation. “You’re prudes, there’s this and that can’t be discussed before you and then you come out with some disgusting nonsense of which you should be thoroughly ashamed. I’m in despair that’s all, I’m simply in despair!”

  “I had to know,” he said.

  “That’s quite enough,” she cried. “Now be off at once and have your bath or I shall be quite cross. No do go Philip or you’ll catch your death.”

  He went. She settled back like a great peacock after a dust bath, sighing.

  •

  When Miss Pomfret got back to London she rang Arthur Morris to ask if it would be convenient to call. She arranged to have tea with him at the nursing home.

  “This is really nice of you Mary,” he said as she came in. “Just what your mother would have done. Julia was the kindest woman in the world.”

  Miss Pomfret seemed at her brightest.

  “Was she? Did you know her well?” she asked, making the question into flattery.