"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'd simply like to see him 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 yon 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 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 when 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 unfit 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, worn 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 forever 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 ns 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 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 anyone who used 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 me won't you, 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 they could not be observed by anyone passing through the main lounge.
"I was kitling 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 that 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."