• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5764 0

it does. In a way, it feels a bit funny though. For one thing, she and I are a half generation out. However, it seems to work out all right. We thought we might try it here for a year or so, see how she liked things with us, and so on. She's an orphan, you see—which is pretty tough on her. We had never seen as much as we'd have liked to of her, because my father liked living abroad. We rather felt she might find us a bit of a proposition. Having just lost her mother, and not being grown up yet, so not able to go about with Anna, we thought she might find London a bit... well—However, it seems to work out all right. We found some quite good classes for her to go to, so she's been making friends with girls of her own age...."

Overcome by the dullness of what he had been saying, Thomas trailed off and slumped further back in his chair. But Major Brutt, having listened with close attention, evidently expected more to come. "Nice to have a kid like that to keep one cheerful," he said. "How old did you say she was?"

"Sixteen."

"She must be great company for—for Mrs. Quayne."

"For Anna? Oh yes. Funny you and Anna running into each other. She's slack about keeping up with her old friends, and at the same time she certainly misses them."

"It was nice of her to remember my name, I thought. You see, we'd only met once."

"Oh yes, with Robert Pidgeon. Sorry I never met him. But he seems to move round, and I'm rooted here." Casting at Major Brutt one last uneasy flash of suspicion, Thomas added: "I've got this business, you know."

"Is that so?" said Major Brutt politely. He knocked off his ash into the heavy glass tray. "Excellent, if you like living in town."

"You'd rather get out somewhere?"

"Yes, I must say I would. But that all depends, at the moment, on what happens to come along. I've got a good many—"

"Irons in the fire? I'm sure you are absolutely right."

"Yes, if one thing doesn't turn up, it's all the more likely that another will.... The only trouble is, I've got a bit out of touch."

"Oh yes?"

"Yes, I've stuck out there abroad too long, it rather seems. I'd rather like, now, to be in touch for a bit; I'd rather like to stay for a bit in this country."

"But in touch with what?" said Thomas. "What do you think there is, then?"

Some obscure hesitation, some momentary doubt made Major Brutt frown, then look across at Thomas in a more personal manner than he had looked yet. But his look was less clear—the miasma thickening in the study had put a film over him. "Well," he said, "there must be something going on. You know—in a general way, I mean. You know, something you all—"

"We all? We who?"

"Well, you, for instance," Major Brutt said. "There must be something—that's why I feel out of touch. I know there must be something all you people get together about."

"There may be," said Thomas, "but I don't think there is. As a matter of fact, I don't think we get together. We none of us seem to feel very well, and I don't think we want each other to know it. I suppose there is nothing so disintegrating as competitiveness and funk, and that's what we all feel. The ironical thing is that everyone else gets their knives into us bourgeoisie on the assumption we're having a good time. At least, I suppose that's the assumption. They seem to have no idea that we don't much care for ourselves. We weren't nearly so much hated when we gave them more to hate. But it took guts to be even the fools our fathers were. We're just a lousy pack of little Christopher Robins. Oh, we've got to live, but I doubt if we see the necessity. The most we can hope is to go on getting away with it till the others get it away from us."

"I say, don't you take a rather black view of things?"

"What you mean is, I ought to take more exercise? Or Eno's, or something? No, look here, my only point was that I really can't feel you are missing very much. I don't think much goes on—However, Anna might know—Cigarette?"

"No thanks: not at the moment."

"What's that?" said Thomas sharply.

Major Brutt, sympathetic, also turned his head. They heard a key in the