Nothing

by Henry Green

  “My dear isn’t it absurd and wrong the way those two flaunt themselves nowadays all over London?”

  “Now Jane their engagement hasn’t been announced yet, at least in the papers, and for all we know it may never happen but there can be no earthly reason why they shouldn’t have a little time together to make up their minds, all the more so since I believe Mary is really off to Florence at last.”

  “You are sweet,” Mrs. Weatherby pronounced with marked indulgence. “I was speaking of Richard and Liz of course.”

  “Don’t be absurd Jane!”

  “D’you actually pretend you hadn’t heard my dear?” she cried. “Why I thought everybody knew!”

  “Knew what?”

  “Just that they’ve started the most tremendously squalid affair. In one way I’m so glad for Richard, even if I do pity the dear idiot.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I don’t believe a word. And why are you glad?”

  “You ask simply anyone,” she replied. “But as to Richard in some respects he’s even dearer to me than myself. I’d give almost anything to see the sweet man happy.”

  “Then is Liz the only future for his happiness?”

  “John dear you are so acute. D’you know I’m really rather afraid she is.”

  “I thought his allegiance was elsewhere,” Mr. Pomfret suggested and gazed hard at Mrs. Weatherby.

  “Oh no,” she admitted with a cheerful look. “All that became over and done with ages back. Isn’t it dreadful?” she giggled.

  “Could you be having a game with me Jane?”

  She grew serious at once.

  “Me?” she asked. “I wish I were.” She watched him. “Why,” she said after a pause “d’you mind so dreadfully?”

  “I?” he demanded and seemed to bluster. “Been expecting it for weeks.”

  “Well then,” she sighed.

  “But why can’t people come and tell one themselves when they’ve had enough?” he asked. “Not that you yourself did so with me more years ago than either of us probably cares to remember.”

  “Now John don’t be disagreeable. Besides I was such a giddy young fool in those days.”

  “A very beautiful creature whatever you may have been,” he gallantly said.

  “Oh darling,” she wailed “just don’t remind me of how I look now!”

  “You haven’t altered at all,” he protested. “Why do you speak as though you could ever be a woman my age.”

  “Because I see you such a lot perhaps,” she said.

  “Good God if what you say is true well I don’t feel as if I shall be able to speak to Liz again. And with due respect to you I can’t seem able to think of her with Dick Abbot. Why I should have thought he’d have one of his choking fits.”

  “Don’t be silly John,” Mrs. Weatherby cried in a delighted voice. “Besides for all we know he may have had several over her already, poor sweet.”

  Mr. Pomfret laughed with some reluctance.

  “Really Jane,” he protested “what you could ever have seen in that pompous ass I shall never comprehend.”

  “Speak for yourself darling,” she said. “And when I take you in hand, if I find time, you’re going to lead a far more regular life let me tell you. Which reminds me. How are you in yourself?”

  “Oh I still go for these tests and they give me the injections and I have to wear a little tag round my neck like during the war.”

  “Is there much in the injection part?”

  “Nothing at all. Falling off a log!”

  “John you’re being so sensible and I do value you so very much. And have you any more news of the children?”

  “Not so far as I can tell. I never seem to come across Mary for a chat these days.”

  “Ever since you put to her your idea she should go to Myra in Florence?”

  “My idea Jane? I thought that was your suggestion.”

  “I still think it such a wise notion of yours John to give the dear girl time to look about. But isn’t Mary a little bit rash to throw up her job?”

  “Well once they are to marry and will insist they must live on what they earn she might in time have to find a better paid one if Philip can’t bring in more.”

  “Ah we shall have to wait and see,” Mrs. Weatherby replied. “You are so practical! Still you do think she is going?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Doesn’t she discuss it with you then John? How very wicked and ungrateful of Mary!”

  “Oh she hasn’t much reason to be grateful has she? No she’s talked everything over with Liz.”

  “Don’t be absurd my dear, why that girl has to thank you for all she’s got. And I’m really very surprised she should go to dear Liz. What Liz might dig up to say could hardly be disinterested, would it?”

  “Well Mary went round to Arthur as you know Jane.”

  “To Arthur Morris? But . . .” and Mrs. Weatherby gaped at him.

  “Hadn’t you heard? It was she found him dead.”

  The tears after a moment streamed down Jane’s face. She might have been able to cry at will or it could be that she dreadfully minded.

  “No John no . . .” she spluttered, struggling with a handkerchief. “It’s been such a shock . . .you mustn’t . . . poor Arthur . . . oh isn’t everything cruel!”

  She covered her face and broke into sobs.

  “Now darling now,” he said coming across to sit on the arm of her chair. He put an arm round Mrs. Weatherby, took firm hold on a soft shoulder. “You mustn’t let it get you down,” he said. “Poor old fellow he didn’t suffer, remember that. There dear . . .”

  He sat in silence while her upset subsided. After a few minutes she excused herself and went along to the bathroom. He lit a cigarette. He waited. When she returned her fresh face wore a peculiarly vulnerable look.

  “Do please excuse me darling,” she announced, entering as once before like a ship in full sail. “It was because you see he was alone when it happened!” She swallowed prodigiously. “But I can never in all my life mention this again! You do understand?”

  “Of course.”

  She settled back in her chair.

  “Philip said anything of late?” Mr. Pomfret enquired.

  “No. What about?”

  “This engagement of theirs.”

  “No” she repeated. She paused. “John my dear,” she began “sometimes I rather wonder if we don’t discuss the children much too often. After all they have their own lives to lead and that at least we can’t do for them! So I’ve simply given up asking. Do you mind?”

  “Whatever you say Jane,” he agreed and they settled down to a long nostalgic conversation about old times, excluding any mention of Arthur Morris.

  •

  When the day’s work was over Philip Weatherby called on Miss Jennings. She answered the door and said,

  “Philip! Really you should not drop in on people like this in London!”

  “I’m so sorry why not?”

  “Because they might be occupied that’s why. Never mind, come along.”

  “Then you are free?”

  “I always am to you,” she replied, waving him into the flat.

  “I wanted to ask what you thought about all this?” he asked, turning round in the door of the living-room.

  “All what?” she asked from the passage.

  “Why Mary and me you know,” he answered, and made himself comfortable in the best armchair.

  “How d’you mean exactly?” she wanted to be told as she fetched the half finished bottle of sherry.

  “Well Liz,” he said with assurance, “I look on you as almost one of the family.”

  “Yes,” she replied “I’m nearer your age than your mother ever will be.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “All I wished to ask was, are you on my side or not?”

  “Well thanks very much,” she retorted drily. “Now would you like a glass of sherry?”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

&nbs
p; “You’ll find one day,” she put forward “it’s odd how like their fathers some sons are.”

  “But you’d never met Daddy.”

  “No perhaps I hadn’t.”

  “Then d’you mean . . . ?”

  “Now Philip are you going to have a glass of this or no? I’m not here to argue will you understand.”

  “So sorry,” he agreed at once. “I mean I’m in rather a hole with my own personal affairs and as you’re a distinct friend of the family’s I wanted to get your point.”

  “In what way?” she asked pouring the wine neatly out.

  “About Mary and me,” he said.

  “Why of course I wish you the very best of everything,” she replied.

  “Well thanks,” he murmured and seemed doubtful. “But does my mother do you think?”

  “Jane? She dotes on you Philip. What makes you ask?”

  “And Mary’s father? I believe you see quite a bit of him. How does he look on us both?”

  “Dear John? Now you mustn’t assume every sort of silly thing Philip. You don’t imagine he discusses the two of you with me do you? Oh he may have done simply ages back but he’s stopped. He’s not that sort of man that’s all.”

  “I wish I could see my way through,” Mr. Weatherby complained almost fretfully.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “No one tells me anything,” he said.

  “What d’you want them to do Philip quite?”

  “Explain to me the way they feel,” he elaborated. “When I went to Uncle Ned he wouldn’t say a word.”

  “But what d’you expect them to feel?”

  “After all,” the young man said “when you go and get engaged you don’t just look for silence. It makes one wonder. Does Mary’s father approve or doesn’t he?”

  “Has it ever occurred to you Philip that more than half the time John may just be wondering about himself?”

  “Well naturally. But he can spare half a thought to his own daughter can’t he?”

  “In what way?”

  “How do you mean? It’s her marriage isn’t it?”

  “He might be thinking of his own affairs mightn’t he?”

  “Mr. Pomfret? At his age? Why he’s a million.”

  “Good heavens,” she said “how old d’you imagine I am?”

  “Then you don’t mean . . . ?”

  “I certainly don’t,” she replied with finality. “All I say is everyone has a right to their own lives haven’t they?”

  “In what way?” he enquired.

  “You’re one of these talkers Philip,” she announced. “You don’t go out and do things.”

  “I may not but I work surely?”

  “Well there’s more to life than working for the Government.”

  “I don’t see what you’re getting at” he objected. “How you spend your day is a part of your life, you can’t get away from it.”

  “But Philip one’s evenings are a means to get right apart from what you and I have to do for a living in the daytime.”

  “D’you know,” he said “I can’t see why.”

  “Then oughtn’t you to go into politics Philip?”

  “I might at that.”

  “Oh no my dear,” she protested “you’re hopeless.”

  “I’ve got no chance?” he cried.

  “I didn’t say so at all. What you and Mary decide is none of my concern. You’ve simply got to take the plunge, there you are, and hope for the best.”

  “Without Mamma’s consent?”

  “Why yes Philip if needs be. Doesn’t Mary see this my way?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t much experience of women. That’s the reason I came round if you want to know.”

  “You’re not asking me to give that to you?” she asked and he blushed. “I’m sorry Philip,” she went on. “Forget it. But the truth is I fancy there’s going to be another wedding in your family soon if I’m not very much mistaken.”

  “You and Mr. Pomfret d’you mean?”

  “Since when were you two related? At any rate you haven’t married Mary yet have you?”

  “I see you’re against Mary and me as well,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she protested. “But you’ve no right to link my name with John’s. What on earth d’you know about it? Of course I’m not going to marry him ever, not that he’s asked me. Grow up, be your age for mercy’s sake. All I was trying to say is he’ll wed your mamma or bust.”

  “My mother! He can’t! She’s too old!!”

  “No older than he is.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am Philip. Never more so.”

  “Will they want a double wedding then?”

  “With Mary and you? Listen Philip if you take my advice you’ll rush that nice girl off to the Registry Office always supposing she’ll still have you, and get the fell deed done without a word more said to a soul.”

  “But that wouldn’t be straight,” he objected and after a good deal more of this sort of argument during which however Liz became somewhat nicer to him, Philip Weatherby took himself away no nearer a decision, or so it seemed.

  •

  In a few days time Mrs. Weatherby again had John Pomfret to dinner following which, after a gay discussion of generalities all through the meal, she led the man into the next room to settle him over a whisky and soda, and immediately began,

  “Oh my dear isn’t it too frightful about one’s money.”

  “I know,” he moaned.

  “John even little Penelope’s overdrawn now!”

  He roared with laughter while she smiled.

  “No Jane you can’t mean that? Not at her age!”

  “But yes,” the mother insisted. “Only a trifle of course, the tiny sum a great aunt left the little brigand for her beautiful great eyes. Yet she had a letter from the bank manager Tuesday. I read it out to Pen and we both simply shrieked, she has such a sense of humour already. Still it is dreadful isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Weatherby did not seem greatly disturbed.

  “Well Jane,” Mr. Pomfret beamed “she’s started young there’s no getting away from that.”

  “I wish everything didn’t go on so,” she continued. “Oh John I went to see the awful Mr. Thicknesse again who makes me quake in my shoes whenever I meet him like one of those huge things at the Zoo.”

  “Yes I suppose we must have a talk about the children some time,” Mr. Pomfret said without obvious enthusiasm.

  “No no, damn the children if you’ll please excuse the expression. Just for tonight let’s be ourselves. I mean we still have our own lives to lead haven’t we? No but what is one to do with these Banks?”

  “Exactly what I ask myself three or four times a week.”

  “I never learned to cook, isn’t it terrible, and if I started now I’d be so extravagant you see. Honestly I believe I save by having darling Isabella. With the price things are, you can’t play about with what little food you do get can you?”

  “I’ll fry an egg with anyone but not much else,” he said.

  “And then there’s Pen. Even if darling Mother never saw I had cooking lessons she did at least leave me an inkling of essentials from her beloved sweet example, so I do realize it’s no earthly use to experiment over a growing child’s food. Once I started that I wouldn’t be playing the game with my little poppet would I?”

  “Oh quite,” he agreed, relaxed and smiling.

  “So what is one to do?” she demanded. “Just go on in the old way until there’s nothing left?”

  “I decide and decide to make a great change in my life but I always seem to put it off,” he said.

  “Don’t I know darling!” she cried. “Oh I don’t say that to blame, I spoke of myself. But those children we’ve agreed not to mention John, have changed my ideas. I believe my dear I’m almost beginning to have a plan!”

  “Never start a hat shop,” he advised. “They invariably fail.”

  “You are truly sw
eet,” she commented with a small frown which he did not appear to notice. “You see it wasn’t that at all, something quite different. The simplest little plot imaginable. Only this. Two people live cheaper than one! They always have and will.”

  “You’re not to take in a lodger Jane,” he said sharply.

  “But mine is a very especial sort of one,” she murmured. “He’s you!!”

  Mr. Pomfret sat bolt upright. There was a pause.

  “Look here you know,” he protested at last “you’ve got to consider how people’ll talk.”

  “I can’t think of the sort of person you imagine I’m like now,” she said. “We’d have to be married of course.”

  There was another longish pause while they watched each other. At last a half smile came over his face.

  “And Penelope?” he asked.

  “Why she dotes on you John,” Mrs. Weatherby cried.

  “You know what you’ve told me ever since that unfortunate affair when I married her in front of the fire here?”

  “Don’t be absurd darling. This is real. Besides it’s me who’s marrying you, remember. The sweet saint would never even dare to deny her own mother anything.”

  “But didn’t she get very worked up over Mary and Philip?”.

  “This is precisely what will put all that right out of her sainted little mind don’t you see? Oh John do agree you believe me!” Mrs. Weatherby cried.

  “Of course if you say so Jane, about Pen. Yet you did once just hint how jealous she was.”

  “Then she’ll simply have to get over it,” the mother replied with evident disappointment in her lovely voice. “In any case I’d, oh, pondered sending her away to boarding school. She’s young but I’ve begun to think it’s time.”

  He came over, sat by her side on the sofa, and took her hand.

  “You’re wonderful my dear,” he said softly.

  “Oh John how disagreeable,” she murmured. “So you don’t feel you can? Is that it?”

  “I hadn’t said so. Then do you wish a double wedding?”

  “Certainly not. Never!”

  He kissed her hand.

  “And Mr. Thicknesse?” he enquired.

  “Oh John you’re laughing at me!”

  “I’m not,” he said and squeezed her hand hard. “I’ve been over this so often in my mind! But couldn’t it be rather late in the day?”