Henry Green - Nothing

At which Miss Pomfret retired to bed.

FOUR days later Miss Jennings was giving Mr Abbot dinner at her flat.

"Yes there she went poor child" Liz wafted "right through the teeming rain to ask him and when she got to the clinic she walked straight into that lift large enough to take a hearse. Dear Mary rose all the way to his floor and you know the long passages they have there, well she wandered down and knocked on Arthur's door just as she had done so often."

"Were you with her?" Richard Abbot interrupted.

"No, Mary told me. Who else has she got these days the darling? And when the child knocked a nurse happened to come from a next room and cried out 'Oh but you can't go in now.' Anyway Mary was shown to one of those alcoves off the corridor with three armchairs and the occasional table. There she sat thinking Arthur was to be washed or something when at last the sister came. It makes one's heart sink Richard to picture it, the poor love thrown over by her own father, oh she has told me all, waiting to ask so much she shouldn't know of the one person who could give it as she thought, poor Arthur, then the nursing sister saying she was afraid Mary, could go in no more!! When the child wanted to be told why, it all came out of course, he'd just died Richard, not an hour ago, wasn't it frightful!"

"Yes I heard at the Club. I'm very sorry" Mr Abbot said. "What was the cause?"

"Well the extraordinary part is they didn't have the address of a single one of his relatives, they wanted Mary at the clinic to give them names but he was absolutely alone Richard, if you'd been at the grave this afternoon with me you'd have seen there wasn't a soul there except old friends, isn't that perfectly awful? Of course Jane cried enough for his mother and sister combined if they'd been spared--oh I know what you're about to say" and she solemnly raised a trembling hand to restrain him "I expect she may have been quite genuine, minded Arthur being dead I mean, but naturally John had to make all the arrangements just as though he was next of kin."

There was a pause while Liz got out a handkerchief which she pushed with a forefinger at the corner of her eye.

"So what did Arthur die of?" Mr Abbot inquired in a neutral voice.

"The clot. Flew straight to his heart" she replied tragically. "Oh Richard it makes one wonder who will be next?"

"These things happen" the man answered, "But what did Mary wish to know?"

"Well I suppose you'll think this is none of my business" she said. "At the same time, fond as I am of John and Jane, I'm not so blind Richard I can't see all that goes on right in front of my own nose. I don't care what you say my dear but Jane's sending the child away to Italy and making her throw up the job for it, must be clearing the decks for action like they do in the Navy."

"How can Jane send Mary?"

"But Richard by working on John. I never even see him now. The moment those two children tried to get engaged Jane has had the man living in her pocket."

"I know what you mean" Mr Abbot admitted at last, though he seemed to speak with reluctance. "No more than natural all the same."

Mr Abbot appeared ill at ease.

"Natural?" she cried. "Yes I suppose so in a farmyard sort of fashion."

"Then you think it's all come to life once again between theme."

"If I said 'over my dead body' then I might be six foot underground this minute" she replied and they both laughed.

"Sounds bad" he muttered.

"Well every word's true isn't it Richard?"

"Shouldn't be surprised" he answered with a return to his usual manner. "As that film star said when he landed this side of the Atlantic and the reporters asked about the ladies in his life, 'I'm just a thanks a million man.' Damn good you know."

"But are you all right Richard?"

"All right?"

"Yes, in your own health and strength? Here's John with diabetes and Arthur Morris gone. Who's next?" He laughed. "Me? I'm fit as a fiddle" he protested.

She laughed. "Now don't you just be too sure" she warned. "Though one of the things I so like about you Richard is you keep your figure beautifully, still look really athletic I mean."

"Pure luck" he replied. "Some are born that way. Well then about Mary? What did she want of Arthur?"

"They're sending the child off to this sort of Mrs Smith in Florence. I never knew the woman so Mary couldn't ask me though she has since. All I could tell the child was Myra used to be a great friend of the whole bunch while I was still doing French grammar in my rompers. So you see Richard, Mary the poor angel doesn't know what's up. Frightfully wicked they are."

"Expect everything's for the best. After all Liz whoever can tell what may come?"

"Oh I agree more than you'll ever realize. Yet how wrong to play with one's own children's feelings?"

"They don't. They're thinking about themselves and I don't altogether blame 'em."

"I realize everyone does" she admitted. "I quite see even with a baby in arms a great deal of oneself comes into it. But they really ought not to work on Philip. They'll ruin his life, what there is left."

"D'you reckon John realizes what he's up to?"

"Not consciously of course, yet he can't be so reckless he mayn't take advice. Oh Richard he's gone back so the last few months! Was it his diabetes d'you suppose?"

"Diabetes?"

"Weakened him my dear. I can't abide men who turn wet. He's come to be like a sponge, going round to her place every other day, sometimes twice in the twenty-four. hours as he doest."

"Nothing we can do."

"There is then!"

"How's that, Liz?"

"Just you wait and see, Richard." She laughed lightheartedly.

"Well you've been wrong once and you can be again" he said.

"When?" she demanded.

"Not so long ago you told me since John had diabetes Jane would hurry the marriage along between Mary and Philip for reasons of her own."

"I also said she'd been against it Richard."

"All right" he agreed. "On the other hand you tell me now, Jane is packing Mary off to her father's old battlefields so that she can marry John."

"Because I've begun to see Jane must have it both ways. She'll prevent the wedding so that when poor sweet Mary travels home it'll be too late and the child'll have to look for a room on her own or in a wretched hostel."

"Come Liz you could put the girl up at a pinch what?"

"I might have my own plans Richard."

"General post eh?"

"I don't know what you mean" she said in a stern voice.

"I say" he exclaimed. "Dreadfully sorry and all that. It was nothing."

"That's better" she agreed, smiled sweetly at the man.

Now that the meal was done Miss Jennings got up from table to switch on lights and draw curtains to hide heavy rain pouring down outside. He rose to help. As she straightened the heavy folds he came behind, turned her with a hand on her shoulder and kissed the woman rather hard on the lips.

"Here" she cried drawing back. "What's this?"

"Oh nothing Liz."

"I like that after all we've discussed." She gaily laughed. "Anyone would think you'd taken our little gossip seriously."

"Must have been this excellent meal you've just given us" he grumbled in a good-humoured voice.

"That's better" she approved, patted his cheek and led the way next door to the sitting room.

AT THE weekend John Promfret asked Mrs Weatherby round for drinks at his place. When he had greeted her and settled her in, she immediately began "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."