“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.”
“If I do this for you, the other nonsense must end. Not one drop of morphine, ever again.”
“Of course. I promise.”
“And you will go to the War Office and ask for another assignment. If they send you back to the ambulances, you will go gladly. If they send you to the factories, you will don the overalls without a whimper. I will have this family’s name speak of duty again.”
“All right.”
“And you will come back to live with us, until you are married. You will join me with good grace at the lectures and the coffee mornings. I shall not make unreasonable demands on your time, but I will expect you to make peace with society. At least make peace to the extent that your wedding, when it does come, will feature on the society page and not on the gossip.”
Mary hung her head. “Fine.”
“And you must stop carrying on with the Negroes. I shall do you the favor of calling them Negroes, and you will reciprocate by cutting ties. You will neither frequent their entertainments, nor school their numberless brood.”
“But Mother—”
“Because it is not even a kindness that you do for them, pretending they can be helped. They have their world and we have ours, and there can be no more traffic between the two than there is between heaven and earth.’
“And so we prescribe the countryside for our children and the bombing for theirs? How can you ask me to make peace with a society that makes this kind of war?”
Mary’s mother sat down beside her. “Please. I was the same at your age.”
“Honest, you mean to say?”
“I shan’t rise to that. The young see the world that they wish for. The old see the world as it is. You must tell me which you think the more honest.”
“Fine,” said Mary, “I will do everything else you ask, since the cost is to me alone. But I won’t stop teaching those children.”
“But why, dear?”
“Because everyone insists that I must stop.”
“And it doesn’t occur to you that perhaps everyone is right?”
“They are blind to what’s wrong. I see the wealthy untouched by this war and the poor bombed out by it, and yet rich and poor alike make not a murmur. I see Negro children cowering in basements while white children sojourn in the country, and yet both camps beg me not to rock the boat. Look at us, won’t you? We are a nation of glorious cowards, ready to battle any evil but our own.”
Her mother took her hand. “Enough. If we must negotiate, then please remember I have played this game longer than you. You ask me to try for Alistair’s release, and I have set out my conditions. Attach your own if you must, but please don’t pretend you would choose a principle over a husband. What about Alistair’s happiness, festering there in prison? Is that yours to weigh against your ideals?”
“You might sentence him to a year in his own company, Mother. I shan’t sentence him to fifty with a hypocrite.”
“Please don’t punish us like this. Whatever else it is that we have done to you, do be brave enough to spit it out. But please don’t pretend you would choose niggers over family.”
“They are only children, Mummy, and they have helped me without attaching conditions.”
They watched each other for a moment.
“Must we fight the whole thing out again?” said her mother. “Perhaps we can leave any decision for a while, until we have both had a chance to settle down. Only do come home for Christmas, darling. Do let us be a family again.”
Mary used her father’s trick of smiling when there was nothing else to be done.
Her mother stood. “Well, you must consider it. I shall go out, I think, and collect myself a little. I shall return for supper at six, and you must let Palmer know if we should expect you. If you are here when I get home, then I shall assume my conditions are acceptable. If you are gone, then it’s best we don’t see each other for a while.”
“Mother—” said Mary.
“Six o’clock. Please don’t be late—I don’t think I could bear it.”
“I am so sorry, Mummy.”
Mary watched her mother make herself smile. And so now they both smiled, and kissed on both cheeks with precision, here and here—since after all the heart was not the foundation of manners and must not by its collapse undermine them.
After her mother left, Mary sat with her elbows on the tablecloth. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke through her nose. The old house exhaled with her. Now that her mother was gone, the maids could sing as they made the beds upstairs. From the kitchen, pans clattered. Cook found laughter in something.
After a while Mary felt a presence in the room, an inflection of the light. “Palmer?”
“Miss Mary?”
“Might you bring me another small brandy? On its own, no fuss?”
“Very good.”
“And would you have a cab pick me up? And let my mother know, when she’s back, that I’m afraid I can’t make it for supper.”