And really, what did any of them know about him, that mattered? What had made him, for instance, at the time of the General Strike, throw up his whole Cambridge career just when he was doing so brilliantly and was the coming man, as people said, and take to this work of his? Of course, it was all perfectly splendid—so splendid that it made one feel a little uncomfortable and chilly to think about it. Eric certainly wasn’t interested in politics any more. From something he’d once said, he seemed to lump Communists and Fascists and everybody else together in one heap. And now that he was rich, he was carrying on just the same. He must spend at least half the money from the estate on his various funds and societies and clubs. Wealth only made him slightly more remote from them—though he was very generous, and had taken to presenting Mary with bottles of her favourite brandy. How strange it was to think of him—their own age—being confided in and seriously consulted at committees and organising relief work and making reports. Fancy herself doing that—or Maurice either, though he was so very much the business man now. And Eric never forced his work on their notice. Indeed, he often apologised for it—as when he came for the evening and had to explain that he’d told somebody they could ring him up there at such and such a time. He was always busy.

I wish, thought Anne, I had the nerve to talk to Eric. A really good talk. I should—yes, it sounded rather absurd, but I should like to ask his advice. She felt she’d take what he said as a kind of oracle. About all sorts of things—well, yes—curse it—about Tommy.

*   *   *

“I’m relying on you, my dear, to make this evening bearable,” Lady Klein was saying to Mary as the last of the audience filtered out. Eric, on a step-ladder, was helping Anne unpin the sackcloth curtains from the wall. Already, the men had arrived to fetch away the piano. Mary was tidying up, encouraging one or two enthusiastic younger members who had volunteered to stack the deck-chairs in the cupboard at the back, counting some money which she had illegally received at the door, for tickets, in envelopes.

“I’ll do my best,” she promised.

“And bring anyone you can. I must fly off. I’ll tell the car to wait.”

“More work for the troops,” said Mary to Anne and Eric, when she’d gone. “Be little heroes, won’t you, and help your old Ma?”

*   *   *