Phoenix and Ashes

His mouth snapped shut as she flushed, as he realized he had just said something horribly rude. She looked down for a moment at her handmade skirt, then looked defiantly up into his eyes, daring him to make the comparison between the class she was supposed to be in, and the one she was apparently in now. "Maybe they have no expectations because no one ever let them think that they could," she said bitterly. "Maybe, if someone bothered to show them that they could have dreams, they might be able to dream them. Mightn't they? Just because they're shopkeepers' girls and farmers' daughters doesn't mean they don't have minds. Some of them have very good minds. And I think it's a shame and a sin that all they're thought good for is tending babies and putting up jam."

His eyes looked miserable. But she was very angry now. And she wasn't going to let him off the hook.

"Besides," she pointed out, with coldly, poisonously perfect logic. "Someone had better start helping ordinary girls to do things like becoming doctors and teachers. Because thanks to that bloody war, there aren't going to be any doctors and teachers otherwise. And I don't see the pretty young ladies of the proper class rushing off to university to fill the void! Do you? Of course not. It wouldn't be ladylike. It wouldn't be proper."

He made a strangled little sound in the back of his throat, and looked away.

Ishouldn't have said that, she thought. And then thought, rebelliously, But I'm right. And I'm not going to apologize.

"You are a truly horrible young woman, you know," he said, very slowly, as if he was weighing and measuring each word, still looking away from her. "Only the truly horrible and the young would dare to tell that much truth."

"Only someone who doesn't have any room for illusions anymore would dare to tell that much truth," she corrected, as the anger slowly faded and cooled to an emotion that was darker and bleaker than that flare of temper. "I can't afford illusions; they are altogether too expensive to maintain. There are a great many of us in that position now."

"Yes," he replied, turning back, slowly. "There are."

They stared at one another, and he finally heaved a great sigh. "That was a very stupid thing to say, wasn't it?"

"It's that whole game," she said, the bitterness back, redoubled. "That whole game of class. It's not going to work, you know! If this wretched war is ever over, it's just not going to work anymore, the whole construction is just going to go smash!"

"Like it did in Russia?" he replied. And managed a wan smile. "You've been listening to Mad Ross Ashley."

"I've been reading," she retorted. She didn't say anything more, but she was thinking a great deal. I don't know what's going to happen, but— well, just look! Even fifty years ago, you had rich American girls with piles of new money coming over to marry a lord with a name but no prospects, and rich tradesmen's boys getting themselves blue-blooded wives out of the Royal Enclosure that were desperate to get themselves out of tumbledown Tudor manors and into a nice London townhouse in the West End! It can't go on, can't you see that! You can't go on playing that silly game of we and they and by now you should know it!

But she didn't say anything. She'd already said more than enough, actually. If he couldn't see this for himself—

But he passed his hand over his eyes, as if his head hurt him. "It's—" He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't even know if we're going to see an end to this, not even with the Americans coming in. Sometimes—" He took his hand away, and looked past her, into the distance, his voice flat. "I don't know if anything matters anymore, because all we are ever going to see is that Juggernaut grinding on and on until there isn't anyone left to fight... so what's the point of anything anymore? Why bother trying to change anything, when there isn't going to be anything left to change?"

She bit her lip. She hadn't meant to throw him into this slough of despair, and the worst of it was, she couldn't disagree with him.

And there didn't seem to be anything she could say to make any difference. Or at least, nothing that wasn't at least partly a lie.

"I'm sorry, Reggie," she said, finally. "I didn't mean to—to remind you."