Free This Was Tomorrow by Elswyth Thane Page A

made the American background such an obsession with her. Unlike herself, Jeff had been born in Virginia, of Virginian parents. That made him all American, undiluted, and his roots were there, presumably he would return there tolive in his house if he ever settled down to marry and have children. An absorbing, hidden idea was forming in Mab’s mind. She dreamed of it over her lesson books by day, and stayed awake at night to dwell on it in the private dark. During lunch at Stewart’s in Regent Street on the day they went to the 1066 matinée, she determined to ask Jeff about it and take the consequences, whatever they were.
    “Jeff, do you think—I mean, only if you want to, of course, but do you think if you asked them they might let me go to Williamsburg some time—just for a visit—to see your house and—and the restored buildings too, of course—and Jamestown where the picnics were, and Yorktown where the surrender was, and—do you think I might? Or would it cost an awful lot? Mummy says everything is twice as expensive as it used to be, and we must begin to economize somewhere. I’ve got one pound nine and threepence in my bank to put towards my boat fare.”
    Jeff swallowed and thought fast. Her astonishing plunges from almost adult intelligence to the innocent ignorance of childhood, like offering her little fortune to help pay for a ticket to America, often caught him by surprise.
    “Well, it’s not an impossible idea, I should think,” he said cautiously, between fear of letting the family in for an awkward veto and his own natural disinclination to let Mab down. “I could take it up with them, if you like. Of course it would have to be some time when Dinah was going there herself, unless your mother felt she could get away to make the trip—”
    “Or I thought—even if I had to take Miss Sim—if it wasn’t convenient for Mummy, I mean, because she hates to be away from Father—surely it could come under the head of education? And of course I’d much rather it was when you were going to be there too—”
    ‘Yes, well, we could think about it, couldn’t we. Ways and means, you know. Things work out sometimes,” he said with what he felt was unpardonable vagueness, but Mab gazed at him across the fillet of sole with uncomplicated love and confidence.
    “Oh, Jeff, it’s so wonderful to talk to you—you never say Perhaps-when-you’re-older, or Don’t-be-silly, or Whatever-gave-you-that-idea. You always make everything seem so— reasonable, a person isn’t afraid to let you know what oneis thinking.”
    “Well, I don’t think it’s so damn’ unreasonable for you to want to see Williamsburg,” he said consideringly. “Maybe we could cook up something with Sylvia while she’s here.”
    “Oh, if only she likes me!” Mab sighed.
    “She better,” said Jeff. “Eat your fish, we don’t want to miss anything, do we?”
    “Does Sylvia—that is, have you ever mentioned me to her?” she asked with sudden shyness, for if he had, what had he said?
    “Lots of times, I should think.”
    “You have? ” Joy and consternation mingled. “What did you say?”
    Jeff had a sudden illumination that it wouldn’t do to repeat to Mab that jest about their falling in love. He didn’t stop to work it out, he just knew it was better not to, she was such a strange mixture of child and something more, something to which he had never given a name but which made her companionship precious to him and tricked him into talking to her as though she were not handicapped by lack of years and experience.
    “I think she must have gathered by now that you’re my favourite cousin over here,” he said.
    “ Am I, Jeff? More favourite than Evadne?”
    “ Evadne ? ”He registered horror. “Excuse me for quoting, but Whatever-gave-you-that-idea?”
    Mab giggled.
    “She’s a lot prettier than me,” she suggested.
    “Pretty is as pretty does,” said Jeff grimly. “Give yourself a little more time, why