Phoenix and Ashes

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.'

He looked up, and at least he didn't try to smile. 'I don't know how any of us can get through the course of a day without being reminded,' he said, quietly. 'You have to be lying to yourself, I suppose, or purposefully blinding yourself. Like the people who can't seem to find anything to talk about except how hard it is to find a good servant or the impossibility of getting a good chop. Anything except about what's across the Channel.'

'But there are good things left, still,' she replied, forcing herself to rally, and trying harder now to give him some sense of hope. 'I can't see that it's wrong to remember that. Pretending the bleak things don't exist is wrong, and not trying to do something about them is worse yet, but it can't be wrong to also remember that there is still joy, still a little peace, still things to laugh about, and still love.' She felt her voice faltering, but forced herself to carry on, hoping that she didn't sound too maudlin. 'If we forget that, we'll lose hope, too.'

'Ah, hope,' he said, his voice growing a little lighter. And he did manage a smile. 'Hope, the last spirit left in Pandora's jar, after she let all the troubles and plagues of the world out.'

'And she let hope fly free, too,' Eleanor said softly. 'Because when all is said and done, hope is sometimes all that keeps us from surrendering to despair.'

He heaved a great sigh, and nodded. 'That is as true a thing as I think you have ever said,' he told her. 'You're quite right, and right to remind me. No, we mustn't lose hope; if we do that—'

He looked off into the distance again, but this time as if he was actually looking for something, and not to avoid her gaze.

Perhaps—hope?

'If we do that,' he repeated, quietly, as if he was telling himself a great truth 'We really shall be utterly lost, and there will be no turning back for any of us.'

She shivered. Because that had sounded altogether less like an aphorism, and far more like a prophecy.

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