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Updated: June 10, 2025
Mamma didn't like it when you went by yourself to play singles with Mr. Sutcliffe. But if Mr. Sutcliffe asked you you would simply have to go. You would have to play a great many singles against Mr. Sutcliffe if you were to be in good form next year when Mark came home. She was always going to the Sutcliffes' now.
"The Oliviers are going." One day Mrs. Belk came towards her, busily, across the Green. She stopped to speak, while her little iron-grey eyes glanced off sideways, as if they saw something important to be done. The Sutcliffes were not going, after all.
That was the sort of thing Aunt Charlotte would have thought of. She got up with a jump and stretched herself. She would have to run if she was to be home in time for tea. From the top hayfield she could see the Sutcliffes' tennis court; an emerald green space set in thick grey walls. She drew her left hand slowly down her right forearm. The muscle was hardening and thickening.
She didn't want to go. She thought: "I shall have to tell the Sutcliffes. Now, this evening. And Mamma. They'll be sorry and Mamma will be glad." But Mamma was not glad. Mamma hated it when you upset arrangements. She said, "I declare I never saw anybody like you in my life. After all the trouble and expense." But you could see it was Roddy she was thinking about.
"We can't go," Roddy said. "Why not?" "Well " "Let's. He looked so nice, and he sounded as if he really wanted us." "He doesn't. He can't. You don't know what's happened." "Has anything happened?" "Yes. I don't want to tell you, but you'll have to know. It happened at the Sutcliffes'." "Who are the Sutcliffes?" "Greffington Hall. The people who own the whole ghastly place. We were dining there.
"I'd die rather than hurt Mamma ... If you make her unhappy, Minky, I shall hate you." "You can't go in that thing." They were going to the Sutcliffes' dance. Mamma hadn't told Mark she didn't like them. She wanted Mark to go to the dance. He had said Morfe was an awful hole and it wasn't good for you to live in it. The frock was black muslin, ironed out.
She had wanted something to happen, and something had happened, something that would bring unhappiness. Unhappiness. Her will rose up, hard and stubborn, pushing it off. "Will it matter so very much? Do the Sutcliffes matter?" "They matter this much, that there won't be anything to do. They've got all the shooting and fishing and the only decent tennis court in the place.
There were little happinesses, pleasures that came like that: the pleasure of feeling good when you sat with Maggie's sister; the pleasure of doing things for Mamma or Dorsy; all the pleasures that had come through the Sutcliffes. The Sutcliffes went, and yet she had been happy. They had all gone, and yet she was happy.
She didn't want to believe there was anything the matter with him. If you went that would look as though he was all right. "What do you suppose the Sutcliffes will think? And your Uncle Victor? With all those new clothes and that new trunk?" "He'll understand." "Will he!" "Mr. Sutcliffe, I mean." She went down to Greffington Hall that night and told him. He understood.
Like Aunt Charlotte." Dan smiled, a sombre, reminiscent smile. "You don't mean to say you still take Mamma seriously? I never did." "But Mark " "Or him either." It hurt her like some abominable blasphemy. Nothing would ever happen. She would stay on in Morfe, she and Mamma: without Mark, without Dan, without the Sutcliffes.... They were going.... They were gone.
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