Read Online We Five by Mark Dunn - Free Book Online Page B

be that naïve.”
    â€œMr. Andrews knows their character, and if he believes the thing to be all quite innocent…”
    â€œ Innocent ? Being pursued by men with conquest clearly on their minds?”
    â€œTo be pursued by any man, Ruth, when there are so many of us and so few of them round these days, should be taken as flattery at first pitch.”
    â€œ Flattery. Are you potty? It’s definitely sport, though. You have that much correct, at least.”
    â€œBut isn’t love in its early stages a kind of sport, Ruth? Pursuit and conquest. It is a game, rather. People don’t just bump into each other at a Lyons Corner House, fall instantly in love, and then go skipping off to the vicar to marry.”
    Ruth’s brow furrowed. “How can you make light of such a serious matter?”
    â€œBecause I ain’t yet seen the serious part of it. These are, no doubt, five lads what spend their dismal days delivering coal to housewives and housemaids and grumpy old men in cardigan sweaters, and then spend half their nights freezing their bums off on draughty rooftops watching for incendiaries, and where and when, I ask you, are they ever to meet interesting girls—that is, girls what haven’t had all the life crushed out of them by falling walls and timbers? You must admit, myself excepted, that the five of us are quite dishy to look at—and very much alive —and who wouldn’t want to take us out for a whirl on the dance floor some night?”
    â€œFirst, Jane, I so tire of hearing you denigrate yourself. You are pretty in your own way and let’s have done with that ! Second, these boys don’t know a thing about us except for what we look like.”
    â€œBut isn’t that what the male species considers first? How a woman looks. Later a bloke will have himself the chance to discover if the girl who attracts him’s got a charming personality or a sharp mind or find out if she be C of E or Presbyterian, or—or casts her vote for Labour or Tory, but not until later. I should be rather pleased if they’re looking at us and talking about us and scheming over some way to meet us. There’s only one chap in my life in the bloody here and now, and he is, according to all those who meet him, a worthless invertebrate. I will confess to you, Ruth, that sometimes I come to the parsonage pretending to drop in and visit with you, when it’s really Mr. Mobry I most fancy seeing—not that I find him especially attractive or got himself any more personality than a goat, but what he does have to commend him is this: he’s a man— and not a man what also happens to be my brother, and I should like to have the privilege, at this stage in my young life, to simply sit and exchange a fine how-do-you-do with any man who just happens to be halfway male. I’ve even given thought to darkening the door of that Fatted Pig myself, but I hesitate to do so, as I know the sort of woman who most often mooches into London pubs alone, and I’m not keen on being put in her league. Nevertheless, I hunger for the companionship. You do not. I know it. I’ve always known it. I don’t judge you for it. But you shouldn’t judge me for craving it.”
    Ruth sat quietly for a moment, digesting what her friend Jane had just said. “And does it not bother you,” she finally said, “that these men, who’ve taken such a curious interest in us—that they’re conscientious objectors? That they refuse to risk their lives for their country as so many other young men are doing these days?”
    Jane shook her head. “There are those who don’t think that war should be the cure for all the evils of the world. They believe God created man for a much higher purpose than slaughtering other members of his species.”
    Ruth nodded. “There are those conscientious objectors who believe exactly as you say. They have my