“What a muddle we’re in, Jill, every one of us, since we’ve left the old track——”
“We’re beating onwards into the open, no doubt of it. But the transition period can’t be skipped, like a dull bit of history. There’s bound to be a generation of martyrs between the old and the new. In whatever context of development. Education—and sex—and religion—and nationality——” she debated silently for a pause of time. “Yes—it fits in each case....”
Nationality.... Deb’s thoughts flew to her brother. She was anxious, not having heard from him or seen him since Samson had written that letter suggesting the compromise of the Labour Battalion, more than a fortnight ago. And to-morrow was Richard’s eighteenth birthday....
“It will be all right for the next generation. Our lot are not sure yet—stumble forwards and backwards in the twilight—let go of established tradition before they’ve grasped at an equivalent to support them. And some of us must be sacrificed down the wrong paths to prove them wrong....”
“Not my child, anyway,” Deb cried with sudden vehemence. “She shan’t be a victim to neither-nor. One of us is enough.”
“You’ll bring her up in the old way?”
“As strictly as I can, right and wrong, good and bad ... signposts wherever she may stop and wonder. I’m going to superintend her morals; I’m going to say ‘don’t,’ and I’m going to ask questions, and forbid her things. And be shocked whenever it’s necessary I should be shocked——”
“You little reactionary!”
“Yes ... I know. Don’t mistake me, Gillian—I believe it best to be first thoughtful and then courageous—as you’ve been. But my daughter Naomi—I’m quite sure it is to be a daughter—will be partly a Phillips; handicapped from the start. Samson is at least a generation behind even the transition period. He’s almost extinct. And he’ll be her father.”
“Meaning that if you marry the jailer of a prison, it saves trouble to bring up the child as a convict?”