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May 5, 1949

Experiment House, Cambridgeshire, England

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Two children sat on a rock on the grey, heathery moor sloping down to meet the stone walls of Experiment House. Behind them, they could hear a seagull cawing as it swept over the East Anglian countryside.

"That bird's a sight too far west, wouldn't you say, Pole?" asked the boy, casting a stone and watching as it bounced down the hillside.

"Oh, bother, Scrubb," exclaimed the other. "Does how far lost it is matter? I want to rest."

Eustace sighed and leaned back against the rock. A lone ray of sunlight peeping through the clouds made that small patch of moss and rock quite delightful in an otherwise dreary day.

"What do you think it will be like after we leave school?" Eustace turned to look at Jill and sighed. "Oh, you're chewing heather again! And you said you wanted to rest?"

"It's so good," sighed Jill. "You do know they make tea from it?"

"I do," grumbled Eustace. "Alberta used to make me drink it."

"I don't know what I'll do," said Jill suddenly, turning onto her side to face Eustace.

"Don't know about what?" asked Eustace, puzzled. "Making me drink that nasty brew?"

Jill laughed. "No," she said, tossing the heather at her friend. "It's just that you become so cross whenever you talk of your parents and I wanted to bring your mind off it. I was answering your question."

"Oh," said Eustace, leaning back. "They're not so bad, you know. I do love them, as much as I argue with them now." After a moment's pause, he sat up again. "Pole, I have no idea what I'll do either. Don't you ever get jealous seeing others so grown-up? Take my cousins, for example. Peter's on his way to becoming a member of Parliament, and Edmund's gone and become a war hero, as if he wasn't one already. And what will we be?"

"My mum says I'll be a good wife and mother," said Jill quietly. She suddenly felt quite shy, with the awkwardness of a child emerging into adulthood.

"Can't see that happening," muttered Eustace.

"Your parents haven't had..that talk with you?" asked Jill. The heather had become very interesting again.

Eustace shook his head, not entirely understanding. "Harold and Alberta say that marriage is outdated now. I've tried to show them using natural law that it isn't, but they don't believe in natural law either. Not that I know or care anything about marriage."

"That's it!" exclaimed Jill, almost forgetting what she had been going to say. "Why don't you become a lawyer?"

"Say that again?" mumbled Eustace, who had drifted off into his own thoughts.

"I said," exclaimed Jill, a little less crossly than she ought to have been, "You should be a lawyer."

"Yes, so I have to read books for another six years," complained Eustace. But the thought was becoming dangerously intriguing.

Jill felt like shaking her friend. "Oh, come off it, Scrubb!" she exclaimed. "I know as well as you how much you really enjoy learning. And you'd be perfect, too. The way you defended Spivvins when he went to you for help was like a regular barrister…"

"That would be like a solicitor," said Eustace, in the lecturing tone into which he still occasionally relapsed. "A solicitor is the one who deals directly with a client."

"Thank you, Scrubb, you proved my point very nicely."

"You…you didn't do that on purpose, did you?" exclaimed Eustace, turning rather red. Jill was preparing to run but relaxed as Eustace leaned back against the rock. "I suppose you're right. But mind you, the next time you ask for a peppermint I'll be horrid too and refuse."

Jill sighed. Eustace knew all her weak spots, all too well. "I'm sorry, Scrubb. But I stand by my words. You'll be a great…solicitor."

"And you'll be a great…" Eustace sat back up. "Why does it keep getting back to you being married? Isn't that just a horrible thought?"

"Well, we're getting to the age where we should be starting to think about it. It would be just lovely, but we can't be sixteen forever. In fact, I even know several girls who were sixteen when they married, after the war."

"You probably think it will be fun to be married, and argue all your life," Eustace said. Unpleasant memories of Harold and Alberta ran through his mind.

"Well, isn't that what friends like us do anyway?" asked Jill. Neither she nor Eustace thought too much of these words. "I do think it would be wonderful, to pledge myself to another till death, and receive his pledge of the same."

"You're thinking about your parents, aren't you," she added when Eustace did not reply. "It's not always that way. I'm sorry, Scrubb."

Eustace let out a sigh and tried to shut out the images of his parents quarreling. "It's hard to imagine anything better when I've lived with…you know what, all my life."

Jill had an idea. "Just imagine you were married to…um, let's see…

"Edith Jackle? Adela Pennyfather?"

"Oh, no," gasped Jill. "You have the most horrid thoughts! How about Eleanor Blakiston or…or myself…"

"That doesn't sound so bad," Eustace admitted slowly. As a matter of fact, he was thinking about Eleanor Blakiston. The thought of being married to Jill was so strange that he quite shut it out of his mind.

"Well, then give it a chance, alright?" Jill asked as she reached out to gather her long-forgotten books. The solemn toll of the first bell drifted up the hill. "Promise?"

"I just need to think about it," said Eustace. "I'm sure I'll find someone decent eventually, given some time. How about you?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll find someone decent too," Jill responded as they skipped down the hill hand-in-hand to catch supper, "eventually."

That weekend, as their train rounded a turn sharply and he instinctively shielded Jill, Eustace knew.

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