CECILIA'S SACRIFICE

This is a short story about what might have happened if Robbie had died in the war but Cecilia survived. Please comment nicely!

"I'm not sleeping," Cecilia said listlessly, when she finally noticed her mother's nervous tapping on the bedroom door. "Just thinking, that's all. Thinking what I want to do with my life."

"But you promised you'd begin looking for work!" The old woman was pale and thin. "Now that the war is over, darling, the truth is we don't have the money to continue on in this great house. Father is ruined, Leon is dead, and we really can't afford servants or a garden staff, or any of the lovely things we took for granted."

"Yes, the war took everything away." Cecilia was lying on the bed, gazing out at the wet garden. Rainy weather always made everything seem sad and hopeless, but the garden really was badly neglected. There was no-one left to cut the grass or trim the vines. There was no-one left to labor in the sun all day or come to Cecilia's bed at night and make her taut and yearning body sing.

"Things can't go on like this," said her weak, worried mother. "We need to think of the future, not the past." The old woman felt frightened and powerless as she studied her lissome daughter. Cecilia was wearing a black top and black lace undergarments, lying lazily on her side, head propped up with one slim hand. She looked as though she didn't have any intention of going to work.

The week before, Cecilia had gone down to London to see about enrolling in some courses at the university. The desolation of the city had devastated her. Every bombed out building and every crater in the street had made her think of young men dying in some far-off field, men like Robbie who would never come home.

She never made it to the university.

Sitting alone in the darkened cinema, Cecilia tried to lose herself in the love story flashing before her. But she emerged from the darkness in a daze, with hot tears stinging her eyes. Too many memories were awakened by the glorious passion on the screen.

"Tea with milk, please." The tiny tea room next to the cinema was bustling with busy shoppers. Lost in regrets and memories, Cecilia barely noticed the tall, striking American sitting next to her.

"Hitting the hard stuff already? It's barely three o'clock!"

Harry Fox was his name. Cecilia disliked him at first. But his jokes were soon making her laugh, and she needed to laugh. His stories about the movie business in America hooked her too. Harry's laughter and his good looks both took her away from gray London and rubble-strewn streets and the love she had lost.

"So you're thinking of buying a cinema in England?" Cecilia had to shout to be heard over loud laughter and music. The two of them had left the tea shop and gone out for a big steak dinner. Then they found their way to a basement club where American servicemen danced and drank with cheap and easy English girls. With the war over, it seemed there were dozens to be had, often for nothing more than a thick roll of American bills, a bottle of American liquor or even just a carton of American cigarettes.

"We're building a chain of cinemas. I need twenty or more that I can use to promote the big slate of pictures we've got coming out now that the war is over!" Harry Fox gave her his business card, talking big dreams, a big future and big money. He was big, clearly worth millions, but he wanted more. More money, more excitement, and more opportunities to take whatever he desired.

Cecilia couldn't help laughing at his jokes and listening to his stories. And as they laughed and talked and smoked and drank she began to feel alive, more alive than she had felt in months.

Harry Fox was a man who felt he could have whatever he desired. It was only when they were making love in his hotel room that she realized that her own desires were equally untamed. Clever and amusing Harry made her want to live, to enjoy herself, to forget the past . . . which was exactly why Cecilia had torn herself from his arms and fled the room instead of making the final sacrifice and losing herself forever in waves of pleasure.

"We have to do something, dearest." Her mother was still talking, but her voice sounded thin and far away. The rain continued to fall in the garden. "Cecilia, if things go on this way we can't survive!"

"No, we can't." Cecilia Tallis turned away from her mother's voice, and gazed out the window with overflowing eyes. Her own happiness didn't matter. Under her pillow was a business card. She could bury the card in the garden, or she could reach for the telephone by the bed.

A/N: What do you think Cecilia will do? What would you do?