Word: pomfret
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Dates: during 1950-1950
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Donald J. Mulvey, Phillips Andover; David E. Pingree, Phillips Andover; Arthur N. Stowe, Phillips Exeter; Edward B. Curtis, Phillips Exeter; Reginald L. Hannaford, Fryeburg Academy; George D. Langdon, Jr., Pomfret School; Edward J. Wawszkiewicz, Mount St. Charles Academy; Eric Klinger, Warren G. Harding School; Marshall A. Berman, Weaver High; Theodore H. Johnson, New Britain High; William Tifft, Seymour High; Charles S. McCarthy, Jr., Crosby High; Jack J. Neusner, William H. Hall School...
Young Mary Pomfret and Philip Weatherby are office workers who are supposed to be in love but court each other as if they were filling out government forms. Instead of making love, they gossip about their scandalous parents, Widower Pomfret and Widow Weatherby, who had a torrid affair years back. Philip and Mary feel obliged to worry whether they may not be half brother and sister...
While the young sulk, the elders cavort. Papa Pomfret has an obliging mistress and Mama Weatherby flirts freelance. Each laments the drab respectability of the new generation. "Sometimes," says Mama Weatherby of her son, "I almost wonder if he knows the facts of life even. You see he respects girls so!" And Papa Pomfret wryly complains that he "has to implore his child not to be home at certain hours...
...Mary announce their engagement, but they are no match for Mama Weatherby, who doesn't want her son to marry anybody as dreary as Mary is. While pretending to plan their marriage, she subtly sabotages it. Meanwhile she makes an all-out play for her old flame, Pomfret, with cozy dinners, warm reminders of old excitements, heartbreaking tears and a comfortable readiness to be kissed at the right moment. At the novel's end, Mary and Philip have gone off in different directions, but their elders are floating in the old euphoria...