A nebulous picture swam before her eyes. Henry strolling into a room where his mother, a platinum blonde just back from the South of France, was carefully painting her mouth a rather surprising colour. "Hullo, Mother, so you're back?"-"Yes, have you been playing tennis?"-"Yes." There would be no curiosity, practically no interest. Henry and his mother would both be quite indifferent to what the other had been doing.
Laura asked curiously:
"What are you saying to yourself, Shirley? Your lips are moving, and your eyebrows are going up and down."
Shirley laughed:
"Oh, just an imaginary conversation."
Laura raised delicate eyebrows.
"It seemed to please you."
"It was quite ridiculous really."
The faithful Ethel put her head round the dining-room door and said:
"Supper's in."
Shirley cried: "I must wash," and ran upstairs.
After supper, as they sat in the drawing-room, Laura said: "I got the prospectus from the St. Katherine's Secretarial College to-day. I gather it's one of the best of its kind. What do you feel about it, Shirley?"
A grimace marred the loveliness of Shirley's young face.
"Learn shorthand and typing and then go and take a job?"
"Why not?"
Shirley sighed, and then laughed.
"Because I'm a lazy devil. I'd much rather stay at home and do nothing. Laura darling, I've been at school for years! Can't I have a bit of a break?"
"I wish there was something you really wished to train for, or were keen about." A frown showed itself for a moment on Laura's forehead.
"I'm a throw-back," said Shirley. "I just want to sit at home and dream of a big handsome husband, and plenty of family allowances for a growing family."
Laura did not respond. She was still looking worried.
"If you do a course at St. Katherine's, it's a question, really, of where you should live in London. Would you like to be a P.G.-with Cousin Angels, perhaps-"
"Not Cousin Angela. Have a heart, Laura."
"Not Angela then, but with some family or other. Or there are hostels, I believe. Later, you could share a flat with another girl."
"Why can't I share a flat with you?" demanded Shirley.
Laura shook her head.
"I'd stay here."
"Stay here? Not come to London with me?"
Shirley sounded indignant and incredulous.
Laura said simply: "I don't want to be bad for you, darling."
"Bad for me? How could you be?"
"Well-possessive, you know."
"Like the kind of mother who eats her young? Laura, you're never possessive."
Laura said dubiously: "I hope I'm not, but one never knows." She added with a frown: "One doesn't know in the least what one is really like…"
"Well, I really don't think you need have qualms, Laura. You're not in the least the domineering kind - at least not to me. You don't boss or bully, or try to arrange my life for me."
"Well, actually, that is exactly what I am doing-arranging for you to take a secretarial course in London when you don't in the least want to!"
The sisters both laughed.
2
Laura straightened her back and stretched her arms.
"Four dozen," she said.
She had been bunching sweet-peas.
"We ought to get a good price from Trendle's," she said. "Long stalks, and four flowers on each stem. The sweet-peas have been a success this year, Horder."
Horder, who was a gnarled, dirty, and gloomy-looking old man growled a qualified assent.
"Not too bad this year, they ain't," he said grudgingly.
Horder was a man very sure of his position. An elderly, retired gardener, who really knew his trade, his price at the end of five years of war was above rubies. Everyone had competed for him. Laura by sheer force of personality had got him, though Mrs. Kindle, whose husband was rumoured to have made a fortune out of munitions, had offered him much more money.
But Horder had preferred to work for Miss Franklin. Known her father and mother, he had; proper folk, gentlefolk. He remembered Miss Laura as a little bit of a thing. These sentiments alone would not have retained his services. The truth was that he liked working for Miss Laura. Proper drove you, she did, not much chance for slackness. If she'd been out, she knew just how much you ought to have got on with. But then, too, she appreciated what you'd done. She was free with her praise and her admiration. Generous, too, in elevenses and frequent cups of hot, strong, sugary tea. Wasn't everyone who was free with their tea and sugar nowadays, seeing it was rationed. And she was a fine quick worker herself, Miss Laura was, she could bunch quicker than he could - and that was saying something. And she'd got ideas - always looking towards the future-planning this and that-, going in for new-fangled notions. Them cloches, for instance. Horder had taken a poor view of cloches. Laura admitted to him that of course she might be wrong… On this basis, Horder graciously consented to give the new-fangled things s trial. The tomatoes had achieved results that surprised him.
"Five o'clock," said Laura, glancing at her watch. "We've got through very well."
She looked round her, at the metal vases and cans filled with to-morrow's quota, to be taken into Milchester, where she supplied a florist and a greengrocer.
"Wonderful price vedges fetch," old Horder remarked appreciatively. "Never wouldn't have believed it."
"All the same, I'm sure we're right to start switching over to cut flowers. People have been starved for them all through the war, and everybody's growing vegetables now."
"Ah!" said Horder, "things aren't what they used to be. In your pa and ma's time, growing things for the market wouldn't have been thought of. I mind this place as it used to be-a picture! Mr. Webster was in charge, he came just before the fire, he did. That fire! Lucky the whole house didn't burn down."
Laura nodded, and slipped off the rubber apron she had been wearing. Horder's words had taken her mind back many years. "Just before the fire-"
The fire had been a kind of turning-point in her life. She saw herself dimly before it-an unhappy jealous child, longing for attention, for love.
But on the night of the fire, a new Laura had come into existence-a Laura whose life had become suddenly and satisfyingly full. From the moment that she had struggled through smoke and flames with Shirley in her arms, her life had found its object and meaning-to care for Shirley.
She had saved Shirley from death. Shirley was hers. All in a moment (so it seemed to her now) those two important figures, her father and mother, had receded into the middle distance. Her eager longing for their notice, for their need of her, had diminished and faded. Perhaps she had not so much loved them as craved for them to love her. Love was what she had felt so suddenly for that small entity of flesh named Shirley. Satisfying all cravings, fulfilling her vaguely-understood need. It was no longer she, Laura, who mattered-it was Shirley…
She would look after Shirley, see that no harm came to her, watch out for predatory cats, wake up at night and be sure that there was no second fire; fetch and carry for Shirley, bring her toys, play games with her when she was older, nurse her if she were ill…
The child of eleven couldn't, of course, foresee the future: the Franklins, taking a brief holiday together, flying to Le Touquet and the plane crashing on the return journey…
Laura had been fourteen then, and Shirley three. There had been no near relatives; old Cousin Angela had been the nearest. It was Laura who had made her plans, weighing them carefully, trimming them to meet with approval, and then submitting them with all the force of indomitable decision. An elderly lawyer and Mr. Baldock had been the executors and trustees. Laura proposed that she should leave school and live at home, an excellent nanny would continue to look after Shirley. Miss Weekes should give up her cottage and come to live in the house, educating Laura, and being normally in charge of the household. It was an excellent suggestion, practical and easy to carry out, only feebly opposed by Mr. Baldock on the grounds that he disliked Girton women, and that Miss Weekes would get ideas in her head, and turn Laura into a blue-stocking.