The Burden (10 page)

‘I know. You're sweet to her. But after all, Henry, we have sprung this rather suddenly on her. We've only known each other – what? – three weeks. I suppose it doesn't
really
matter if we have to wait a year.'

‘Darling,
I
don't want to wait a year. I want to marry you now – next week – tomorrow. Don't you want to marry me?'

‘Oh, Henry, I do – I do.'

Mr Baldock had duly been asked to dinner to meet Henry. Afterwards Laura had demanded breathlessly:

‘Well, what do you think of him?'

‘Now, now, slowly. How can I judge across a dinner-table? Nice manners, doesn't treat me as an old fogy. Listens to me deferentially.'

‘Is that all you've got to say? Is he good enough for Shirley?'

‘Nobody, my dear Laura, will ever be good enough for Shirley in your eyes.'

‘No, perhaps that's true … But do you like him?'

‘Yes, I like him. What I'd call an agreeable fellow.'

‘You think he'll make her a good husband.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't go as far as that. I should strongly suspect that as a husband he might prove unsatisfactory in more ways than one.'

‘Then we can't let her marry him.'

‘We can't stop her marrying him, if she wants to. And I daresay he won't prove much more unsatisfactory than any other husband she might choose. I shouldn't think he'd beat her, or put arsenic in her coffee, or be rude to her in public. There's a lot to be said, Laura, for having a husband who's agreeable and got good manners.'

‘Do you know what I think about him? I think he's utterly selfish and – and ruthless.'

Mr Baldock raised his eyebrows.

‘I shouldn't wonder if you weren't right.'

‘Well, then?'

‘Yes, but she
likes
the fellow, Laura. She likes him very much. In fact, she's crazy about him. Young Henry mayn't be your cup of tea, and strictly speaking, he isn't my cup of tea, but there's no doubt that he
is
Shirley's cup of tea.'

‘If she could only see what he's really like!' cried Laura.

‘Well, she'll find out,' prophesied Mr Baldock.

‘When it's too late! I want her to see what he's like
now
!'

‘Daresay it wouldn't make any difference. She means to have him, you know.'

‘If she could go away somewhere … On a cruise or to Switzerland – but everything's so difficult now since the war.'

‘If you ask me,' said Mr Baldock, ‘it's never any good trying to stop people marrying each other. Mind you, I'd have a try if there were some serious reason; if he had a wife and five children, or epileptic fits, or was wanted for embezzlement. But shall I tell you exactly what would happen if you did succeed in separating them and sending Shirley off on a cruise or to Switzerland or to a South Sea island?'

‘Well?'

Mr Baldock wagged an emphatic forefinger at her.

‘She'd come back having teamed up with another young man of exactly the same kind. People know what they want. Shirley wants Henry, and if she can't get Henry, she'll look around until she finds a young man as like Henry as possible. I've seen it happen again and again. My very best friend was married to a woman who made his life hell on earth, nagged at him, bullied him, ordered him around, never a moment's peace, everybody wondering why he didn't take a hatchet to her. Then he had a bit of luck! She got double pneumonia and died! Six months later, he was looking like a new man. Several really nice women taking an interest in him. Eighteen months later, what has he done? Married a woman who was even a worse bitch than the first one. Human nature's a mystery.'

He took a deep breath.

‘So stop walking up and down looking like a tragedy queen, Laura. I've told you already you take life too seriously. You can't run other people's lives for them. Young Shirley has got her own row to hoe. And if you ask me, she can take care of herself a good deal better than you can. It's
you
I'm worried about, Laura. I always have been …'

Henry surrendered as charmingly as he did everything else. ‘All right, Laura. If it must be a year's engagement … We're in your hands. I daresay it would be very hard on you to part with Shirley without having time to get used to the idea.'

‘It isn't that –'

‘Isn't it?' His eyebrows rose, his smile was faintly ironical. ‘Shirley's your ewe lamb, isn't she?'

His words left Laura with an uneasy sensation.

The days after Henry had left were not easy to get through.

Shirley was not hostile, but aloof. She was moody, unsettled, and though not openly resentful, a faint air of reproach hung about her. She lived for the arrival of the post, but the post, when it did come, proved unsatisfactory.

Henry was not a letter-writer. His letters were brief scrawls.

‘Darling, how's everything? I miss you a lot. I rode in a point-to-point yesterday. Didn't do any good. How's the dragon? Yours always, Henry.'

Sometimes a whole week passed without a letter.

Once Shirley went up to London and they had a short and unsatisfactory meeting.

He refused the invitation she brought him from Laura.

‘I don't want to come down and stay for the weekend! I want to marry you, and have you to myself for always, not come down and “walk out” with you under Laura's censorious eye. Don't forget, Laura will turn you against me if she possibly can.'

‘Oh, Henry, she'd never do anything like that. Never – she hardly ever mentions you.'

‘Hopes you'll forget about me, I expect.'

‘As if I should!?'

‘Jealous old cat.'

‘Oh, Henry, Laura's a darling.'

‘Not to me.'

Shirley went back home unhappy and restless.

In spite of herself, Laura began to feel worn down.

‘Why don't you ask Henry down for a week-end?'

Shirley said sullenly:

‘He doesn't want to come.'

‘Not want to come? How extraordinary.'

‘I don't think it's so extraordinary. He knows you don't like him.'

‘I do like him.' Laura tried to make her voice convincing.

‘Oh, Laura, you don't!'

‘I think Henry's a very attractive person.'

‘But you don't want me to marry him.'

‘Shirley – that isn't true. I only want you to be quite, quite sure.'

‘I
am
sure.'

Laura cried desperately:

‘It's only because I love you so much. I don't want you to make any mistake.'

‘Well, don't love me so much. I don't
want
to be eternally loved!' She added: ‘The truth is, you're jealous.'

‘Jealous?'

‘Jealous of Henry. You don't want me to love anyone but you.'

‘Shirley!'

Laura turned away, her face white.

‘You'll never want me to marry
anyone
.'

Then, as Laura moved away, walking stiffly, Shirley rushed after her in warm-hearted apology.

‘Darling, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it. I'm a beast. But you always seem so against – Henry.'

‘It's because I feel he's selfish.' Laura repeated the words she had used to Mr Baldock. ‘He isn't – he isn't –
kind
. I can't help feeling that in some ways he could be – ruthless.'

‘Ruthless,' Shirley repeated the word thoughtfully without any symptom of distress. ‘Yes, Laura, in a way you're right. Henry could be ruthless.'

She added: ‘It's one of those things that attracts me in him.'

‘But think – if you were ill – in trouble – would he look after you?'

‘I don't know that I'm so keen on being looked after. I can look after myself. And don't worry about Henry. He loves me.'

‘Love?' thought Laura. ‘What is love? A young man's thoughtless greedy passion? Is Henry's love for her anything more than that? Or is it true, and
am
I jealous?'

She disengaged herself gently from Shirley's clinging arms and walked away deeply disturbed.

‘Is it true that I don't want her to marry anybody? Not just Henry? Anybody? I don't think so now, but that's because there is no one else she wants to marry. If someone else were to come along, should I feel the same way as I do now, saying to myself: Not
him
– not
him
? Is it true that I love her too much? Baldy warned me … I love her too much, and so I don't want her to marry – I don't want her to go away – I want to keep her – never to let her go. What have I got against Henry really? Nothing. I don't know him, I've never known him. He's what he was at first – a stranger. All I do know is that he doesn't like me. And perhaps he's right not to like me.'

On the following day, Laura met young Robin Grant coming out of the vicarage. He took his pipe out of his mouth, greeted her, and strolled beside her into the village. After mentioning that he had just come down from London, he remarked casually:

‘Saw Henry last night. Having supper with a glamorous blonde. Very attentive. Mustn't tell Shirley.'

He gave a whinny of laughter.

Although Laura recognized the information for exactly what it was, a piece of spite on Robin's part, since he himself had been deeply attracted to Shirley, yet it gave her a qualm.

Henry, she thought, was not a faithful type. She suspected that he and Shirley had come very near to a quarrel on the occasion when they had recently met. Supposing that Henry was becoming friendly with another girl? Supposing that Henry should break off the engagement …?

‘That's what you wanted, isn't it?' said the sneering voice of her thoughts. ‘You don't want her to marry him. That's the real reason you insisted on a long engagement, isn't it? Come now!'

But she wouldn't really be pleased if Henry broke with Shirley. Shirley loved him. Shirley would suffer. If only she herself was sure, quite sure, that it was for Shirley's good –

‘What you mean,' said the sneering voice, ‘is for your own good. You want to keep Shirley …'

But she didn't want to keep Shirley that way – not a heart-broken Shirley, not a Shirley unhappy and longing for her lover. Who was she to know what was best, or not best for Shirley?

When she got home, Laura sat down and wrote a letter to Henry:

‘Dear Henry,' she wrote, ‘I have been thinking things over. If you and Shirley really want to marry, I don't feel I ought to stand in your way …'

A month later Shirley, in white satin and lace, was married to Henry in Bellbury parish church by the vicar (with a cold in his head) and given away by Mr Baldock in a morning coat very much too tight for him. A radiant bride hugged Laura goodbye, and Laura said fiercely to Henry:

‘Be good to her, Henry. You
will
be good to her?'

Henry, light-hearted as ever, said: ‘Darling Laura, what do you think?'

‘Do you really think it's nice, Laura?'

Shirley, now a wife of three months' standing, asked the question eagerly.

Laura, completing her tour of the flat (two rooms, kitchen, and bath), expressed warm approval.

‘I think you've made it lovely.'

‘It was awful when we moved in. The dirt! We've done most of it ourselves – not the ceilings, of course. It's been such fun. Do you like the red bathroom? It's supposed to be constant hot water, but it isn't usually hot. Henry thought the redness would make it seem hotter – like hell!'

Laura laughed.

‘What fun you seem to have had.'

‘We're frightfully lucky to have found a flat at all. Actually some people Henry knew had it, and they passed it on to us. The only awkward thing is that they don't seem to have paid any bills while they were here. Irate milkmen and furious grocers turn up all the time, but of course it's nothing to do with us. It's rather mean to bilk tradesmen, I think – especially small tradesmen. Henry doesn't think it matters.'

‘It may make it more difficult for you to get things on credit,' said Laura.

‘I pay our bills every week,' said Shirley virtuously.

‘Are you all right for money, darling? The garden's been doing very well lately. If you want an extra hundred.'

‘What a pet you are, Laura! No, we're all right. Keep it in case there's an emergency – I might have a really serious illness.'

‘Looking at you, that seems an absurd idea.'

Shirley laughed gaily.

‘Laura, I'm terribly happy.'

‘Bless you!'

‘Hallo, here's Henry.'

Turning the latch-key, Henry entered, and greeted Laura with his usual happy air.

‘Hallo, Laura.'

‘Hallo, Henry. I think the flat's lovely.'

‘Henry, what's the new job like?'

‘New job?' asked Laura.

‘Yes. He chucked the other one. It was awfully stuffy. Nothing but sticking on stamps and going to the post.'

‘I'm willing to start at the bottom,' said Henry, ‘but
not
in the basement.'

‘What's this like?' Shirley repeated impatiently.

‘Promising, I think,' said Henry. ‘Of course it's early days to say.'

He smiled charmingly at Laura and told her how very pleased they were to see her.

Her visit went off very well, and she returned to Bellbury feeling that her fears and hesitations had been ridiculous.

‘But Henry, how
can
we owe so much?'

Shirley spoke in a tone of distress. She and Henry had been married just over a year.

‘I know,' Henry agreed, ‘that's what I always feel! That one
can't
owe all that. Unfortunately,' he added sadly, ‘one always does.'