The Burden (2 page)

A moment later, as she fastened the clasp of her pearls round her neck, she asked suddenly: ‘Why? Why did you ask about Laura this evening?'

Arthur Franklin said vaguely:

‘Oh, just Baldy – something he said.'

‘Oh,
Baldy
!' Mrs Franklin's voice held amusement. ‘You know what
he's
like. He likes starting things.'

And on an occasion a few days later when Mr Baldock had been to lunch, and they came out of the dining-room, encountering Nannie in the hall, Angela Franklin stopped her deliberately and asked in a clear, slightly raised voice:

‘There's nothing wrong with Miss Laura, is there? She's quite well and happy?'

‘Oh yes, madam.' Nannie was positive and slightly affronted. ‘She's a
very
good little girl, never gives
any
trouble. Not like Master Charles.'

‘So Charles does give you trouble, does he?' said Mr Baldock.

Nannie turned to him deferentially.

‘He's a regular boy, sir, always up to pranks! He's getting on, you know. He'll soon be going to school. Always high-spirited at this age, they are. And then his digestion is weak, he gets hold of too many sweets without my knowing.'

An indulgent smile on her lips and shaking her head, she passed on.

‘All the same, she adores him,' said Angela Franklin as they went into the drawing-room.

‘Obviously,' said Mr Baldock. He added reflectively: ‘I always have thought women were fools.'

‘Nannie isn't a fool – very far from it.'

‘I wasn't thinking of Nannie.'

‘Me?' Angela gave him a sharp, but not too sharp, glance, because after all it was Baldy, who was celebrated and eccentric and was allowed a certain licence in rudeness, which was, actually, one of his stock affectations.

‘I'm thinking of writing a book on the problem of the second child,' said Mr Baldock.

‘Really, Baldy! You don't advocate the only child, do you? I thought that was supposed to be unsound from every point of view.'

‘Oh! I can see a lot of point in the family of ten. That is, if it was allowed to develop in the legitimate way. Do the household chores, older ones look after the younger ones, and so on. All cogs in the household machine. Mind you, they'd have to be really of some use – not just made to think they were. But nowadays, like fools, we split 'em up and segregate 'em off, each with their own “age group”! Call it education! Pah! Flat against nature!'

‘You and your theories,' said Angela indulgently. ‘But what about the second child?'

‘The trouble about the second child,' said Mr Baldock didactically, ‘is that it's usually an anti-climax. The first child's an adventure. It's frightening and it's painful; the woman's sure she's going to die, and the husband (Arthur here, for example) is equally sure you're going to die. After it's all over, there you are with a small morsel of animate flesh yelling its head off, which has caused two people all kinds of hell to produce! Naturally they value it accordingly! It's new, it's ours, it's wonderful! And then, usually rather too soon, Number Two comes along – all the caboodle over again – not so frightening this time, much more boring. And there it is, it's yours, but it's not a new experience, and since it hasn't cost you so much, it isn't nearly so wonderful.'

Angela shrugged her shoulders.

‘Bachelors know everything,' she murmured ironically. ‘And isn't that equally true of Number Three and Number Four and all the rest of them?'

‘Not quite. I've noticed that there's usually a gap before Number Three. Number Three is often produced because the other two are getting independent, and it would be “nice to have a baby in the nursery again”. Curious taste; revolting little creatures, but biologically a sound instinct, I suppose. And so they go on, some nice and some nasty, and some bright and some dull, but they pair off and pal up more or less, and finally comes the afterthought which like the firstborn gets an undue share of attention.'

‘And it's all very unfair, is that what you're saying?'

‘Exactly. That's the whole point about life, it
is
unfair!'

‘And what can one do about it?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Then really, Baldy, I don't see what you're talking about.'

‘I told Arthur the other day. I'm a soft-hearted chap. I like to see people being happy. I like to make up to people a bit for what they haven't got and can't have. It evens things up a bit. Besides, if you don't –' he paused a moment – ‘it can be dangerous …'

‘I do think Baldy talks a lot of nonsense,' said Angela pensively to her husband when their guest had departed.

‘John Baldock is one of the foremost scholars in this country,' said Arthur Franklin with a slight twinkle.

‘Oh, I know
that
.' Angela was faintly scornful. ‘I'd be willing to sit in meek adoration if he was laying down the law on Greeks and Romans, or obscure Elizabethan poets. But what can he know about children?'

‘Absolutely nothing, I should imagine,' said her husband. ‘By the way, he suggested the other day that we should give Laura a dog.'

‘A dog? But she's got a kitten.'

‘According to him, that's not the same thing.'

‘How very odd … I remember him saying once that he disliked dogs.'

‘I believe he does.'

Angela said thoughtfully: ‘Now Charles, perhaps, ought to have a dog … He looked quite scared the other day when those puppies at the Vicarage rushed at him. I hate to see a boy afraid of dogs. If he had one of his own, it would accustom him to it. He ought to learn to ride, too. I wish he could have a pony of his own. If only we had a paddock!'

‘A pony's out of the question, I'm afraid,' said Franklin.

In the kitchen, the parlourmaid, Ethel, said to the cook:

‘That old Baldock, he's noticed it too.'

‘Noticed what?'

‘Miss Laura. That she isn't long for this world. Asking Nurse about it, they were. Ah, she's got the look, sure enough, no mischief in her, not like Master Charles. You mark my words,
she
won't live to grow up.'

But it was Charles who died.

Charles died of infantile paralysis. He died at school; two other boys had the disease but recovered.

To Angela Franklin, herself now in a delicate state of health, the blow was so great as to crush her completely. Charles, her beloved, her darling, her handsome merry high-spirited boy.

She lay in her darkened bedroom, staring at the ceiling, unable to weep. And her husband and Laura and the servants crept about the muted house. In the end the doctor advised Arthur Franklin to take his wife abroad.

‘Complete change of air and scene. She
must
be roused. Somewhere with good air – mountain air. Switzerland, perhaps.'

So the Franklins went off, and Laura remained under the care of Nannie, with daily visits from Miss Weekes, an amiable but uninspiring governess.

To Laura, her parents' absence was a period of pleasure. Technically, she was the mistress of the house! Every morning she ‘saw the cook' and ordered meals for the day. Mrs Brunton, the cook, was fat and good-natured. She curbed the wilder of Laura's suggestions and managed it so that the actual menu was exactly as she herself had planned it. But Laura's sense of importance was not impaired. She missed her parents the less because she was building in her own mind a fantasy for their return.

It was terrible that Charles was dead. Naturally they had loved Charles best – she did not dispute the justice of that, but now –
now
– it was
she
who would enter into Charles's kingdom. It was Laura now who was their only child, the child in whom all their hopes lay and to whom would flow all their affection. She built up scenes in her mind of the day of their return. Her mother's open arms …

‘Laura, my darling. You're all I have in the world now!'

Affecting scenes, emotional scenes. Scenes that in actual fact were wildly unlike anything Angela or Arthur Franklin were likely to do or say. But to Laura, they were warming and rich in drama, and by slow degrees she began to believe in them so much that they might almost already have happened.

Walking down the lane to the village, she rehearsed conversations: raising her eyebrows, shaking her head, murmuring words and phrases under her breath.

So absorbed was she in this rich feast of emotional imagination, that she failed to observe Mr Baldock, who was coming towards her from the direction of the village, pushing in front of him a gardening basket on wheels, in which he brought home his purchases.

‘Hallo, young Laura.'

Laura, rudely jostled out of an affecting drama where her mother had gone blind and she, Laura, had just refused an offer of marriage from a viscount (‘I shall never marry. My mother means
everything
to me'), started and blushed.

‘Father and mother still away, eh?'

‘Yes, they won't be coming back for ten days more.'

‘I see. Like to come to tea with me tomorrow?'

‘Oh, yes.'

Laura was elated and excited. Mr Baldock, who had a Chair at the University fourteen miles away, had a small cottage in the village where he spent the vacations and occasional week-ends. He declined to behave in a social manner, and affronted Bellbury by refusing, usually impolitely, their many invitations. Arthur Franklin was his only friend – it was a friendship of many years' standing. John Baldock was not a friendly man. He treated his pupils with such ruthlessness and irony that the best of them were goaded into distinguishing themselves, and the rest perished by the wayside. He had written several large and abstruse volumes on obscure phases of history, written in such a way that very few people could understand what he was driving at. Mild appeals from his publishers to write in a more readable fashion were turned down with a savage glee, Mr Baldock pointing out that the people who could appreciate his books were the only readers of them who were worth while! He was particularly rude to women, which enchanted many of them so much that they were always coming back for more. A man of savage prejudices, and over-riding arrogance, he had an unexpectedly kindly heart which was always betraying his principles.

Laura knew that to be asked to tea with Mr Baldock was an honour, and preened herself accordingly. She turned up neatly dressed, brushed, and washed, but nevertheless with an underlying apprehension, for Mr Baldock was an alarming man.

Mr Baldock's housekeeper showed her into the library, where Mr Baldock raised his head, and stared at her.

‘Hallo,' said Mr Baldock. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘You asked me to tea,' said Laura.

Mr Baldock looked at her in a considering manner. Laura looked back at him. It was a grave, polite look that successfully concealed her inner uncertainty.

‘So I did,' said Mr Baldock, rubbing his nose. ‘Hm … yes, so I did. Can't think why. Well, you'd better sit down.'

‘Where?' said Laura.

The question was highly pertinent. The library into which Laura had been shown was a room lined with bookshelves to the ceiling. All the shelves were wedged tight with books, but there still existed large numbers of books which could find no places in the shelves, and these were piled in great heaps on the floor and on tables, and also occupied the chairs.

Mr Baldock looked vexed.

‘I suppose we'll have to do something about it,' he said grudgingly.

He selected an arm-chair that was slightly less encumbered than the others and, with many grunts and puffs, lowered two armfuls of dusty tomes to the floor.

‘There you are,' he said, beating his hands together to rid them of dust. As a result, he sneezed violently.

‘Doesn't anyone ever dust in here?' Laura asked, as she sat down sedately.

‘Not if they value their lives!' said Mr Baldock. ‘But mind you, it's a hard fight. Nothing a woman likes better than to come barging in flicking a great yellow duster, and armed with tins of greasy stuff smelling of turpentine or worse. Picking up all my books, and arranging them in piles, by size as likely as not, no concern for the subject matter! Then she starts an evil-looking machine, that wheezes and hums, and out she goes finally, as pleased as Punch, having left the place in such a state that you can't put your hand on a thing you want for at least a month. Women! What the Lord God thought He was doing when He created woman, I can't imagine. I dare say He thought Adam was looking a little too cocky and pleased with himself; Lord of the Universe, and naming the animals and all that. Thought he needed taking down a peg or two. Daresay that was true enough. But creating woman was going a bit far. Look where it landed the poor chap! Slap in the middle of Original Sin.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Laura apologetically.

‘What do you mean, sorry?'

‘That you feel like that about women, because I suppose I'm a woman.'

‘Not yet you're not, thank goodness,' said Mr Baldock. ‘Not for a long while yet. It's got to come, of course, but no point in looking ahead towards unpleasant things. And by the way, I
hadn't
forgotten that you were coming to tea today. Not for a moment! I just pretended that I had for a reason of my own.'

‘What reason?'

‘Well –' Mr Baldock rubbed his nose again. ‘For one thing I wanted to see what you'd say.' He nodded his head. ‘You came through that one very well. Very well indeed …'

Laura stared at him uncomprehendingly.

‘I had another reason. If you and I are going to be friends, and it rather looks as though things are tending that way, then you've got to accept me as I am – a rude, ungracious old curmudgeon. See? No good expecting pretty speeches. “Dear child – so pleased to see you – been looking forward to your coming.” '