“I knew I’d have a sister. Mr. Baldock said so.”
“An old bachelor like him, what should he know?”
“He’s a very clever man,” said Laura.
Angela was rather slow to regain her full strength. Arthur Franklin was worried about his wife. The baby was a month old when he spoke to Angela rather hesitatingly.
“Does it matter so much? That it’s a girl, I mean, and not a boy?”
“No, of course not. Not really. Only-I’d felt so sure.”
“Even if it had been a boy, it wouldn’t have been Charles, you know?”
“No. No, of course not.”
The nurse entered the room, carrying the baby.
“Here we are,” she said. “Such a lovely girl now. Going to your Mumsie-wumsie, aren’t you?”
Angela held the baby slackly and eyed the nurse with dislike as the latter went out of the room.
“What idiotic things these women say,” she muttered crossly.
Arthur laughed.
“Laura darling, get me that cushion,” said Angela.
Laura brought it to her, and stood by as Angela arranged the baby more comfortably. Laura felt comfortably mature and important. The baby was only a silly little thing. It was she, Laura, on whom her mother relied.
It was chilly this evening. The fire that burned in the grate was pleasant. The baby crowed and gurgled happily.
Angela looked down into the dark blue eyes, and a mouth that seemed already to be able to smile. She looked down, with sudden shock, into Charles’s eyes. Charles as a baby. She had almost forgotten him at that age.
Love rushed blindingly through her veins. Her baby, her darling. How could she have been so cold, so unloving to this adorable creature? How could she have been so blind? A gay beautiful child, like Charles.
“My sweet,” she murmured. “My precious, my darling.”
She bent over the child in an abandonment of love. She was oblivious of Laura standing watching her. She did not notice as Laura crept quietly out of the room.
But perhaps a vague uneasiness made her say to Arthur:
“Mary Wells can’t be here for the christening. Shall we let Laura be proxy godmother? It would please her, I think.”
CHAPTER four
1
“Enjoy the christening?” asked Mr. Baldock.
“No,” said Laura.
“Cold in that church, I expect,” said Mr. Baldock. “Nice font though,” he added. “Norman-black Tournai marble.”
Laura was unmoved by the information.
She was busy formulating a question:
“May I ask you something, Mr. Baldock?”
“Of course.”
“Is it wrong to pray for anyone to die?”
Mr. Baldock gave her a swift sideways look.
“In my view,” he said, “it would be unpardonable interference.”
“Interference?”
“Well, the Almighty is running the show, isn’t He? What do you want to stick your fingers into the machinery for? What business is it of yours?”
“I don’t see that it would matter to God very much. When a baby has been christened and everything, it goes to heaven, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t see where else it could go,” admitted Mr. Baldock.
“And God is fond of children. The Bible says so. So He’d be pleased to see it.”
Mr. Baldock took a short turn up and down the room. He was seriously upset, and didn’t want to show it.
“Look here, Laura,” he said at last. “You’ve got-you’ve simply got to mind your own business.”
“But perhaps it is my business.”
“No, it isn’t. Nothing’s your business but yourself. Pray what you like about yourself. Ask for blue ears, or
a diamond tiara, or to grow up and win a beauty competition. The worst that can happen to you is that the
answer to your prayer might be ‘Yes’.”
Laura looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“I mean it,” said Mr. Baldock.
Laura thanked him politely, and said she must be going home now.
When she had gone, Mr. Baldock rubbed his chin, scratched his head, picked his nose, and absent-mindedly wrote a review of a mortal enemy’s book simply dripping with milk and honey.
Laura walked back home, thinking deeply.
As she passed the small Roman Catholic church, she hesitated. A daily woman who came in to help in the kitchen was a Catholic, and stray scraps of her conversation came back to Laura, who had listened to them with the fascination accorded to something rare and strange, and also forbidden. For Nannie, a staunch chapel-goer, held very strong views about what she referred to as the Scarlet Woman. Why or what the Scarlet Woman was, Laura had no idea, except that she had some undefined connection with Babylon.