“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 dare say 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!”
“Dare say 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….”
CHAPTER four
1
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 dare say 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.