“All right,” said Shirley, “I will. This will make you really mad. It’s worse for me than it is for you.”
Henry glared at her; then, reluctantly, he laughed.
“You called my bluff,” he said.
5
Shirley wrote to Laura a month later.
“Darling Laura. It’s very good of you to have us. You mustn’t mind Henry and the things he says. He’s taking it very hard. He’s never had to bear anything he didn’t want to before, and he gets in the most dreadful rages. It’s such an awful thing to happen to anyone like Henry.”
Laura’s answer, quick and loving, came by return.
Two weeks later, Shirley and her invalid husband came home.
Why, Shirley wondered, as Laura’s loving arms went round her, had she ever felt she did not want to come here?
This was her own place. She was back within the circle of Laura’s care and protection. She felt like a small child again.
“Laura darling, I’m so glad to be here…. I’m so tired… so dreadfully tired….”
Laura was shocked by her sister’s appearance.
“My darling Shirley, you’ve been through such a lot… don’t worry any more.”
Shirley said anxiously: “You mustn’t mind Henry.”
“Of course I shan’t mind anything Henry says or does. How could I? It’s dreadful for a man, especially a man like Henry, to be completely helpless. Let him blow off steam as much as he likes.”
“Oh, Laura, you do understand….”
“Of course I understand.”
Shirley gave a sigh of relief. Until this morning, she had hardly realised herself the strain under which she had been living.
CHAPTER nine
1
Before going abroad again, Sir Richard Wilding went down to Bellbury.
Shirley read his letter at breakfast; and then passed it to Laura, who read it.
“Richard Wilding. Is that the traveller man?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.”
“Well-he is. You’ll like him.”
“He’d better come to lunch. Do you know him well?”
“For a time,” said Shirley, “I thought I was in love with him.”
“Oh!” said Laura, startled.
She wondered…
Richard arrived a little earlier than they had expected. Shirley was up with Henry, and Laura received him, and took him out into the garden.
She thought to herself at once: ‘This is the man Shirley ought to have married.’
She liked his quietness, his warmth and sympathy, and his authoritativeness.
Oh! if only Shirley had never met Henry, Henry with his charm, his instability and his underlying ruthlessness.
Richard enquired politely after the sick man. After the conventional questions and answers, Richard Wilding said:
“I only met him a couple of times. I didn’t like him.”
And then he asked brusquely:
“Why didn’t you stop her marrying him?”
“How could I?”
“You could have found some way.”
“Could I? I wonder.”
Neither of them felt that their quick intimacy was unusual.
He said gravely:
“I might as well tell you, if you haven’t guessed, that I love Shirley very deeply.”
“I rather thought so.”
“Not that it’s any good. She’ll never leave the fellow now.”
Laura said dryly:
“Could you expect her to?”
“Not really. She wouldn’t be Shirley if she did.” Then he said: “Do you think she still cares for him?”
“I don’t know. Naturally she’s dreadfully sorry for him.”
“How does he bear up?”
“He doesn’t,” said Laura sharply. “He’s no kind of endurance or fortitude. He just-takes it out of her.”
“Swine!”
“We ought to be sorry for him.”
“I am in a way. But he always treated her very badly. Everybody knows about it. Did you know?”
“She never said so. Of course I’ve heard things.”
“Shirley’s loyal, he said. “Loyal through and through.”
“Yes.”
After a moment or two’s silence Laura said, her voice suddenly harsh:
“You’re quite right, you know. I ought to have stopped that marriage. Somehow. She was so young. She hadn’t had time. Yes, I made a terrible, mess of things.”
He said gruffly:
“You’ll look after her, won’t you?”
“Shirley is the only person in the world I care about.”
He said:
“Look, she’s coming now.”
They both watched Shirley as she came across the lawn towards them.
He said:
“How terribly thin and pale she is. My poor child, my dear brave child…”