“And she wasn’t happy. I still can’t believe it.”
“How much did you know about your sister? Does a person ever seem the same to two different people? You see Shirley always as the helpless baby that you rescued from fire, you see her as weak, helpless, in need always of love, of protection. But I see her quite differently, although I may be just as wrong as you were. I see her as a brave, gallant, adventurous young woman, able to take knocks, able to hold her own, needing difficulties to bring out the full capabilities of her spirit. She was tired and strained, but she was winning her battle, she was making a good job of her chosen life, she was bringing Henry out of despair into the daylight, she was triumphant that night that he died. She loved Henry, and Henry was what she wanted; her life was difficult, but passionately worthwhile.
“And then Henry died, and she was shoved back-back into layers of cotton-wool and soft wrapping, and anxious love, and she struggled and. she couldn’t get free. It was then that she found that drink helped. It dimmed reality. And once drink has got a hold on a woman, it isn’t easy to give it up.”
“She never told me she wasn’t happy-never.”
“She didn’t want you to know that she was unhappy.”
“And I did that to her-I?”
“Yes, my poor child.”
“Baldy knew,” Laura said slowly. “That’s what he meant when he said: ‘You shouldn’t have done it, young Laura.’ Long ago, long ago he warned me. Don’t interfere. Why do we think we know what’s best for other people?” Then she wheeled sharply towards him. “She didn’t-mean to? It wasn’t suicide?”
“It’s an open question. It could be. She stepped off the pavement straight in front of the lorry. Wilding, in his heart of hearts, thinks it was.”
“No. Oh, no!”
“But I don’t think so. I think better of Shirley than that. I think she was often very near to despair, but I don’t believe she ever really abandoned herself to it. I think she was a fighter, I think she continued to fight. But you don’t give up drinking in the snap of a finger. You relapse every now and then. I think she stepped off that pavement into eternity without knowing what she was doing or where she was going.”
Laura sank down on to the sofa.
“What shall I do? Oh! What shall I do?”
Llewellyn came and put his arms round her.
“You will marry me. You’ll start again.”
“No, no, I can never do that.”
“Why not? You need love.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve got to pay. For what I’ve done. Everyone has to pay.”
“How obsessed you are by the thought of payment.”
Laura reiterated: “Everyone has to pay.”
“Yes, I grant you that. But don’t you see, my dearest child-” He hesitated before this last bitter truth that she had to know. “For what you did, someone has already paid. Shirley paid.”
She looked at him in sudden horror.
“Shirley paid-for what I did?”
He nodded.
“Yes. I’m afraid you’ve got to live with that. Shirley paid. And Shirley is dead, and the debt is cancelled. You have got to go forward, Laura. You have got, not to forget the past, but to keep it where it belongs, in your memory, but not in your daily life. You have got to accept not punishment but happiness. Yes, my dear, happiness. You have got to stop giving and learn to take. God deals strangely with us-He is giving you, so I fully believe, happiness and love. Accept them in humility.”
“I can’t. I can’t!”
“You must.”
He drew her to her feet.
“I love you, Laura, and you love me-not as much as I love you, but you do love me.”
“Yes, I love you.”
He kissed her-a long, hungry kiss.
As they drew apart, she said, with a faint shaky laugh:
“I wish Baldy knew. He’d be pleased!”
As she moved away, she stumbled and half fell.
Llewellyn caught her.
“Be careful-did you hurt yourself?-you might have struck your head on that marble chimney-piece.”
“Nonsense.”