As Laura rose from lunch the following afternoon the telephone rang.
‘Laura? It’s me, Shirley.’
‘Shirley? What’s the matter? Your voice sounds queer.’
‘It’s Henry, Laura. He’s in hospital. He’s got polio.’
‘Like Charles,’ thought Laura, her mind rushing back over the years. ‘Like Charles …’
The tragedy that she herself had been too young to understand acquired suddenly a new meaning.
The anguish in Shirley’s voice was the same anguish that her own mother had felt.
Charles had died. Would Henry die?
She wondered. Would Henry die?
‘Infantile paralysis is the same as polio, isn’t it?’ she asked Mr Baldock doubtfully.
‘Newer name for it, that’s all – why?’
‘Henry has gone down with it.’
‘Poor chap. And you’re wondering if he’s going to get over it?’
‘Well – yes.’
‘And hoping he won’t?’
‘Really, really. You make me out a monster.’
‘Come now, young Laura – the thought was in your mind.’
‘Horrible thoughts do pass through one’s mind,’ said Laura. ‘But I wouldn’t wish anyone dead – really I wouldn’t.’
‘No,’ said Mr Baldock thoughtfully. ‘I don’t believe you would – nowadays –’
‘What do you mean – nowadays? Oh, you don’t mean that old business of the Scarlet Woman?’ She couldn’t help smiling at the remembrance. ‘What I came in to tell you was that I shan’t be able to come in and see you every day for a bit. I’m going up to London by the afternoon train – to be with Shirley.’
‘Does she want you?’
‘Of course she’ll want me,’ said Laura indignantly. ‘Henry’s in hospital. She’s all alone. She needs someone with her.’
‘Probably – yes, probably. Quite right. Proper thing to do. It doesn’t matter about me.’
Mr Baldock, as a semi-invalid, got a lot of pleasure out of an exaggerated self-pity.
‘Darling, I’m terribly sorry, but –’
‘But Shirley comes first! All right, all right … who am I? Only a tiresome old fellow of eighty, deaf, semi-blind –’
‘Baldy –’
Mr Baldock suddenly grinned and closed one eyelid.
‘Laura,’ he said, ‘you’re a push-over for hard luck stories. Anyone who’s sorry for himself doesn’t need you to be sorry for him as well. Self-pity is practically a full-time occupation.’
‘Isn’t it lucky I didn’t sell the house?’ said Laura.
It was three months later. Henry had not died, but he had been very near death.
‘If he hadn’t insisted upon going out and playing tennis after the first signs, it wouldn’t have been so serious. As it is –’
‘It’s bad – eh?’
‘It’s fairly certain that he’ll be a cripple for life.’
‘Poor devil.’
‘They haven’t told him that, of course. And I suppose there’s just a chance … but perhaps they only say that to cheer up Shirley. Anyway, as I said, it’s lucky I haven’t sold the house. It’s queer – I had a feeling all along that I oughtn’t to sell it. I kept saying to myself it was ridiculous, that it was far too big for me, that since Shirley hadn’t any children they would never want a house in the country. And I was quite keen to take on this job, running the Children’s Home in Milchester. But as it is, the sale hasn’t gone through, and I can withdraw and the house will be there for Shirley to bring Henry to when he gets out of hospital. That won’t be for some months, of course.’
‘Does Shirley think that’s a good plan?’
Laura frowned.
‘No, for some reason she’s most reluctant. I think I know why.’
She looked up sharply at Mr Baldock.
‘I might as well know – Shirley may have told you what she wouldn’t like to tell me. She’s got practically none of her own money left, has she?’
‘She hasn’t confided in me,’ said Mr Baldock, ‘but no, I shouldn’t think she had.’ He added: ‘I should imagine Henry’s gone through pretty well all he ever had, too.’
‘I’ve heard a lot of things,’ said Laura. ‘From friends of theirs and other people. It’s been a terribly unhappy marriage. He’s gone through her money, he’s neglected her, he’s constantly had affairs with other women. Even now, when he’s so ill, I can’t bring myself to forgive him. How could he treat Shirley like that? If anyone deserved to be happy, Shirley did. She was so full of life and eagerness and – and trust.’ She got up and walked restlessly about the room. She tried to steady her voice as she went on:
‘Why did I ever let her marry Henry? I could have stopped it, you know, or at any rate delayed it so that she would have had time to see what he was like. But she was fretting so – she wanted him. I wanted her to have what she wanted.’
‘There, there, Laura.’
‘And it’s worse than that. I wanted to show that I wasn’t possessive. Just to prove that to myself, I let Shirley in for a lifetime of unhappiness.’
‘I’ve told you before, Laura, you worry too much about happiness and unhappiness.’
‘I can’t bear to see Shirley suffer! You don’t mind, I suppose.’
‘Shirley, Shirley! It’s you I mind about, Laura – always have. Ever since you used to ride round the garden on that fairy-cycle of yours looking as solemn as a judge. You’ve got a capacity for suffering, and you can’t minimize it as some can, by the balm of self-pity. You don’t think about yourself at all.’
‘What do I matter? It isn’t my husband who’s been struck down with infantile paralysis!’
‘It might be, by the way you’re going on about it! Do you know what I want for you, Laura? Some good everyday happiness. A husband, some noisy, naughty children. You’ve always been a tragic little thing ever since I’ve known you – you need the other thing, if you’re ever going to develop properly. Don’t take the sufferings of the world upon your shoulders – our Lord Jesus Christ did that once for all. You can’t live other people’s lives for them, not even Shirley’s. Help her, yes; but don’t mind so much.’
Laura said, white-faced: ‘You don’t understand.’
‘You’re like all women, have to make such a song and dance about things.’
Laura looked at him for a moment in silence, and then turned on her heel and went out of the room.
‘Bloody old fool, that’s what I am,’ said Mr Baldock aloud to himself. ‘Oh well, I’ve been and done it now, I suppose.’
He was startled when the door opened, and Laura came swiftly through it, and across to his chair.
‘You are an old devil,’ she said, and kissed him.
When she went out again, Mr Baldock lay still and blinked his eyes in some embarrassment.
It had become his habit lately to mutter to himself, and he now addressed a prayer to the ceiling.
‘Look after her, Lord,’ he said. ‘I can’t. And I suppose it’s been presumption on my part to try.’
On hearing of Henry’s illness, Richard Wilding had written to Shirley a letter expressing conventional sympathy. A month later he had written again, asking her to see him. She wrote back:
‘I don’t think we had better meet. Henry is the only reality now in my life. I think you will understand. Goodbye.’
To that he replied:
‘You have said what I expected you to say. God bless you, my dear, now and always.’
So that, Shirley thought, was the end of that …
Henry would live, but what confronted her now were the practical difficulties of existence. She and Henry had practically no money. When he came out of hospital, a cripple, the first necessity would be a home.
The obvious answer was Laura.
Laura, generous, loving, took it for granted that Shirley and Henry would come to Bellbury. Yet, for some curious reason, Shirley was deeply reluctant to go.
Henry, a bitter rebellious invalid, with no trace of his former light-heartedness, told her she was mad.
‘I can’t see what you’ve got against it. It’s the obvious thing to do. Thank goodness Laura has never given the house up. There’s plenty of room. We can have a whole suite to ourselves, and a bloody nurse or man attendant, too, if I’ve got to have one. I can’t see what you are dithering about.’
‘Couldn’t we go to Muriel?’
‘She’s had a stroke, you know that. She’ll probably be having another quite soon. She’s got a nurse looking after her and is quite ga-ga, and her income’s halved with taxation. It’s out of the question. What’s wrong with going to Laura? She’s offered to have us, hasn’t she?’
‘Of course she has. Again and again.’
‘Then that’s all right. Why don’t you want to go there? You know Laura adores you.’
‘She loves me – but –’
‘All right! Laura adores you and doesn’t like me! All the more fun for her. She can gloat over my being a helpless cripple and enjoy herself.’
‘Don’t say that, Henry. You know Laura isn’t like that.’
‘What do I care what Laura is like? What do I care about anything? Do you realize what I’m going through? Do you realize what it’s like to be helpless, inert, not able to turn over in bed? And what do you care?’
‘I care.’
‘Tied to a cripple! A lot of fun for you!’
‘It’s all right for me.’
‘You’re like all women, delighted to be able to treat a man like a child. I’m dependent on you, and I expect you enjoy it.’
‘Say anything you like to me,’ said Shirley. ‘I know just how awful it is for you.’
‘You don’t know in the least. You can’t. How I wish I was dead! Why don’t these bloody doctors finish one off? It’s the only decent thing to do. Go on, say some more soothing, sweet things.’
‘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.
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 realized herself the strain under which she had been living.