The Winter Folly Read Online Free PDF Page A

away.
    Perhaps she was asking too much to feel those things, whatever they were. It might even be better if she didn’t. Sometimes she wondered whether there was something wrong with her. Nobody
else seemed to struggle with suppressing their emotions the way she did. She was quick to tears or laughter, prone to wanting to dance for joy or slump down with misery, and she lived every word of
the books she read. Her aunt told her she wore her heart on her sleeve, which she supposed meant the same thing. She sensed that life might be a good deal easier if she could learn to live it
without feeling anything at all.
    Her father’s enthusiasm for the match grew. It was revealed in the way Mrs Richards, the seamstress, came to the house to fit dresses, skirts and coats that her father had ordered for her.
He arranged for a small amount of pin money to be paid into her post office account ‘for you to have a little fun with, for lipsticks and so forth’, and he began to talk to her over his
newspaper at breakfast, making comments on world affairs that he obviously hoped she would absorb. She felt that she had let things go too far to pull back now, and that the inevitable was
approaching.
    It’s for the best
, she told herself stoutly.
It’s what he wants for me. Besides, I’ve got virtually nothing to do but keep house. Am I going to sit in the cold
breakfast room, morning after morning, pouring coffee for Father, forever?
    Perhaps marriage, whatever it meant, would be a better fate than that.
    When Laurence appeared unexpectedly one afternoon, she knew that the moment had arrived. Her stomach lurched with something that she supposed must be excitement when she was
called down to the drawing room to find him there, white faced and trembling, but with bravado in his eyes as though he was determined to prove himself.
    The words, sounding well-worn even though she had never heard them before, came out as she stood there, feeling shabby and schoolgirlish in her tartan skirt and old green jumper. They fell in
and out of her consciousness like a wireless with the volume turned high and then low and back again. ‘The respect and admiration I have for you . . . over recent months . . . ripened to
something deeper . . . If you would do me the honour . . . the happiest man in the world . . . become my wife.’
    There she stood, listening as she stared at him and wondered who on earth he was. She couldn’t help feeling sympathy for him, so pale, his fingertips shuddering. Was the terror in his eyes
for fear she might reject him or accept him? Why was he asking if he might share his life with her? Did he love her? She wasn’t sure if he had said it or not.
    It seemed an age that she stood there staring, unable to speak, feeling that she was at a great fork in the road where two futures awaited, each hidden from view but equally momentous. The day
she learned her mother had died had been the only other time she had felt this way: as though, after years of sameness, life had made a sudden decisive turn and everything had changed in an
instant.
    ‘Your father,’ ventured Laurence at last, to fill the yawning silence, ‘has given his permission.’
    She remembered her duty. Besides, being proposed to felt a little like being asked to dance. Never refuse – it had been drummed into her. It’s bad manners to turn somebody down and
hurt their feelings. It doesn’t matter what you want, you must do what is asked of you.
    One of the forks in the road faded and disappeared. There had really only been one path all along. She took a deep breath.
    ‘Thank you. Yes, of course.’
    ‘You . . . you’ll marry me?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said distantly, adding, ‘please,’ in a small voice and then, more uncertainly, ‘thank you.’
    ‘No. I must thank you.’ A look of intense relief passed over his face and she felt a sudden bond with him. They were both glad it was over. ‘You’ve made me very
happy.’
    He approached stiffly