The Burden. Агата Кристи

for one thing.’

      Then he took Laura firmly by the hand.

      ‘Goodbye, Laura,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to be going now. Friendship should never be strained too far. I’ve enjoyed having you to tea.’

      ‘Goodbye, Mr Baldock. Thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed myself very much.’

      The polite slogan slipped from her lips in a glib fashion. Laura was a well-brought-up child.

      ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Baldock, patting her amicably on the shoulder. ‘Always say your piece. It’s courtesy and knowing the right passwords that makes the wheels go round. When you come to my age, you can say what you like.’

      Laura smiled at him and passed through the iron gate he was holding open for her. Then she turned and hesitated.

      ‘Well, what is it?’

      ‘Is it really settled now? About our being friends, I mean?’

      Mr Baldock rubbed his nose.

      ‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Yes, I think so.’

      ‘I hope you don’t mind very much?’ Laura asked anxiously.

      ‘Not too much … I’ve got to get used to the idea, mind.’

      ‘Yes, of course. I’ve got to get used to it, too. But I think—I think—it’s going to be nice. Goodbye.’

      ‘Goodbye.’

      Mr Baldock looked after her retreating figure, and muttered to himself fiercely: ‘Now look what you’ve let yourself in for, you old fool!’

      He retraced his steps to the house, and was met by his housekeeper Mrs Rouse.

      ‘Has the little girl gone?’

      ‘Yes, she’s gone.’

      ‘Oh dear, she didn’t stay very long, did she?’

      ‘Quite long enough,’ said Mr Baldock. ‘Children and one’s social inferiors never know when to say goodbye. One has to say it for them.’

      ‘Well!’ said Mrs Rouse, gazing after him indignantly as he walked past her.

      ‘Good night,’ said Mr Baldock. ‘I’m going into my library, and I don’t want to be disturbed again.’

      ‘About supper—’

      ‘Anything you please.’ Mr Baldock waved an arm. ‘And take away all that sweet stuff, and finish it up, or give it to the cat.’

      ‘Oh, thank you, sir. My little niece—’

      ‘Your niece, or the cat, or anyone.’

      He went into the library and shut the door.

      ‘Well!’ said Mrs Rouse again. ‘Of all the crusty old bachelors! But there, I understand his ways! It’s not everyone that would.’

      Laura went home with a pleasing feeling of importance.

      She popped her head through the kitchen window where Ethel, the house-parlourmaid, was struggling with the intricacies of a crochet pattern.

      ‘Ethel,’ said Laura. ‘I’ve got a Friend.’

      ‘Yes, dearie,’ said Ethel, murmuring to herself under her breath. ‘Five chain, twice into the next stitch, eight chain—’

      ‘I have got a Friend.’ Laura stressed the information.

      Ethel was still murmuring:

      ‘Five double crochet, and then three times into the next—but that makes it come out wrong at the end—now where have I slipped up?’

      ‘I’ve got a Friend,’ shouted Laura, maddened by the lack of comprehension displayed by her confidante.

      Ethel looked up, startled.

      ‘Well, rub it, dearie, rub it,’ she said vaguely.

      Laura turned away in disgust.

       CHAPTER 3

      Angela Franklin had dreaded returning home but, when the time came, she found it not half so bad as she had feared.

      As they drove up to the door, she said to her husband:

      ‘There’s Laura waiting for us on the steps. She looks quite excited.’

      And, jumping out as the car drew up, she folded her arms affectionately round her daughter and cried:

      ‘Laura darling. It’s lovely to see you. Have you missed us a lot?’

      Laura said conscientiously:

      ‘Not very much. I’ve been very busy. But I’ve made you a raffia mat.’

      Swiftly there swept over Angela’s mind a sudden remembrance of Charles—of the way he would tear across the grass, flinging himself upon her, hugging her. ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’

      How horribly it hurt—remembering.

      She pushed aside memories, smiled at Laura and said:

      ‘A raffia mat? How nice, darling.’

      Arthur Franklin tweaked his daughter’s hair.

      ‘I believe you’ve grown, Puss.’

      They all went into the house.

      What it was Laura had expected, she did not know. Here were Mummy and Daddy home, and pleased to see her, making a fuss of her, asking her questions. It wasn’t they who were wrong, it was herself. She wasn’t—she wasn’t—what wasn’t she?

      She herself hadn’t said the things or looked or even felt as she had thought she would.

      It wasn’t the way she had planned it. She hadn’t—really—taken Charles’s place. There was something missing with her, Laura. But it would be different tomorrow, she told herself, or if not tomorrow, then the next day, or the day after. The heart of the house, Laura said to herself, suddenly recalling a phrase that had taken her fancy from an old-fashioned children’s book she had come across in the attic.

      That was what she was now, surely, the heart of the house.

      Unfortunate that she should feel herself, with a deep inner misgiving, to be just Laura as usual.

      Just Laura …

      ‘Baldy seems to have taken quite a fancy to Laura,’ said Angela. ‘Fancy, he asked her to tea with him while we were away.’

      Arthur said he’d like very much to know what they had talked about.

      ‘I think,’ said Angela after a moment or two, ‘that we ought to tell Laura. I mean, if we don’t, she’ll hear something—the servants or someone. After all, she’s too old for gooseberry bushes and all that kind of thing.’

      She was lying in a long basket chair under the cedar tree. She turned her head now towards her husband in his deck chair.

      The lines of suffering still showed in her face. The life she was carrying had not yet succeeded in blurring the sense of loss.

      ‘It’s going to be a boy,’ said Arthur Franklin. ‘I know it’s going to be a boy.’

      Angela smiled, and shook her head.

      ‘No use building on it,’ she said.

      ‘I tell you, Angela, I know.’

      He was positive—quite positive.

      A boy like Charles, another Charles, laughing, blue-eyed, mischievous, affectionate.

      Angela thought: ‘It may be another