Ann glanced at her watch. She might go to the Army and Navy Stores. There were some kitchen things Edith had been wanting. This decision solved her immediate problem. But all the time that she was examining saucepans and asking prices (really fantastic now!) she was conscious of that queer cold panic at the back of her mind.
Finally, on an impulse, she went into a telephone box and dialled a number.
‘Can I speak to Dame Laura Whitstable, please?’
‘Who is speaking?’
‘Mrs Prentice.’
‘Just a moment, Mrs Prentice.’
There was a pause and then a deep resonant voice said: ‘Ann?’
‘Oh, Laura, I knew I oughtn’t to ring you up at this time of day, but I’ve just seen Sarah off, and I wondered if you were terribly busy today—’
The voice said with decision:
‘Better lunch with me. Rye bread and buttermilk. That suit you?’
‘Anything will suit me. It’s angelic of you.’
‘Be expecting you. Quarter-past one.’
II
It was one minute to the quarter-past when Ann paid off her taxi in Harley Street and rang the bell.
The competent Harkness opened the door, smiled a welcome, said: ‘Go straight on up, will you, Mrs Prentice? Dame Laura may be a few minutes still.’
Ann ran lightly up the stairs. The dining-room of the house was now a waiting-room and the top floor of the tall house was converted into a comfortable flat. In the sitting-room a small table was laid for a meal. The room itself was more like a man’s room than a woman’s. Large sagging comfortable chairs, a wealth of books, some of them piled on the chairs, and rich-coloured good-quality velvet curtains.
Ann had not long to wait. Dame Laura, her voice preceding her up the stairs like a triumphant bassoon, entered the room and kissed her guest affectionately.
Dame Laura Whitstable was a woman of sixty-four. She carried with her the atmosphere that is exuded by royalty, or well-known public characters. Everything about her was a little more than life-size, her voice, her uncompromising shelf-like bust, the piled masses of her iron-grey hair, her beak-like nose.
‘Delighted to see you, my dear child,’ she boomed. ‘You look very pretty, Ann. I see you’ve bought yourself a bunch of violets. Very discerning of you. It’s the flower you most resemble.’
‘The shrinking violet? Really, Laura.’
‘Autumn sweetness, well concealed by leaves.’
‘This is most unlike you, Laura. You are usually so rude!’
‘I find it pays, but it’s rather an effort sometimes. Let us eat immediately. Bassett, where is Bassett? Ah, there you are. There is a sole for you, Ann, you will be glad to hear. And a glass of hock.’
‘Oh, Laura, you shouldn’t. Buttermilk and rye bread would have done quite well.’
‘There’s only just enough buttermilk for me. Come on, sit down. So Sarah’s gone off to Switzerland? For how long?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘Very nice.’
The angular Bassett had left the room. Sipping her glass of buttermilk with every appearance of enjoyment, Dame Laura said shrewdly:
‘And you’re going to miss her. But you didn’t ring me up and come here to tell me that. Come on now, Ann. Tell me. We haven’t got much time. I know you’re fond of me, but when people ring up, and want my company at a moment’s notice, it’s usually my superior wisdom that’s the attraction.’
‘I feel horribly guilty,’ said Ann apologetically.
‘Nonsense, my dear. Actually, it’s rather a compliment.’
Ann said with a rush:
‘Oh, Laura, I’m a complete fool, I know! But I got in a sort of panic. There in Victoria Station with all the buses! I felt—I felt so terribly alone.’
‘Ye-es, I see …’
‘It wasn’t just Sarah going away and missing her. It was more than that …’
Laura Whitstable nodded, her shrewd grey eyes watching Ann dispassionately.
Ann said slowly:
‘Because, after all, one is always alone … really—’
‘Ah, so you’ve found that out? One does, of course, sooner or later. Curiously enough, it’s usually a shock. How old are you, Ann? Forty-one? A very good age to make your discovery. Leave it until too late and it can be devastating. Discover it too young—and it takes a lot of courage to acknowledge it.’
‘Have you ever felt really alone, Laura?’ Ann asked with curiosity.
‘Oh, yes. It came to me when I was twenty-six—actually in the middle of a family gathering of the most affectionate nature. It startled me and frightened me—but I accepted it. Never deny the truth. One must accept the fact that we have only one companion in this world, a companion who accompanies us from the cradle to the grave—our own self. Get on good terms with that companion—learn to live with yourself. That’s the answer. It’s not always easy.’
Ann sighed.
‘Life felt absolutely pointless—I’m telling you everything, Laura—just years stretching ahead with nothing to fill them. Oh, I suppose I’m just a silly useless woman …’
‘Now, now, keep your common sense. You did a very good efficient unspectacular job in the war, you’ve brought up Sarah to have nice manners and to enjoy life, and in your quiet way you enjoy life yourself. That’s all very satisfactory. In fact, if you came to my consulting room I’d send you away without even collecting a fee—and I’m a money-grubbing old woman.’
‘Laura dear, you are very comforting. But I suppose, really—I do care for Sarah too much.’
‘Fiddle!’
‘I am always so afraid of becoming one of those possessive mothers who positively eat their young.’
Laura Whitstable said dryly:
‘There’s so much talk about possessive mothers that some women are afraid to show a normal affection for their young!’
‘But possessiveness is a bad thing!’
‘Of course it is. I come across it every day. Mothers who keep their sons tied to their apron strings, fathers who monopolize their daughters. But it’s not always entirely their doing. I had a nest of birds in my room once, Ann. In due course the fledglings left the nest, but there was one who wouldn’t go. Wanted to stay in the nest, wanted to be fed, refused to face the ordeal of tumbling over the edge. It disturbed the mother bird very much. She showed him, flew down again and again from the edge of the nest, chirruped to him, fluttered her wings. Finally she wouldn’t feed him. Brought food in her beak, but stayed the other side of the room calling him. Well, there are human beings like that. Children who don’t want to grow up, who don’t want to face the difficulties of adult life. It isn’t their upbringing. It’s themselves.’
She paused before