“I am glad he had you, my dear.”
“If I’d known——” began Coral once, and stopped herself. She intended saying that if she had known what a Mrs. Cloud could be she would have sent her husband to his home long ago. But she realized that even Mrs. Cloud would not bear the suggestion of her son returning to her by another woman’s good leave. And she had fallen in love, as every one fell in love, with quiet Mrs. Cloud.
But behold Coral now, the daughter-in-law, the wife picked up in the far country, installed at Brackenhurst and on her best behaviour; but dying for some one to talk to!
Of course there was Laura. There was always Laura. Justin interposed Laura between himself and his sister-in-law, much as you hold an umbrella slant-wise between you and the wind.
Coral did not object. Laura interested her. Coral, who did not know the meaning of the word reserve, except in the professional sense of keeping your salary to yourself, conquered Laura’s hesitancies and reticencies by ignoring them. She inveigled her into bedroom conclaves and long walks and talks: and Laura, intrigued, half hostile, found herself committed to intimacy, and found it pleasant. She had no women friends. Annabel and the vicar’s daughters she did not like, and the Cloud cousins, Rhoda and Lucy, had but just come home from school. Coral could not be called a kindred spirit, but she was shrewd and sociable: beneath her flagrancies Laura learned to like and respect her, and to think that in a month or two, when they got to know each other better——But Coral cut short the rest. Coral, by the end of the week, had laid all before her as far as her own private affairs and love affairs were concerned and was taking it for granted that Laura would respond.
And Laura, against her will and her dignity and her acute consciousness of what Justin would say if he knew, did respond. She did not know how it happened; but she found herself talking to Coral, talking about everything under the sun—and Justin. She had never discussed Justin with any one in all her life. It was a curious sensation, sacrilegious but enjoyable. She did not realize that it was Coral’s doing. But Coral had not been a week at Brackenhurst before she decided that Laura was in love with Justin and needed a little help. A born matchmaker, she had resolved to give it.
“You never thought of taking on my brother-in-law, I suppose?” she said one day to Laura. And then, impressively—“I believe you could get him if you tried.”
Laura looked puzzled.
“What do you mean, Coral—get him?”
“Marry him.”