Miss Ethel did not seem to relax in that embrace, or to be in the least sensible of the natural kindness which permeated every fibre of Laura's being like the sweetness of sun-warmed fruit, but perhaps she did feel a little comforted by that soft human contact all the same.
For she went with the guest to the door and stood alone there watching until the sound of steps and the click of the gate gave place to silence. The builders had gone away for their dinner-hour, and the close-shaven grass in the sunshine near the high hedge seemed so cloistered—so much more remote than it really was. Before those new houses came, you need not see anything beyond the privet hedge unless you wished—— But now the outside was close upon her. It was time to give in and go away.
As she stood there with the neat curled hair over her forehead blowing in the wind, and her short skirt and blouse trimly set about her spare figure, she was thinking thoughts which were almost incredibly different from what she looked—seeking all over the world with a sort of desperate forlornness for a corner where her mind could find rest.
Then the very quiet of the half-built houses over the hedge reminded her that she must go in to fry the rissoles for the midday dinner, but she revolted from the anticipated smell of hot fat with a sensation of physical sickness. For she had never possessed a robust appetite, and until this last year had scarcely ever sat down to a meal prepared by herself: so she did not bring to the task that interest which a good appetite or a natural taste for cooking will give even to those who have had no previous experience.
However, it had to be done, so she went in, catching sight as she passed through the hall of a roll of music returned by Laura: but it failed to stir any regret that she was always too tired to practise nowadays. Leisure—which she had all her life regarded as a right, no more to be considered than water or air—was hers no longer.
But she had no idea that she was sharing the exact experience of thousands of women throughout England—throughout Europe: that as she stood there alone over a stove in a quiet little house in a remote part of Yorkshire, carrying out the everyday details of her narrow existence, she was more widely and actually international than the manual workers themselves.
She only knew that she loathed the smell of frying fat.