Blue Bedroom and Other Stories by Rosamunde Pilcher Page B

and Laurie turned with her hand on the knob.
    â€œLaurie … you’re going to be all right?”
    Laurie stared at her. They had never been very close, had never exchanged confidences or shared secrets, and Laurie knew that for this reason, it had taken some effort for Jane to say that. She knew that, in return, she should let down her own barrier of reserve, but it was her only protection against the emptiness, the sense of aching loss. Without it, she would be lost, would probably burst into tears and be unable to stop crying for the rest of the day.
    She could feel every nerve in her body drawing in on itself, like a sea anemone suddenly touched. She said, “What do you mean?” and even to herself she sounded cold.
    â€œYou know what I mean.” Poor Jane looked agonised. “Grandfa…” Laurie said nothing. “We … we all know it’s worse for you than for any of us,” Jane floundered on. “You were always his special person. And now, today … I wouldn’t have minded the wedding being put off. I wouldn’t have minded being married in a registry office. Andrew feels the same way as I do. But Mother and Father … well, it simply wouldn’t have been fair to them…”
    â€œIt’s not your fault,” said Laurie.
    â€œI don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want to feel we’re making you more unhappy than you are.”
    She said again, “It’s not your fault.” And after that there didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so she went out of the room and closed the door behind her.
    The morning progressed. The house, unfamiliar and stripped of furniture, was slowly taken over by strangers. The caterers arrived, vans appeared at the door, tables were erected, glasses set out, looking as the sun struck them like hundreds of soap bubbles. The florist’s lady turned up in a little truck to put the finishing touches to the arrangements that she had spent most of yesterday concocting. Robert drove to the station to fetch Aunt Blanche. One of the children was sick. Laurie’s father couldn’t find his braces, and her mother all at once threw a fit of temperament and announced that she couldn’t possibly wear the hat which had been made to go with her bride’s mother’s outfit. She came downstairs wearing it, to prove her point. It was a sort of baker’s boy beret made of azalea pink silk. “I look like nothing on earth in it,” she wailed, and Laurie knew that she was near to tears, but they all told her she looked smashing, and once she’d had her hair done and was wearing the bride’s mother’s outfit, she’d knock the rest of them into a cocked hat. She was still unpersuaded when the hairdresser arrived, but this new turn of events mercifully diverted her, and she allowed herself to be led upstairs.
    â€œGood,” said Laurie’s father. “Nothing like a new hairdo for calming down the nerves. She’ll be all right now.” He looked at Laurie as he ran a hand over his thinning hair. “You all right?” he asked her. His voice was casual, but she knew that he was thinking about Grandfa, and she couldn’t bear it. She said, deliberately misunderstanding, “I haven’t got a hat, I’ve only got a flower.” She saw her father’s expression and hated herself, but before she could say anything more, he had made some excuse and taken himself off, and then it was too late.
    *   *   *
    The caterers provided a lunch for them all in the kitchen, and the entire family sat around the familiar table and ate unfamiliar food, like chicken in aspic and potato salad and trifle, when they usually had soup and bread and cheese. After lunch, they all went up to change, and Laurie brushed her silken hair, wound it up into a coronet on the top of her head, and fixed the single camellia into the coils. Then she