Down in the City by Elizabeth Harrower Page A

as if she intended to go on.
    In her slow deep voice she said, ‘I think the greatest happiness a woman can know is to lie in the arms of the man she loves. I believe I am very lucky. I am happy in every possible way.’ Her arms rested voluptuously along the sides of the chair.
    To Esther, with Rachel there, her face chalky, this seemed unanswerable. She frowned slightly at Laura to make her stop, but she would not notice.
    â€˜Of course,’ she went on, with a sudden smile to Rachel, ‘I could tell Esther things I wouldn’t tell you.’ Her manner was mischievous, teasing. Then something made her say, ‘But even though you never marry, Rae, you can still have a good life.’
    Rachel said goodbye to the vision of her true love and resigned herself to spinsterhood.
    Esther screwed her cigarette flat into an ashtray. She was sorry she had come this morning, but since she was here she thought she would try to rescue Rachel as soon as a pause made it possible.
    â€˜Take Cassie Roberts—you know, that friend of mine,’ Laura was saying. ‘She’s very contented, though she’s never married. She has a good job, and her girl friends, and she goes out with them to the pictures…’ Her voice ended on a high, unfinished note, as if many more examples of single happiness were to follow.
    Rachel pushed the pile of the carpet backwards and smoothed it flat again. Her red Roman sandals hung loosely from her thin feet. She half sighed, half hiccupped now and then, holding her white handkerchief pensively pressed to her short upper lip, her eyelids down.
    There was a silence and Esther stood up and smoothed her skirt. ‘I’m sure Rachel will be all right,’ she said temperately. ‘I’m going to take her off this minute, if you don’t mind, Laura. You’ll walk down to the harbour with me, won’t you?’ She turned to the girl.
    Laura ushered them to the door. ‘She’d love to. And I have masses to do before Bill comes back. We’re going down to the beach as soon as we’ve had something to eat.’ She smiled at Rachel with exasperated affection. ‘Cheer up, baby.’
    Rachel looked at her and felt the tears begin to rise again. How heavenly Mrs Maitland was! ‘Yes,’ she said with difficulty, and flew downstairs, followed by Laura’s benign laugh.
    When Esther came a moment later they walked along the burning, tree-lined street, turned a corner, trailed down a flight of stone steps to the park by the edge of the harbour. There they sank onto the pale grass in the shade of a tree.
    â€˜Gosh!’ Rachel said, still thinking of Laura.
    Esther took off her sunglasses. ‘Don’t take it to heart, Rachel—what Laura said. Her manner is…she sometimes says more than she means.’
    Rachel’s heart crawled with indignation at hearing Laura defamed even so slightly. At the same time her spirits rose. She pulled at a shrivelled weed. ‘Then wasn’t she right?’
    â€˜About some things, perhaps. In a way. You’ll see how it is yourself before very long.’ She was at a loss how to go on. She had felt so little of what Rachel was now experiencing. ‘Just try not to worry about the future,’ she said; ‘everything works out in the end of its own accord.’
    â€˜I just have to wait?’
    â€˜I think so.’
    They sat silent, side by side, Rachel rebellious and unhappy. She scowled when she saw a group of laughing teenage boys and girls walking down the gravel path, through the open space in the wall and along the jetty to the small sailing boats which were moored at the end. They jostled and joked and called to one another in high, ringing voices; they were like some carefree opera chorus or a flock of brilliant, rowdy parrots. Contempt and envy vied for place in Rachel’s feelings. She looked away from them to the dark blue harbour. She hated the colour of