Read Online Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing - Free Book Online Page A

some old buffer, whom she seemed to remember was an uncle Henry, ‘all that money, I am sure William would hate to think of it being frittered away.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t propose to do the house up again – redecorate. Nor do I need a new wardrobe. So rest assured, Uncle Henry.’
    Surely they must have been heartened that her ideas of extravagance were so limited.
    â€˜You could give this house to Raleigh and Rose and live in theirs in the country,’ said a cousin.
    â€˜Why should I live in the country when I never have?’ said Emily. ‘Believe me, when I have made decisions, if any, I shall let you know.’
    And so ended the family pow-wow on Emily’s future.
    Emily was in fact badly shocked by William’s death and notonly because it was unexpected. She had thought of him as young – well, not old, not even middle-aged. He had been fifty, surely not of an age when one thought of anything definite, like retirement, let alone death. But what was throwing her into a perplexity was that her life had become so bound up with his; since they had married everything she had done and thought had been for William. And where was Emily McVeagh? Not so far away, obviously. But for ten years that was what she had done: she had been William’s. And now what? She was forty. She could go back to nursing if she wanted. Already suggestions had been coming her way. She felt torn loose, floating…
    She could marry again. But she could not imagine a man she would want to marry. However one put it, she had been married to William for better or for worse. After ten years, what kind of profit or loss could be made? She did not know how to start. And if she could not say what had happened to her – and she saw it, felt it, as something, somebody, taking up the strands of her life and twisting them up with his – then how could she even begin to think what to do next? She had been Emily McVeagh, a decided, definite, bold character, and now she was nothing; she was something that drifted.
    Daisy? But even thinking of her as something to grasp hold of, be with, as they once were, was barred now, because Daisy was doing so well, so solidly grounded in what she was and did that Emily felt she would be like a little probationer tugging at Daisy’s skirts. And, besides, Daisy had hinted that she was thinking of marrying herself. There was this surgeon atthe hospital, and it seemed Daisy ‘would not mind’ – her words. She was thinking of it – well, not immediately, of course, but they were not youngsters.
    Emily had no one to hold fast to, no one even to consult. How could she talk about her state, after years of marriage, and such an encompassing marriage, with someone who said she ‘would not mind’ when thinking of a man to marry.
    She had no one. No one. And no child, nothing.
    But she had Mary Lane, and remembering her, it was like stumbling on a beam from a lighthouse.
    She would shut up this house, and go down to stay with Mary Lane. This was impulsive, impetuous, a decision made between going to bed one night and getting up in the morning.
    Of course, that was what she would do, must do.
    Emily ran up the path to Mary Lane. It was suppertime, twenty-four hours after she had made her decision.
    Her old friend stood at the stove, with a large pan. ‘I’m cooking you pancakes,’ she said, ‘because you like them so.’
    Emily dropped her case, flung herself into a chair at the old table, where Harold Lane already sat, and said, at Mary’s diagnostic look, ‘In every life some rain must fall.’ She had been using this to ward off emotions, her own too, since the death, but now she burst into tears. She sat and sobbed.
    â€˜That’s right,’ said Mary. ‘You have a good cry.’
    â€˜The poor woman has lost her man,’ remarked Harold.
    This almost stopped Emily crying, but the words werefastened on by a