More Tales of the West Riding by Phyllis Bentley Page B

and a great many flowers, as usual, and when he saw his mother standing by the hearth, looking very beautiful if rather pale, he burst into tears and rushed to her and threw his arms round her waist and buried his head in her breast. His mother put her arms round him and kissed him and smoothed his hair and kissed him again, and her warmth and her lovely scent quite overcame him and he really quite sobbed. (It was disgraceful in a ten-year-old, he knew, but he simply could not help it.) His father prowled about the room, and it seemed to Edward, on raising for a moment his tear-stained face, that he saw tears standing in his father’s eyes too.
    â€œWhere’s the baby?” asked Edward hoarsely, wanting to recover his composure and be polite.
    â€œAnnie will show you, dear,” said his mother, putting him gently aside.
    So in a moment he found himself gazing at this small new being. She was asleep in her elegant cot. One tiny fist was stretched above her head, the other hand lay outside the white satin coverlet. To tell the truth, Edward was rather impressed. Those very tiny fingers, which now moved, curling and spreading, were remarkably accurate in design. The fair lashes lying on the clear round cheek—really they were rather pretty. Moved by an unexpected impulse, Edward gently inserted his forefinger into the tiny palm. The fingers closed round his, and Leila gave a very quiet, very sleepy, very tiny coo.
    â€œDarling little thing! You’re a darling, aren’t you?” murmured Annie fondly, bending over the cot.
    â€œShe’s not at all bad,” said Edward in a grown-up masculine voice. “Prettier than most, I should say.”
    Annie laughed, and Edward condescended to smile.
    In a postcard written to Jack about this time, he confirmed the opinion he had formed: “My new sister is a pretty little thing, as infants go,” he said.
    So now there were four in the Milner household. Edward’s father, Edward’s mother, Edward, Leila.
    His father yielded to his mother in everything, went out of his way to provide her with the luxuries she loved, and showed the greatest tenderness and warmth to little Leila. He did not show extra tenderness to Edward, but then that was not necessary. Ted and Edward had always been close friends, and now it seemed as if they were in a kind of pleasant conspiracy together to make the lives of their womenfolk as comfortable and happy as possible. Neither Claire nor Leila seemed to appreciate this quite as much as they might have done, Edward sometimes fleetingly reflected; his mother’s smile was sometimes weary, her drawl sometimes cold. Women were like that, he supposed.
    As for little Leila, who grew rapidly, she was a perfectly healthy and very beautiful child. She had lovely pale gold hair and gleaming dark blue eyes. As soon as she could walk she ran about all over the place, so that poor old Annie grew short of puff (as Edward phrased it to himself) running after her. For it must be admitted—Edward admitted it gravely—that Leila was rather a naughty little girl. When carried away to bed in Annie’s arms, for instance, she was capable of hitting Annie quite hard about the face, so that the kind-hearted Edward was shocked. Also, she treated his old bear, which had been found in a cupboard and presented to her by Edward with some ceremony—he was far too old for it now, of course, but all the same the gift was a real sacrifice—with savage disrespect. (Its eyes fell out under her callous handling, its fur came off in patches.) As she grew older, when displeased she threw breakable objects to the floor and laughed at the sound of breakage. When rebuked, she ground her teeth, her beautiful little face became distorted with rage, her lovely eyes flashed fire.
    â€œYou mustn’t be a naughty little girl, Leila,” said Edward to her a few years later, when speech had been added to her powers of provocation.