‘Like Dad,’ Lilian finished for her. ‘What do you think you’ll do, Bobby?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’ She looked up. ‘What would you do if you were me?’
‘I’d run over to that farmhouse right away and say yes,’ her sister answered without hesitation.
‘Not what would you do if you were you. What would you do if you were me?’
Lilian paused before answering.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Here’s my very sensible and Bobby-like answer. I’d speak to that grumpy editor of yours and tell him that his brother had made me a proposal.’
‘He knows that already. He asked me outright if Charlie had proposed and I said he had.’
‘Well, then he won’t be surprised if you ask him to be honest with you about what your future with the magazine might look like if you were a married woman and a mother. I know it’s unusual, but he might be willing to keep you on. He’s fond of you, isn’t he?’
‘In his way, but he’s very traditional. He still hasn’t fully adjusted to the fact I’m not a man. I know he’s embarrassed whenever he sends me out to talk to people.’
‘At least then you’d know. Mary might speak up for you too, mightn’t she? Does she have a lot of influence with her husband?’
‘More than anyone. They’re a very attached couple. Still, Reg can be stubborn, especially when it comes to his notions about how things ought to be done.’ Bobby sighed. ‘Not to mention that he’d be disappointed in me.’
‘For getting married?’
‘Yes. Even more so for marrying Charlie. He values me as a sensible, hard-working sort, and I promised him when he took me on that I had no thoughts of marriage. Whereas he thinks his brother’s a work-shy thrill-seeker – not entirely unfairly, although he has some nobler qualities that Reg rarely acknowledges.’
‘It’s still the best plan I can come up with.’ Lilian tilted her sister’s head up to look into her eyes. ‘Or you could take my original advice and say yes now, then just take what comes. All the bylines in the world will be small comfort to you when you’re seventy with no grandchildren to cheer you in your old age.’
Bobby shook her head. ‘Why does society make it impossible for me to have both? It isn’t fair.’
‘Life rarely is,’ Lilian said, buffing a thumbnail unconcernedly. The injustice of a woman’s lot never troubled her in the way it did her twin.
‘So, what about you?’ Bobby said, wiping her eyes and sitting up. ‘Are you still on the hunt for a husband?’
‘I’m not exactly hunting. Let’s say I’m keeping my eyes open,’ Lilian said with a smile.
‘Why the sudden interest in matrimony? I thought you’d be having far too much fun with all those handsome naval officers down in Greenwich to settle on just one.’
She shrugged. ‘I suppose I’ve just reached an age where I’m ready, you know? It isn’t only you I’m concerned about having a lonely old age.’
Bobby smiled. ‘Well, if we both end up old maids then we can always keep each other company. I’m not too worried about you though.’
Lilian was holding up her left hand and turning it this way and that, as if trying to imagine a ring on the third finger. ‘We’ll be twenty-four next month. That’s an age to make a girl stop and think. Did I tell you Bess Slater is engaged to be married now?’
Bobby blinked. ‘Bess is engaged?’
Of all their old schoolmates, Bess was the one Bobby would have bet on as being the last to marry, if she married at all. She was one of those girls who was said to have a ‘lovely personality’ by the kinder folk of her acquaintance but had been described in less pleasant terms by cruel girls at school, who had taunted her for her plump figure, poor skin, thick spectacles and shy, awkward manners. Still, while the bullies might have seen a lovely personality as being an unattractive girl’s runner-up prize, Bess had genuinely been a very sweet, warm person. Bobby was surprised to hear of her old schoolfellow’s engagement, but she was pleased that at least one man had been open-minded enough to discover Bess’s hidden charms.
‘That’s wonderful news,’ she said. ‘I’ll write Monday and congratulate her. Who’s the lucky man?’
‘A soldier she met in the ATS.’ Lilian smiled. ‘They’re both sergeants, which made for an interesting announcement in the paper. “Sgt Slater and Sgt Jenkins would like to announce their engagement.”’
‘So she’s the last one.’
Lilian nodded soberly. ‘Last apart from us. When Bess Slater steps up to the altar, that’s every one of the girls in our class married. I never thought it would be me and you bringing up the rear.’
‘No,’ Bobby said. ‘At least, I never thought it would be you.’
‘I’d better pull my socks up then, hadn’t I? It would be nice to find myself walking down the aisle before twenty-five comes around.’
