approvingly. Thus, the Military Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Victoria Cross, among others, became favorite toys for little Laura. She would pin them on herself and her dolls. A few days later one of the nursemaids of one of her playmates said that her father must have been very much of a hero to win all of those medals.
'Were you a hero, Papa?' Laura asked her father the next Sunday morning.
'No more than anyone else, Laura,' he answered. 'Millions of men and women were in France. Almost all of them were very brave.'
'Why did they go?' she asked.
Nigel Worthington took a long look at his daughter. Then he picked her up in his strong arms-which she always loved-and carried her to the bay window of the mansion's master bedroom.
Across the street, which was cluttered with carriages and new motorcars, were the gardens. It was a chilly November, so people were all bundled up as they strolled.
'That's why, darling,' Nigel Worthington said, indicating an expanse of London beyond his window. 'Because I love my country. And because England asked me to serve.'
The little girl contemplated her father's words. 'Can I be a hero, too, someday, Papa?' she asked.
He laughed and hugged her, nuzzling her neck. 'Of course you can, sugarplum,' Dr. Worthington said. 'Of course you can. Someday you can be a hero, too. For England.'
*
Laura Worthington was the daughter of a mildly eccentric London physician, Nigel Worthington, who had once been a renowned young surgeon on Harley Street, where he, his practice, and his patients all prospered together. Life, in the early part of the century, smiled upon him.
Before establishing his medical practice, he had been a brilliant student at Oxford, where he had read Modern Languages. He had taken time out during the Great War to serve with the First London Rifle Brigade and had been an artillery lieutenant at the Somme in July 1916. Nigel Worthington had again been lucky. During the darkest day in British military history-some 21,000 dead and 35,000 wounded during the Fourth Army's futile advance toward German trenches-young Worthington escaped without a scratch. His only wounds, as he saw death all around him, were psychological.
Then a few years later, fate double-crossed him.
In early 1922, when his daughter, Laura, was eight years old, the influenza pandemic swept London. Laura's mother, Victoria Worthington, went from perfect health to a cemetery within ten days. From there on, Nigel Worthington withdrew from the world that he had known. And he took his daughter with him.
He forswore his surgical practice and moved himself and his daughter to an enchanting, sprawling four bedroom Georgian house on the outskirts of Salisbury. Around the house was an acre of garden and around the garden was a high wall. Dr. Worthington kept hours as a general practitioner-he was known in the city as quiet, somewhat moody, but an excellent doctor. Yet he always knew that he could withdraw to his home and dedicate himself to the one thing he still cared about. It was not medicine, and not the comparative study of languages. Rather, he gave himself entirely to the raising of Laura, a beautiful little girl who, day by spectacular day, became an almost ghostly image of her dark-eyed, darkhaired mother.
Dr. Worthington hired a governess named Mrs. Frasier, who lived in and who was home when he had office hours or house calls. By now Laura was Nigel Worthington's sole commitment in life.
From her father's own voice and hand, Laura learned an appreciation of music and art, literature and philosophy. Nigel Worthington sat by his daughter's side for hours-sometimes rescheduling patients to do so-to watch her growing fingers glide across the keyboard of a piano, exactly as her mother's once had. He taught her about God and Christianity just as he taught her to respect all other people and their religions. He educated her with humanist values and he instructed her-from his relationship with her mother- what sort of love could form a lasting union. From his experiences as a soldier and a doctor, he taught her that war was mankind's ultimate and most unforgivable evil. And he impressed upon her that human life was sacred.
He taught her to reason and to think. Finally, he taught her integrity to her own values. Laura then, by age eighteen, had her mother's beauty and her father's intellect. There was little surprise when she passed her A-levels, applied to university, scored highly on her entrance examination, and was accepted as one of thirty-six women of a class of more than seven hundred at the University of Bristol. And it was at Bristol that she met Edward Shawcross, the boy whom she quite naturally assumed she would someday marry.
Edward was tall and quiet, wavy-haired, nice-looking, but decidedly tame, and, by Laura's standards, conservative. They were twenty-one when they met and were both in their final year of university.
Edward was the second son of a wealthy spirits importer in Bristol and had designs of his own to augment the family fortune. He had his eye set at an aging sandstone mansion in the city of Bath, just off the Landsdowne Crescent, which he would buy-here his father was of inestimable help-gut, renovate, and convert into the finest inn and restaurant in the county of Somersetshire. Laura was to be, in a highly glorified manner, the innkeeper's wife, serving her husband and the Shawcross amp; Company brandies, ports, and sherries.
One day in the spring of 1936, Edward showed Laura the gracious old mansion, his arm neatly tucked around her waist.
'And, of course,' he whispered to her with his usual blend of innocence and lechery, 'I wouldn't mind having our own household staff of five. Maybe three sons and two daughters. But the sons first, of course.'
'Of course,' replied Laura. It was not a totally unappealing proposition. The wealthy hotelier's wife. There would be money, middle-class respectability, and even a dab of glamour, if the dining room could maintain a high reputation. Life treated many women to much worse. It was just that… well, Laura tried to stifle the feeling, but it was all so clear cut. Early on, she entertained the idea that there was slightly something missing. But she fought the idea. There was nothing really wrong with Edward Shawcross and he did not make the difficult physical demands of her that many young men made. Laura also knew that there were several hundred other girls-many of them attractive and from good families-who would claw her out of the way if she did not appreciate him.
It was just that, well, couldn't life bear her some surprises? Some adventure? Edward owned a new Alvis 'open top.' They spent Saturdays motoring in Devon when the weather permitted. On a day in late May, not long before final examinations, they drove out to Cornwall for a weekend. One of Edward's aunts owned a cottage near the sea. The aunt was conveniently vacationing in Portugal.
At the cottage, Edward, who was a superior chef already, roasted a rack of lamb, poured unhealthy amounts of his father's best imported claret, and created a supernal raspberry souffle for dessert.
Afterward, they lit the log in the fireplace-it was still cool in May-and sipped Beaumes de Venise. Toward ten, Edward placed his hand on her knee.
'Tonight?' he asked.
'Yes,' she said.
They went upstairs, found a large comfortable bed, and virtually fell into it. Laura lost her virginity with surprising ease and no second thoughts at all-the dividend of too much claret, perhaps-and afterward Edward confessed that it was his first time, too. This, Laura had already guessed.
Their scheduled marriage remained unofficial and at least a year away. Laura did not know whether or not she was in love with Edward Shawcross. When pressed, she told him that she was. But was she? She wondered. She knew she had grown to like Edward very much. He was always around. And he was good to her. But was that enough?
Their affair continued. Months passed. She went to a discreet doctor in London, gave her name as Mrs. Vincent Thomas of Basingstoke, and purchased a diaphragm. She thought long and hard about her relationship with Edward Shawcross. Things seemed to be happening too quickly.
Home in Salisbury after graduation, Laura spent much time in the Georgian house in which she had been raised. Mrs. Frasier was long since deceased by now and it was just Laura and her father. Nigel Worthington was proud of the beautiful young woman he had raised. But he was under no illusions about her, a woman's needs, and Laura's relationship with Edward.
One night they talked. 'I'm expected,' she said ruefully, 'to make a decision that will affect the rest of my life. It scares me, Papa.'
'He's a fine young man,' Nigel Worthington said. 'He treats you well. He could offer you a good home and a good life. He bestows love upon you.'
Laura nodded. 'But I don't love him,' she heard herself saying.
