The One That is Left

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3485, 6 September 1937, Page 7

The One That is Left

THE TWO SISTERS. When sisters or friends are devoted companions it does come hard on the one who has to sit back and watch a young man take her place. For twenty-three years Dora and Nancy have been the most devoted sisters Imaginable (writes a friend). Although they are not twins there's eighteen months between them—they have been everything to each other. And now Dora, who is twenty-four and a half, is being ardently courted by a young man whose attentions very much appeal to her —which means that at least three evenings a week Nancy is left to her own devices, which have never been very many, since she has mostly depended upon Dora to make their mutual plans. For Dora is the gay one of the two, the enterprising and original one. She has always been the leader, and even when they were children she was the one to say “Let’s!” while Nancy clapped her little hands and followed on. So now “little Nancy,” as they have always called her at home, is feeling more than ordinarily “left" and there is unhappiness all round. Not that Nancy, whose love for her sister is much too real to be selfish, would ever say a word to make Dora think she begrudges her the happiness which promises to be the “real thing,” but it is her mother who has talked to Dora as though in deserting her sister for the young man she was behaving in an unkind and unsisterly way. “Mother said Nancy was crying her eyes out last night,” Dora told me miserably. “Mother also said she doesn't know how I can bring myself to leave her in the lurch night after night for a young man who cannot possibly mean as much to me as my own sister. 1 feel so wretched that for two pins I'd throw Jack up." “You mustn’t think of throwing him up,” her old and respected friend said. “It’s the other people in the family who must make the necessary adjustments —not you. You’d be doing a wrong, not only to yourself, but to Nancy if you did so.” “I don’t quite see how you make that out,” said Dora. "To myself, yes. and to Jack, perhaps ” “Yes, and to Nancy, too. If this hadn’t happened—your falling in love. I mean —you and Naucy would have gone on contentedly being all in all to each other, and Nancy, and you, too. maybe, would have missed the right and natural fulfilment of womanhood. This break in your close companionship is the very best thing for you both, I do not doubt, for Nancy will be forced to seek young companionship outside her home and will give herself a chance of meeting a young man, also. “In time, love will fill the gap left in her life by partially losing you—not that you will ever really lose each other. The affection between sisters is far too real and deep for that, but it stands to reason that she’s going to miss your constant companionship, and miss it acutely just at first. In a little while she will be enjoying life again and developing a new independence she has never known before.” “Dear Nancy,” said Dora. “I can't bear to make her unhappy, and I could see mum thought I was being horribly selfish.”

“Yes, because her heart was aching for Nancy, who has always been the baby to all of you, so that for the moment she had lost sight of the fact that sooner or later the time had to come when one of you would want to break away. Now that Nancy is thrown back on her own resources, I should not be a bit surprised if ahe herself gets a man friend within the year.

“If only she would,’' sighed Dora "I’d feel less mean."

“There’s no need for you to feel mean at all,” I answered. “You are just following your own instincts, and in doing so, incidentally, you are helping Nancy to follow hers.” “I’ll try to make mum see that,” said Dora. “I’ll talk to Nancy, too. and cn courage her to go out and do things on her own and not be so dependent

on me.”

“That’s right. Your influence with her is so strong that she’ll make a real effort to do as you say, and the time will come when you’ll both thank Jack for coming after you, even though ut this moment it seems so hard to Nancy.”

I met the girls’ mother only yesterday (says the friendly adviser), and though it is only two months since 1 had my little confidential talk with Dora, I was not surprised to hear that Nancy has been “coming out” a lot lately, rather to her parents' surprise!

"She was broken-hearted at first when Dora started going with Jack," Nancy’s mother explained, "but she seems to be getting over it nicely now and is going out and about more and making lots of new friends. She a a sensible little soul.”

As I walked on after hearing this welcome news. I thought how much pain and heart-soreness would be saved, not only between sisters, but between friends, if they could realise that the engagement of one of them is not the misfortune it seems at first sight to be to the one that is left, but probably the opening of the door to a still greater and more wonderful love than that which they appear to be losing.