Laura

Laura appears through the memories and attachments of others rather than through an active scene of her own. She is among the loved ones Emma Harte names when explaining why she cannot bear to lose another family member, and she remains the measure of a profound love in Blackie O’Neill’s recollections. Her memory also links Emma’s private grief to her hopes for the people around her.

Identity and Remembrance

When Emma pleads with Winston Harte to accept an amputation, she lists Laura among the people she has lost in recent years, alongside her mother, father, Joe Lowther, and Aunt Lily. The appeal makes Laura’s absence part of a larger accumulation of bereavement: Emma is not arguing about the operation in the abstract, but telling Winston that another death would be more than she could endure.

Blackie remembers Laura as the person he had loved in a worshipful, spiritual way. His language distinguishes that attachment from what he feels for Emma without diminishing either relationship. The evidence establishes Laura’s lasting place in his emotional life, though it does not recount her history or specify the circumstances of her loss.

Laura’s Place in Blackie’s Decision

Blackie’s memory of Laura frames his thoughts about asking Emma to marry him. He recognizes that his love for Emma is not identical to the love he felt for Laura, yet concludes that he does love Emma: he values her friendship, finds her alluring and amusing, and cares deeply about her happiness. His affection is also bound up with Bryan O’Neill’s devotion to Emma and his need for a mother.

Blackie considers marriage partly as a way to ease the hurt Edwina might feel on learning the truth about her birth certificate. He imagines taking a fatherly role and, if Edwina accepted him, legally giving her his name. Laura’s memory thus serves as an emotional point of reference, not as a reason Blackie dismisses the possibility of loving again.

Echoes in Emma’s View of Natalie

Laura also shapes Emma’s response to Natalie Stewart, who is engaged to Frank Harte. Emma sees Natalie’s delicate appearance as concealing a steadfast heart and strong character, qualities that increasingly remind her of her beloved Laura. That resemblance makes Laura present in Emma’s judgment of a new relationship: her memory becomes a way of recognizing strength beneath an outward impression.

Across these recollections, Laura’s significance lies in the bonds that continue to orient the living. Emma invokes her as part of the grief behind her plea for Winston; Blackie carries her as the standard of a past, deeply spiritual love; and Emma sees an echo of her in Natalie. The novel gives Laura no independent action in these scenes, but her remembered presence shapes decisions, comparisons, and expressions of attachment.