Such Devoted Sisters; by Eileen Goudge.

I distinctly remember a story about a mid-teenager saving herself and her half sister from a nasty stepfather by running away to hide at their aunt's, helping out at the aunt's business in shop and delivery while sending her sister to school, and putting her budding romance with a young restaurant manager (owner?) on hold while she went to Paris to learn to create chocolates and could open her own business, no longer a burden on her aunt. The younger sister however is in love with the elder sister's young beau, never giving a thought to the possibility that he was her sister's beau, and going out to get him with all the innocence of the young and those that have generally always been taken care of and loved.

I have always wondered how not only the young sister - which is bad enough - but others including the author manage to make the younger one seem like the rightful owner of the young man and his attentions - never mind the fact that he was definitely interested in the sister closer to his age and to his persona in being entrepreneur while taking responsibility for the younger one, never mind he was sort of secretly engaged to the elder one, until the elder one heard the younger one seem to accuse him when questioned by the elder one about her pregnancy. They all suddenly seem to gang up on the protective elder one and make the younger one into the rightful owner of the young man's suddenly turned switch loyalty, with the elder one seeming always lost, as is the man married to one and desiring the other and suspected by his wife ever after.

I suppose the woman had to be punished for having done so much all by herself - saving her own self and her sister from a child abuser, surviving and supporting herself and her sister, her initiative in her aunt's business and going all the way to learn to make chocolates and creating a new one, oh no she couldn't win the man too, it had to be the protected pampered one who would turn and accuse the elder one of all sorts of things - and the elder one couldn't turn around and say, look, this is mine, and you better be grateful for all you have had and not had. So the punishments for the one who did and could, until she learns to be second to suit her gender.

I wonder if it was a real life tale that had to be written the way it was, so full of pain for one sister and so much of everything win win for the younger; or is it the corporate requirement to turn it this way, as shows and films have been on and on during the backlash years in US (even as Thatcher regularly put various heads of governments in their place bluntly) described by various authors. No matter.

The story stays with one, even if I am unsure if this indeed is the title of the story I have been describing.