‘Only that wouldn’t give you occupation long!’
She frowned and went on abruptly:
‘You’d have to go on from them to think of your good deeds. And all the blessings of your life! Hm—I don’t know. Might be rather dull. I wonder,’ she paused, ‘if you’d nothing to think about but yourself for days and days I wonder what you’d find out about yourself—’
Joan looked sceptical and faintly amused.
‘Would one find out anything one didn’t know before?’
Blanche said slowly:
‘I think one might …’ She gave a sudden shiver. ‘I shouldn’t like to try it.’
‘Of course,’ said Joan, ‘some people have an urge towards the contemplative life. I’ve never been able to understand that myself. The mystic point of view is very difficult to appreciate. I’m afraid I haven’t got that kind of religious temperament. It always seems to me to be rather extreme, if you know what I mean.’
‘It’s certainly simpler,’ said Blanche, ‘to make use of the shortest prayer that is known.’ And in answer to Joan’s inquiring glance she said abruptly, ‘“God be merciful to me, a sinner.” That covers pretty well everything.’
Joan felt slightly embarrassed.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, it certainly does.’
Blanche burst out laughing.
‘The trouble with you, Joan, is that you’re not a sinner. That cuts you off from prayer! Now I’m well equipped. It seems to me sometimes that I’ve never ceased doing the things that I ought not to have done.’
Joan was silent because she didn’t know quite what to say.
Blanche resumed again in a lighter tone:
‘Oh well, that’s the way of the world. You quit when you ought to stick, and you take on a thing that you’d better leave alone; one minute life’s so lovely you can hardly believe it’s true—and immediately after that you’re going through a hell of misery and suffering! When things are going well you think they’ll last for ever—and they never do—and when you’re down under you think you’ll never come up and breathe again. That’s what life is, isn’t it?’
It was so entirely alien to any conception Joan had of life or to life as she had known it that she was unable to make what she felt would be an adequate response.
With a brusque movement Blanche rose to her feet.
‘You’re half asleep, Joan. So am I. And we’ve got an early start. It’s been nice seeing you.’
The two women stood a minute, their hands clasped. Blanche said quickly and awkwardly, with a sudden, rough tenderness in her voice:
‘Don’t worry about your Barbara. She’ll be all right—I’m sure of it. Bill Wray is a good sort, you know—and there’s the kid and everything. It was just that she was very young and the kind of life out here—well, it goes to a girl’s head sometimes.’
Joan was conscious of nothing but complete bewilderment.
She said sharply:
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Blanche merely looked at her admiringly.
‘That’s the good old school tie spirit! Never admit anything. You really haven’t changed a bit, Joan. By the way I owe you twenty-five pounds. Never thought of it until this minute.’
‘Oh, don’t bother about that.’
‘No fear.’ Blanche laughed. ‘I suppose I meant to pay it back, but after all if one ever does lend money to people one knows quite well one will never see one’s money again. So I haven’t worried much. You were a good sport, Joan—that money was a godsend.’
‘One of the children had to have an operation, didn’t he?’
‘So they thought. But it turned out not to be necessary after all. So we spent the money on a bender and got a roll-top desk for Tom as well. He’d had his eye on it for a long time.’
Moved by a sudden memory, Joan asked:
‘Did he ever write his book on Warren Hastings?’
Blanche beamed at her.
‘Fancy your remembering that! Yes, indeed, a hundred and twenty thousand words.’
‘Was it published?’
‘Of course not! After that Tom started on a life of Benjamin Franklin. That was even worse. Funny taste, wasn’t it? I mean such dull people. If I wrote a life, it would be of someone like Cleopatra, some sexy piece—or Casanova, say, something spicy. Still, we can’t all have the same ideas. Tom got a job again in an office—not so good as the other. I’m always glad, though, that he had his fun. It’s awfully important, don’t you think, for people to do what they really want to do?’
‘It rather depends,’ said Joan, ‘on circumstances. One has to take so many things into consideration.’
‘Haven’t you done what you wanted to do?’
‘I?’ Joan was taken aback.
‘Yes, you,’ said Blanche. ‘You wanted to marry Rodney Scudamore, didn’t you? And you wanted children? And a comfortable home.’ She laughed and added, ‘And to live happily ever afterwards, world without end, Amen.’
Joan laughed too, relieved at the lighter tone the conversation had taken.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been very lucky, I know.’
And then, afraid that that last remark had been tactless when confronted by the ruin and bad luck that had been Blanche’s lot in life, she added hurriedly:
‘I really must go up now. Good night—and it’s been marvellous seeing you again.’
She squeezed Blanche’s hand warmly (would Blanche expect her to kiss her? Surely not.) and ran lightly up the stairs to her bedroom.
Poor Blanche, thought Joan as she undressed, neatly laying and folding her clothes, putting out a fresh pair of stockings for the morning. Poor Blanche. It’s really too tragic.
She slipped into her pyjamas and started to brush her hair.
Poor Blanche. Looking so awful and so coarse.
She was ready for bed now, but paused irresolutely before getting in.
One didn’t, of course, say one’s prayers every night. In fact it was quite a long time since Joan had said a prayer of any kind. And she didn’t even go to church very often.
But one did, of course, believe.
And she had a sudden odd desire to kneel down now by the side of this rather uncomfortable looking bed (such nasty cotton sheets, thank goodness she had got her own soft pillow with her) and well—say them properly—like a child.
The thought made her feel rather shy and uncomfortable.
She got quickly into bed and pulled up the covers. She picked up the book that she had laid on the little table by the bed head, The Memoirs of Lady Catherine Dysart—really most entertainingly written—a very witty account of mid-Victorian times.
She read a line or two but found she could not concentrate.
I’m too tired, she thought.
She laid down the book and switched off the light.
Again the thought of prayer came to her. What was it that Blanche had said so outrageously—‘that cuts you off from prayer.’ Really, what did she mean?
Joan formed a prayer quickly in her