"Well, Joan, I have been waiting to answer your last letter until I had something of interest to write about. Will you be surprised to hear that I have been up to London? Do you remember my telling you about a friend of mine at Cambridge, Jane Carruthers? Well, I heard from her the other day after having lost sight of her for ages. She has some job or another at the Royal College of Science and lives in London permanently now, and as in her letter she asked me to look her up, I struck while the iron was hot and went straight off, via a cheap excursion.
"But it's really about her service flat that I want to tell you. She lives in a large building called 'Working Women's Flats' or 'Gentlewomen's Dwellings,' I can't remember which, but I prefer the former, in a street just off one of those dignified old squares in Bloomsbury. The street itself is not dignified, but if you walk just to the end of it you are surrounded at once by wonderful Georgian houses with spreading fanlights and link extinguishers and wide shallow front-door steps. They are the most quietly friendly houses in the world, Joan; a little reserved, but then we should like them all the better for that.
"Jane's flat is on the fourth floor, so that instead of seeing the undignified street you catch a glimpse of the trees in the square, and of course there are plenty of roofs and chimney-pots, always interesting things, or so I think. Even in London the roofs have character. It's the most delightful little flat imaginable, two bedrooms with a study in between. She has made it very homey with books and brown walls, and she tells me that it's cheap as rents go in London; only it's difficult to get in there at all.
"Oh, Joan, it's the very place for you and me. I felt it the moment I set foot inside the front door; don't think me an idiot, but I felt excited, I felt about fifteen. I could see us established in a flat like Jane's. The whole time I was trying to discuss tea and cakes I found myself planning a new arrangement of Jane's bookshelves, the better to hold your books and mine—I should have put the writing-table in the other corner of the room too. I murmured something to this effect just as Jane was expounding some new scientific theory she has hit upon; she looked a little surprised and rather pained, I thought.
"I asked her about my chances of finding a job in London. I thought I might as well, as it will be very necessary, and she says she thinks that I ought to be able to get quite a decently paid post, with my fairly good Cambridge record.
"And now for a confession. I have put my name down for one of the flats. I saw the agent and he says that there's a long waiting list, but we can afford to wait for nearly three years, you and I, and if one is available before that, we must beg, borrow or steal in order to secure it. We might buy some odds and ends of furniture on the hire system and let the place furnished until we want it for ourselves. Jane says the flats let like wildfire, but I think I should try to live there while you were at Cambridge. I'm sure I could make both ends meet, and then you could come there for part of your vacations. But if that were not possible it wouldn't matter much for I could always put up at Ralph's.
"I am beginning to laugh all by myself as I write, for I can see your astonished face. Oh, yes, I know, I have acted on impulse, but it's glorious to be reckless of consequences sometimes, and then think how un-Seabournish I have been. Can you hear Ralph's consternation if I told him?—which I shan't. I think we will keep it as a secret between us, at all events for the present. Never cross a Seabourne bridge until you come to it.
"Joan, I am missing you."
2
Joan folded the letter and sat staring in front of her. So it had really come very near; her freedom, her life with Elizabeth. The flat would have a study with shelves for their books; they would go out of it every morning to jostle with crowds, to work and grow tired; and come back to it every evening to talk, study, or perhaps to rest. They would cook their own supper, or sometimes go out to one of the little Italian restaurants that Richard had told her about, queer little restaurants with sanded floors and coarse linen tablecloths. Sometimes, when they could afford it, they would go to cheap seats at the theatre or to the gallery at Covent Garden, and afterwards find their way home in the 'bus, or the Underground, discussing what they had seen and heard. They would unlock their front door with their own latch-key and hang up their coats in their own front hall; then they would laugh and joke together over the old days in Seabourne, which, by then, would seem very far away.
"Joan!" came her aunt's voice with a note of irritation; "Joan, I asked you to do those flowers for the drawing-room. Have you forgotten?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1
MRS. OGDEN wrote yet again: "I brought your father home yesterday; the doctor thought he would be better in his own house. God knows if the cure has helped him at all, I do not think so; but, Joan, my dearest, come back to me at once, for I am so longing to see you."
Joan looked into the fire; she did not care whether her father was better or worse, and now she did not care whether she cared or not. From Seabourne to Blumfield, from Blumfield to Seabourne! And that was just life; not a tragedy at all, only life, a simple and monotonous business.
As their train drew in to the familiar station the tall figure of Elizabeth was waiting on the platform. She was standing very still, like a statue of Fate; a porter, pushing a truck of luggage towards her, called out: "By your leave, miss!" and seemed to expect her to move; but the tall, impassive figure appeared not to notice him and he pulled up abruptly, skirting it as best he could.
Milly said: "Hallo, Elizabeth!" and then: "What a beastly station this is. I hate the bare flower-beds and the cockle-shells!"