somehow disreputable, as if anyone as thin as that could not possibly be adequate as a parent. Or even as a substitute parent.
‘It can’t have been easy for her,’ ventured Blanche.
‘I’ll give you that. And with the husband away all the time. But I mustn’t go on. You’ll be wanting to go home, Mrs Vernon. And I expect you’d like to go back on the wards next week, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Blanche. ‘I much prefer it here.’ She found herself watching the double doors, until it was clear that Mrs Beamish had succeeded in seeing the doctor and would not be available for a very long time.
Blanche’s motives were perfectly clear to her, as she made her careful way through the side door; she was always quite conscious of her aberrations, which was why they rarely gotout of hand. She was possessed by a sudden desire to know more about this woman and her child, and the initial intimation of love she had felt for the little girl eating her cake was now broadened and flattened into a need for information, for confidences, for a means of exchange. If she thought, with an old half-mocking cynicism, that she might be able to help them, she knew, beyond a doubt, that they would provide a focus of interest for her, and that if she mourned the family she had never had, she might just as well make use of these feelings in as sensible and as mutually beneficial a way as possible. Blanche was not an hysterical woman and she saw no unbecoming infatuation developing from her curiosity. Sympathy, she thought; sympathy and interest: surely I cannot be indicted for those?
Blanche did not deceive herself: she knew that her perceptions were awry. She knew that she, a stranger, could not hope for intimacy with a woman so young and so evidently self-sufficient. She also knew that she did not desire intimacy with such a woman, having registered that unusual sight of otherness, that resemblance to the invulnerable and patrician nymphs of the National Gallery’s Italian Rooms. What drew her to the couple was not the simple longing of a middle-aged woman for a child. There was nothing of the predator in Blanche. What she felt was, to an extent which almost alarmed her, disinterested. She wanted merely to observe the child, to study her, to make her laugh. She would do this in the humblest possible capacity, in the light of such natural impulses as might be appropriate in the circumstances, however they might present themselves. She could think of nothing more extended than this sort of acquaintanceship, the only kind that she allowed herself these days. And yet she felt a powerful stirring of curiosity, a call from the outside world to involve herself, despite the incongruity of the encounter. She felt as if some mild signalhad been given, to which she had in some mysterious and unstated way replied.
Since living alone she had experienced varying degrees of exclusion, and, out of sheer dandyism, had made an ironical survey of the subject. The dinner partner so far gone in age or indifference as to shed a bleak light on her hostess’s intentions; the withdrawal, at awkward times of the year, such as Christmas, into the fortress of the family, thus precluding the proffering of invitations; the stories of rapturous holidays, to which she merely opposed her amused and attentive gaze; and those friends of other days – and they were always busy – who would say to her, ‘But I mustn’t go on about myself. What have
you
been doing with yourself? Anything nice?’, this remark being prefaced with a look of deep commiseration. She had found no answer to the hungry curiosity of such friends, but remembering her mother’s maxim – ‘The best revenge is living well’ – had merely continued to dress, to leave her home, to pay her cultural visits, as if invulnerability and enlightenment were to be her portion, as if to expect or to hunger for anything else were quite simply beneath her dignity. Thus she irritated many
‘It can’t have been easy for her,’ ventured Blanche.
‘I’ll give you that. And with the husband away all the time. But I mustn’t go on. You’ll be wanting to go home, Mrs Vernon. And I expect you’d like to go back on the wards next week, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Blanche. ‘I much prefer it here.’ She found herself watching the double doors, until it was clear that Mrs Beamish had succeeded in seeing the doctor and would not be available for a very long time.
Blanche’s motives were perfectly clear to her, as she made her careful way through the side door; she was always quite conscious of her aberrations, which was why they rarely gotout of hand. She was possessed by a sudden desire to know more about this woman and her child, and the initial intimation of love she had felt for the little girl eating her cake was now broadened and flattened into a need for information, for confidences, for a means of exchange. If she thought, with an old half-mocking cynicism, that she might be able to help them, she knew, beyond a doubt, that they would provide a focus of interest for her, and that if she mourned the family she had never had, she might just as well make use of these feelings in as sensible and as mutually beneficial a way as possible. Blanche was not an hysterical woman and she saw no unbecoming infatuation developing from her curiosity. Sympathy, she thought; sympathy and interest: surely I cannot be indicted for those?
Blanche did not deceive herself: she knew that her perceptions were awry. She knew that she, a stranger, could not hope for intimacy with a woman so young and so evidently self-sufficient. She also knew that she did not desire intimacy with such a woman, having registered that unusual sight of otherness, that resemblance to the invulnerable and patrician nymphs of the National Gallery’s Italian Rooms. What drew her to the couple was not the simple longing of a middle-aged woman for a child. There was nothing of the predator in Blanche. What she felt was, to an extent which almost alarmed her, disinterested. She wanted merely to observe the child, to study her, to make her laugh. She would do this in the humblest possible capacity, in the light of such natural impulses as might be appropriate in the circumstances, however they might present themselves. She could think of nothing more extended than this sort of acquaintanceship, the only kind that she allowed herself these days. And yet she felt a powerful stirring of curiosity, a call from the outside world to involve herself, despite the incongruity of the encounter. She felt as if some mild signalhad been given, to which she had in some mysterious and unstated way replied.
Since living alone she had experienced varying degrees of exclusion, and, out of sheer dandyism, had made an ironical survey of the subject. The dinner partner so far gone in age or indifference as to shed a bleak light on her hostess’s intentions; the withdrawal, at awkward times of the year, such as Christmas, into the fortress of the family, thus precluding the proffering of invitations; the stories of rapturous holidays, to which she merely opposed her amused and attentive gaze; and those friends of other days – and they were always busy – who would say to her, ‘But I mustn’t go on about myself. What have
you
been doing with yourself? Anything nice?’, this remark being prefaced with a look of deep commiseration. She had found no answer to the hungry curiosity of such friends, but remembering her mother’s maxim – ‘The best revenge is living well’ – had merely continued to dress, to leave her home, to pay her cultural visits, as if invulnerability and enlightenment were to be her portion, as if to expect or to hunger for anything else were quite simply beneath her dignity. Thus she irritated many
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