For years, it seemed to her, she had read whatever she read in search of something to steer by, trying to find clues to the puzzle of living, hoping for enlightenment on matters she did not comprehend. It was all pretty useless, because new problems presented themselves faster than old ones got solved. She had a touching faith in the printed word. These people who wrote must know. These things must be so. Sometimes the prospect presented to her, of growing up and getting married or not getting married, of having children or not having children, of meeting men and women on equal terms, yes, just of living a life, oppressed her with such a terror of her own future that she lay awake in the dark in a hopeless funk, trying to pray without knowing what for.

She would watch people in buses and trains and restaurants with a kind of envious awe—people who seemed to know exactly what to say and do, people who lived competently as wives or mothers, responsible for the happiness of men they had married and children they had borne. I could never do it, she would decide despairingly—I wouldn’t know how, I’d make an awful hash of it, I know I would. She watched the celluloid emotions of the cinema intently, trying to take it in, trying to see why x plus y equaled z, believing that these people were behaving with logic and acting on reason—and in consequence getting more bogged down than ever. The newspapers were full of murderings and suicides and wars. One went to church and listened to sonorous men who professed to have the ear and to know the will of God. But where had it got them, after all?

Bewilderment had begun to smooth out since she came to Nuns Farthing. Here was a life one could cope with, one could go on forever like this, without daily misgivings about the future. Here, tomorrow would be like yesterday, and confidence unfolded like a flower in the sun. If it was possible to grow old like Mrs. Pilton—. But even here, one met uncertainty. For who and what was Mr. Pilton, and where was he, and how had Mrs. Pilton felt about him?

Men, and marriage, and children—and divorce. Aunt Effie had done without them all. And all Aunt Effie had now was Bella. And that wasn’t right either. But Hilary would know the answers. Hilary could have explained what it was all about. And his very name meant laughter.