And Mrs. Ogden complained. She always complained now; about her health, her house, the servant, her daughters. She was indefinitely ill, never quite normal, yet the doctor came and pronounced her to be sound. She complained of feeling lonely because Joan left her so much, pointing out that even their evenings together were broken into by the prolonged hours of study. She cried a good deal, and when she cried the evidences of it remained with her for hours; her eyes were becoming permanently red-rimmed. She said that she cried nearly every night in bed. Elizabeth, far beyond being able to control her feelings, now expressed open dislike of her. "A selfish, hysterical woman," she called her; Joan winced, but remained silent, and alone with her mother was forced in turn to listen to elaborate tirades against Elizabeth. That was the way they spent their short evenings now, in bickering about Elizabeth. Mrs. Ogden said that she was a thief, a thief who had stolen her child from her, and occasionally Joan's self-control would go with alarming suddenness and a scene would follow, deplorably undignified and all quite futile. It would end by Mrs. Ogden going slowly upstairs, clinging to the banister, probably to cry herself to sleep, while Joan, her head buried in her hands, sat on far into the night. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 1 ON Joan's twenty-first birthday it poured with rain. She woke early, conscious of a sound that she could not place for a moment, the sound of a gutter overflowing on to the leads outside her window. She got up and looked out through the streaming panes. The view was almost completely hidden by mist, and her room felt cold with the first approach of autumn. She dressed and went down to breakfast, to find Mrs. Ogden already behind the coffee-pot. Her mother looked up, smiling. "Many happy returns of the day," she said. There were two parcels and two letters on Joan's plate. She opened the parcels first; one contained a writing-case, from her mother, the other a book, from Milly. Her letters were from Richard and Elizabeth. She recognized Elizabeth's writing on the unusually large envelope, and something prompted her to open Richard's letter first. He wrote: "This is to congratulate you on coming of age, that is if there be cause for congratulation, which, my dear, rests entirely with you. I hope, I believe, that now at last you have made up your mind to strike out for yourself; this is your moment, and I entreat you to seize it." The letter ended: "Joan, for the fourth time, please marry me!" Joan laughed quietly as she folded this epistle and opened the long envelope addressed in Elizabeth's hand. It contained no letter of any kind, only a legal document; the lease of the flat in Bloomsbury. 2 She found Elizabeth in Ralph's study, writing letters. As she came in Elizabeth got up and took both her hands. "My dear," she said, and kissed her. Joan sat down. "So you've done it!" was all she found to say.