CHAPTER I
i
On a sunny August morning Joanna Stuart said to herself without
warning， yet without surprise:
\"I can t cope.\"
She had just completed a series of telephone calls fielding a team
of dtlvers for the old ladies monthly tea party and she was still sit-
ring in the hall， on the uptight chair beside the telephone.
Joanna formed the words with her llps， staring ahead of her at the
white front door with its litsle wooden panes of window， but seeing
a swirling abstract which even as she watched it moved faster and
faster.
~I---can t --cope.\"
It wasn t the usual exaggeration which she had used， and heard
used， a hundred times and more during the course of her good
works， it was a solemn statement of fact.
It w~s also a revelation， in the sense that yesmrday--even two min-
utes age-she had had no inkling of it.
But it hadn t really come out of the blue， it was the culmination
of a process which had been going on for a long time. For a long
time them had been a scream deep down inside her which was get-
ting closer mad closer to her thr3at and which when it broke surface
would ring out all over the district and everyone would know what
she really was.
%Vhat am I， really?\" she always ashed herself， as she felt the
scream rising， searching the memories which ran along as constant
accompaniment to her extrovert days， of a time when she and Peter
and their home had been the centre of her life and she and Peter
had done things solely to please themselves. As she presided over her
committees and chatted up her old ladies， it was as if a home movie
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