Dark Hester by Anne Douglas Sedgwick — Read

Anyone looking at Clive-anyone with a discerning eye-would have said that unless he were a soldier he might well be a poet. So his mother thought, as she had often thought, on that Saturday afternoon when, drawing her hand within his arm, he led her away from The Crofts, where Hester and her friends still computed and measured. He carried himself like a soldier-that was his inheritance from Charlie, and the little twist that his injured thigh had given to his gait lent it a jauntiness that added to rather than detracted from the resolute blitheness of his bearing. Objectivity was a soldierly quality and Clive's expression-so much more aware of you than of himself-was objective. And with these disciplined and valiant characteristics went the almost unearthly beauty; eyes bright as clear grey water; hair swept to silver-gilt ripples, like a young archangel's; a head with its fragile, forcible structure, to be bound by the laurels of a Greek fillet or bend from a background of swift, beneficent pinions. Yes; a beneficent archangel; but an archangel bearing a sword. There was something about Clive that frightened her a little at moments. He never yielded to inner, or to outer, pressure. He could break; but he would not yield.

‘I must see you alone, Mummy darling,' he had said. They had had no word alone as yet. She had been called for and borne off to The Crofts and so elated had he been with the success of their exploit, so glad in her imagined gladness, that no shadow of her anxiety must be allowed to reach his consciousness. There had been, for her, too, a certain exhilaration in thus taking possession of the new home and looking out from the comfortable windows at the views which were now to frame his existence; and even Hester's friends she had found less annoying than usual. Never, indeed, had she heard anyone talk so swiftly and so vehemently as Mr. Gales. He was like a stout weathercock in a summer storm, veering, glittering, challenging the elements, with never a suspicion that anyone could find him anything but bewitching. But he had altered much in his demeanour towards Clive since that far-away evening of the party. Without pressure, without consciousness, she felt that Clive had mastered all the elements of Hester's world. He did not withdraw and he did not mingle, but they were all aware of him; and to her they were very kind, even when they bustled her aside and forgot her presence. A young woman whom they called Oriana, who had come, unannounced, with Mr. Gales, offered her chocolates with the greatest affability.