Dark Hester by Anne Douglas Sedgwick — Read

Perhaps that was really the best thing she could do, Monica thought, sitting at her solitary tea-table in the still room afterwards. Hopelessness was flowing over her, hopelessness of herself, now, more than of the predicament; she herself, she saw it plainly, was, as much as Hester, the predicament. She was too young, too fierce, too unsubmissive to life. She could not give up Clive or Robin, that extension of Clive. As long as they were there and she loved them, she must suffer from the lack of them; and as long as Hester was there she must lack them. Why not make some excuse of health or purse-and go to France; -not with Norah and Celia and Captain Ingpen, that was a friendly absurdity; -but go; -far away; so that she might be removed, and finally removed from Clive's life. Then she could remember him; as if he were dead.

As she was thinking these thoughts-half believing them, but only half-she saw his car drive up. She rose to her feet, pressing her forefinger hard against her lip, and, as she stood there, it was Robin's face that came to her; Robin startled, frightened, his happiness all broken. That was what Hester had done to Robin; and she must not do it to Clive again. She was always breaking Clive's happiness. It grew up; it sought the light-and she broke it off. It was cruel; she must not be cruel. ‘Help me not to be cruel,' she muttered, with the child habit of prayer that had never left her. And, as he came in, she saw that Clive, too, had equipped himself. He was pale, but he was smiling, and he came towards her almost as little Robin had done, almost as if he was calling out to her and wanted her. Then, as he took her hands, his face altered: ‘Why, Mummy,' he faltered, ‘you've been crying.'