Hester Waring's Marriage by Paula Marshall Read Free Book Online Page A

Mahoney for a wife, nor did he think that she would be happy with him for a husband.
    Only long-term loyalty and a sense of decency kept him with her. He could see no way of ending their liaison without hurting her, so he was tied to her, and that, as he often said to himself, was that.
    He was handed his freedom in the most unexpected manner, one which made him laugh at his own conceit in thinking that he was the only one of them who was dissatisfied.
    On paying his weekly visit to her she told him quite coolly, even if with some regret, that their relationship was at an end.
    â€˜A good man wishes to marry me, Tom,’ she said, ‘and you never will. Besides, I’m not the wife for you now. You’re not the man you were, you’ve changed, and whatonce might have worked now will not. You’ll be wanting a fine lady for a wife, Tom, someone like Sarah Kerr, someone to whom you can talk, who will live easy in your grand new house as I never would, or could. I could never entertain the nobs, nor do I want to.’
    He said nothing—and that, too, she understood.
    â€˜It’s been over for you for some time, but for all your reputation you’re a good man, and you wouldn’t turn me away after so long. No, don’t deny it.’
    â€˜You’re sure you want this, Mary?’
    â€˜Quite sure—and you want it, too.’
    He could not deny what she had said so simply.
    Instead he said, ‘I’ll see you right, Mary. You may have this cottage, and a little income.’
    When she would have refused him, he insisted. ‘Who knows,’ he told her, ‘what you might need in future?’
    At length she agreed with him, and they parted in friendship, without bitterness.
    â€˜Find that grand wife, my love, and find her soon,’ she bade him as she kissed him goodbye.
    Â 
    Tom had said he’d keep an eye on Hester and he always carried out his promises. Strolling by her school, which was in one room of a converted warehouse in York Street, on a bright and shining morning not long after Mary Mahoney had given him his congé , he heard the sound of childish laughter coming from the schoolroom. He rejected the idea of peering through an open window to find out what was happening—too undignified—instead he entered through the front door. The classroom door was ajar, and he stood quietly outside so that he could not be seen.
    That was undignified, too, but he did not want Hester to know that he was there. His presence would distract her, she would behave unnaturally, and for some reason hewanted to find out what she was like when she was unaware of being watched.
    She was sitting before a group of little children, a smiling baby girl on her knee, reading to them from a children’s book which was one of the few relics of her old life in England. Behind her were two small groups of boys and girls painstakingly copying pot-hooks on to their slates from two larger slates which she had propped up before them.
    Her face was alight with mischief. She was still painfully thin and starved-looking, her clothing was shabby and old, but her expression and demeanour were so different from those he remembered from the interview that he drew in his breath a little at the sight. There was no doubt that she was in full control of the class and that she—and they—were happy.
    He listened to her amused voice and watched her absent-mindedly hug the little one to her. She was not only starved of food, he thought suddenly, she was starved of affection. The story over, she put the child down with some reluctance.
    Tom judged that this was the moment when he could show himself. He made a great noise of coming in so that she might not know of his earlier presence. He entered the schoolroom to find that her face was shuttered again. The liveliness in it was gone, and the old look of barely suppressed fear was present at the sight of him.
    In God’s name, what had that