Hester Waring's Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page B

Burrell. I am of the opinion that more is achieved by affection than by severity.’
    For some reason which she could not understand, the damnable Dilhorne seemed to find this answer amusing—if the smile he gave her was any indication of his true thoughts. God sink him—a favourite oath of her father’s—and his fine clothes, too, was her Mentor’s nasty reaction.
    In an effort to mend fences which now seemed broken beyond belief, if Robert Jardine’s expression was anything to go by, she added, ‘But, of course, I should hope to be able to control the children with, or without, the rod.’
    Tom would have liked to say bravo to this display of spirit; etiquette demanded that he restrain himself, but it could not prevent him from inwardly noting that there was a great deal more to Miss Waring than her unpromising exterior would allow.
    The interview continued. Hester felt that she was hardly covering herself with glory. She was again rude to Godfrey Burrell when he announced patronisingly that he did not expect the girls to be brought along at the same pace as the boys. She next reprimanded the infernal Dilhorne when he asked a perfectly reasonable question about methods of teaching a group of children of different ages and accomplishments.
    She was painfully aware that her manner veered between the spiritlessly servile and the unpleasantly rude—the latter whenever she caught Tom Dilhorne’s sardonicblue eyes on her. After she had made her unlucky statement about sparing the rod, it was plain that the majority were not happy about her ability to control children, either.
    The ogre had thrown his sandy head back and was contemplating the ceiling. She hoped he liked it. He suddenly dropped his head, saw her staring at him and for one dreadful moment she thought that he was about to wink at her. She must be going mad! She put her trembling hands together, and as she did so Tom winced at the sight, so red raw were they.
    The interview was at last drawing to an end and she feared by Jardine’s expression, the amusement of the ogre—what could he be smiling at?—and the nature of the Board’s response to her later answers, that she had thrown away her one chance of avoiding starvation.
    What was worse, she also feared that if they did not end the interview soon she would faint before them all. The pangs of hunger, which had grown very strong of late, were beginning to trouble her so much that they were almost unbearable.
    Hester would have been greatly surprised to know that there was one member of the Board who was well aware of what was wrong with her, and that was the man whom she so bitterly resented. He was cloaking his pity, which he instinctively knew she would fiercely reject, beneath a mask of amused indifference.
    Besides, it would not do to let his fellow Board members know of his sympathy. He must push them gently towards hiring her if he were to take them with him. He had no doubt of her competence: it shone through her weariness and misery.
    Presently it was over. Hester, her heart hovering somewhere above her shabby shoes, rose and bowed before leaving the Board to their deliberations. Tom had one lastmemory of her at the end of the interview. She was sitting forlornly before them, head bowed, red hands in her lap. If he had never seen quiet desperation before, he saw it then. He listened to his fellow Board members talking and it was plain that they did not know what was wrong with Hester.
    Burrell’s comment was that he found Miss Waring’s manner unpleasant.
    â€˜No common sense,’ said Fitzgerald sharply. ‘She’d not even be able to control small children. And a plain piece, too,’ he added.
    Tom, while agreeing with him about Hester’s looks, was not quite sure what they had to do with schoolteaching. Some, he knew, might consider her plainness an advantage.
    â€˜She’s starving,’ he offered bluntly.