“Mind you, I don’t think Helen realised any of all this. She knew her brother had a deep affection for her and I don’t think she knew why she felt uneasy and unhappy at home. But she did feel like that and at last she decided to go out to India and marry young Fane simply in order to get away.
To get away from what? She didn’t know.
She was too young and guileless to know.
So she went off to India and on the way she met Richard Erskine and fell in love with him. There again, she behaved not like a sex-crazy girl, but like a decent and honourable girl. She didn’t urge him to leave his wife. She urged him not to do so.
But when she saw Walter Fane she knew that she couldn’t marry him, and because she didn’t know what else to do, she wired her brother for money to go home.
“On the way home she met your father —and another way of escape showed itself. This time it was one with good prospects of happiness.
“She didn’t marry your father under false pretences, Gwenda. He was recovering from the death of a dearly loved wife. She was getting over an unhappy love-affair.
They could both help each other. I think it is significant that she and Kelvin Halliday were married in London and then went down to Dillmouth to break the news to Dr. Kennedy. She must have had some instinct that that would be a wiser thing to do than to go down and be married in Dillmouth, which ordinarily would have been the normal thing to do. I still think she didn’t know what she was up against — but she was uneasy, and she felt safer in actually from Dr. Kennedy himself. I think, myself, that she was a perfectly normal young girl who wanted to have fun and a good time and flirt a little and finally settle down with the man of her choice — no more than that. And see what steps her brother took. First he was strict and oldfashioned about allowing her liberty. Then, when she wanted to give tennis parties — a most normal and harmless desire — he pretended to agree and then one night secretly cut the tennis net to ribbons — a very significant and sadistic action. Then, since she could still go out to play tennis or to dances, he took advantage of a grazed foot which he treated, to infect it so that it wouldn’t heal. Oh yes, I think he did that… in fact, I’m sure of it.
“Mind you, I don’t think Helen realised any of all this. She knew her brother had a deep affection for her and I don’t think she knew why she felt uneasy and unhappy at home. But she did feel like that and at last she decided to go out to India and marry young Fane simply in order to get away.
To get away from what? She didn’t know.
She was too young and guileless to know.
So she went off to India and on the way she met Richard Erskine and fell in love with him. There again, she behaved not like a sex-crazy girl, but like a decent and honourable girl. She didn’t urge him to leave his wife. She urged him not to do so.
But when she saw Walter Fane she knew that she couldn’t marry him, and because she didn’t know what else to do, she wired her brother for money to go home.
“On the way home she met your father —and another way of escape showed itself. This time it was one with good prospects of happiness.
“She didn’t marry your father under false pretences, Gwenda. He was recovering from the death of a dearly loved wife. She was getting over an unhappy love-affair.
They could both help each other. I think it is significant that she and Kelvin Halliday were married in London and then went down to Dillmouth to break the news to Dr. Kennedy. She must have had some instinct that that would be a wiser thing to do than to go down and be married in Dillmouth, which ordinarily would have been the normal thing to do. I still think she didn’t know what she was up against — but she was uneasy, and she felt safer in presenting her brother with the marriage as afait accompli.