Free Hester Waring's Marriage by Paula Marshall

heard.’
    Tom felt an anger which he could not explain. How had Hester Waring’s plight come to affect him so deeply?
    â€˜Why was I not told of this?’
    Jardine thought that his superior’s concern was excessive for a man whose own moneylending activities, on a scale much larger than Larkin’s, were notorious.
    â€˜I had no notion that it would be of interest to you.’
    â€˜Everything interests me,’ said Tom shortly. ‘Particularly this. So that’s why she still looks as though she’s not had anything decent to eat in years. We’ll see about that.’
    Robert Jardine was to claim afterwards that he was the first person in Sydney to become aware that Tom Dilhorne was taking a shine to Hester Waring—how else could this untypical behaviour be explained? And he knew what Tom was going to do. Buy up Fred Waring’s debts and then cancel them.
    â€˜It’s the Board’s Christmas Party next week, for all theteachers in the different schools. You can make sure that she has something to eat there,’ Jardine offered.
    â€˜So it is,’ said Tom, struck. He would not normally have chosen to take part in such innocent junketing but, what with being lonely since Mary’s departure from his life, he really needed some other interests.
    It’s nothing to do with Miss Waring herself, he told himself untruthfully. Yes, he would go along to see that she had enough to eat for once. He might also try to provoke her into the charming liveliness which she had displayed among the chickens, and he would also pursue his monstrous idea—which became less and less monstrous every time that he thought about it.
    First he would buy Fred’s debts from Larkin. He was not to tell Hester who had bought them, and Tom intended to destroy them in front of Larkin, so that Larkin should not think that he, Tom Dilhorne, was reduced to screwing widows and orphans, particularly half-starved mice like Hester Waring.
    Jardine watched him stride off in some amusement. Really, the man was unpredictable. First he bullied the Board into employing the girl, then he hung around the schoolroom being snubbed by her, then he took the books to her himself, instead of leaving it for him to do. Next he complained that she wasn’t getting enough to eat, and now he was off to pay her father’s debts, and finally, having already informed Jardine that he was giving the Christmas Party a miss, he was going to turn up to see that she had enough to eat there!
    If it had been any other than cold-hearted Tom Dilhorne, he would have said that he was sweet on the girl. Which, thinking of what she looked like and Tom’s previous taste in women—Mary Mahoney had been a luscious blonde piece—was more than improbable, it was total nonsense.
    Well, he, Jardine, might stir the pot a little if he got the chance. Poor Miss Waring deserved some excitement in her drab life. The right word in her ear and anything might happen.
    Â 
    Parties were rare enough in Hester Waring’s drab life that the prospect of attending the one which the School Board gave each year on Christmas Eve could not but command her whole attention.
    Money still being short, she turned to one of her mother’s old black dresses, went to Lucy Wright for help and trimmed it with some rather nice lace which Lucy, taking one look at Hester and the dress, mendaciously said that she had no use for and helped Hester to sew it on.
    Her husband came in while they were so engaged and gave poor Hester what her Mentor called ‘his look’. Why are you such a persistent hanger-on of my over-generous wife? it said. He was undoubtedly responsible for Hester seeing so little of Lucy these days.
    Captain Parker was with him and he was his usual kind self. This normally threw Hester into a fluster. She had always found his fresh good looks, blond hair and strong athletic body disturbing, particularly since she knew with