Clayhanger Part II

Hilda is the daughter of a widow who has a little house property, but is far from rich. She is intelligent but there is no role for an unmarried middle class girl other than helping her mother. Mrs Lessways dies and Hilda trains as a shorthand clerk and finds work. She meets George Cannon, a solicitor who helps with settling her mother's estate. He is an attractive man but a lot older than her. She falls in love and they get married. She becomes pregnant. Edwin loses touch with her, but he still cares for her - . Then Hilda discovers that George is not a qualified solicitor. He has legal experience but he has never passed the exams. And worse still, she finds that he married an older woman when he was very young and they are still married so he is not legally married to Hilda. She splits up with him and tries to make a living for several years, running a lodging house. She is not very good at it but she manages to keep her head afloat and look after her son George. Then she meets up with Edwin again. She tells him what's happened to her in the intervening years. They get married and he feels happy for a time. He is resigned to never getting to be an architecht, and running the printing works - and he is pleased that he has married the woman he has loved for so long. His family are not all that fond of Hilda. They think she's eccentric and arrogant.. She is not even a chapel goer. She gets bored with life as a middle class housewife. Edwin feel ambivalent about his wife. She is interesting and charming but wilful and easily bored. Hilda persuades him to buy a house out in the country, and travel to work by train. He is not sure he wants to do this but it makes Hilda happy to have a country place and she tries to set up a circle of arty people. She finds that George Cannon had ended up in prison for fraud. Edwin kindly lends him some money to get started again when he gets out and George pays him back. He feels that in spite of her faults, Hilda has made a romance of his life....