{"product_id":"2940013768840","title":"Certain People","description":"Nora Frenway settled down furtively in her corner of the Pullman and, as\u003cbr\u003ethe express plunged out of the Grand Central Station, wondered at herself\u003cbr\u003efor being where she was. The porter came along. \"Ticket?\" \"Westover.\" She\u003cbr\u003ehad instinctively lowered her voice and glanced about her. But neither\u003cbr\u003ethe porter nor her nearest neighbours--fortunately none of them known to\u003cbr\u003eher--seemed in the least surprised or interested by the statement that\u003cbr\u003eshe was travelling to Westover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet what an earth-shaking announcement it was! Not that she cared, now;\u003cbr\u003enot that anything mattered except the one overwhelming fact which had\u003cbr\u003econvulsed her life, hurled her out of her easy velvet-lined rut, and\u003cbr\u003eflung her thus naked to the public scrutiny.... Cautiously, again, she\u003cbr\u003eglanced about her to make doubly sure that there was no one, absolutely\u003cbr\u003eno one, in the Pullman whom she knew by sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer life had been so carefully guarded, so inwardly conventional in a\u003cbr\u003eworld where all the outer conventions were tottering, that no one had\u003cbr\u003eever known she had a lover. No one--of that she was absolutely sure. All\u003cbr\u003ethe circumstances of the case had made it necessary that she should\u003cbr\u003econceal her real life--her only real life--from everyone about her; from\u003cbr\u003eher half-invalid irascible husband, his prying envious sisters, and the\u003cbr\u003eterrible monumental old chieftainess, her mother-in-law, before whom all\u003cbr\u003ethe family quailed and humbugged and fibbed and fawned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat nonsense to pretend that nowadays, even in big cities, in the\u003cbr\u003eworld's greatest social centres, the severe old-fashioned standards had\u003cbr\u003egiven place to tolerance, laxity and ease! You took up the morning paper,\u003cbr\u003eand you read of girl bandits, movie-star divorces, \"hold-ups\" at balls,\u003cbr\u003emurder and suicide and elopement, and a general welter of disjointed\u003cbr\u003edisconnected impulses and appetites; then you turned your eyes onto your\u003cbr\u003eown daily life, and found yourself as cribbed and cabined, as beset by\u003cbr\u003evigilant family eyes, observant friends, all sorts of embodied standards,\u003cbr\u003eas any white-muslin novel heroine of the 'sixties!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a different way, of course. To the casual eye Mrs. Frenway herself\u003cbr\u003emight have seemed as free as any of the young married women of her group.\u003cbr\u003ePoker playing, smoking, cocktail drinking, dancing, painting, short\u003cbr\u003eskirts, bobbed hair and the rest--when had these been denied to her? If\u003cbr\u003eby any outward sign she had differed too markedly from her\u003cbr\u003ekind--lengthened her skirts, refused to play for money, let her hair\u003cbr\u003egrow, or ceased to make-up--her husband would have been the first to\u003cbr\u003enotice it, and to say: \"Are you ill? What's the matter? How queer you\u003cbr\u003elook! What's the sense of making yourself conspicuous?\" For he and his\u003cbr\u003ekind had adopted all the old inhibitions and sanctions, blindly\u003cbr\u003etransferring them to a new ritual, as the receptive Romans did when\u003cbr\u003estrange gods were brought into their temples...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe train had escaped from the ugly fringes of the city, and the soft\u003cbr\u003espring landscape was gliding past her: glimpses of green lawns, budding\u003cbr\u003ehedges, pretty irregular roofs, and miles and miles of alluring tarred\u003cbr\u003eroads slipping away into mystery. How often she had dreamed of dashing\u003cbr\u003eoff down an unknown road with Christopher!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot that she was a woman to be awed by the conventions. She knew she\u003cbr\u003ewasn't. She had always taken their measure, smiled at them--and\u003cbr\u003econformed. On account of poor George Frenway, to begin with. Her husband,\u003cbr\u003ein a sense, was a man to be pitied; his weak health, his bad temper, his\u003cbr\u003eunsatisfied vanity, all made him a rather forlornly comic figure. But it\u003cbr\u003ewas chiefly on account of the two children that she had always resisted\u003cbr\u003ethe temptation to do anything reckless. The least self-betrayal would\u003cbr\u003ehave been the end of everything. Too many eyes were watching her, and her\u003cbr\u003ehusband's family was so strong, so united--when there was anybody for\u003cbr\u003ethem to hate--and at all times so influential, that she would have been\u003cbr\u003edefeated at every point, and her husband would have kept the children.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the mere thought she felt herself on the brink of an abyss. \"The\u003cbr\u003echildren are my religion,\" she had once said to herself; and she had no\u003cbr\u003eother.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069008756976,"sku":"2940013768840","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013768840_p0.jpg?v=1763590045","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013768840","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}