The story, set in England is told to us by an omniscient narrator. We learn of Hester, a beautiful woman who , despite starting with all the advantages, had no luck. Hester had married for love, but that “turned to dust”, she also had three beautiful children. We are told that she is incapable of loving her children, or anyone else. It bothers her that she feels this way towards her children and she make effort to show extra care and worry towards them, and while everyone thinks she is a wonderful mother, she and her children know the truth. They know it by looking into each other’s eyes.
Hester has a young boy named Paul, who is the eldest, and two girls , one of them named Joan. They all lived in a nice house, with a garden, and servants and saw themselves as superior to anyone in their neighborhood. However, though they lived in style and maintained an elevated social position, Hester and her husband both had but small incomes. Their incomes did not provide enough money .This created an overwhelming sense of anxiety in the house, a “grinding” sense of the shortage of money. Though, despite the lack of money, they always kept up their style.
Hester worried endlessly about money and the lack of it. Both she and her husband had expensive tastes, and she also worried about things like how she would send her growing children to school. Ester, seeing that her handsome husband was not very successful , tried her go of it . Although she greatly believed in herself, she too, was not very successful. These failures weighed on her and “caused deep lines “ to come on her face.
The house becomes haunted with unspoken words: There must be more money! There must be more money!
No one actually says these words, yet the children hear it all the time. They hear it at Christmas, when wonderful and expensive toys filled the nursery. They heard it behind the shiny rocking horse and behind the doll house, the voice that would