Bad Blood: A Memoir. Lorna Sage

Hanmer winter gave him a taste of carnival freedom and yet its very success left him in post-coital gloom: ‘The village is very quiet tonight after all the excitement of this week. What a week!’

      The affair with MB had developed along similarly perverse and disappointing lines, since she had not only become the theme of endless Hilda rants, but also a kind of wife number two, part of the furniture of his frustration. So it was horribly convenient that the village – or at least the influential people, like Lady Kenyon – seemed disposed to blame MB for the scandal. If he cast her off he’d be allowed to get away with it. And he was ready (for the wrong reasons) to do the right thing. In short, he behaved like a complete cad towards MB.