Daphné Du Maurier

The important thing was to keep face, to show a bright façade, never to
betray how near they stood to bankruptcy. John had committed suicide; they
survived. Therefore profusion, painted panels, polished floors, silk
hangings, gay attire. Sprigged muslin for the children. A spinet, hired by the
month, not paid for, sheets of music, books with leather bindings,
candlesticks of plate. Fashion drawings spread upon a table, playhouse bills,
embroideries in frames, the latest pamphlet from the press, a gross cartoon.
A puppy with long ears, sporting a ribbon, two lovebirds in a cage. The
whole dolled to portray ease, prosperity, to suggest that Golden Lane bore
no resemblance to Bowling Inn Alley.
Take away the trimmings and the bones were bare. The skeleton of
poverty grinned from the walls. Cover the falling plaster with a damask
sheet—the neighbors saw the frills and not the fissure.
Alone, lying in bed beside a drunken husband, she saw her life merging
into that of her mother, repeating the same pattern. A baby every year.
Malaise, irritation. The four little faces round the table mimicking the past
—Mary Anne, Edward, Ellen, baby George—dependent upon her, never
upon Joseph. Joseph turning into her stepfather Bob Farquhar in nightmare
fashion, sleepy-eyed, blotched, always an excuse upon his lips. How break
away, escape? How defeat her mother’s image?