I was interested in the contrasts that exist between them: one young, one old, both locked in an antagonistic struggle with each other. Hester has a variety of suitors vying for her hand (he cousin Harry, Edward, and the stranger in town, Roland Ashton), which is intriguing, but what I enjoyed the most was the interplay between the two main characters. A lot of the novel deals with Hester’s growth from girl to woman, and the men who express interest in her along the way. Catherine’s life is shaken when her fourteen-year-old relative, Hester, and her mother move to “the Vernonry” after a period away. The bulk of the story, however, takes place many years later, when Catherine is in her sixties, with her cousin/nephew Edward Vernon playing William Cecil to her Elizabeth I. She is the head of Vernon’s Bank, and it was through her intervention that a run on the bank was prevented in her younger days. Show More around Catherine Vernon, a kind of matriarch and queen in Redborough.
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