With the one coin for fee

In Short

Set in a decaying coastal town in southern New England, Helen R. Hull’s novella follows Margaret Turner, a newly retired schoolteacher whose carefully guarded pride is pushed to the limit when her childhood acquaintance—the flamboyant, scandalous heiress Susan Lathrop Field—returns to town. As a historic 1938 hurricane barrels toward the coast, tearing through homes and uprooting ancient trees, the two women are forced to confront the long-buried resentments, lost loves, and class divides of their shared past. It endures as a masterful study of pride, aging, and ultimate reconciliation amidst disaster.

The Story

In a small New England coastal town, Margaret Turner sits in her neat, modest home counting her dwindling savings. After a lifetime of teaching, she has been quietly let go without a pension, discarded by school trustees who prefer younger staff. Fiercely proud, Margaret refuses to ask for help or admit her financial vulnerability to anyone. Instead, she nurtures a long-standing bitterness toward Susan Lathrop Field, the wealthy, wild childhood friend whose family once employed Margaret’s father as a gardener. While Margaret lived a life of rigid propriety, caution, and loneliness, Susan lived recklessly, marrying men for money, dyeing her hair, and becoming the subject of scandalous village gossip.

When Susan unexpectedly returns to her crumbling family estate down the road, accompanied by a young chauffeur named Eddie, she attempts to visit Margaret. The encounter reopens old wounds for Margaret, who remembers how Susan’s wealth and privilege once disrupted her own youth—including a lost romantic opportunity with Lester Field, the man who ultimately married Susan and met a tragic, violent end. Margaret harbors deep resentment over how Susan "ruined" Lester and squandered her life, contrasting it with her own respectable, albeit empty, existence.

Their personal drama unfolds against the backdrop of an ominous late-September storm. As torrential rains saturate the soil and strange, suffocating air settles over the coast, a massive hurricane unexpectedly slams into the town. High tides flood the roads, felling giant trees and severing the village from safety. Sam, a local delivery boy, warns the women to flee, but Susan is delayed by an injured ankle after falling down the stairs of her dark, decaying mansion.

Refusing to leave Susan stranded, Margaret returns to the Lathrop house just as the worst of the tempest hits. Trapped inside as the chimney collapses and the wind tears at the roof, the two women finally drop their defenses. In the surreal, atmospheric quiet of the storm's center, they speak with raw honesty about their pasts: Susan confesses the emptiness of her marriages, while Margaret acknowledges the hidden fears that dictated her rigid life. When a massive tidal wave crashes through the house, shattering its walls, all lifelong animosity evaporates, replaced by a sudden, exhilarating bond of affection as they cling to each other in their final moments.

How It Unfolds

The shadow of retirement Margaret Turner faces an uncertain future after being quietly pushed out of her teaching job without a pension, fiercely guarding her financial struggles behind a facade of respectable independence.

An infamous return News spreads through the village that Susan Lathrop Field, now an aging, painted woman living scandalously, has returned to her decaying family mansion with a hired young companion.

Buried grievances surface When Susan attempts to reach out, Margaret is consumed by childhood memories of class inequality, her brother's tragic death, and the lost romance with Lester Field, whom Susan eventually married.

The gathering tempest As September weather turns unnaturally strange, a sudden, historic hurricane battered the New England shore, trapping the women in the storm's direct path as floodwaters isolate the estate.

A desperate shelter Margaret goes to Susan's mansion to tend to her injured ankle, only to become trapped inside with her rival as the violent winds destroy her own home and dismantle the Lathrop estate.

Confrontation and clarity Inside the shuddering mansion, Margaret expresses her long-held anger, but Susan's candid, warm laughter softens the bitterness, leading both women to confess the hidden regrets of their lives.

The final embrace As a colossal wave sweeps through the house and collapses its walls, Margaret abandons her fear and pride, holding tightly to Susan in a shared moment of profound, triumphant release.

The People

• Margaret Turner: A retired schoolteacher whose obsession with propriety and self-reliance masks a deep fear of poverty and loneliness. She spent her life being careful, holding onto decades-old grudges against the wealthy family her father served.
• Susan Lathrop Field: A vibrant, shameless heiress who lived her life with reckless freedom. Though aged, painted, and mocked by the local townspeople, she retains an irrepressible warmth, generosity, and emotional vitality.
• Lester Field: The handsome, imperious man from Margaret’s youth who once courted her in secret before marrying Susan for her money; his life ended years earlier in a fatal, alcohol-fueled hunting accident.
• Rob Turner: Margaret’s father, a hardworking, pragmatic gardener who accepted his working-class station in life and urged his daughter to do the same.
• Sam: A local boy who delivers groceries and tries frantically to warn the women to evacuate before the ocean surges over the road.

In Its Own Voice

"Perhaps the extraordinary, sweet, concentrated air which runs under the great dark wings of a hurricane is in part responsible for the ending; at the very heart of darkness and destruction is this breath of concentrated life, burning out too rapidly sluggish blood, toxins of habit and hate and age."

Set against the immediate approach of the storm, this observation framing the narrative links atmospheric pressure to emotional release.

"You'll learn, Margaret's mother had said, that it isn't enough to know you are honest and right yourself, you have to see to it that what you do looks that way to everyone else."

Reflecting on her mother's stern warnings, Margaret considers the rigid mindset that governed her cautious choices.

"'We'll stick together!' cried Susan, and her voice had the golden curl of a trumpet. 'Till we die!'"

In the novella's climax, Susan speaks these words as the ocean wave collapses the house around them.

What It's Really About

At its core, the novella explores the tragic cost of pride and the self-imposed prisons of social propriety. Margaret's life has been defined by caution, fear of judgment, and an intense resentment toward those who live without restraint. Through the stark contrast between Margaret's rigid respectability and Susan's unabashed eccentricity, the story questions whether a life governed strictly by self-protection is truly a life lived at all. The hurricane acts as both a literal force and a psychological catalyst, sweeping away decades of accumulated bitterness, social class distinctions, and emotional armor to reveal the profound need for human connection at the end of life.

Why Read It Today

This novella offers an astonishingly vivid depiction of aging, pride, and psychological release, rendered with exceptional narrative precision. Readers who appreciate character-driven fiction, rich New England atmosphere, and tense dramatic pacing will find it deeply compelling. The prose captures the unsettling, tactile atmosphere of the real-life 1938 New England hurricane with remarkable clarity.

While the story deals candidly with the harsh realities of aging and financial insecurity, its emotional intelligence keeps it from ever feeling hopeless. Its primary difficulty lies in the quiet, slow-burning tension of its first half, which relies heavily on internal monologue and nostalgic recollection. However, this careful setup pays off magnificently in the terrifying, poetic final sequence, leaving a lingering impression of how easily human pride can obscure what truly matters.

<ElicitationsGroup message="Where would you like to go next?"> <Elicitation label="Explore the history of the 1938 New England Hurricane" query="Can you provide historical context on the 1938 New England Hurricane that inspired Helen R. Hull's setting?"/> <Elicitation label="Analyze the themes of social class in 20th-century literature" query="Analyze how social class and female independence are depicted in early-to-mid 20th-century American fiction."/> </ElicitationsGroup>