The dark tide - Vera Brittain

Daphne Lethbridge is back at Oxford after a year of war work. Attractive, bright, romantic and vivacious, she hooks up with old friends and makes new ones quickly. Someone she cannot warm to, however, is her cynical contemporary Virginia Dawson, with whom she shares a tutor. Each is secretly and painfully aware of the other: Daphne craves Virginia's seemingly effortless academic achievement, and Virginia scorns Daphne's every social success. Things come to a head when the girls' joint tutor, Mr Sylvester, asks Virginia to marry him. She spurns him and he, determined to revenge himself upon Virginia, asks the nave Daphne to marry him later the same day. Desperately in love with Mr Sylvester, she agrees on the spot. Her happiness, however, is short-lived, as her new husband belittles her and discourages her efforts to understand and serve him. She turns at last to her old rival, Virginia, and the two slowly forge a loyal friendship based on mutual respect and shared aspirations.