There is a version of this story, told from Eleanor’s side, in which she too is a victim, and that version is not false.

But I have noticed that the language of one’s own victimhood can become, in the wrong hands, a way of evading every obligation, a permanent excuse that dissolves all responsibility toward anyone weaker than oneself.

Yes, Eleanor was afraid of Arthur.

Yes, she had been diminished by decades of him.

And also, a nine-year-old was at the door, and she was the adult, and the child’s need in that moment outranked her fear.

That is simply what being an adult in a house with a child means.