Lady Beatrice Gillecote is the kind of young lady who wafts through life on a cloud of expensive perfume, exuding effortless elegance. Her poor-relation cousin Miss Adeline Gillecote knows that she can never compete. However, far from feeling a simmering resentment at her lovely cousin’s society successes, Adeline “Addie” grows to love her cousin Beatrice “Bea.”
Fast forward eighty years to 1999, and Addie is now the much-loved grandmother of high-powered New York lawyer Clementine “Clemmie” Evans. And so, when her frail grandmother is on her deathbed, Clemmie ditches the rat-race to finally find time for her family.
Unlike most braided narratives, this one is very successful, mainly because the characters in the modern part of the novel are so well-drawn. We have Clemmie, in her mid-thirties, lonely, workaholic and afraid that she will never find her life partner, let alone have children. There is John, prickly but very smart, hard-edged but empathic who finally manages to give Clemmie what she needs. Then there is Clemmie’s mother Marjorie and her sister Anna, who have baggage.
I am sure I am not alone in developing quite the dislike for Bea. She is so affected, plus arrogant, entitled, manipulative. The kind who shoves the blame for her own misdeeds onto others. Especially onto her cousin Addie. It would not be so bad if Bea only engaged in minor peccadilloes. But she does not. And when she bolts away from her husband The Marquess—in an incident that gives this novel its title—her parents cut her off. And they throw Addie out onto the street (even though it isn’t her fault at all.) Were it not for a kind friend, Addie would be in a parlous situation indeed.
But, Beatrice doesn’t seem to notice. “After all, darling,” I can hear her saying to Addie, “it wasn’t so very bad, was it?”
Grrrr.
