An intelligent, haunting love story, with echoes of Brief Encounter, by one of the best British writers of the 20th century.
'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' - Elizabeth Bowen, author of The Heat of the Day
Intelligent and haunting, with echoes of Brief Encounter, this is a love story by one of the best British writers of the 20th century.
During summer games of hide and seek Harriet falls in love with Vesey and his elusive, teasing ways. When he goes to Oxford she cherishes his photograph and waits for a letter that never comes.
Years pass and Harriet stifles her dreams; with a husband and daughter, she excels at respectability. But then Vesey reappears and her marriage seems to melt away. Harriet is older, it is much too late, but she is still in love with him.
The unsung heroine of British 20th-century fiction. Elizabeth Taylor wrote 12 novels, and each displays her exquisitely light touch, her firt for discreet irony and her skill at revealing the emotional depths behind even the meekest exterior. She is at her very best here, a novel in which love is never declared, but is meticulously evoked. No writer has described the English middle classes with more gently devastating accuracy
