Marvellous reading. The eternal problem of women, and the received wisdom with respect to sex is at issue here. Three sisters who have all accepted Victorian attitudes to chastity, and who hold refined sentiment paramount, discover that loathing, depression and hypocrisy corrupt them as the decades pass. Ella, the most examined of the three, and the most injudiciously treated, has a daughter Amanda, who must herself cope with a new feminine identity striving to be recognized in a new age, determinedly not Victorian.
The action takes place at different times from Victorian to a "present" in the summer of 1938. And during this time the centrality of a woman to family life, and the family as a fundamental aspect of civilization, was blown away to be replaced by modern ideas, which had not yet resolved the problems of work, money, suffering etc.
Interestingly, Cary says women's freedom "like all freedom, means work and suffering, insecurity and the endless anxiety of moral choice; and yet it is the most precious thing they have. It is the soul of their dignity as modern women".

Rose only ever wanted the best for her family, but this didn’t always go down well, especially not with Ella. After Rose dies, Ella is convinced that she has killed her and her imagined guilt eats away at her. She begins to realise that Rose might have been right after all, and so Ella tries to help Amanda just like Rose would have done. The only problem is that Amanda does not want her Aunt interfering in her love life.

Ella is constantly reminiscing about her past. This means that the story jumps from past to present and back again with little warning. This is a bit confusing, but helps to show that Ella is living in the past and is deeply affected by past events.

I found the story a bit slow to get into because not a lot happens near the beginning. I found Ella really annoying, and I wished that the story would concentrate more on Amanda because I quite liked her. ( )