A Lady And Her Husband

A novel about marriage (hence its title): in a deeply sophisticated way it describes a middle-aged couple who love each other navigating round the rock of their differences.

The plot is straightforward but unusual. Mrs Heyham’s daughter leaves home to get married and suddenly Mrs Heyham is left with no family and nothing to do (the servants ensure that she does no work in the house). The daughter, who is young and modern in outlook, suggests that her mother takes more interest in the family business. As Ford Madox Ford (author of Parade’s End and The Good Soldier wrote in his review of this ‘very clever and very observant book’ in March 1914: ‘It shows us the household of a great employer of labour, a constructive genius in the realms of tea shops. He is honest, buoyant, persevering, unbeatable, and he gives the public excellent poached eggs, unrivalled cups of tea, pure butter, and wholesome bread.

‘His wife is just a normal woman, leading a sheltered life under the protection of her husband’s comfortable fortune. But when she finds an occupation in the study of her husband’s female employees in the tea shops, she discovers that these poor creatures are wretchedly underpaid; that they have to stand for too long hours; that they have to eat their meals in damp cupboards.’ The result is a serious strain on the marriage.

A Lady and Her Husband is extremely readable with a moving and insightful portrait of a marriage at the heart of it.

Endpaper

Taken from "Cracow', a jacquard woven wool and linen by Roger Fry for the Omega Workshop 1913 © V and A Images.