Elizabeth Taylor, The Soul of Kindness

Certain novels, often by women, of the mid-twentieth century, hang like tapestries. You can choose where to rest your eye.  In Elizabeth Taylor's The Soul of Kindness I rested with housekeeper Mrs Lodge, who yearned for marshlands.

Her home, when she was a child, had been near an estuary, remote, with wonderful wide skies, a beautiful light. Terns used to gather on a sandbank a the edge of the water, and looked as if they were dancing with frail, coral-red legs.

And with another housekeeper/companion, Miss Folley, with her bountiful gentleman friends and her goodwill.

'If you're looking for a nice, pulling book,' Miss Folley began, coming in to bully him with Elvas plums.
'No, no,' he said, straightening quickly, backing away from the shelves, 'I never read.'

The main action, the comfy middle classes and their boredoms, their weary subtlety, veiled despair, I read through with some impatience on a cold, wet, blustery December afternoon.