I think I was expecting something more polemical and less measured: an undercurrent of rage rather than a rational, ironic dissection of marriage and capitalism. Not that I minded; there are various ways of turning the spotlight on injustice. Is the title significant? The indefinite article, implying these circumstances apply more widely. “A Lady” comes first and hence the husband becomes her “property” – a reversal of the norm. It’s a book that makes its points subtly – and then I wonder how it was received on publication, when its ideas would have seemed more radical.

It’s about a woman, Mary Heyham, in early middle age whose children are now leading independent lives; to keep her active, she is encouraged by her very modern younger daughter to take an interest in the work conditions of the women employed in the family’s tea shop business. Her husband is a successful, energetic and hard-working man. He’s a good husband, a good father and a good employer and he does indeed love his wife dearly . . .

He went over to her and stroked her hair. That, to his mind, was the use of her hair, and to please him she dressed it in a way that was not easily disarranged.

Ouch! Or:

There was no doubt in her mind that most of the wives she knew understood their husbands thoroughly, thus sparing them the trouble of understanding their wives.

As for the economics of running a business, I couldn’t decide if my fuming reaction to the following was totally anachronistic:

Florrie had come to work in the depot not because she needed work, but because she liked her independence and a bit of fun. She left home at seven sharp, and she got back about ten. She had Sundays off, and alternate Bank Holidays. . . .

Yes, it was perfectly true that the company only took girls who were not dependent on their wages for their living. Not that they gave bad wages, but you couldn’t live as a young lady ought to live on eleven shillings a week, bonus instead of tips, making it up to twelve. The manager thought that was good money, she herself had begun – in another company – as kitchen help at seven shillings, and kitchen work was man’s work, not girl’s work at all.

It reminded me of the time I heard an American (politician? journalist?) on “Any Questions” who stated quite baldly that it wasn’t an employer’s task to pay full-time workers enough to support themselves on. It was a shock to realise that people thought like that today – and set me thinking of the dominance of the cash nexus and how crucial state-mandated fairness is in how we live under today’s system.

Anyway – predictably – it turns out that Florrie does indeed need the work to support herself and her sick mother. The “bit of fun” indirect speech is scathingly ironic. It’s typical of the author that Florrie is eventually shown to be flawed as we all are: there are no Dickensian paragons here.

Reeves focuses clearly and rationally on her topics – cool, light, ironic, as if she was anticipating patronising accusations of being emotional or of exaggerating. Lessons are learned, realities faced and Mary emerges from her cocoon of cultivated ignorance, saddened but ready for a new role.