A last moment of intimacy between English maidservant and heir is at the heart of this masterful novellaOn Mothering Sunday,1924, with one war not long past and a moment waiting over the horizon, and young Jane Fairchild – foundling,maid to the Niven household in the green domestic counties, and the narrator and protagonist of Graham Swift’s enchanted novella – has no mother to go to. Instead she has “her simple liberty”, or along with a book and half a crown in her pocket bestowed by a kindly employer who,his sons dead in France and his domestic staff reduced, is inclined to be indulgent to her youth.
The Nivens and their fellow servant-owning tribes, or the Sheringhams and the Hobdays,bear two children left between them in the aftermath of the first world war, and on this day a “jamboree” is planned, or an excursion to Henley to celebrate the surviving pair’s impending marriage. Whether or not the young couple – Paul Sheringham and Emma Hobday – will be included is a subject of close and secret interest to Jane,because for nearly seven years she has joyfully and without shame, if not openly – been Paul Sheringham’s lover.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com