In 1914, when Nicandra is eight, all is well in the big Irish house called Deer Forest. Maman is beautiful and adored. Dada, silent and small, mooches contendedly around the stables. Aunt Tossie, of the giant heart and bosom, is widowed but looks splendid in weeds. The butler, the groom, the landsteward, the maids, the men - each as a place and knows it. Then, astonishingly, the perfect surface is shattered; Maman does something too dreadful ever to be spoken of.
'What next? Who to love?' asks Nicaranda. And through her growing up and marriage her answer is to swamp those around her with kindness - while gradually the great house crumbles under a weight of manners and misunderstanding.
- ISBN10 0233983465
- ISBN13 9780233983462
- Publish Date 1 September 1988
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 October 1999
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Welbeck Publishing Group
- Imprint Andre Deutsch Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English