Astride the Wall

Wyndham gives an account of the aristocratic existence of a world where the pleasures of privilege were enjoyed in a peculiarly English way. Her mother distrusted all foreigners below the rank of Ambassador, her great-aunts saw London as an "entrepot" for the white slave trade and her grandmother kept the accounts for a house for "fallen women". Made up of her own life and the exploits of such ancestors as the third Lord Egremont who was impatient of the petty details of life, thus forgetting to marry the mother of his children until after they were born, Wyndham's bitter-sweet world is that of the country house, the hunt ball and the uncomfortable house party.