The Bad Sister by Emma Tennant

Author:Emma Tennant
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781847675583
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2000-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

It was after Mara Kaletsky had come inside once more that the argument resumed – its subject having gone round the gardens for the last time and disappeared in the direction of Ladbroke Grove.

The weighing of the disadvantages of this woman’s situation against the advantages of a woman like Eliza Jekyll, in present-day society, went on until the small hours, for the simple reason, Robina thinks, that the women in her house that night were ashamed of their earlier fear and wanted to exorcize it with a strong, political discussion.

As Robina commented, it would be hard to know quite where Jean Hastie stood in the dispute over the ‘new values’, for, while she appeared to disapprove strongly of Mrs Hyde and the predicament in which the ‘feckless’ woman had placed herself, the solicitor from Scotland seemed almost equally disapproving of some aspect of another kind relating to Ms Eliza Jekyll. As the argument raged, the storm moaned outside with a tedium that made Robina think – and here she is wandering way off track again – of a reputedly haunted room in a castle in Jean Hastie’s country, where card-players, gambling till dawn with the Devil, are all of a sudden whisked off to eternity, the sound of their laughter and revels remaining behind on wild nights to frighten poor sleepers. She would gladly have locked all her women guests in her sitting room until such time as the Evil One came to get them, Robina goes on, laughing. But, however that may be, there wasn’t a soul there – professional, independent, self-reliant though all (with the exception of poor Tilda) indeed were – who had not been scared out of their wits that evening.

To discover further some of the reasons for Jean Hastie’s ambiguous attitude to her old friend of student days, Ms Eliza Jekyll, it is necessary to read some at least of that good woman’s journal for her stay in London while researching a book on the Gnostic Gospels and the origins of sin.

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