“I know that things of that kind always are known, and the people I’ve been thrown with, sooner or later, always turned out to have heard the story. Or if they hadn’t,” said Miss Marchrose in a voice of calm despair, “someone took the trouble to tell them.”
Miss Marchrose is about to discover that she cannot escape her past when she takes up a new position at a secretarial college in the south west of England. Following insinuations dropped by the director’s wife, she becomes the subject of a whispering campaign which threatens her professional career and personal happiness.

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'You've never told me about your marriage, Laura?' said Duke Ayland. . . . 'Yes. It's only - I'm very fond of Alfred,' said Laura, taking the plunge and temporarily unaware that almost all wives begin conversations about almost all husbands in precisely the same way Laura has been married for seven years. On those occasions when an after-dinner snooze behind The Times seems preferable to her riveting conversation about their two small sons, Laura dismisses the notion that Alfred does not understand her, reflecting instead that they are what is called happily married. At thirty-four, Laura wonders if she's ever been in love - a ridiculous thing to ask oneself. Then Duke Ayland enters her life and that vexing question refuses to remain unanswered . . . With Laura, beset by perplexing decisions about the supper menu, the difficulties of appeasing Nurse, and the necessity of maintaining face within the small village of Quinnerton, E.M. Delafield created her first "Provincial Lady"....

'January 22nd - Robert startles me at breakfast by asking if my cold - which he has hitherto ignored - is better. I reply that it has gone. Then why, he asks, do I look like that? Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat'It's not easy being a Provincial Lady in Devonshire in the 1920s, juggling a grumpy husband, mischievous children and a host of domestic dilemmas - from rice mould to a petulant cook. But this Provincial Lady will not be defeated; not by wayward flower bulbs, not by unexpected houseguests, not even by the Blitz. She will continue to preside over the W.I., endure rain-drenched family picnics and succeed as a published author, all the while tending to her strawberries. The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a brilliantly observed comic novel, as funny and fresh today as when it was first written.Widely regarded as one of the funniest English authors and an heir to Jane Austen,...

The novel is set in the West of England, over the course of one week in January 1942. Set against the background of a decaying English country-house tradition, the story follows Valentine Arbell and her two daughters, as they struggle to stand up for their existing lifestyle.Primarily a drama of character, events move swiftly under the compulsion of war conditions, and decisions are forced upon them all.

In 1910-1914, Callie Lempriere is sent home from Barbados, where she attempts to piece together the mystery surrounding her family, the death of her mother and the 'exile' of her Uncle Lucy. 'No One Now Will Know' looks at three generations of the Lempriere family from the 1890's to 1939. Delafield shows how the impact of violent emotions and dramatic events leave their mark for life on those who are then young.

She could never, looking backwards, remember a time when she had not known that a woman's failure or success in life depended entirely upon whether or not she succeeded in getting a husband When in the company of a young man a dutiful daughter should immediately assume an air of fresh, sparkling enjoyment. She should not speak of "being friends" with him-a young man is either eligible or he is not-and never, but never, should she get herself talked about, for a young girl who does so is doomed. "Men may dance with her, or flirt with her, but they don't propose." It would be quite a coup for a girl to find a husband during her first season, but if, God forbid, three seasons pass without success, she must join the ranks of those sad women who are a great embarrassment to society and, above all, to their disappointed mothers . . . With such thoughts in mind, how can Monica fail to look forward to her first ball?

'Faster! Faster!' is a novel that tells of the mid-life crisis of Claudia Winsloe, who finds herself trapped by the dual responsibilities of her career and her family. The harder she pushes herself the more she becomes out of touch and increasingly isolated.About the AuthorBorn to Count Henry de la Pasture and his novelist wife, Delafield (1890-1943) was brought up according to strict Late Victorian precepts, but failing to ensnare a husband, she entered a convent in Belgium the moment she was 21. Having recovered from this experience she became a VAD, (voluntary nursing for the war effort) and wrote her first novel. Delafield started publishing in her mid twenties and the year her fourth novel Consequences was published, she married Paul Dashwood, a civil engineer turned land agent; three years in Malaya was followed by life in rural Devon. Many of her novels and short stories are semi-autobiographical or stem from her experiences living abroad and in the rural countryside.