The day young Lucy Entwhistle's father died, she was only able to stand, staring, feeling nothing. Along came Wemyss, a man of about forty-five, who had just lost his wife. This shared bereavement brings he and Lucy together: Wemyss makes all the plans for Mr. Entwhistle's funeral, they spend much time together comforting each other, and they soon become engaged. Lucy's aunt, Miss Entwhistle, is rather perplexed by the whole turn of affairs, but she determines to like Wemyss for Lucy's sake, even though he shows all the character of a spoiled brat.

Vera was Wemyss's former wife, who died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, yet whose memory permeates much. At first, I thought the story was going to be headed in a similar direction as Rebecca, but even though I didn't particularly like Max de Winter, he had nothing on Wemyss. Everard Wemyss has made my top five list of most hated characters in literature. His behavior made me want to slap him, shake him, finally to punch him. I loved Miss Entwhistle's standing up to him, and wished Lucy was more able to assert herself. But like many in an unhealthy relationship, she's quick to forgive and forget. Reading about them as they progressed from engagement into marriage was like watching a car crash - you know it's going to be terrible, but can't help continuing. ( )

On the day of her father's funeral, Lucy meets Everard Wemyss, whose wife has very recently died under shocking circumstances (she fell to her death from a window of a room in their house). Lucy and Wemyss quickly establish a friendship and fall in love, although Lucy's aunt, Miss Entwhistle, is suspicious of Wemyss. Even before she knows the details of his wife's death, her suspicions are aroused by the fact that, so soon after two tragedies, he wears 'light grey trousers' - not black or even dark grey ones. Though a bit 'twittery', Miss Entwhistle seems to have the measure of Wemyss. She knows that if Lucy is determined to marry Wemyss she will do so, and that being warned off him will only drive her more firmly into his arms, and so the marriage goes ahead.

One she's married, however, Lucy quickly learns the true nature of her husband. He likes Lucy to call him 'baby', and he does indeed behave like a spoilt, sulky child for much of the time. A wrong word, a misplaced laugh, and Wemyss goes into a sulk from which Lucy has to coax him. He seems to think he owns Lucy, body and soul. "Her thoughts mustn't wander, she had discovered; her thoughts were to be his as well as the rest of her. Was ever a girl so much loved? she asked herself, astonished and proud; but, on the other hand, she was dreadfully sleepy."

He pretends to take her views and desires into account, but this is an illusion. He asks her if she wants to do something, but having given a few 'wrong' answers she has come to realise that "his question was only decorative, and his little love should instinctively, he considered, like what he liked".

After the honeymoon, Wemyss takes Lucy back to his home, The Willows, in which he lived with his first wife Vera, and where she died. Lucy hates the thought of sleeping in the same bed Vera slept in, and is horrified to learn that Wemyss hasn't re-decorated or changed the house at all since Vera's death. Wemyss doesn't understand Lucy's feelings, calling them 'morbid'. "Lucy fought and fought against it, but always at the back of her mind was the thought, not looked at, slunk away from, but nevertheless fixed, that there at The Willows, waiting for her, was Vera."

Married, Wemyss treats Lucy like a child, either ordering her around or consoling her with babytalk. Lucy is perplexed by her husband and decides that the only way she can cope with her marriage is to 'let it wash over one'.

Rather like Charlotte Bronte's Bertha Rochester, Vera is present and yet not-present. It seems to me significant that Wemyss keeps all the books locked up, apart from the ones that belonged to Vera - one of which, we're told more than once, is Wuthering Heights. It would be neat if it had been Jane Eyre instead, but perhaps Vera had that book, too. When Miss Entwhistle visits Lucy and finds Vera's books, she's drawn to the conclusion that Vera longed to escape, and found her escape through death. She notes that, "The greater proportion of the books in Vera's shelves were guide-books and time-tables." She realises that Lucy is trapped, and tries to make allowances for Wemyss, but the man is impossible. She understands Wemyss: "He was like a great cross schoolboy, she thought, sitting there being rude; but unfortunately a schoolboy with power." She ends up telling him a few home truths, but Wemyss couldn't be more blind to his own faults and Miss Entwhistle's perceptive remarks fail to penetrate.

At the end of the book, he turns Miss Entwhistle out into the night. She, like Vera, makes her escape. We can only wonder what will happen to Lucy after a few years - or even months - of marriage to a man who - as Miss Entwhistle has realised - actively enjoys 'being in a temper, and having me to bully'. [April 2005] ( )

Blackly humorous, Vera treads perfectly between the horrifying and commonplace in its portrait of a deeply - indeed, dangerously - dysfunctional courtship and marriage. It's a brilliant fiction which remains both bitingly funny and rather frighteningly 'true'. ( )