Behind the curtains, beyond the gate

‘Thank God that even in a family no one knows anyone else’s private thoughts! The meannesses of her own mind revolted her,’ confesses Rhoda, one of two sisters in Lettice Cooper’s 1936 novel, The New House. Cooper, who was born in 1897 and died in 1994, published 20 novels, many of them based loosely on her own experiences of family life, and all characterised by her gift for laying bare what really lies behind our social smiles and graces.

The New House takes place on a single day as Rhoda and her mother move out of the family home, prosaically called Stone Hall — a Victorian mansion on the outskirts of a Yorkshire town, built from money made in the steel industry. The old certainties can no longer be sustained in this post-first-world-war England. It’s not just that there is not enough money to pay for the underlings who made living in Stone Hall possible, with its umpteen bedrooms, huge kitchen (‘built for the days of scullery-maids’), trayloads of silver and acres of garden.