Paperback. Grey cover with black title.

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In Rosamond Lehmann’s ‘The Weather in the Streets’ we meet again Olivia Curtis whom we first met in Miss Lehmann’s ‘Invitation to the Waltz’ and this sequel is even better than its predecessor. Olivia is now twenty-seven, she has a failed marriage behind her and is living a semi-bohemian life in London with her cousin Etty; however, Etty has an allowance and Olivia has to work for her living, which means she is often short of money and instead of eating well, she lives on a diet of coffee and cigarettes and the goodwill of her group of artistic friends. When travelling to her family home after her much-loved father falls ill, she finds herself sharing a train carriage with Rollo Spencer, the confident, good-looking and financially well-off son of the upper-class Spencer family – a young man she met and fell for years ago at the coming-out ball for Rollo’s sister, Marigold (which featured in ‘Invitation to the Waltz’). Now ten years later, Rollo is married to the exquisitely beautiful yet physically and mentally fragile, Nicola, but the marriage does not appear to be a very happy one. Before long, Olivia has fallen in love with Rollo and he, it seems, with Olivia, and so begins a romantic, but clandestine affair that we all fear will not end well for Olivia.

Beautifully written (I wish books were still written like this) with some wonderful descriptions of situation and setting, Rosamond Lehmann’s novel is one in which the author writes convincingly about the predicament of the ‘other woman’ and she has used her own life experiences to inform her story – in the introduction to my copy Miss Lehmann comments: “ I just wrote what seemed the truth in my experience, out of something inside me that I had to give expression to”, and this eloquent and emotionally intelligent story kept me totally involved from start to finish. It is true that not everyone in the story behaves well (Rollo, although charming and perfectly well-mannered, is essentially the epitome of someone who wants to ‘have their cake and eat it’) and many of the characters lead very comfortable, privileged lives and so may not attract the sympathy of some readers, but these people do have their own moral code and standards of behaviour and, although they may at times fail, they do try to adhere to them. I could write a lot more about this novel and the characters within it, but to do so might spoil it for prospective readers, so I will just finally say this will be going straight back into one of my bookcases to be read and enjoyed again. Exquisite.

Rosamond Nina Lehmann CBE (3 February 1901 – 12 March 1990) was an English novelist and translator. Her first novel, Dusty Answer (1927), was a succès de scandale; she subsequently became established in the literary world, and became intimate with members of the Bloomsbury set. Her novel The Ballad and the Source received particular critical acclaim.