Portrait of Margaret Forster

Margaret Forster

Lady's Maid

Penguin Books, 1991.

We reached the Park and then I found a pretty path near the pond that lay under the trees and we stayed there a good while, Miss Elizabeth being delighted with the shade and it did her good to be cool and have so much to see that was different

In this retelling of the Elizabeth Barrett-Robert Browning romance Elizabeth's personal maid, Lily Wilson, is writing to her mother about the first visit that the semi-invalid poet makes in her wheelchair. More outings follow; Lily also makes numerous visits on her own to meet her male 'followers' or walk the dog. (See the Woolf entry for what the dog thought of it all.)