Tea With Mr Rochester

From the front flap of this 178 page book: "Snatches of a Beethoven quartet would come floating intermittently to Simon reading at a respectful distance, to Etta going about in gardening gloves and a large straw hat such as French cows wear, to Mrs. Prideaux laying flowers in a shallow basket, passing from bed to bed with a pair of secateurs. In a cool green dress with corals in her ears, she would descend on them, with that look on her face as of returning from another world, and be silent and distraite, so that both Simon and Etta were made to feel themselves in the presence of a superior being. Only Mrs. Prideaux entertained the angel unawares. 'I always think the very nicest thing one can have for tea is cucumber sandwiches,' she would say. 'Heavenly,' said Sandra, absentmindedly helping herself to yet another. she ate a great many of them and somehow made the act poetical, reminding Simon of a roe or a young bat feeding among the lilies." And from the rear flap: "Frances Towers, born in Calcutta in 1885, was the eldest of five children of a British Government telegraph engineer. She went to school in Bedford from the age of nine and between 1905-31 worked at the Bank of England, as a clerk and then as Assistant to the Supervisor. She wrote articles and entered literary competitions and spent her holidays abroad indulging her passions for Gothic architecture, Old Masters and mountains; her first short story was published in 1929. During the late 1930s 'Miss Fay', as she was known to her pupils, began teaching English and History at Southlands School, Harrow, where her sister was headmistress. Most of Frances Towers' short stories were written during the late 1940s, but she died suddenly of pneumonia on New Year's Day, 1948, the year before publication of her only book 'Tea with Mr. Rochester.'"