Mrs Becher's Diary

 

Helen Dunn

Insignificant – little both in mind and stature, and yet with a kind heart that she hesitated to reveal.

Exact, living rule and the epitome of conventionality, her behaviour is governed on all occasions by the necessity – for her – to do the right thing in the eyes of the social world.

Striving to keep up her position she is half ashamed – so it seems to many of us, of her attractive unconventional and deaf husband. Adorning parties yet failing to shine at them because she never gives of herself and is entirely lacking in imagination.

I cannot picture her doing one spontaneous action and her fear of social indiscretion would guide all her dealings, even those with her most intimate friends. A woman of over 50, she still looks to her parents for guidance and in any argument their views, particularly those of her father, the Archdeacon of Bath, are quoted as impossible of contradiction.