A Perfect Hand
Alice Lockey prides herself as a lady’s maid to Lady Jemima. Lady Jemima is frivolous and vain, indolent and quarrelsome, and very reliant on Alice. Lady Jemima has her sights set on Thomas Smythe-Roberts, a womanizing, gambling, ne’er-do-well, whose main activity is conning wealthy women. It is 1879, and Lord and Lady Alderwick are hosting a houseful of guests at Marlecombe Park. Lord Wynstowe, who arrives with his valet, Charlie, is a socially awkward, hypochondriac, and highly solipsistic man who outstays his welcome long after the other guests have departed. Meanwhile, Alice and Charlie strike up a friendship that blooms into love. But how could they ever be a couple while living and working in separate households? They hatch a plot to remove Smythe-Roberts from Lady Jemima’s affections and convince her that Lord Wynstowe is her man. This will allow Alice and Charlie to marry and live together. With much strategizing and manipulation including a few blunders, the reader happily rides along in this romp of a novel. Issues of class and female autonomy are raised as Alice questions her status in life and becomes involved in the women’s suffrage movement.
Waldman’s writing is clever and witty, and her characters thoroughly entertaining in their quirks and foibles. Delightfully throughout the novel, she often addresses the reader directly: “I warn the most delicate of my readers to skip ahead a page, lest the description that follows trouble their sensibilities,” and “These next chapters in our story bring about its climax, so I suggest to my reader that she find time away from friends and family…” This is a romance turned on its head, a comedy addressing important concerns, and a few surprises thrown in at the end. A perfect hand may be dealt to a person of the upper class, but can an ordinary lady’s maid turn her less-than-ideal hand into a perfect one?
