Publisher's Synopsis
Lucilla Eliot is now ninety-one years old and spends her days engaged in the "soft bee-hum of reminiscence". Her thoughts are dominated by her children. Would David, increasingly unhappy, have been a healthier man if she had spoilt him less as a child? Would Ben, her beloved grandson, be so tormented now by indecision if she had not always made up his mind for him? As her life draws to its ending it is not only the sins of others that she sees with such clarity but her own, especially those that have harmed the children. "Is it well with the child?" is the question that often keeps her awake. Only two of the children cause her no guilt: her eldest son, Hilary, whose sanctity in his old age has the quality of light, and her grandson Tommy, a magnificent young savage seemingly impervious to any influence, good or bad.
