What a great book; I really enjoyed it. Probably more than Greenbanks which is the only other DW I've read.
While reading, I was thinking how much it reminded me of Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale .. and then it was mentioned as the book Jane was reading! Maybe as a tribute to AB?
I enjoyed the small town setting , where everyone knows one another's business, with characters like Mrs Greenwood, a big fish in a small pond who reminded me of Mrs Proudie in Barchester Towers. In fact all the characters were well-rounded and often entertaining. The three-sided friendship between Wilfrid, Jane and Noel, where they each found the intelligent company they craved, was really well portrayed. And Maggie's trusting - but not very insightful - love for Wilfrid becomes poignant after the relationship ends.
DW shows the double standards applied then to men and women. The incident at the ball is judged to be totally Jane's fault and the injustice of that is pretty clear to the reader. The way Jane sticks up for herself is admirable - and it's amusing when she plays Mr Chadwick at his own game and outwits him too.
I also found the exploration of the evolution of ready-made clothes very interesting. My grandparents were both tailors and at the start of their careers, in the twenties and thirties, and into the fifties too, would measure and make suits from scratch for their customers. This was in a small mining town in Scotland, not a city with wealthy clients.
I remember visiting my grandpa in his workshop at the back of the house, where he sat cross-legged on a bench. He had goose irons heating in a coal stove and he'd take them out with tongs and plunge them into a bucket of cold water whereupon the steam hissed up dramatically .. very exciting! He used an old treadle sewing machine too - no electricity needed.
Of course, with the arrival of mass-produced clothing, their livelihood dwindled, my grandpa finally retired in his eighties and my uncle, who'd followed them into the business, eventually had to give up and find work elsewhere.
I'm old enough to remember, as a young child, traditional drapers' shops with glass counters and small wooden drawers all the way up the walls, labelled "white knee socks", "woollen vests" etc. You would wait your turn, and the assistant would lay items out to be examined and discussed. This book took me right back there.
So I very much enjoyed Jane's enthusiasm for her work and the innovations she fought hard to introduce to Chadwicks; and especially the excitement of setting up her own business. It was frustrating that because of Noel, all that energy and entrepreneurship was going to be wasted. I did find the last few pages and the agonising ending of Jane and Noel's relationship a touch overdramatic. Otherwise I thought it was excellent.
And what do we think was going to happen between Jane and Wilfrid at the end?? She wasn't going to settle was she ..