“Why are Victorian women always written like that?” asked Gemma. “They can’t go out in the drizzle for fear of catching a chill, which will undoubtedly result in a fever and near death.”

“I always thought that about Jane in Pride and Prejudice,” said Annie. “She trots out on a horse in the rain to see Bingley and spends the next three weeks at death’s door.”

“If I’d been Bingley,” said Maeve, “that would have put me right off her.”

“If you’d been Bingley, you’d have had her put down like a lame horse,” said Gemma.

Maeve nodded gravely.

“Marian could only be brave and intelligent because she was manly,” said Annie. She flicked through her book to a piece of paper poking out of the top. “Wilkie describes her as swarthy, with a masculine jaw and a full mustache. He’s basically written Marian as Magnum, P.I.”

“I noticed that, too,” said Gemma, flicking through her notes. “Why couldn’t she be sexy and pretty and still be clever and brave?”

“If she’d been sexy, she would have been evil,” said Sally. “Because men found sexy women tempting, and therefore those women must be bad.”

“And if she’d been pretty,” said Maeve, “then she’d have been too meek to be clever and been killed by rain; un-doer of good women all over nineteenth-century Britain.”

“And everyone knows,” said Annie, “that only men can be clever and heroic.”

“Or swarthy women with full mustaches,” said Gemma.

“What did you think of Walter?” Annie asked.

“Typical hero,” said Sally, in a bored voice. She waved a hand dismissively as though batting Walter out of the room.

“And therefore, completely uninteresting,” said Maeve.

“Oh, I don’t agree,” said Gemma. “Why must a kind and honorable man be classed as boring? I hate that whole damaged-hero crap. I don’t want my daughter to grow up chasing after arseholes, I want her to meet someone nice, like Walter. There’s a lot to be said for being nice.”

“I’m with you,” said Annie. “It feeds into the I can change him mentality. We shouldn’t be chasing after badly behaved, ill-mannered men. And we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be kept keen by men who treat us mean.”

The women had polished off most of the tartlets, and Annie refilled the crisp bowl.

“Do you think Marian was a virgin?” asked Gemma.

“Wilkie would have written her that way,” said Maeve. “Or she couldn’t have been a heroine.”

“Imagine that,” said Gemma. “Never having sex in your life!”

“Well,” said Maeve. “She could have sorted herself out. Just because she didn’t have sex with another person doesn’t mean she didn’t enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.”

“Maeve!” said Gemma.