"Hattie has a difficult loving partner, Martyn, an absentee mother, Lallie, and a cynical if attentive grandmother Frances. She tries to do the right and moral thing in a tricky world, and always has. But she now has a baby, Kitty, which makes true morality rather harder to achieve. Somehow, money has to be earned. Into this household comes Agnieszka, from Poland, a domestic paragon. But is she friend or foe? And even if she is foe, and seems likely to bring the domestic world crashing down around their ears, can they afford to let her go? Well, no." "Martyn works for a political magazine, Hattie for a literary agency. At work too integrity is suffering as the need for compromise becomes ever more pressing. And always in the background is Frances, tracing the family and social history which have made Hattie what she is - and not just family and society but the dwelling houses too - and all those girls and women, the au pairs, the child minders, the cleaners who've had a part in making her what she is - and now, finally, Agnieszka who has come to claim a life for herself at Hattie's expense. Will Hattie go to the wall? And poor little Kitty! Or will rescue come?"--Jacket.