H.E. Bates Companion

A love triangle, ending in a mother's murder of her daughter. An Englishman on holiday at an alpine hotel pursues a German woman, breaking through her "stiff, cold Teutonic, regimented air." The arrival of her daughter reveals a long-standing and mutual hatred and, as the man's attentions transfer to her, the mother grows increasingly hostile to both lovers, in the final page pushing her daughter over a cliff. The piece is weaker than other Bates efforts on similar themes, partly because the man's interest in both women is less than convincing. In The Song of the Wren. (1972). Reprinted in Go, Lovely Rose: Three Short Stories (1989).