The first thing the bride does on their arrival is to give her husband a black eye and without a word march upstairs to her bedroom where she will reside for the best part of the rest of her life.

Unwilling to admit it, the two young ladies are attracted to the fifteen years older Henry Tillotson, and fascinated and frightened by his mysterious wife, Margaret, who will endure their visits in her bedroom with bored superiority.

She likes to make up malicious stories about everyone at Cotteshaw and enjoys inflicting pain on everyone who comes into range, preferably without lifting her head from the pillow.

Another recurring fictional theme in Wesley's books is the affirmation of illegitimacy (Hebe in Harnessing Peacocks, Emily Thornby in Not That Sort of Girl, Mary Mowbray in The Vacillations of Poppy Carew, Polly in The Camomile Lawn and Juno in Part of the Furniture).

[1] The script of A Dubious Legacy was delivered by hand to Wesley's publisher in London, by a street cleaner who had found it in a litter bin on the South Bank.