Honestly, I found the opening 80 or so pages of Vera to be a real slog. The pace is so slow and mannered that it makes it difficult to get through. While the interaction between the middle aged man Wemyss, twenty-something (but much younger looking) Lucy and her maiden aunt is sort of interesting, the amount of detail is laborious.
But.
Without it, the latter half of the book wouldn’t be nearly as effective. Without wanting to exaggerate, the tension I felt during Wemyss’s dictatorial approach to elevenses was unlike anything I’ve ever read. It drags out painfully. There are other sections of the book that are more explicit in their portrayal of abusive power dynamics, but the sheer domesticity of this section was the most effective.
It’s difficult to pick out an extract but the whole thing just builds and builds in such a horrible way. I gather from the Wikipedia article that it’s based on von Armin’s own second marriage and that the book is a marked contrast in tone to her other works.
'Shall I pour out the tea?' she asked presently, preparing, then, to take the bull by the horns; for he remained standing in front of the fire smoking in silence. 'Just think,' she went on, making an effort to be gay, 'this is the first time I shall pour out tea in my——'
She was going to say 'My own home,' but the words wouldn't come off her tongue. Wemyss had repeatedly during the day spoken of his home, but not once had he said 'our' or 'your'; and if ever a house didn't feel as if it in the very least belonged, too, to her, it was this one.
'Not yet,' he said briefly.
She wondered. 'Not yet?' she repeated.
'I'm waiting for the bread and butter.'
'But won't the tea get cold?'
'No doubt. And it'll be entirely that fool's fault.'
'But——' began Lucy, after a silence.
'Buts again?'
'I was only thinking that if we had it now it wouldn't be cold.'
'She must be taught her lesson.'
Again she wondered. 'Won't it rather be a lesson to us?' she asked.
Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim. Available from Vintage or as a public domain ebook from Project Gutenberg.