Once upon a time, when it was not yet considered impolite to smoke in most social settings, a woman named Madge (short for Magdalene) Grundy had the ladies from the neighbourhood round for a lingerie party. There were perhaps twenty or so, give or take, and they filled Madge’s living room to the walls and spent the afternoon smoking their heads off and laughing hysterically whenever one of them disappeared and came back wearing one frilly ensemble or another. Giddy was not the word.  They were beyond.

Hors d’oeuvres were eaten, coffee was spilt here and there, and one of the sheers in the front window ended up with a couple of cigarette burns in it which went unnoticed till later that evening when the room was being aired. The price of success.

No one bought anything. It had been fun, more than fun, but though many felt it was something which really ought to be repeated, it was also almost universally agreed that no husband was likely to have much more than his suspicion aroused had any of the women come to bed that evening dressed in anything they’d seen. Besides, who could have kept a straight face?

The laughter faded quickly, however, and the goodwill was short-lived. Rumours began that very week, and they were vicious. Della Fitzgibbons said something cruel about one of the younger women, a chubby thing who’d recently moved from down east, named Olive Cooper. According to Della, when Olive had been modelling she’d gone about ...