Sheltered Life, The

Sheltered Life, The, novel by Ellen Glasgow, published in 1932.

In Queensborough (Richmond), Virginia, Jenny Blair Archbald is reared by her widowed mother, her spinster Aunt Etta, and her grandfather, General David Archbald. Members of the decaying aristocratic class, they attempt to preserve the social traditions of the 19th century, but live in a section giving way to industrial encroachments. Their neighbors are George Birdsong and his wife Eva, a famous belle of the 1890s, extravagantly in love with her handsome but weak husband, who tries without success to be faithful. Jenny Blair, innocent and self‐contained, is influenced by her grandfather's devotion to Eva, the miseries of her frustrated aunt, and the atmosphere of genteel decadence. As she reaches adolescence, she continues to “hate boys,” especially Mrs. Birdsong's ward, John Welch, a radical‐thinking youth. She prefers older men, such as her grandfather and George, and during an emotional crisis, when Eva, whom she adores, is critically ill, she falls in love with George. He laughs at her feeling, and at her 18 years, but begins to respond in spite of himself. He insists that he will do “nothing to hurt her,” and they are separated during the summer vacation, from which the Birdsongs return ill, weary, and verging on nervous collapse. Jenny Blair, overcome with adolescent love, cannot keep away from George, and Eva surprises them in each other's arms. The girl flees into the garden, whence she is recalled by John Welch's frantic announcement of an “accident”: George has killed his wife and committed suicide.