A Cage for Hercules... Plus-1

Another 2-Tales from the first-half of the last century feature in this volume of fantasy female-led fiction. First up is Maurice Huysman's "A Cage for Hercules", and his tale, set in the 1930's describing a successful London businessman who for the first time in his life believes he knows exactly what he wants. His desire being to retire to the gentle English countryside and indulge his passion for reading and solitude.
At least that is what he believes his desire to be. Until, that is, he meets the devoted niece of a widowed aunt, both of whom are soon to be his neighbours and see past his defenses immediately to discern just what it will take for the newcomer to their tiny community to be finally happy. A missing and unsuspected need that, they feel, will be best expressed in their home. And in their service! This is followed by Wilson Henshaw's Wilson Henshaw's "The Toe-Ring", as we go back to the beginning of the 19th Century where a deceased former suffragette and emancipated aunt's bequest to her married niece of an Indian woman as her paid housekeeper has a dramatic and long-lasting effect upon everybody in the patriarchal and orderly run household.
But especially for the correct and stuffy husband. A husband suddenly marginalised, disregarded, and strangely obsessed with the new housekeeper's. FEET! Believable and retro female-led fantasy fiction for those readers who prefer to use the darker sides of their imaginations with the help of character-driven plotlines.